Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Cell Phones in School

Cell phones in school?!

The big debate going around the education world today is rather students should be able to use cell phones in class. With new technology like the Apple iPHONE™ where you can get internet & e-mails anywhere at the palm of your hands, it seems like a good idea, but there is always the concern that students will be texting & e-mailing their friends instead of focusing on their school work.

“I think it sounds like a good idea but it should be up to the teachers & board of education to make the decisions,” said Andrea Noltkamper, 12. A lot of teachers are debating it & we are hoping this blog will help Lindbergh & other schools make their decision. Please take our poll, or leave a comment telling us your opinion, it would help out.


Friday, April 11, 2008

Week 2 of 1 to 1

Working with Wiki's!

Coach Erwin's U.S. History class has spent the past week developing a wiki page for the Civil Rights Movement. They will use this wiki page to collaborate with others in the class and to organize their information. Coach Erwin has also utilized wiki's in his Health courses. Erwin is not the only one using wiki's as an innovative tool to increase academic achievement and content area knowledge. Coach Hilton has utilized wiki's in World History and "Fitz" will be putting a wiki together shortly for Earth & Space Science. To check out one of Erwin's wiki's go to www.coacherwin.pbwiki.com


A wiki is a place that allows users to freely create and edit the page content. It supports hyperlinks and has a simple text for creating new pages and cross links between internal pages.

The first wiki site was created in 1995 for the Portland Pattern Repository. It now hosts tens of thousands of pages that are accessible to anyone to edit and review.
Here are the 5 reasons why Wikis are used:
1. Develop an informed voice by informing other interested readers.
2. Justify and defend our research in a public setting.
3. Increase awareness of and engagement in essential topics and expectations in our courses.
4. Collaborate with others
5. Engage in authentic tasks

For a link to a video that better describes the Wiki:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY

Andrea Noltkamper
Amanda Turkington

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

This week at the Academy........

This week at the Academy...

Mr. Hilton’s Keyboarding class will be working on typing, and in his World History II class they are going to be taking a quiz using the Moodle. What is Moodle? Stay tuned! World History II will also be creating flyers using Microsoft Publisher and beginning to create podcasts.

Coach Erwin’s U.S. History class will be using Photo Story 3 to create a digital scrapbook of the immigration experience through Ellis Island. In Erwin’s Issues in Psychology class the students will be replicating social psychology experiments around the school and will utilize laptops, cell phones, video, and podcasting while doing their research. In Personal Fitness Concepts students will be posting to the class blog http://21stCenturyAcademyPE.blogspot.com on fitness and health related information. The postings will include pictures and video. All of Erwin’s classes will also be taking their weekly quiz online using the Moodle.

In Mrs. Harison's newsletter class, they are putting together their articles for the Academy newspaper using Microsoft Publisher and making it as close to perfect as they can. The laptops have given them more resources and time to make their final revisions.

Check tomorrow for Dr. Sandfort's podcast interview and Friday for examples of students work!

Andrea Noltkamper