Chromebook Workshop With Alena's Class

Today we did our first Chromebook workshop with Alena's class! They did the "Collaborative slideshow" one. What we did is I (Pat) made a form and three sideshows related to the grade two/three curriculum and Alena's class with a room 209 buddy voted on witch slide show they want to do and worked on a slide on that one. The three slideshows are below.

Clara and Leah took some of their Chromebook workshop time to create a form. Please answer their "Favourite Animal" survey below:

Advertising Strategies

In Room 209, we are analyzing and creating ads and looking at the strategies advertisers use to sell a product. Ads are used to persuade people to purchase or do something. They can also be used to entertain and inform.

We have explored Persuasive Advertising Strategies like:

• Amazing Toys/Amazing Abilities
• Avante Garde
• Bandwagon
• Bribery
• Cute Characters
• Excitement
• Facts and Figures/Expert Opinion
• Family Fun/Ideal Kids and Family/Plain Folks
• Heartstrings
• Magic Ingredients
• Patriotism
• Put Downs
• Scale
• Snob Appeal/Are You Cool Enough?
• Star Power
• Transfer
• Weasel Words

For more information on our advertising unit (integrated Language, Science, Health, Social Studies, Math and Art), check out our working document. This includes notes from class discussions and Success Criteria for each step of the process.

Below is the slideshow that we are currently working on.
Success Criteria:
-select an interesting ad
-write down the message the advertisers are communicating (the deeper the better!)
-write down whether you think this is an honest advertisement or not and why
-add a shape with the advertising strategies(s) used

The Surrealist Art of Rene Magritte

Today, we started to look at the art of Rene Magritte to inspire our upcoming art project. Each painting gave us A LOT to talk about. In fact, we totally ran out of time and only got about a third of the way through the art. We'll finish the slideshow in class, but if you want to take a look at home, and leave comments, please do.

After watching the slideshow, students were heading to meet their Reading Buddies, but Clara grabbed paper first saying, "I have a poem." Thanks for the inspiration, you wacky genius, Magritte!

Class Meeting Slideshow

Welcome to a New School Year!

Hello Room 209 students and families (and the rest of the blogosphere!),

Welcome to a wonderful new school year. It's great to see familiar and new faces in Room 209 this September! We had a wonderful first week, filled with games, laughter, learning and community building.

For now, our class is called the "Egg Heads", as a nod to our class recipe for success, ADD EGGS. Students have spoken in detail about how Accountability, Dynamism, Drive, Engagement, (being) Grateful, Generousity and Support will help to make our classroom a wonderful place to work this year!

Please check out the slideshow below for some ideas about what ADD EGGS will look like in Room 209.



I'm thrilled to be teaching this great group of school leaders this year and I can tell already that we are full of ideas, enthusiasm and a willingness to learn. Wait 'till you see how far the Egg Heads will go!

Ignite Presentations

Today, we started work on our Ignite Presentations. We watched a few examples of Ignite videos and talked about some characteristics they all have in common and some techniques each presenter used in unique ways to make his or her presentation particularly effective.

Some Examples:

Why Blog?

My Beautiful Wheelchair

How and Why to Make Video Games

We are starting out by planning our Ignite Presentations on paper (that we folded into eighths) and will talk about next steps later this week. Some students already have ideas of how they want to create their slideshows. Many think they'll use the Google Drive, Molly wants to teach people how to use SmileBox and I think I'll show people how to use Prezi!

Here is what we've talked about so far (this is also a Google Doc that has been shared with all students in Room 209)

Ignite Presentations

-planning on paper first! Use one side of your paper!

Criteria for Ignite:

15 seconds per slide

20 slides

5 minutes

Criteria for Room 209 Ignite:

-title

-what you learned this year at school

-you MAY include academic lessons, social lessons, physical lessons, lessons about yourself

-follows Ignite rules

-speaks clearly

-credit for photos, information

-CREATIVITY!

-be aware of your audience to engage them

Steps:

1. Fold your paper into eighths

2. Design your slides and think about what you will say

Our Tech Innovators Slideshow

Students in Room 209, especially Hunter, Vickie, Rickie, Thomas and Fiona, worked really hard on this slideshow that we shared with an organization called Ottawa Network for Education. They wanted to learn about innovative technologies that are being used in schools around our city. After ONFE saw our slideshow, they selected us as one of three finalists to possibly win a $5000 grant to spend on technology for our school! This will be presented at an EduGala event later this month. On Monday, May 13th, a camera crew from GAPC will be coming in to capture some of the exciting things that we are doing!

Below, check out last year's three finalists.
http://www.onfe-rope.ca/programs/capital-educators039-awards/attend-edugala/innovation-award