February 25, 2013 by plemmonsa

Angry Birds Action Research (Part 2)

Mrs. Shealey’s 3rd grade class is still investigating our bird problem at Barrow. They have made observations, developed questions, tracked suggestions and research findings, and made hypotheses about what they might try to stop the birds from flying into the window while still making our campus a bird-friendly place. Last week, Ms. Hicks and I reached out to several people through email, Facebook, and Twitter to try to find people to connect with our students through Skype.

Expert 1: Claire Wislar, Middle School Student

Expert 2: Jennifer Fee, Cornell University

Today, Mrs. Shealey’s class came to hear from 2 experts. Expert 1 was Claire Wislar, a former Barrow student. She is a middle school student and aspires to be an ornithologist. Over the weekend, she did some research on the topic for us as well as thought about her own knowledge and experiences with birds and windows. Shawn Hinger, Clarke Middle Media Specialist, setup a computer in her office for Claire to use. During her short Skype session, Claire let the students ask questions as well as shared to things that the students might try: wind chimes to scare the birds,electrical tape in lines on the window, and putting Saran wrap on the windows. It was so much fun to have a connection to a student who used to go to our school who was able to share her expertise with students.

As info was learned, students wrote notes and Mrs. Shealey captured ideas on chart paper.

Expert 2 was Jennifer Fee with Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Cornell has an impressive program in Ornithology and a great website resource that we have already been using. It was really interesting because Jennifer has experience with this same problem at her building at Cornell. She and her colleagues did an action research project, too, and tried several solutions and collected data. She explained this process to the students. She also made some suggestions about what students might try: shiny decals, hang CDs by windows, bird feeders that stick to windows or bird feeders that aren’t right by the windows, and bird shape cutouts. She also encouraged the students to keep trying the things that they are trying and to constantly collect data on what was happening. We were so excited that at the end of our time together she told us that she would be sending a window bird feeder for us to try!

Expert 3 did not connect with us in real-time but sent us an email instead. Richard Hall is the president of the local Audubon Society. He suggested that student visit this website and also try cross-hatching the window with a yellow hi lighter. He also invited the students to write about their experience in the local Audubon Society newsletter! They are so excited about this opportunity.

This is such an exciting project. It is full of higher order thinking, student ownership, multiple standards, and authenticity. I was sure to be transparent with students about how we connected with so many fantastic people. The power of social media and technology “for good” is incredible.

February 22, 2013 by plemmonsa

Tweeting with 1st Graders

Can 1st graders tweet? Sure they can. Since our district opened up Twitter for teachers to use, I’ve been incorporating it into lessons. It allows kids to put their thoughts into a succinct statement, and it also connects kids with the world. We can send tweets out to Web 2.0 tools, organizations, or just a general tweet to get some help with a project.

Today, 1st grade came to the library to work on the conventions of writing and opinion/persuasive writing. I thought Twitter would be great for this because it would require the students to write 1 short sentence that used capital letters, punctuation, and persuasion. To start, we looked at my Twitter page to see what a tweet looked like and how tweets create conversations with people around the world. We talked about the 140 character limit, too.

Next, we read the books hello! hello! by Matthew Cordell and On Meadowview Street by Henry Cole. I chose these books because both have a hint of persuasion in them. The teacher and I had a conversation about how we wanted students to think beyond just “what can I get people to give me?”. We wanted their persuasive writing to be more about taking action or creating change. In hello! hello! , there is a theme of connecting with nature, spending quality time with family, and disconnecting from technology. In On Meadowview Street, there is a theme of caring for nature rather than destroying it and how small steps can inspire a community. As we read these stories, we talked about those themes to spark ideas for tweets.

Students then talked with a partner to put their idea for a tweet together. The tweet needed to be an opinion or persuasive thought connected to or inspired by the books. It needed to have capital letters and correct punctuation. Once they had their ideas, they moved to tables and wrote their tweet on a small sheet. The substitute teacher and two student teachers conferenced with students and then sent them to me when their tweet was ready. I gave it a final read, and if it needed some addition I sent them back to the tables. If it was ready, I tweeted it from my account @plemmonsa and tagged the library @barrowmc. I also added the hashtag #comments4kids so that the kids would hopefully get some feedback or responses on their tweets.

Within just a few minutes, we started getting some responses some fantastic friends around the country. Kim Keith @capecodlibrary and Sue Kowalski @spkowalski were the first to respond with some comments, questions, and even pictures to respond to the students’ tweets. They were so excited to see that their thoughts were being read by people around the world.

I plan to do this with the other three 1st grade classes soon.

February 21, 2013 by plemmonsa

“Same, Same but Different”: Making Connections through Blogging with 2nd Grade

983 miles to Van Meter

I’m so excited about the project that two 2nd grade classes are working on right now. Mrs. Ramseyer and Mrs. Wright’s classes are connecting with Shannon Miller’s 2nd grade students in Van Meter, Iowa. Right now, our 2nd graders are working on opinion writing. The idea for this project started there, but it has grown into so much more through email and face-to-face conversations with the teachers and tweets, emails, and Google Docs with Shannon Miller.

Yesterday, the 2 second grade classes came to the library to kickoff the project. We looked at Google Earth and mapped the distance from our school to Van Meter Elementary in Van Meter, Iowa. It is 983 miles and would take over 15 hours to drive there. Students were also curious about how long it would take to walk there, so Google Earth showed us it would take about 304 hours! With the approaching snow storm, I’m not sure I want to try that one!

Next we talked about what it means to blog. I showed them the library blog and how it is read by people all around the world. We even looked at the Clustr map showing where our blog readers come from. I was trying to build their understanding of how large your audience is when you publish your writing online.

The students will use Kid Blog to create their blogs. This tool allows you to quickly create multiple accounts through an Excel spreadsheet upload. No email addresses are required. Then, all students have to do is go to the blog, select their name, and type in their password to type their posts. We took a look at this, and you should have heard the excitement when they saw that their names were already on the screen.

Writing our paper blogs

Finally, we had the kids brainstorm with a partner what they might write about in a first post. We wanted the focus to be “About Me”. Before we sent them to tables to write, I reminded them of the importance of not including personal information such as full names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. At tables, each student wrote a paper blog post about themselves. Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Ramseyer, and I all walked around and conferenced with students on their posts. We were impressed with how much students were willing to write. I was reminded of the importance of kids having an authentic audience for their work and how motivating that audience can be to even the most reluctant of writers.

Same, Same but Different will be a theme for our conversations

Today, we connected via Skype with Shannon and her students. We read the book Same, Same but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw. It was such a perfect book because it pushes the notion that all over the world we do things that are the same but they might look a little different. During our Skype, we paused and let the kids talk about Iowa and Georgia. They stepped up to the camera and asked questions about one another about the weather, activities, and school population. They made several connections to the story. For example, in Iowa it is about to snow a lot. It takes a major snow for them to get out of school. We get snow here in GA, too, but we get out of school if there is just a dusting. Same, same but different! As we blog with one anther, it is our hope to share our favorite books and opinions as well as continue to explore the idea of how connected we are in the world even though things might look and sound a little different. I have a feeling students will continue to say “Same, same but different”.

On Monday and Tuesday, our 2nd graders will type and post their blogs. We will mail our paper versions of our writing to Iowa so that Shannon’s students can practice commenting on them before they actually comment online. She will do the same with her students’ writing so that we can practice commenting, too.

From there, we hope to connect some more through Skype and through the continued writing of our blogs.

This is going to be a very rich experience for these students, teachers, and librarians!

Students stepped up to ask one another about living in Iowa and Georgia

February 12, 2013 by plemmonsa

5th Grade Little Free Library Project Part 2

Students designed on paper before using Google Sketchup

Our 5th grade Little Free Library Project is picking up speed. Thanks to the amazing collaboration of Rita Foretich and her student teacher, this project is really getting off the ground. In art, students from both 5th grade classes have been split into teams of 4-5 students. Each team has a lead designer, a task manager, a researcher, a writer, and a presenter. Each job has specific responsibilities which Ms. Foretich and her student teacher constantly check in on. They also give the task managers checklists to help them check in with each person on the team.

The student teacher is a Google Sketchup expert, so she has the lead designers using this tool to design a potential Little Free Library. Students have made sketches on paper and moved to Google Sketchup to create a model of their library. Presenters are putting together a presentation to inform our audience about each library design. We may end up having the principal choose 2 designs or we may move forward with a student vote.

The researchers and writers are working with me in the library to research the Little Free Library site for information about building the actual structure. As we research the many tips on the site, we are considering other topics that we may need to research such as reusing materials and green building techniques. We’re thinking of careers that we may need to research in order to identify experts to connect with or people to target for persuasive writing. The writers are writing persuasive letters to send to potential donors, builders, or collaborators on this project. They are also considering persuasive tweets they may need to craft for me to tweet out to target audiences for support.

5th graders used the Google Research tool in Google Docs to look for reading statistics

I’m also working with the 5th grade classes on persuasive writing techniques. We used the Read Write Think powerpoint of strategies and thought about what information we might include underneath each strategy. I also showed them the research tool within Google Docs. The students (and teachers) were excited that you could search for a topic such as “reading statistics” to find quotes about reading in the United States and automatically cite the source within your Google Doc. I think this tool alone will spill over into many other projects now that the students know how to use it! All 5th graders are writing letters to businesses, builders, parents, students, and other groups in order to ask for money, labor, supplies, books, and a location for our 2nd library. The teachers are continuing this writing in the regular classroom as well as exploring the Little Free Library site for additional information. One student was even able to locate a Little Free Library from his hometown in India!

Google Sketchup is proving to be a helpful tool in design

I can’t wait to see where this project goes because it is certainly exploring many of the standards that our 5th graders work on in a variety of areas.

A team checks in with one another before starting individual work

February 12, 2013 by plemmonsa

Connecting Libraries through some “Extra Yarn”

Shannon and I took turns reading pages of Extra Yarn.

What a fun day! After lots of tweeting, collaborating via a Google Doc, and emailing, Ms. Hocking’s Kindergarten Class connected today with Shannon Miller’s Kindergarten students in Van Meter, Iowa. In the spirit of World Read Aloud Day #WRAD13, we read a book that connected with the theme of “Reading it Forward” and used the book Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen. This book was just honored with the Caldecott Honor Award at the ALA Youth Media Awards. So far, I’ve read the book to all 1st grade classes and every class falls in love with this text and the illustrations. It also generates some great discussion about the mysterious yarn box.

In today’s session, Ms. Hocking’s Class gathered in the library. We talked about etiquette during the Skype session and looked at a map of where Van Meter Iowa is located. We also did a quick intro of what we would be doing together. Then, we made the call via Skype. Shannon Miller introduced her students and we enjoyed waving at one another and saying hello. Then, Shannon and I launched into reading the book. We each read a 2-page spread of the book, and it was so much fun to hear 2 different voices reading the text. The kids enjoyed joining in by saying “extra yarn” every time that appeared in the text. It was great to hear voices in 2 different states shouting “extra yarn”. We stopped a little bit along the way to look at how the illustrations were changing and to make some predictions. Our last step was to make yarn bookmarks to send to one another. Shannon’s students had already made their bookmarks before the call, so they were able to show us their work. This really inspired my students to do their best work and to make connections to what Shannon’s students had already started. We said goodbye and got to work on our bookmarks. Each student had a card stock bookmark with yarn attached at the end. They put their name on the bookmark and decorated both sides. Now we will mail our bookmarks to Iowa and eagerly await bookmarks to arrive from Iowa. We plan to continue to connect these 2 classes through a follow-up project in book making.

You can read Shannon’s post about the experience on her Van Meter Library Voice Blog!

Student bookmarks had yarn attached to the end in honor of the book.

Our students are read to send their bookmarks to Iowa

Our students are ready to send their bookmarks to Iowa

This was such a fun time. It meant a lot to the students, and it was really super easy to do through so many virtual tools. I look forward to many more collaborations with Shannon and other librarians across the country (and world)!

February 2, 2013 by plemmonsa

Student Book Budgets 2012-13 (Part 1)

A snapshot of the form that students used to survey other students

Once again, I have reserved a portion of our library budget for complete student control. I have done this over the past three years and have come to value it so much that I plan to continue and improve upon the process. So far, this year is proving to be one of the most interesting so far. In the past, I’ve worked with groups of students as large as 40 and as small as 12. This year, we have 27 students in grades 3-5 who have agreed to participate in this process.

This year, I created a Google form asking about some reading interests and gauging student interest in being a part of the book budget group. I emailed the form to all students in the school. In general, our 3rd-5th graders are the main students who check their email, so those were the students who responded. Out of about 60 responses, I had about 40 students who were interested in being in the group. I went through the list and tried to select a mix of boys, girls, grade levels, classrooms, backgrounds, and reading interests. This narrowed the list to the 27 students.

I then got permission from the students’ teachers to allow them to be in the group. Next, I blocked out some times on the library calendar. Here’s the rough outline of what I did/planned to do:

1/25: Initial meeting with the whole group to lay the foundation of our work and edit the Google form that I started. We also claimed which grade levels we would each survey. This was done at the very beginning of the day when students would have been doing their morning meeting in the classroom.
1/28-2/1: As soon as students arrived at school, they got their netbooks out and pulled up our Google form. Then, they surveyed their own class as well as one other grade level that they had chosen.
2/1: After surveying is done, email the results to all of the students so that they can begin looking at patterns.
2/4, 2/8, & 2/11: Students will meet in the library during their lunch. We will narrow down the survey results and determine which specific books and categories of books we want to focus on. Then, students will begin creating lists of books with our favorite vendors including: Bound to Stay Bound, Capstone Press, and Follett
2/12: Finalize the lists and order the books.
While we wait on the books to arrive, some students might choose to work on some marketing strategies, but I won’t do this with every student in the group.
When the books arrive, schedule a meeting to unpack, stamp the books, and double check the packing slips.
Advertise the books on BTV and put them into circulation.

Students pulling up their Google Form to begin roaming the school.

At our initial meeting, students did a great job adding to the form I had already started. In the form, I asked about specific series of books, genres of books, and created a space for students to list specific books. This was all based on what students are constantly asking for in the library so there were things like: The Hunger Games, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, World Records, Rainbow Fairies, Ninjago, Lego, Princesses, etc. The students decided to add a question about grade level and gender so that we could balance how many boys, girls, and students from different grade levels we surveyed. They also added their own series and genres that I completely missed. This is what I love about this participatory aspect. It’s impossible for one person to know the reading needs of the entire school. It has to be a collaborative effort.

During the week of 1/28-2/1, students surveyed as many students as possible. I was amazed that by the end of the week they had surveyed over 400 students, which is almost every student in the school! This is highest amount of students we have ever been able to survey in this project. Almost every day, I emailed the students an update on how many students in each grade level we had surveyed. This helped them focus their time. I was also amazed by the decision making of many of the students. They were careful not to disturb a classroom if the teacher had already started a morning meeting or a lesson. They also came to the library to ask me my thoughts about where they might go next. In the library, I watched the number of surveys steadily climb in the spreadsheet that Google Forms automatically creates.

On 2/1, I emailed the students the final results so that they can hopefully look over it before we begin the messy process of making decisions this week. I’ll do another post about the decision making process and book ordering, but for now here’s what we have to work with. How would YOU narrow this down?

Prek	42	10%
K	58	14%
First	69	16%
Second	73	17%
Third	46	11%
Fourth	45	11%
Fifth	33	8%

Boy		207	49%
Girl		159	37%

Superheroes	129	31%
Princesses	92	22%
Graphic Novels (comics)	170	40%
Legos	172	41%
Star Wars	141	34%
Wrestling	96	23%
Ghosts	165	39%
Sports	206	49%
Poetry	124	30%
History	145	35%
Animals	232	55%
Paper airplanes	149	35%
Cars	144	34%
World Records	201	48%
Drawing	197	47%
Mystery	167	40%
TV shows	149	35%
How to	126	30%
Action	159	38%
Scary	177	42%
Myths & Legends	159	38%
Picture books	187	45%
Movies	185	44%

Hunger Games	161	39%
Rainbow Fairies	113	27%
Diary of a Wimpy Kid	211	51%
Guinness World Records	168	40%
Ninjago	174	42%
Disney Princesses	87	21%
Sisters Grimm	59	14%
Mo Willems books	90	22%
Captain Underpants	145	35%
Geronimo Stilton	104	25%
Magic Tree House	191	46%
Junie B. Jones	168	40%
Lunch Lady	141	34%
Babymouse	139	33%
Goosebumps	100	24%
Dr. Seuss	190	46%
Fashion Kitty	114	27%
Bad Kitty	142	34%
39 Clues	109	26%
Eragon	73	18%
Bone	111	27%
Genius Files	75	18%
Nancy Drew	95	23%
Corduroy	89	21%
Hardy Boys	114	27%
Percy Jackson	100	24%
Archie Comics	92	22%

February 1, 2013 by plemmonsa

Google Forms: Choose Your Own Adventure

I had heard about how you could write a Choose Your Own Adventure story using a Google form, but I had not been brave enough to give it a try until this year. The idea got placed back in front of me at one of our media specialist professional learning meetings by Tanya Hudson. Then, I went into Google forms and gave it a try. I made a very short, basic fiction story. I won’t go into detail in this post about how the story is made, but it is all about adding multiple page breaks in a form and then directing answers to go to those pages based on the response of the reader.

Mr. Plemmons’s very rough practice story!

Then, at our school level professional learning day in January, I did a session on using Google forms. I shared some very basic uses of forms and also included this advanced idea. Our 4th grade teachers were very interested in how this might be used by their students. After some brainstorming, we decided on writing historical fiction choose your own adventure using some of the 4th grade standards. In the library, I have several nonfiction choose your own adventure stories from Capstone Press, so these became mentor texts for the project.

The teachers gave me a small group of students from each of their classrooms. The reason we started with a small group was so that I could work with them in a smaller setting to explore the possibilities of creating this kind of story. Then, these students could pair with other students in the class to show them the steps to making the stories. The students worked with me during 5 hour-long sessions.

In session 1, we read some excerpts from the informational Capstone Press books. Then, I walked them through the story I made and how it was created. They ended this session by “messing around” in Google forms to practice some of the things I modeled.

In session 2, students looked at the standards and chose their topics to begin researching. They chose from:

Describe colonial life in America as experienced by various people, including large landowners, farmers, artisans, women, indentured servants, slaves, and Native Americans.

Locate where Native Americans settled with emphasis on the Arctic (Inuit), Northwest (Kwakiutl), Plateau (Nez Perce), Southwest (Hopi), Plains (Pawnee), and Southeast (Seminole).

Describe the reasons for, obstacles to, and accomplishments of the Spanish, French, and English explorations of John Cabot, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Juan Ponce de León, Christopher Columbus, Henry Hudson, and Jacques Cartier.

Trace the events that shaped the revolutionary movement in America, including the French and Indian War, British Imperial Policy that led to the 1765 Stamp Act, the slogan “no taxation without representation,” the activities of the Sons of Liberty, and the Boston Tea Party.

Describe the major events of the American Revolution and explain the factors leading to American victory and British defeat; include the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Saratoga, and Yorktown.

Describe key individuals in the American Revolution with emphasis on King George III, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Benedict Arnold, Patrick Henry, and John Adams.

In all of the other sessions, students mixed research from books, websites, ebooks, and the research tool in Google Docs with actually creating their form. Students supported one another as they figured out things, but students also conferenced with me on their stories. About mid-way through their sessions, I had students go ahead and submit the link to their form to me. I used a Google form to gather all of their links. Then, I could easily check-in on students without disturbing their writing.

As I look back at what we’ve done so far, it has been a very messy process with lots of different kinds of learning going on simultaneously. If I had it to do again, I think it would be easier to start with a fiction story than weaving in history. Just making the structure of the Google form and getting it to work took a lot of time and students were also trying to research facts. When they moved to research, their skills at creating their forms were getting a little rusty. I think if students started with fiction where they could just make everything up, they could spend more time being creative and actually getting the form to work. We learned a lot about the process, and I definitely think that these students will be able to show others the steps it would take to create their own.

All of their stories are still works in progress, but you can try them out here:

JP’s Boston Massacre

Henry’s Seige of Yorktown

Dmitri’s French and Indian War

Lucy’s Colonial Times

Jake’s Taxes of the British

Will’s Battle of Lexington and Concord

Lilli’s Battle of Lexington and Concord

Hadley’s Boston Tea Party

Graham’s French and Indian War

Anna’s Native American Tribes

Samantha’s Boston Tea Party

Feel free to leave feedback on any of the stories as a comment and I’ll pass it along to the students to celebrate and improve their stories.

January 14, 2013 by plemmonsa

Martin Luther King Jr Lessons: A Different Spin

DSCF2368

Every year, I offer lessons to accompany the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. There are so many inspiring stories about this influential man, but students hear some of the same stories every year. This year, I wanted to offer a different spin and introduce a recent book called Belle, The Last Mule at Gee’s Bend by Calvin Ramsey and Bettye Stroud. The book is most appropriate for grades 3-5, but it could certainly be used with others.

Prior to reading the story, I build a bit of background knowledge about Gee’s Bend by watching the first few minutes of this video about the Gee’s Bend Quilters.

I wanted students to know the importance of the quilts to the people of Gee’s Bend as well as understand a bit of the culture of Gee’s Bend, so we only watched a bit of the first Bender’s interview.

Next, we used Google Earth to zoom into Gee’s Bend and talk a little about the geography of the area and where the name “bend” came from.

In 4th grade, students are working on common core standard ELACC4RL3: Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions). As we read the story, I asked students to pay close attention to the characters, setting, and plot so that they could discuss it at the close of the story.

In 5th grade, students are working on common core standard ELACC5RL2: Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text. To build some background knowledge on theme, we watch the first few minutes of this video:

5th grade reflected on theme throughout the book to inform their conversation at the close of the story.

In both 4th and 5th grade, we read the book and stopped along the way to have impromptu discussions. Many of our discussions came around the part of the book that is about the right to vote and how Martin Luther King, Jr. encouraged all African Americans to vote because it was their right.

Student contributions in Today’s Meet

At the close of both lessons, students went to computers and used Today’s Meet to have a silent conversation about their particular standard. 4th grade posted about characters, setting, and plot, and 5th grade posted about theme. I encouraged students to read what others were writing and write follow-up posts or questions for their classmates. I wouldn’t say that the conversation was particularly connected at this first attempt, but there were definitely things that I liked. For example, in 5th grade, every student was able to post a comment about theme whether it was right or not. I could quickly see who really understood theme and who didn’t without publicly naming what was “right” and “wrong”. Also, at the very end, I had students read back through the posts and decide which comments stood out to them the most as really identifying theme. Students could easily name who said what as they were speaking. For example, “I liked how Aidia said that anyone can be a hero”. It was a way for students to acknowledge the contributions of their peers and accurately quote their contributions. Sometimes it’s hard for students to remember exactly what someone said aloud, but this printed text made that easier to remember.

I definitely would like to try Today’s Meet again in other settings, and I’m happy to find a place for this wonderful story to give new life to a topic that students have heard many times.

January 14, 2013 by plemmonsa

Stone Soup: A Folktale Follow-up

Ms. Spurgeon, a fabulous third grade teacher, does a Stone Soup folktale study with her students each year. This is a part of the folktale study that third grade just kicked off. She has her students study multiple versions of Stone Soup and consider how the characters, setting, and plot change based on where the story is taking place or which country the story comes from. Students are quickly discovering that the basic themes of Stone Soup stay the same but characters, setting, and the ingredients in the soup change.

Today, we read Jon J. Muth’s version of Stone Soup. We loved hearing the many different kinds of ingredients that were added to the soup such as pea pods, lily buds, taro root, winter melon, and more.

After we finished the story, we revisited our Google form of folktale elements to see how Stone Soup compared with other folktales we have read. We noticed that the following elements appeared in all 4 folktales that we have read in 3rd grade:

flat characters
fantasy time
setting briefly described
plot full of action
repeated phrases

Classes will continue to fill out the form and make comparisons.

To conclude this lesson, we used Tagxedo to make our own digital bowl of Stone Soup. I asked students to think about what ingredients they might add to a class stone soup if they were to go home right now and get something out of their cabinets, refrigerator, or from a neighbor. While students were checking out books, they came up to me and told me 2-3 ingredients, which I typed into Tagxedo. I selected a circle shape to represent the pot of soup, and here is what our soup looked like at the end of our time together.

November 16, 2012 by plemmonsa

Skyping with Steve Milone @ Fox5 Atlanta

Mrs. Yawn’s enrichment cluster came to the library today to Skype with Steve Milone, meteorologist at Fox5 Atlanta. The session was excellent. The students have been studying weather for the past 4 enrichment cluster sessions and prepared questions to ask Steve.

Before the students came to Skype, Steve and I did a test call to check our sound and video quality. This doesn’t always mean the session is going to go smoothly, but it does prevent those initial Skype setup mistakes that often happen. Steve planned to switch from a stationary computer to an iPad, so we practiced doing that before the students arrived.

During the session, the students sat on the carpet in front of the Smart Board. A student introduced the cluster and welcomed Steve. Then, he launched into his introduction. We disconnected and he called us again on the iPad in order to give a studio tour. He walked all over the Fox5 Studio to show us the green screen, numerous computers, anchor desk, interview area, and more. I was amazed at how close all of the areas are together. It seems so much bigger on tv!

After the tour, Steve returned to his stationary computer and the students asked questions that they had prepared. You can hear 2 of the questions here:

Many thanks to Fox5, Steve Milone, and Mrs. Yawn’s enrichment cluster for this great experience! Look for this cluster to be on Fox5 Atlanta Sunday @ 8:15AM.