Success Night and Christmas Tree Lane

6th Graders completed two of Ms. Weisz's doors in time for Success Night and Christmas Tree Lane on December 15th at Tok School.

The boys chose a Mario-themed Christmas, while the girls went with the Muppets.  These doors required quite a bit of drawing, coloring, stapling, and patience, but they were done in plenty of time and they look great!

Brrrr! Show your iPads some love - keep them WARM!

As you may have noticed, it's getting colder and colder outside. Please remember that your iPads don't like the cold any more than you do, and if they are cold for too long, it will hurt them - badly! Make sure you are keeping your iPad in the neoprene carrying cases when you have to carry them outside. And whatever you do, DON'T leave them in a vehicle that is not running - EVER! They get cold very fast. So remember to show your iPad some love this winter - keep it warm!

New Year, New iPads!

Welcome back!  This year promises to be an interesting one as we take our One to One program to a new level.  Instead of each middle school student having laptops, this year they all get brand new iPad's!  As an added bonus, the high school students will now all have their own laptops!  The extra good news is that this year, the iPads can be taken home.  The high school will still keep laptops at school.

Middle school students with iPads will notice fewer textbooks this year.  There will be no textbooks for 6th and 7th grade English, Social Studies, or Math, as we have all the materials you will need on the iPad or online!

During the first week of school the iPads will stay at school, but as soon as we are able to review the new One to One plan and contract with parents, they can go home!

The other new change is that the middle school students will all be taking a new technology course.  During this new course, we will explore the iPads further as learning tools, learn more web tools and most importantly - digital citizenship!

Students will get more information about the iPads during the first days of our technology class - stay tuned!

Helpful Videos

Students - I have a new page on the right hand side of this blog under Ms. Weisz's Class Wikis called Video Tutorials that will contain lots of short tutorial videos that you can access any time you may need help. I'll be adding more of them all the time - some of them I'll make and some I'll add that someone else made. Check it out once in awhile and maybe you can find something on there to help you!

Spring is Coming!

Tok School middle school students have been working hard through the third quarter and are probably very ready for spring break. We are beginning to get back into more "fun" projects now in class - more work with video and definitely MORE BLOGGING! Start checking out student blogs to see what they have been up to.

REMINDER - all middle school students should be coming to class with a set of ear buds! I have issued every student a pair of ear buds at least once this year (some more). I know many would prefer to use their own and that is just fine - I only ask that you remember to bring them! Much of the work we do involves some form of noise emitting from your laptops.

SCRATCH!

Tok middle school students are learning a new language that not everyone is familiar with - it's called Logo, and it's a programming language that is used to write all sorts of computer programs. They are learning this language by using a program called Scratch.

Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy for students to create their own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share their creations on the web.

Students downloaded the Scratch program from the MIT website to their laptops at school. They are learning how to put the programming "bricks" together and will eventually learn to make these cool projects. Last year's 8th graders made great interactive games to go with their geography projects. You can find them on some of this year's 9th grade blogs on the right of this page.

As students create and share Scratch projects, they learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. Students problem solve together to learn more about programming!

Welcome back - Fall 2010!

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic summer and got outside a little, had a good time with friends and family, and did something new.

I had a great summer that included all of the above. I was on the Tanana River a lot with my family, I took some trips with friends, and I did something new - I went to France with some students from Tok School!

I'm excited to see everyone again this year, and to meet our new 6th graders. Of course we are ready to roll out your 1:1 laptops first thing this year.

Because of funding, there have been some changes to our 1:1 program. Each of you will still have your own laptop, but they will not go home. For students who do not have computers at home, we are working on a program so that we can get some laptops into people's homes. If your family already has a computer at home with internet access, you will still have no problem accessing your work from school when you are at home - even though it's on a different computer! Even if it's not a Mac! However, when you are at school, you will not share your computer with other students - you will be the only user on your assigned laptop.

School Supplies:
In middle school our requirements are few - here they are;
1. paper and writing utensils - we cannot provide these, and you cannot expect your friend or seatmate to provide these for you all year!

2. ear buds - buy a few cheap pairs from the store, or just use the ones you have with your ipod - whatever. You will need them in class.

3. Optional - a jump drive (also known as a thumb drive, jump drive, gig stick, or geek stick). 1G is plenty for your needs. A 1 gig stick is around $8 to $10. They are a quick way to transport pictures or other work that you want to transfer to other computers if you have not put those things on the web.

Looking forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday, August 24th!