Waveplace Blog : July 2008

In Attendance: Christa, Jane, Mary, Katey, Russell, Brittany, 2 graduates from Ave Maria University Today we began with sharing of stories that the students had written since the last class.  Each team (4) picked one student to share what they had written so far. We discussed our goals and motivations. We reviewed what we have learned so far using a BrainSmart technique: Ten Pegs.  The students touch 10 points on the body as we reviewed. The kids were great! Make a Sketch (Head) Open the Halo & Name Sketch (Shoulders) Open the viewer & make script (Chest) Make go Forward...

(post by Mary Villa) Thursday was awesome! Thursday we reviewed animation. The students made a funny face and they animated it. The students are learning so fast. The students worked on their stories and animated their characters. We discussed about Monday, Christa will be teaching World startOver. That will be a challenge but hey we work as a team. See ya Monday!...

Today we worked on Start Over scripts from Lesson 11.  We waited on bringing this up until there was a compelling reason to use it and it made more sense to the kids.  We held off on World start over because we could see brain overload and we knew the kids had had enough! We are excited to see the progress in the stories!  It is now time to take a step back and reconfigure what we are doing. Next time we get together the kids will be grouped according to interest and need.  We will have the following options:...

(post by Jane) In Attendance: Christa, Katey, Mary, Russell, Jane (Also, Dick, Brenda, Jorge, Raquel and Juan from Ave Maria and Jared from Immokalee Foundation.) We started class by having the students open their journals and delete any files that were unneeded. We asked the students why this was important and most of them new that their laptops would be faster if they had fewer items in the journal. We also reminded them that having more than one activity opened at a time would slow the computer down. Next we had the students work on their books. The teachers walked...

(post by Mary Villa) We talked about Animation. Christa and I worked on a script and demonstrated animation. I printed out a copy for each student on how to use animation on their stories. That was Christa's idea so I put the thought into action. We made a sun and also a funny face with it's tongue sticking out. The starfish challenge was to make a face that was much better than mine and funnier. I shouldn't of said that because they put my drawing to shame. Their drawing were awesome. Christa showed them how to use the eye dropper....

There is a community thriving in a place that drew myriad individuals with the hope of finding prosperity against all odds. They embraced a dream, a desire, and impulse for fulfillment in a town called Immokalee translated home. Imagine a map. X marks the spot. Here lies treasure. Some would say foolishness. No treasure lies there. It is a faulty figment of imagination. Others dream. This X holds promise. So against all odds people came to this place marked X on a map inspired by tales that they heard of employment, safety, new beginnings. Rivers were crossed. Fences climbed. Bushes...

In attendance: Christa, Jane, Katey, Russell, Brenda (FGCU), and another FGCU graduate...I forgot his name again! Today we started the day whole group and 5 students shared their story progress from the weekend. After, I did a lesson on World Start Over. We broke into our groups of Writing Test Scripts, Scripting Clean up, Writing, and Drawing. We had a few computer snafoos that interupted our progress at first, but we worked through most of it. One of the screens is blank on about 1/3 which made it impossible to work on for one of the kids. Not sure about...

(post by Mary Villa) Color sees color test This lesson was kind of difficult for some students. We went over this lesson so many times. We were surprise that so many students used the color sees color test on their scripts. We worked with students on debugging their scripts. Some students didn't want to use the test to their stories but we encouraged them to use it so they could add more flavor to their stories. We also went over animation again. Each table was set up as stations, we had writing, drawing, animation and startover scripts. Each student went...

(written by Russell Van Riper, from newsletter) As a student, I sat through my share of computer literacy classes, with most having one instructor talking out into space, explaining confusing command menus, projected blurry against the wall. Very easy to get disoriented, disengaged, and lost in a wandering mind. The Waveplace pilot in Immokalee was very different once we got into our flow. Problems at the start were solved with professionalism and skill by the mentors. The greatest distraction... kids being kids... was handled purely by the teachers craft, especially helpful was Mary Villa's depth of knowledge of the children...

(written with Susan Jordan, from newsletter) The purpose of education is to teach kids how to become critical and creative thinkers. It's about the process, not the end product. When children are learning, you can get inside their mind and break apart what they are doing to find out what they know and where they need to grow. The brain thinks visually. Squeak Etoys takes full advantage of this by being a cognitive bridge that takes traditional concepts and connects them to 21st century thinking skills and computer programming content. Etoys appeals to students emotionally as something fun and exciting....