Our Family Learning Blog
There’s reportedly two feet of snow right now in parts of southwest Kansas. here in central Oklahoma, we just received a dusting of snow overnight as the rain turned to snow. This afternoon, it’s lightly snowing and looks just beautiful, making for a perfect Saturday to enjoy coffee by the fire and watch our kids roam out in the neighborhood bundled up like Michelin men and women!
Alexander and Sarah: I have a homework assignment for you. I want you to watch, listen, and think about Oklahoma student Drew’s two book reviews that he has posted on Ustream. Here are the two links you’ll need to use:
Drew’s First Book Review V-Cast
Drew’s Second Book Review V-Cast
After you watch each one, I want you to write a thoughtful and specific comment which gives Drew some feedback about the ideas he’s discussed in each book review.
I’d like you to also copy and paste your comments for Drew here, on this blog post.
Let me know if you have questions. I’d like you to complete this over the weekend. Good luck, and have fun!
Love, Dad
This is a letter Alexander wrote to be placed into a time capsule, which will be opened in 10 years by students at his school. I asked him to read and record it in VoiceThread. He selected three photos to use, and recorded his letter this evening.
Technorati Tags:
writing, technology, history, time, capsule, education, oklahoma, edmond
Yesterday I visited Mt Sunday in New Zealand, which was the set for Edoras in the film trilogy “The Lord of the Rings.” This is one video in a series I took yesterday and uploaded to Flickr.
Read more about this on my main blog post “Erewhon, Mt Sunday (Edoras) and the Rangitata Valley.” More photos are available on my Flickr set “Edoras and Erewhon.” I have ten more videos from yesterday to still upload and will add them to my New Zealand video Flickr set soon. In all I had over 400 MB of videos to upload last night (which I left going as I slept) and I think that really taxed Shirley’s ADSL connection! 🙂
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video, lotr, newzealand, mtsunday, mtpotts
I recorded another short archived webcast via Qik this evening in the LAX airport enroute to the 2009 Learning at School conference in Rotorua, New Zealand. I posted my first “in airport” video update over on my main blog, but since updates like this one may bore readers to that blog looking for educational technology related posts I thought I’d post here on Learning Signs instead.
Our flight for Auckland boards in just a few minutes. In another 10 or so hours, I should be in New Zealand!
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travel, newzealand, lax, qik
Happy Birthday to you, Trudy, from Portland, Oregon!
My workshop class today wanted to sing a special birthday greeting for you!
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qik, video, birthday, sing, itsc09, itsc, itsc2009
Sarah brainstormed the following character map for her biography book report on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis this evening with her mother. I put her concept map into Webspiration tonight and printed it for her to turn in Monday in class. The embeddable version of this Webspiration map uses the “iFrame” tag. Here is a Skitch screenshot posted to Flickr.
![Webspiration - [Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3219/3279785263_256599e662.jpg)
Nice work Sarah! We may record a VoiceThread using this character map as an outline tomorrow morning.
Technorati Tags:
inspiration, mywebspiration, map, concept, brainstorm, kennedy
In third grade you have to do a few different book reports and this is my second book report. It is on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and here is her timeline, but there will be another one on her character traits!
I just finest the book the 39 Clues, The Maze of Bones. There are ten books in this whole series and the cool thing is that all of them are written by all different authors so you get a feel for a different witting styles. The first book is written by Rick Riordan who wrote the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. If you have read the Artemis Fool books, another good series, it is a lot like that. I t is about two kids who go on this big clue hunt to become the most powerful person in the world. If you read the first two pages you will end up reading the rest of the book and the whole series.
Tonight Alexander bridged up from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts, and received the highest award in Cub Scouting: The Arrow of Light.
I used the free iTalk application on my iPhone to record most of the ceremony, and later used Audacity to amplify the recording so it is much louder. This is the recorded, edited ceremony, which is just over 29 minutes long.
More information about the process of using the iTalk application and the free iTalk iSync program is available.
I also used my iPhone to snap photos during the ceremony.
We are so proud of you and your accomplishments, Alexander!
Alexander’s Indian name, which Shelly and I gave him together, is “Purple Shirt.” He is always wearing purple KSU shirts and sweatshirts, so this is a very appropriate name for him. Alexander also received his God and Family award tonight, which he has worked hard to complete.
Technorati Tags:
scout, scouts, cub, boy, arrow, light, ceremony, oklahoma
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
If you are a Webkinz owner you would say,”I don’t want cheats they might take away my Webkinz!” But Wait! There are other ways where they don’t take away your Webkinz. In gem hunt where are the gems? Is there a rare item on right now? How do you make all the Webkinz recipes? How do you get a Webkinz Trophy?
I have all these links and more and now you can too:
photo credit: bourgeoisbee
We don’t have disney chanel so I wattch it at my friends house. My favrite shows are Hannah Montana and the suite life on Deck. I’m inrstd in what you like. So I made a pole about which do you like Hannah Montana or Miley Cyrus.
Today after church, following a youth deacon meeting I (Dad) had in our church computer lab, Sarah and Rachel used one of the microphones to record this short, impromptu song. Rachel titled this, “The Wide State.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Lately, I have been listening to Brisinger on my iPod. When my mom or dad ask what I am listening to they always laugh when I tell them I am listening to a book. I think I can go thought it faster listening to it than reading it. I think listening to a book rather than to listen to music. I wonder what book I am going to listen to next?
