Hello, Kristen

Hi, my name is Erika. 

       I live in Maine. I go to school and work. When I am not working I play with my dog. His name is Wookie. He likes to play catch. 

       At home I like to bake. I make very good chocolate chip cookies. My favorite thing to cook is spaghetti. 

The ACTEM Conference

Jim's Best of the Web was an amazing session. He knew so much about finding great websites and found many during the session based on what teachers in the audience needed. I got so many good websites from the session.

1. Google Earth: it is not just for looking at the Earth but you can also turn around and look out into space. You can use this feature in a science unit for students.

2. http://phat.Colorado.edu/index.php is a great website to let second graders explore college level physics!! They learn through games on this site and there are many of them.

3. www.literactive.com is a great site that has book fro children to read with as much assistance as they need. By highlighting words the student can have them read to them or they can read it on there own. The images that go along with the story are very cute and interactive. This site can befit children in classrooms with varying levels of reading.

4. www.iknowthat.com has many types of informational packs for teachers and can be searched by grade level.

Jim also emphasized the idea of being creative. Creativity is the overall goal, and computers are just a tool to accomplish the goal. (I really liked that idea)

Lulu is an online publishing site people can use. I thought that was very cool. I have always wanted to try writing a children’s book and with lulu I can do it for free!

The Are you Ready to be a Teacher in the Twenty First Century was a very interesting session as well. I liked his comparison of a classroom and an operating room. He shows how over the years operating rooms have changed dramatically over the years. This is NOT true of classrooms. As years have gone by classrooms have not changed that much. I think that with smart boards the classroom is changing slowly but not enough.

In this session we also focused on technology as a tool of communication and learning with the three E’s.

· Expose

· Employ

· Express

The session also talked about students being able to claim ownership over the things they make and how that ownership is very import. If the students feel like they have ownership over their work they will care about what they are producing.

The one thing I did not like about the session was everyone was talking about one to one classrooms. I understood this to be the new program that many schools were using, giving lab tops. I also thought many schools were starting the program at an older age (in middle school). Many of the examples that were used in the session were one to ones in elementary classrooms. I was just wondering what different schools were doing with their one to one programs.

The over all topic is researching and learning about the Holocaust. Students will read and understand a time line of the events during the Holocaust.

1. What is going on?

Topic: Students will look at the time line of the Holocaust and map out different time lines for different sides of the war. They will all read and do research for their side of the war and make a presentation to share with the class ( a time line). At the end of the presentations the class will come together to make a complete outline of the war.

Grade Level: Eighth

Tasks: The war has ended but the chaos has left many questions for the surrounding governments. You are a historian and need to find out were your armies were and when. If there was a battle you need to document where it was and who was involved. Follow the armies and movement and map them.

Roles: US army historian, German historian, Rebel army historian.

2. What can the children do? (might use)

Topic: Research how children have impacted the war before and after. Find out what American children did, and what children who were part of the holocaust had to do to survive.

Grade Level: Eighth

Tasks: You are a child in . . .America, Germany, Poland, France, England. . . . and you have to contribute to the war somehow. If you are a Nazis in German how are you contributing to the war. If you are in Poland and you are a Jewish, how are you surviving, or helping the rebel cause against the Nazis.

Roles: Many roles, representing different areas of the world during the war.

3. Being a family during the war in Europe.

Topic: Students will research where many families went during the war and that children were separated from parents. Students will be broken up into families Mom, dad, children, and they will have to act out a skit that is a narration of what there family went through during the war.

Grade Level: Eighth

Tasks: You are part of a family. The war is over and a writer, me, wants to make a book containing the stories of families journeys through the war, and after the war. What is your families story? What did you go through in your individual role.

Roles: Mother, Father, Son, Father

4. The artist’s perspective.

Topic: Through research the students will reproduce or make photos that represent many of the things that are going on during the war. In groups they will make a portfolio of picture that they create in many creative ways that tell a time line.

Grade Level: Eighth

Tasks: You want to tell the story of what happened during the Holocaust. The artist in you wants the world to know the truth and you are going to show them through your creative eyes.

Roles: Artist: the painter, color, and creator

The historian: helps get things in the time line

The information provider: lived through the Holocaust and tells their story