Kings of the Keyboard!

This year the 6th grade technology class has been busy learning many different apps and web tools.  They have also spent the first 15 minutes of class all year learning to keyboard.

Our top keyboarder currently is Chase typing a rapid 45 words per minute, but most of the class is on his heels, regularly hitting the 30 words per minute mark and speeding up every day!

6th graders have learned to use various apps such as Keynote, iMovie, Pages, Comic Life, Blogger and many others.  All of the 6th graders have their own class blogs (see the right side of this blog for links to student blogs).  6th graders have also read several books this year in which they were able to incorporate Minecraft and collaboratively build worlds based on their reading comprehension.  These have included Jack London's To Build a Fire, The Giver by Lois Lowry, and Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.

8th Grade - Bigger or Better

In 8th grade English, students have begun reading the book One Red Paperclip, a memoir by Kyle MacDonald. The book details Kyle's journey of trades that began with one red paperclip and ended a year later with a house. The fact that Kyle ended up with a house is not really the point of the book. Although it's significant, what he also learned was that along the way he met many good and interesting people, that if he remained open to new ideas good things happened, and that he had a lot of fun along the way.

 The most important thing he realized was that these things would not happen to him - he needed to make them happen by taking positive steps. So in the spirit of open-mindedness, meeting new and friendly people, having fun, and by the way acquiring something cool, the 8th graders are undertaking a version of Bigger or Better. See the links below for each student's update on their trades and their reflections.

Leeanna's Trades
1st Trade

Madalynn's Trades
1st Trade

Shelby's Trades
1st Trade

Trevor's Trades
1st Trade

Trinity's Trades
1st Trade

Kyleigh's Trades
1st Trade

Jesse's Trades
1st Trade

Ms. Weisz's Trades
1st Trade
2nd Trade

Spring Semester is Here!

Spring semester for 2014 has begun! Please remember to take care of your iPads - DO NOT be careless with them or remove them from their protective leather cases.  DO NOT swing them around or hit things with them!  If you shatter one, they will not be replaced!!

Hey New School Year!!

Welcome back everyone! As usual, this is the place for those of you taking courses from Ms. Weisz to find your course info, assignment information and all that jazz! The links are on the right.  Also, blog lists have been updated - look for the link to yours under this year's class listing on the right.

IF you are a new student or a 6th grader, be sure to get your email permission form turned in!  Also make sure you and your family review the One-to-One materials that have been sent home, and sign all the paperwork for the school so you can get your iPads.

Remember, the holidays are coming - BE KIND!

This is some information about monkeys.

Learning with Technology

Students at Tok School this year are having more opportunities than ever before to learn about and with technology.

Last year the school began offering a technology skills class just for the middle school students - this was new, and was pretty successful.  Some of those students, now in high school, as well as older high school students, expressed interest in being able to do more with technology, but last year we didn't have much in the way of tech offerings at all.

That has all changed this year - the middle school tech course is still offered, and in the high school, students can also take Logo Programming, Entrepreneurial Technology, and Digital Publishing - all tech intensive courses. Also, students looking for credit recovery can still take those through online A+ courses, but we've expanded those offerings as well in a class called Online Academy.  Students taking recovery credits through A+, as well as students taking other online courses for credit during that period. Students can get one-on-one help from the teacher, as well as help contacting their online teachers.  Students set up a course completion schedule at the beginning of the year, to ensure they stay on track of meeting their goals to complete their course. This has opened up lots of different course and learning options for Tok's high school students.

Welcome to the 2012-2013 School Year!

Hi students and families! Welcome to a new school year at Tok! There are lots of changes in the building and our courses this year that I think everyone will really like.

All of my students should know that as usual, I have wiki pages for my courses with the links listed at the right of this page. However, most of the course material and instructions will be delivered through Edmodo.  Click this link to get to the Edmodo site.  Most of my students from last year are familiar with Edmodo and already have accounts and passwords.

As you know we have a new principal, Mr. Roslansky. We also have a new (as a teacher) but familiar face teaching 8th-12th grade social studies, Mr. Brown, so thank goodness another year of entertaining morning announcements! A big change in the middle school is a new middle school English and Social Studies teacher, Ms. Kromer, who I know everyone will really like. Now you may be wondering what I am doing since Ms. Kromer is teaching middle school English and Social Studies...

Well most of you who know me know that I really like to use technology in my courses, so I'm excited to be the official technology teacher this year!  Along with middle school technology again, I'm also teaching some new courses that I'm pretty happy about and that I hope my students will enjoy as well.

I'll be teaching an online entrepreneurship course where students will learn how to work in different capacities online that include working for someone else, or even running their own business.  In today's world it's possible to do lots of interesting kinds of work but still live just about anywhere by working from your computer.

Another course I'm excited about teaching is our new Logo Programming class.  Lots of you who have taken courses from me have worked in a program called Scratch where you've learned a little bit about programming using Logo.  This course will be using a cool program called MicroWorlds in which students can really get into learning more about Logo and writing all kinds of programs and interactives.

Another new course will be Digital Publishing.  In this course, students will be publishing the school's online newspaper (which will be written by Mr. Curtiss' Journalism class) and the school yearbook.  The class will also focus on different forms of online publishing such as web page design, blogging, and other publishing platforms.

I'm happy to say we will be offering a language course again this year - Spanish.  That will be taught as an online course with lots of supplementing and fun activities, and hopefully we'll be able to stir up some interest in using part of the class to plan a trip to Spain next summer!

And finally, we still offer a period in the day when students take credit recovery classes online.  During that period this year we are also making space for students who may be taking other online courses through other programs such as correspondence study.  I'll be helping all of those students to look at their coursework and plan their year by setting goals, helping with tech problems, and helping them keep in contact with their online instructors. In the future, most students will probably take some form of online coursework, so this is a great opportunity to learn about how to manage your time and be successful when taking an online course.