In this section, you may post a copy of your daily reports, so that everyone can follow what's happening. Remember, you don't have to spend hours doing this. Just quick updates.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), October 20, 1998

Answers

Response to Daily Reports

Northview Junior High Book Club Project Teacher: John Mulhern Intern: Cristiana

Curricular Goals:

The first semester will end on Nov. 13th. By this time students will be able to do the following tasks on the computer:

1. Use word processing skills to write responses to their two novels that they have read. 2. Use the internet to research material related to their readings. 3. Set up a website for the class book club. 4. Create a newsletter in which they share information and insights related to their readings.

Resources:

4 class computers Computer lab with 13 working computers Software: Student Writing Center, Kid Pixs, Hyper Studio, Claris Works HomePage Maker

The computers are still not hooked up to the internet, which is slowing down progress. They should be hooked up by the end of October.

Timetable:

1st Week: introduce the project, start practicing using the computer. In order to do this, the students worked on the class computers, 4 at a time, writing their biographies (as an introduction to who they are and their favorite book), and had their pictures taken with a digital camera. Used Student Writing Center: Report template. Learn how to do word processing, choose fonts, spell check, save to disk, turn on and off a computer properly.

2nd Week: Worked with Newsletter format in the Student Writing Center (Computer Lab). Get familiarized with different options and commands.

3rd Week: Using Report format in the Student Writing Center, students now start choosing how they will report on the book they are finishing to read. In the computer lab, they were given choices of reporting it as a Dear Abby letter, a reporter interview, a movie producer explaining why the book will make such a great movie, a personal diary of one of the characters, They will begin the curricular tie-in of using the computer. They are still practicing using computer tools, to prepare them for the final project.

4th Week: Continue working on their reports, practice other forms of reporting, offered by the Student Writing Center, such as Journal Writing, Letter Writing, Making a Sign or Brochure, Newsletter writing. Analyze the different forms of reporting what you read.

5th Week: If there is access to the internet, students will start working on web page: The students will have a games page, with vocabulary puzzles related to the novel, about the author, with internet research for related links, historical background, with internet research for related links, discussion forum to get other classes involved in reading the book, movies related to the book page.

6th Week: Try to finish preliminary web page. End of semester.

The idea of the project is to get students more engaged with reading, and sharing what they learn from the books with other classes.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), October 23, 1998.

Response to Daily Reports

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Oct. 5th, 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Share their findings and opinions of the book they are reading with other classes. Practice writing in different forms, to expand vocabulary and forms of writing.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) Paper, notebook, and pencil or pen.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Introduce the Project/ brainstorm ideas. Organize students into groups to work on the website: 1. Forum 2. Games 3. Research 4. Links 5. Movies from books Write a one paragraph autobiography, include hobbies and favorite book.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Oct. 6th, 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Start preparing for web page to share books.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) Digital Camera

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Take pictures of students individually, in groups and as a class for the Student Biography page in the webpage.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Oct. 7th, 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Start preparing for web page to share books.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 classroom computers, Student Writing Center software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Learn to initialize disks, learn to use the Report Format in the Student Writing Center, choosing font, size, color, and style, practice typing by writing their student biographies, learn to save file and do spell check.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Oct. 8th, 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Writing in different forms, to share ideas, opinions, book reports.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 classroom computers, Student Writing Center software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Learn to initialize disks, learn to use the Report Format in the Student Writing Center, choosing font, size, color, and style, practice typing by writing their student biographies, learn to save file and do spell check. Continue to practice four at a time.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Oct. 15th, 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Writing in different forms, to share ideas, opinions, book reports.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) Computer Lab with 11 computers working, Student Writing Center software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Practice writing using the Newsletter format. Work with journalistic reporting. Work also on creative writing. Practice changing fonts, editing, saving files.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Oct. 19th, 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Writing in different forms, to share ideas, opinions, book reports. Goal: learn the skills necessary to allow the students to make a final project in the Spring.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) Computer Lab with 11 computers working, Student Writing Center software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Practice report form. They had five choices of reporting about the book: 1. Dear Abby letter about the main character. 2. Write a diary as if you were the main character. 3. Write as a movie producer, saying why the book is an excellent story for a movie. 4. Interview the main character, make 10 questions and answer them. 5. Write as a reporter about the book. The students will share these with other classes. Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Oct. 20th, 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Writing in different forms, to share ideas, opinions, book reports. Goal: learn the skills necessary to allow the students to make a final project in the Spring.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) Computer Lab with 11 computers working, Student Writing Center software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Continue working on their reports. Practice opening the program, opening their file from disk, check grammar and spelling, saving to disk and turning off the computer properly.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Oct. 21st , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Writing in different forms, to share ideas, opinions, book reports. Goal: learn the skills necessary to allow the students to make a final project in the Spring.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, Kid Pixs Studio

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Back to working in small groups, which is less distracting. Work on essays and reports. Whoever finished could choose to draw a picture of the book using Kid Pixs.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Oct. 23rd , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Writing in different forms, to share ideas, opinions, book reports. Goal: learn the skills necessary to allow the students to make a final project in the Spring.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Finish essays, and print them out to hand in. End of first book. Observation: The students are much more productive when small groups are working at a time. Since we still dont have access to the internet, we cannot work on the research part of the project, or the game development. We are practicing becoming familiar with computers, and there already has been a big development, as students feel more comfortable with the tools.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), October 23, 1998.

Response to Daily Reports

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Oct. 26th , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pixs Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Making a Computer schedule, where students will work 4 at a time, in their inde- pendent reading assignments. Finish last weeks reports, or create something (poster, report, review) based on independent reading. Download pictures from camera to computer, to start working on those as well. Note: Students are becoming very independent while working on the computer. They now require very little assistance.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), October 26, 1998.

Response to Daily Reports

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Oct. 27th , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pixs Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Each period on different reading group worked at the computers, following the schedule assigned yesterday. Finish last weeks reports, or create something (poster, report, review) based on independent reading. Note: Students are becoming very independent while working on the computer. They now require very little assistance.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), October 27, 1998.

Response to Daily Reports

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Oct. 28th , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pixs Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Each period on different reading group worked at the computers, following the schedule assigned. Finish last weeks reports, or create something (poster, report, review) based on independent reading. Note: Students are becoming very independent while working on the computer. They now require very little assistance.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), October 28, 1998.

Response to Daily Reports

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Oct. 30th , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pixs Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Finish last weeks reports, or create something (poster, report, review) based on independent reading. Check spelling and grammar. Print out and hand in all the assignments for grade.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), October 30, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Nov. 2nd , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pix Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

If the reports were finished, they could work on making a picture to go with it. They used Kid Pix Studio for the pictures, and then printed them out. Check spelling and grammar. Print out and hand in all the assignments for grade. Semester ends Friday.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), November 02, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Nov. 4th , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report Acquire word processing skills.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pix Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Today the students were tested on their book and computer skills. They had to show that they were capable of opening a file from disk, saving it, and ejecting it. The seventh grade class also started computers today. They answered questions related to the book they are reading. They will start working together with the eighth graders, in an exchange type of program.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting: Student pictures were printed out. Reports on book, and student drawn pictures.

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), November 04, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Nov. 5th , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books, such as reports and responses. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report Acquire word processing and computer skills.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pix Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Today some students revised their work, to be shown at an open house tonight. The eighth graders printed pictures are posted on a bulletin board. The seventh grade class took pictures today, and three more students started practicing computer skills, such as initializing disks, opening file, choosing font, typing, spell checking, saving file to computer and disk, closing down. They are still answering questions from the book they are reading. Checklist:

Student work worth collecting: Student pictures were printed out. Reports on book, and student drawn pictures.

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), November 05, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Nov. 9th , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books, such as reports and responses. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report Acquire word processing and computer skills.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pix Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: finish working on reports, work on covers, draw pictures related to independent reading using Kid Pix. Print out what was revised and ready. Seventh grade: continue working on questions, start drawing pictures related to the questions. Save to disk and computer.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Reports on book, and student drawn pictures.

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), November 09, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Nov. 10th , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books, such as reports and responses. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report Acquire word processing and computer skills.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pix Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: finish working on reports, work on covers, draw pictures related to independent reading using Kid Pix. Print out what was revised and ready. Seventh grade: continue working on questions, start drawing pictures related to the questions. Save to disk and computer.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Reports on book, and student drawn pictures.

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), November 10, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Nov. 11th , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books, such as reports and responses. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report Acquire word processing and computer skills.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pix Software It would be really helpful to have technical support from ILT. Today we had trouble with the printer in the computer lab, and no one really knows how to deal with it. Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: finish working on reports, work on covers, draw pictures related to independent reading using Kid Pix. Print out what was revised and ready. Seventh grade: continue working on questions, start drawing pictures related to the questions. Save to disk and computer. Obs. There are two girls who have a very violent nature, and gave us some trouble today at the computers. The situation was resolved, though. Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Reports on book, and student drawn pictures.

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), November 12, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Nov. 16th , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books, such as reports and responses. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report Acquire word processing and computer skills.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pix Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: the teacher was absent, so I used the time to put student picture files in all computers, so they can use them for later activities. Seventh grade: some students finished their no gun pictures, others started working on a new activity, practicing journal writing based on the book they are reading. Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Reports on book, newsletters, journals,and student drawn pictures.

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), November 16, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana_______________________________________ Date: Nov. 17th , 1998_______________________________________ School Visited: Northview High____________________________ Project: Book Club_______________________________________ Teacher: John Mulhern___________________________________

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books, such as reports and responses. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report Acquire word processing and computer skills.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pix Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: started new assignment on new book they are reading. They have to write a book report. Seventh grade: some students finished their no gun pictures, others started working on a new activity, practicing journal writing based on the book they are reading. Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Reports on book, newsletters, journals, a mobile made with pictures two girls drew using Kid Pix, and student drawn pictures.

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), November 17, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Nov. 18th , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books, such as reports and responses. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pix Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: started new assignment on new book they are reading. They have to write a book report. We are beginning to plan a story writing activity, using their own pictures for the characters. They will share with the seventh graders. Seventh grade: some students finished their no gun pictures, others started working on a new activity, practicing journal writing based on the book they are reading. They will also be prepared for collaborative story writing activity. Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Reports on book, newsletters, journals, a mobile made with pictures two girls drew using Kid Pix, and student drawn pictures.

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), November 18, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Nov. 19th , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Produce products from books, such as reports and responses. Report on readings in different formats: picture, poster, review, report Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read. We now will also make a Book and a movie based on their independent reading.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pix Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: started planning their stories for the Book and Movie Project.Today they had to make the storyboard and define who would play each character. Seventh grade: while some students worked on their journal assignment, others checked spelling, grammar and ideas from each others printed work. (Peer revising). They will also start their own stories after Thanksgiving. Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Reports on books, newsletters, journals, a mobile made with pictures two girls drew using Kid Pix, and student drawn pictures.

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), November 19, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Dec. 1st , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read. We now will also make a Book and a movie based on their independent reading.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pix Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: one group is working now on a childrens version of the book they read. The other three groups started writing out the scripts. They will print it as a book, for the storyboard, and then make it into a movie. While some members of the group work on the story, others work on the pictures.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Reports on books, newsletters, journals, a mobile made with pictures two girls drew using Kid Pix, and student drawn pictures.

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpgco (cristiana@baggio.com), December 01, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Dec. 3rd , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read. We now will also make a Book and a movie based on their independent reading.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. Optional: Kid Pix Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: one group is working now on a childrens version of the book they read. The other three groups started writing out the scripts. They will print it as a book, for the storyboard, and then make it into a movie. While some members of the group work on the story, others work on the pictures. They will start sharing with the K and 1st graders to practice reading to them soon. Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Reports on books, newsletters, journals, a mobile made with pictures two girls drew using Kid Pix, and student drawn pictures.

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpgco (cristiana@baggio.com), December 03, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Dec. 4th , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read. We now will also make a Book and a movie based on their independent reading and connect to lower grades as an ongoing process.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. and Kid Pix Software

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: today we changed the strategy a little, as these kids still dont know how to work independently. They still need a lot of support. So we will work with one group each day, and I will be with them at the computer as they type up the script and make the pictures. They still need a structured environment. Eventually they should become more independent. Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Reports on books, newsletters, journals, a mobile made with pictures two girls drew using Kid Pix, and student drawn pictures.

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Cristiana Assumpgco (cristiana@baggio.com), December 04, 1998.

Date: Dec. 7th School: Northview High Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd Project: Book Club Intern: Cristiana

Today John was absent, and I spent the first two periods helping Mark prepare an activity for his seventh grade class. They will be making presentations on a brainstorming activity related to the book they will begin to read. I stayed until 11:00am, but we never had time to actually start the activity. I also checked how the 8th grade groups were doing with their stories for the books and movies, and one other group also has typed up a lot of what they already wrote. The kids are working each day more independently, and producing good products. We should have a book ready by the end of this month.

Time of stay: 8:00-11:30am

-- Cristiana Assumpgco (cristiana@baggio.com), December 07, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Dec. 8th , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read. We now will also make a Book and a movie based on their independent reading and connect to lower grades as an ongoing process.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. and Kid Pix Software, Worksheets made by us using Claris Works Stationery to guide them through a brainstorming activity (7th grade).

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: one group finished the script, and made one more scene. Another group wrote half the story for the Kindergarten version of their book and made 3 of the 9 pictures to go with it. The kids will take more pictures if necessary, as they are using their own pictures as characters. The third group wrote more of the script and started typing it, and the last group didnt have the material to work on the script today, but they have already typed what they had done. The books and pictures for the book and slide shows are looking great, and the students are really working hard on it, and seem to be enjoying it! Seventh grade: we started the brainstorming activity, related to the book they will be reading. They are to make a survival plan pretending they are stuck on a desert island, and present it to the class using Claris Works Presentation. It has been printed out to guide them and help them structure their thoughts. Today we just began to plan. We might be ready to go on to the computer by the end of the week. The group members were each assigned specific tasks to help them get organized and be accountable. Checklist:

Student work worth collecting: Reports on books, newsletters, journals, a mobile made with pictures two girls drew using Kid Pix, and student drawn pictures.

-- Cristiana Assumpgco (cristiana@baggio.com), December 08, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Dec. 10th , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read. We now will also make a Book and a movie based on their independent reading and connect to lower grades as an ongoing process.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. and Kid Pix Software, Worksheets made by us using Claris Works Stationery to guide them through a brainstorming activity (7th grade).

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: Groups continued working on their scripts, books and pictures. They are going along at a good pace. Seventh grade: They continued the brainstorming survival activity. They are almost ready to go to the computer and make their presentation using Claris Works. We still only worked on paper, planning what will be done on the computer. Checklist:

Student work worth collecting: Reports on books, newsletters, journals, a mobile made with pictures two girls drew using Kid Pix, and student drawn pictures.

-- Cristiana Assumpgco (cristiana@baggio.com), December 10, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Dec. 11th , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read. We now will also make a Book and a movie based on their independent reading and connect to lower grades as an ongoing process.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. and Kid Pix Software, Worksheets made by us using Claris Works Stationery to guide them through a brainstorming activity (7th grade).

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: the group that is farthest behind started typing up their script and drawing pictures to represent the scenes of the book. Seventh grade: the groups finished their survival plans and are preparing their presentations in Claris Works. One group finished typing it up. The other two are almost finished. The teacher participates a lot in helping with the computer activities.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting: Reports on books, newsletters, journals, a mobile made with pictures two girls drew using Kid Pix, and student drawn pictures.

-- Cristiana Assumpgco (cristiana@baggio.com), December 11, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Dec. 14th , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read. We now will also make a Book and a movie based on their independent reading and connect to lower grades as an ongoing process. The seventh grade will be presenting slide shows with their brainstorming ideas.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. and Kid Pix Software, Worksheets made by us using Claris Works Stationery to guide them through a brainstorming activity (7th grade).

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: I prepared an Internet activity for them (see below) concerning the Civil Rights Movement, related to the book they are beginning to read ( A Raisin in the Sun ). Today they started reading the book. Seventh grade: Two groups finished their slide show. Only one has to finish it, but the students were absent. I showed them how to present it as a slide show with effects and all.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting: books written by them, and slide shows created by the seventh graders.

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Internet Activity:

Civil Rights Movement

Name: __________________________________________________________ Date: ___________________________________________________________

1. Looking at the sites:

http://www.wmich.edu/politics/mlk/ http://www.seattletimes.com/mlk/movement/seatimeline.html http://www.midsouth.rr.com/civilrights

Answer the following:

a. Major events:

Date Event

b. Why it happened: (clue: look at what happened to Negroes throughout American History, up to this time)

______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________

c. Choose one picture that you think symbolizes the whole movement, and copy it to include in your report. If you cant copy it, copy here the URL of where it can be found, to be copied later:

URL: http://__________________________________________________ Picture: _______________________________________

A good URL to find pictures is: http://www.seattletimes.com/mlk/movement/PT/phototour.html 2. How is the book Raisin in the Sun related to the Civil Rights movement? Which of the events you mentioned is closest to the events in this story?

3. Do you think the Civil Rights Movement helped? Did it bring on any changes? How?

4. Based on the web sites you have visited, list two opinions of people who lived at the time and participated in the events, as to how they saw all that was going on.

Opinion 1: _______________________________________________________

By: _____________________________________________________________ URL: http:________________________________________________________

Opinion 2: ________________________________________________________

By: _____________________________________________________________ URL: http: ________________________________________________________

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-- Cristiana Assumpgco (cristiana@baggio.com), December 14, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Dec. 16th , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read. We now will also make a Book and a movie based on their independent reading and connect to lower grades as an ongoing process. The seventh grade will be presenting slide shows with their brainstorming ideas.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. and Kid Pix Software, Worksheets made by us using Claris Works Stationery to guide them through a brainstorming activity (7th grade).

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: The groups worked on their books. Since all of them were working at the same time, two groups went to the computer lab to type. The others stayed in the classroom working on their pictures. Seventh grade: the last group worked a little more on their presentation. They should be presenting tomorrow if theres enough time.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting: books written by them, and slide shows created by the seventh graders.

-- Cristiana Assumpgco (cristiana@baggio.com), December 16, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Dec. 17th , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read. We now will also make a Book and a movie based on their independent reading and connect to lower grades as an ongoing process. The seventh grade will be presenting slide shows with their brainstorming ideas.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. and Kid Pix Software, Worksheets made by us using Claris Works Stationery to guide them through a brainstorming activity (7th grade). Internet in the Computer lab.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: Two groups have basically finished their story and are ready to have them printed next week. Two other groups are typing up and finishing writing theirs. Its interesting that the girls are all finished, and the groups with only boys are much slower. Seventh grade: Since many students were absent, we will be making the presentations either tomorrow or Monday. Today we showed them how a search is done on the Internet, and how complex it can be. We used http://www.yahoo.com.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting: books written by them, and slide shows created by the seventh graders.

-- Cristiana Assumpgco (cristiana@baggio.com), December 17, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Dec. 18th , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read. We now will also make a Book and a movie based on their independent reading and connect to lower grades as an ongoing process. The seventh grade will be presenting slide shows with their brainstorming ideas.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. and Kid Pix Software, Worksheets made by us using Claris Works Stationery to guide them through a brainstorming activity (7th grade). Internet in the Computer lab.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: Didn't get to the computer activity today.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting: books written by them, and slide shows created by the seventh graders.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Dec. 21st , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read. We now will also make a Book and a movie based on their independent reading and connect to lower grades as an ongoing process. The seventh grade will be presenting slide shows with their brainstorming ideas.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) 4 class computers, Student Writing Center software, printer in Computer Lab. and Kid Pix Software, Worksheets made by us using Claris Works Stationery to guide them through a brainstorming activity (7th grade). Internet in the Computer lab.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: Printed out what they have so far. Two groups (the girls' groups) have a complete script and pictures to go with it. These were printed out in color and look really nice. The other two groups have only half a script written, and no pictures. They will be presenting incomplete work. Seventh grade: Made their presentations using the Claris Works slide show. They talked about their different ideas of how they could survive if stranded on a desert island. Didn't develop the project too much in depth.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting: books written by them, and slide shows created by the seventh graders.

-- Cristiana Assumpcao (cristiana@baggio.com), December 21, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Cristiana Date: Dec. 22nd , 1998 School Visited: Northview High Project: Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class:

Curricular connection: Acquire word processing and computer skills. Share their products to attract more students from other classes to read. We now will also make a Book and a movie based on their independent reading and connect to lower grades as an ongoing process. The seventh grade will be presenting slide shows with their brainstorming ideas.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) Computer lab and printer.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor)

Eighth grade: Printed out their pictures for them to do a collage activity related to dreams (they are talking about peoples dreams related to the play Raisin in the Sun), students wrote a letter to Ms. Ruby Brown using word processor in the computer lab. They are studying the Civil Rights Movement to be aware of the context of the time period in the book.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting: books written by them, pictures and slide shows created by the seventh graders.

-- Cristiana Assumpgco (cristiana@baggio.com), December 22, 1998.

Response to Daily Reports

Date: October 6, 1998 School visited: Manhattan Country School Project: " The people who have come to America" Teacher: Dawn Philcox

Curricular Connections: Use the web to find information on why people immigrate.

Resources Used: The Internet-- 1. The INS Website 2. www.cyberkids.com/Issue3/Le/Le2.html - Original Stories from young children about their immigration journeys. 3. www.msu.edu/course/mc/112/1920s/Immigration/Index.html - Historical immigration - immigration in the 1920s.

Activities: We had one Web site opened on each of the computers and groups of students were rotating the computers. The teacher and I were going through the materials on line doing some of the reading that was hard for students explaining things that students couldn't understand and relate the information found on the Web sites with the topics covered in the class.

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Date: October 13 School visited: Manhattan Country School Project: The people who have come to America Teacher: Dawn Philcox

Curricular Connections: Introduce a search engine to look for information about immigration.

Resources used: The Internet 1. www.yahooligans.com

Activities: We discussed how search engines help us locate the information we are looking for on the web. We asked students if they have ever used a search engine before and what are some of the things they are usually looking for. Then students went to yahooligans, typed in immigration and we went through some the the sites they found that seemed to be interesting, expaining also how most of the times by typing in a single word we get information that we are not interested in and thus we have to be careful on what to select.

Check List: A very nice site from the Ellis Island where you get to see video clips from the arrival of the immigrants and search the wall of honor to see if any of your relatives ware among the first immigrants entered the Ellis Island. Actually, some of the kids used that database and one of them found someone with the same last name as her mother's family and everyone got excited.

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Date: October 20, 1998 School Visited: Manhattan Country School Project: The people who have come to America Teacher: Dawn Philcox

Curricular Connections: Use a different search engine to look for information on immigration

Resources: www.ajkids.com (Ask Jeeves for Kids)

Activities: We distributed index cards and after generating some discussion we had kids write down a question that they wanted to further explore about immigration. We introduced the Ask Jeeves web site and discussed how is this Web site different from the search engine we used the previous week--like you type in a question in natural language rather than just a word or phrase. Then students typed in some of their questions and tried to find the answers for themselves.

Check List: One of the students major question was " Where do immigrants come from". We found an interesting table which was listing the number of people entering the US from each country. I think it can be used for many purposes and will be helpful to make curricular connections across other subject areas (e.g history-explain the political and economic situation of the countries that most immigrants come from and thus by going backwards find the reasons for immigration) ----------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), October 23, 1998.

Response to Daily Reports

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Chrystalla Date: 10/27/98 School visited: IS90 Project: RTW Teacher: Heather Ganek

Curricular Connections: As part of a reading comprehension and writing activity we had the kids read information about the RTW project and find the answers to questions that they have aleady wrote before we start the project.

Resources used:Downloaded pages from the RTW website, printouts from the RTW website and pictures.

Activities: We had the class work in five groups. Each group was dealing with a topic drawn from the RTW website. The five topics were: the boat, the crew, itinerary, supplies and preparation, life on the boat.For every topic we handed out a folder containing information on the specific topic (the relevant printouts from the RTW website and a worksheet with some questions that kids needed to explore and find the answers). The topics and the questions included in the worksheets were not chosen arbitrarily by the teacher. In a previous class the teacher had the students write down questions they wanted to ask about the RTW project. So in those worksheets students were basically exploring things they have already expessed interest in finding answers. They worked on the worksheets as a group for a period and after they finished we handed out big pieces of papers, crayons, construction paper, scissors, tapes and students started creating a poster for the topic they explored in order to present to their classmates. Presentations will take place next time i will go there. I have to say that all of us had great time. Students were very much into the project , they really enjoyed and even when it was time for lunch they didn't want to stop working on their presentations. They cut and paste graphics, they made headings and titles and they started summarizing the information they found in order to present to the other students.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), October 27, 1998.

Response to Daily Reports

Semester Plan: By: Chrystalla Mouza School: Manhattan Country School Project: The people who have come to America Teacher: Dawn Philcox

Curriculum Goals: By the end of the project students should be able to :

1. Explore and value the diversity in our society and think critically about the world around them 2. Develop skills in researching and writing, graphing , geography, e.t.c. 3. Acquire thorough and multidimensional knowledge of the domain area through the study of oral histories, immigrant neighborhoods, museums, trips, the study of African American Slave trade, historical immigration and Ellis island. 4. Search the Web and find information related to the topic being studied, collect those resources and share them with their classmates. 5. Evaluate and be critical of information and resources found on the web 6. Become thoughtful users of the Internet

Resources: The classroom has one computer (Mac) with a T1 connection. The school has a computer lab that is equipped with 6 computers (Macs) that are connected to the Internet with a T1 line through the Eiffel Project. Applications: KidPix, Hyperstudio, Claris Works, Word Processor.

Timetable: September: Introduction to Immigration and Classroom Oral History Interviews Computer integration: 1. Introduction to classroom computer 2. Introduction to the Internet 3. Exploration of ways to connect with immigrants via the network

October: Beginning of Students' Interviews and Geography Study Computer Integration: 1. use of geographical sites 2. Introduce search engines on the web

November: Continuation of Interviews and Introduction to Immigrant neighborhoods - - Multiple class trips to various ethnic neighborhoods and museums Computer Integration: 1. exploration of the Web for immigrant aid organizations and discussion of how they help immigrants 2. exploration of web sites produced by sources in immigrant neighborhoods

December: Presentation of Interviews, Continuation of Immigrant neighborhoods and Study of "Newest New Yorkers" report. Computer integration: 1. Continual use of all resources previously studied 2. exploration of sites offering statistical information on immigration 3. exploration of graphing on the computer 4. creation of a class library of helpful computer resources

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), October 27, 1998.

Response to Daily Reports

Semester Plan Intern:Lori Ann Butler School: Robert F. Kennedy High School Teacher: Mike Buzzeo

Curricular Goals: By the end of the semester students will have accomplished the following:

Created the introductory page of the school web site and begin the linked page for their music class.

Sub goals: Students will understand the criteria for good web-page design. Students will know how to create html documents: In addition to basic knowledge of html programming, students will take cognizance of various approaches to accomplishing a specific design. Students will know how to embed midi files onto the web. Students will learn how to condense written material appropiate for the web. Students will have basic skills in editing images. Students will develop Web research skills.

Resources: The school's computer lab is equipped with around 30 computers with Internet connection. Applications used for the project are as follows: Image editing software,midi file editing software,( all downloaded from the web) Microsoft Word and CakeWalk.

Timetable October- Study other high-school web sites for ideas. Learn html- including how to create tables and frames. Begin sketching design of introductory page. Edit and type bios of students in the class. November- Decide on final sketch of the introductory page of the School Web site. Search Internet for images. Scan any necessary images(ex.picture of their class). Take picture of class. Create the music(using midi) that will open the site. Produce a first draft of introductory page to be seen locally on Web browser.Sketch layout for music page. December-Class makes necessary changes of first draft of introductory page. Redo any images and adjust the layout of first page. Embed midi file. Decide on second draft(close to final version) of introductory page. Produce the first draft of the music page. Celebrate our accomplishments!

-- Lori Ann Butler (lab76@columbia.edu), October 28, 1998.

Response to Daily Reports

The Manhattan New School; Kindergarten teacher Eve Mutchnick and Special Education (K) teacher Denise Rickles. Intern: Liz Benn Curricular Goals: The two K classes are working colllaboratively with The Central Park Nature Conservacy to learn about their environnment; specifically, "change" as it occurs through the seasons. They will observe, record, and collect the information to develop a hyperstudio project on the seasons. By the end of the year, the students will become acquainted with one another through mainstreaming, and the teachers will begin to integrate technology into the curriculum. Students in the regular K class are working on the beginning skills of using the computer as a prerequisite to the project itself. 1. Discuss parts of the computer, general care, and use of the "class folder" where students can find the software that is available to them. 2. Use drawing skills to make a self portrait in Kid Pix for October with pencil, circle, eraser, and color palette tools. Print name with alphabet tool. 3. Practice mouse skills of pointing, clicking, and dragging. Teach students how to enter into the desktop by pointing to the "class folder", clicking on it, and then clicking on the Kid Pix icon. 4. Take pictures of students using the digital camera. Save on hardrive for use with projects throughout the year. Students can take a copy home! Students in both classes are presently working on the following: 1. Create a Kid Pix Slide Show using pictures taken with digital camera. Students record their voices to answer the question, "What do you want to learn about in science this year?" Students will develop a project using the information from The Nature Conservacy: 1. Create a class Big Book about field trips using "Superprint" by Scholastic. Students will have their own small book copy to take home - teacher will create in "The Writing Center" and students will illustrate with their knowledge of "change" through the seasons. 2. Use the above information to create a hyperstudio project on the seasons. Resources: 1 MacIntosh computer and printer in each class, networked with e-mail and Internet access; Software: Kid Pix 2, Adobe Photoshop, The Writing Center, Superprint, etc. The first field trip (the class's second) to The Nature Conservacy was yesterday, October 29. We learned more about what it has to offer to Kindergarten teachers and students. We met with the park ranger and saw the class tree that has been adopted by the students. Changes were observed by students and recorded with the digital camera. Students will be able to illustrate their knowledge of the tree in the classroom. The work will be collected as the tree is observed through the seasons and compiled in a book. These findings can also be used to have the teachers develop a hyperstudio project on the "seasons". Timetable: 1st week: Introduced digital camera to teachers, had them practice taking pictures of students and downloading them onto the computer using Adobe Photoshop. Showed how to change image size

-- Elizabeth J. Benn (ejbenn@earthlink.net), October 30, 1998.

Timeline (cont'd.) Showed teachers and students how to print photos. Created 2"x3" photos for whole class use in making graphs, semantic webs and other informational charts. 2nd week: Taught students parts of the computer, how to care for it, and how to enter in through the desktop from their "class folder" of software and to the Kid Pix program. 3rd week: Using mouse skills and Kid Pix program tools, students will make a self-portrait drawing for October. This is a way to have students begin to use their computer and learn basic skills. 4th week: Showed teachers how to make a Kid Pix Slide Show using the "oct. photos" file. Students recorded their voices to answer question, "What would you like to learn about in science this year?" This is a useful part of the software because it can be applied to any subject. 5th week: Try to finish work on self-portraits with help of classroom teacher. Teach teachers to have students stay on task and work for 5-10 min. so that all students can finish work. Field trip to Central Park to see The Nature Conservacy project. Make observations and recordings for related project in classroom. Simultaneously, a class parent will be working on a web page for the class and we will include the project as a part of the science curriculum and a photograph of our adopted tree. 6th week: computer project TBA The idea of this project is to learn about what The Central Park Nature Conservacy has to offer teachers and students and use this scientific information to enhance the curriculum in science and technology.

-- Elizabeth J. Benn (ejbenn@earthlink.net), October 30, 1998.

Date: October 7, 1998 School visited: The Manhattan New School: "The Central Park Nature Conservancy project" Curricular connections: Meet with teachers to discuss beginning computer skills for K students and learn about what can be done simultaneously in both classes. The teachers will learn to take pictures on the digital camera. Resources Used: Computer, Digital Camera. Activities: Teachers took pictures of students in both classes. Date: October 8, 1998 School visited: The Manhattan New School: "The Central Park Nature Conservacy" Curricular Connections: To teach the teachers how to download the photos onto the computer and create a file called "Oct. photos". Resources: Computer, Adobe Photoshop Activities: Students will see themselves on the computer. We printed the pictures for 1 class copy and 1 to take home. Date: October 14, 1998 School visited: The Manhattan New School: "The Central Park Nature Conservancy" Curricular Connections: Teach students parts of the computer, general care and how to enter from the desktop to the "class folder" to find the software. Introduce the Kid Pix software program and a few tools. Resources: Computer, Printer, Monitor, Speakers, Mouse, Microphone, etc. Activities: The students will work in pairs to acquaint themselves with Kid Pix and the pencil, circle, eraser, and color palette tools. Then students will make a self-portrait using these tools only, and save, and print work. Date: October 15, 1998 School visited: The Manhattan New School "The Central Park Nature Conservancy" Curricular Connections: Students continue to explore the Kid Pix software program and tools making sure to stay focused and on task. Resources: Computer, Printer, Kid Pix Activities: Continue self-portraits Date: October 21, 1998 School visited: The Manhattan New School "The Central Park Nature Conservancy" Curricular Connections: Teach students that, in Kid Pix, the tools located across the bottom of the screen (horizontally), can give their drawings more detail. Resources: Computer, Printer, Kid Pix Activities: Students will discover through the use of the tools located across the bottom of the screen that their drawings can change. For example, when using the pencil tool, the user can choose to make a thin, medium, or thick line. Using the eraser tool, part of the drawing can be removed or, by clicking on the "firecracker", it will take away the whole thing! Date: October 22, 1998 Curricular Connections: The classroom teacher will begin to take a more active role in integrating the computer as a tool in the classroom. Teacher will work with students (in pairs) on Kid Pix. Resources: Computer, Printer, Kid Pix. Activities: Continue self-portraits. Date: October 28, 1998 School visited: The Manhattan New School, "The Central Park Nature Conservancy" project Curricular Connections: Intern will show teachers how to make a Kid Pix Slideshow by inserting "Oct. photos" in slides. Resources: Computer, Kid Pix 2 Activities: Students in Special Education class recorded their voices. "My name is ". I like to ." Date: October 29, 1998 School visited: The Manhattan New School "The Central Park Nature Conservancy" Curricular Connections: The students take a field trip to Central Park to inquire about the season of fall and the changes happening in their environment. They meet the Park Ranger, make observations, and begin to prepare for our project. Resources: Park Ranger, park, digital camera Activities: The park ranger teaches

-- Elizabeth J. Benn (ejbenn@earthlink.net), October 30, 1998.

(cont'd): taught students that, in fall, the leaves change colors and fall from the trees. Animals prepare for winter. They learned about different types of trees, leaf shapes, and did rubbings. Observed class tree. Intern took photographs!

-- Elizabeth J. Benn (ejbenn@earthlink.net), October 30, 1998.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza Date: November 3 School visited: The Manhattan country School Project: The people who have come to America Teacher: Dawn Plilcox

Curriculum connections: Use the Web to find information on immigration. Use Web sites to read Oral Histories.

Resources: Ask Jeeves for kids Yahooligans The Ellis Island Website

Activities: There was a special event going on to the school today. They had the parents visiting the school and following their kids in the different classes. So what we wanted to do is let parents know what we were doing with the students and have the students demonstrate what they have learned so far in terms of finding information on the Web. Students generated few queations about the new topics covered the past weeks in their class in regard with immigration. Then we had the students select the search engine they wanted to use and try to find the information they were looking for. In this way we are trying to have the kids focus on a specific information because surfing the web without having something really specific in mind is not a particularly meaningful activity. Students printed out useful information and some of them found some really interesting sites that they bookmarked and we will look at them next time.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), November 03, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: October 16, 1998 School Visited: Clara Mohammed School Project: Reach the World Teacher: Khaleelah Islam Brief Description of what happened in class: This was my first visit to the school and my first time meeting Khaleelah. I was there for about two hours and helped out in the class. The children were finishing up there work and allowed to then use the computers to explore the Reach the World web site. I supervised this activity and provided assistance when necessary.

Curricular connection: I was there to discover how I could integrate Reach the World into Khaleelahs curriculum. I needed to observe how much experience the children had with the computers as well as at what academic and social levels the children were.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) Today we used the 6 classroom computers which were linked to the internet.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Not yet...for next week I will plan.

Checklist Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class. We exchanged our first email today. The children are studying weather as part of their science curriculum and they had already listed questions on the board which they wanted to send to the Makulu. We will look for the results next week.

Day of visit: Friday

Length of stay: 10:00-12:00

Amount of prep time this week: 0 hours (first visit)

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 10/21/98 School Visited: Clara Mohammed School Project: Reach the World Teacher: Khaleelah Islam Brief Description of what happened in class: We worked on a lesson which I planned called Lets Meet the Makulu. Although the children had talked about the Makulu with their teacher and explored the web site on their own, I sensed that they really didnt know too much about the project. Therefore, I developed a lesson where the children had specific questions to answer from the Message from the Crew to You portion of the website. They were required to work with partners and share the job of filling in the recording sheet. I also sensed during the previous week that the children did not have very much training in cooperative grouping since they seemed to argue a lot and not accomplish a task. The children did a good job searching the section for specific information. We came back as a whole group at the end of the session and discussed the answers. It led to many more questions about the crew, ship, and cultures being encountered.

I also noticed during the previous week that Quicklime wasnt running, one computer no longer had a working browser, and there were a couple of other computer related problems which I wanted to try to fix. I spent quite a bit of time there doing so on my own. Theron Feist also came to hook up a printer and we tried to troubleshoot some of the problems together. This work took up the rest of the afternoon.

Curricular connection: Khaleelah would like to tie in Reach the World with her weather unit in science. I felt that the children needed to have more background knowledge about the boat as well as more practice navigating around the web site.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): We used 5 classroom computers (1 did not work) each of which is connected to the internet and my information gathering sheets.

Checklist: Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class. Nothing new yet. We sent the original email to the wrong address and Khaleelah is having some trouble with her email so we havent heard from Heather yet.

Day of visit: Wednesday

Length of stay: 10:00-4:00

Amount of prep time this week: 2 hours -------------------------------------------------------------

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 10/21/98 School Visited: Clara Mohammed School Project: Reach the World Teacher: Khaleelah Islam Brief Description of what happened in class: We worked on a lesson which I planned called Lets Meet the Makulu. Although the children had talked about the Makulu with their teacher and explored the web site on their own, I sensed that they really didnt know too much about the project. Therefore, I developed a lesson where the children had specific questions to answer from the Message from the Crew to You portion of the website. They were required to work with partners and share the job of filling in the recording sheet. I also sensed during the previous week that the children did not have very much training in cooperative grouping since they seemed to argue a lot and not accomplish a task. The children did a good job searching the section for specific information. We came back as a whole group at the end of the session and discussed the answers. It led to many more questions about the crew, ship, and cultures being encountered.

I also noticed during the previous week that Quicklime wasnt running, one computer no longer had a working browser, and there were a couple of other computer related problems which I wanted to try to fix. I spent quite a bit of time there doing so on my own. Theron Feist also came to hook up a printer and we tried to troubleshoot some of the problems together. This work took up the rest of the afternoon.

Curricular connection: Khaleelah would like to tie in Reach the World with her weather unit in science. I felt that the children needed to have more background knowledge about the boat as well as more practice navigating around the web site.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): We used 5 classroom computers (1 did not work) each of which is connected to the internet and my information gathering sheets.

Checklist: Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class. Nothing new yet. We sent the original email to the wrong address and Khaleelah is having some trouble with her email so we havent heard from Heather yet.

Day of visit: Wednesday

Length of stay: 10:00-4:00

Amount of prep time this week: 2 hours -------------------------------------------------------------

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 10/28/98 School Visited: Clara Mohammed School Project: Reach the World Teacher: Khaleelah Islam Brief Description of what happened in class: Khaleelah had designed an internet based lesson which used the computers. The children shared the computers. Each child was assigned a U.S. city. He/she was supposed to go to the Weather Channel web site and find out the weather for the week in that city. Each child copied down the information, presented it to the class, and then Khaleelah recorded it in sticker form on a map.

After the lesson, I read Heathers reply to each of the questions which the children had sent to her via email. Within the responses, Heather posed some questions to the children which we wrote on the board so that they will be researched at a later date.

Curricular connection: This lesson combined the internet with weather. The children also were able to receive some answers regarding Reach the World.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): We used 5 classroom computers (1 did not work) each of which is connected to the internet and my information gathering sheets.

Checklist: Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class. Nothing new yet....hopefully next week theyll have some new questions. Day of visit: Wednesday

Length of stay: 10:00-1:00

Amount of prep time this week: 1 hour -------------------------------------------------------------

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: October 19, 1998 School Visited: IS 90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: The children talked about stereotypes. They brain stormed ideas about what they thought about children in Chinatown. They took turns writing the words on chart paper which will remain posted in the classroom until the completion of the project.

Curricular connection: This is the first step in the process of learning about the students in Chinatown. They need to predict what they think that they will see before they actually meet these students.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): None yet....the laptop computers havent arrived yet.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor): I didnt plan anything, but Christine has asked me to research web sites which will provide resources for the children to research the history of New York and the Washington Heights and Chinatown neighborhoods. Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Monday

Length of stay: 8:30-11:00

Amount of prep time this week: 1 1/2 hours

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 10/27 & 10/29 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: NOTHING either time! I showed up on two different days to watch the seventh grade students teach the sixth grade students how to use the laptops. On the first day, the seventh graders couldnt come and I wasnt told so that I could reschedule a visit. On Thursday, they were supposed to come, but Christine was called to a district meeting so the lesson never happened. I traveled to the school on both days because I was never informed of the schedule change.

Curricular connection:

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.):

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor):

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit:

Length of stay:

Amount of prep time this week:

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 10/29/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Sharon Nurse Brief Description of what happened in class: Another part of this project is for each child to develop a personal ad which will be used to select key pal partners at the school in Chinatown. Sharons class worked on their first drafts of this project. Before they began, I modeled how to write a first draft and edit. I also showed them an example of my personal ad which I had neatly created and decorated using construction paper. The children wrote drafts and Sharon and I helped with the editing.

Curricular connection: This language arts activity is the first step in the key pal process for both of the laptop classes.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): The only resources this week were the construction paper example of a personal ad which I constructed and the models of my first and final drafts.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor): None yet....the computers will arrive at the middle of November.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Thursday

Length of stay: 8:00-9:45

Amount of prep time this week: 1 1/2 hours

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 05, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 11/02/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: The students read and discussed a story which had to do with cultural differences. The family in the story was Chinese and coming to America. The students had to work on proving differences between Chinese familes and American families. They also had to think of traditions in their own families.

Curricular connection: It used reading, comparing and contrasting, searching for evidence and supporting ones ideas..

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): The only resources this week were reading books and notebooks.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor): None yet....the computers will arrive at the middle of November.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Monday

Length of stay: 8:00-9:45

Amount of prep time this week: 1 hour

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 08, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 11/5/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Sharon Nurse Brief Description of what happened in class: The children in Sharons class received the 5 survey questions from the children in Christines class. They completed the project in 2 steps. In the first, they predicted which answer for each of the five questions would have the highest percentage of votes by the children in Chinatown. Then they defended their answers. They completed the same process for their class. Finally, they actually voted and Sharon and I recorded their answers on chart paper.

Curricular connection: It used prediction, supporting an idea, fractions, and percentages.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): The only resources this week were paper and chart paper.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor): None yet....the computers will arrive at the middle of November.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Thursday

Length of stay: 8:00-9:45

Amount of prep time this week: none

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 08, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 11/06/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: The seventh grade students came to help with the sixth grade survey lesson. The children in Christines class had previously developed surveys which will be answered by both the children in Washington Heights as well as those in Chinatown. Today, Christines class answered each of the questions. They also had to predict the percentage of children who would vote for the top result overall in Washington Heights and Chinatown. They also had to explain how they arrived at their prediction. Then, the seventh graders helped by entering the results into a spreadsheet on several computers set up in the room. The class was then able to see the fractional representation of their results converted into percentages. The next step was for the children to analyze the data for homework. I should be able to see the results next week.

Curricular connection: It used prediction, supporting an idea, fractions, and percentages.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): The resources this week were 5 laptop computers and the survey sheets.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor):

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Friday

Length of stay: 9:30-10:45

Amount of prep time this week: 1 hour 15 minutes

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 08, 1998.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza Date:November 10 School: Manhattan Country School Project: The people who have to America Teacher: Dawn Philcox

Curricular connections: In the past weeks students had to interview a person that immigrated from somewhere else in the Untied States. Today we had students look for information for the country that the person they interviewed came from.

Resources used: CD -Roms: Grolier 1995 and 1998 3D Atlas, World Atlas, Microsoft Encarta 96 Internet resources: The National Geographic www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/maps/atlas/cindex.html and another site: www.theodora.com/maps/abc_world_maps.html where you get maps and many other information for a certain country.

Activities: Students worked in pairs to find information. Some of the students wanted to use a CD-Rom and others wanted to use the Internet. They had the option to choose what they wanted to do. Their teacher prepared a worksheet for them. They had to list the source they used and what kind of information the source provided them (maps, written info, geography, history) so other students can get to that place and look for info for the country they are interested in. We also wanted to know whether their resource was easy to understand or not and then they had to list down some facts or info they have been able to find. The idea is to create a collection of resources where students can get info. For instance if they are just looking for maps then they will know where to go but if they are looking for written info or weather for a country e.t.c then there are propably other sources they can look at.

Chrystalla.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), November 10, 1998.

Daily Reports notes by Lori Ann Butler Oct 7 thru Nov 4 1998 School visited: Robert F. Kennedy High School Project: School Web Site Teacher: Mike Buzzeo

Brief description of what happened in class: Curricular connection: Introduced myself. Divide class into 4 groups.Design and Layout,Editing,HTML programming,Music 1st group goal: Search the web for high-scool web sites and other sites to study web design. 2nd group goal: write bios, 3rd group goal:Look at the page source of various web sites in order to become familiar with HTML code. 4th group goal: Find sites with embedded MIDI.

Resources used Computer Lab. All Computers with Internet connection(web search,web sites)

Activities: Described the project to Mr. Buzzeo's music class. Created four groups each of which would work on a specific aspect of the project. The groups: Design and Layout, Editing, Music, HTML programming. After the students chose the group they wanted to be in, students met in their individual groups. The HTML group studied the page sources of various web-sites. The design and layout group searched for high-school web sites using various search engines. The Music group searched for sites that contained embedded MIDI files. The Editing group wrote

Oct 14 Curricular connection: The goal for the HTML group was to understand the format for creating a basic HTML document. The goal for the design and layout group which comprises most of the students in the class was to make observations of several high-school web sites. The goal for the editing group was to condense and make any necessary edits of their classmates bios. Activities: I gave the URLs of four high school web sites to the design and layout group to study and make observations in the design and layout of those sites. Their job was to take note of certain design features including the types of navigational tools and describe those features that they would like to use for their web-site. The editing group and the music group also studied these web sites. The HTML group wrote a basic html document using a hand-out as a guide. After the editing group viewed these sites, they contined editing the class bios. Comments: The HTML group was unable to view their document since we had a hard time figuring out how to type the path name for the HTML document. The computer lab is equipped with PCs which is not what I am accomstumed to working on. Oct 21 Curricular Connection: The goal for the design and layout group was to realize the availibility of graphics that exist on the web. The goal for the HTML group was to realize how a table can be used to arrange text on a web page. Activities: The HTML group started a tutorial which illustrates the use a table tag. The HTML viewed their results locally on the web browser. The design and layout group used several search engines to explore the Internet for clip art and other images to use for their web-site. The music group studied the TCI music web-site for ideas. TCI is a music company owned by Mr. McParland who is the school-career liaison for Robert F. Kennedy. The editing group continued editing the school bios and typing them up. Comments: Mr. Winck, the computer lab teacher figured out the correct path name for our HTML documents so we could see the web page we created in the web browser. Oct 28 Curricular connection: The goal for the design and layout group was to sketch out their ideas of the design for the first page of the site. The goal for the HTML group was to understand the concept of a table and how to conceptualize a table when using various table attributes. Activities: Passed out HTML hand-outs describing the various HTML tags to the HTML group.The HTML group continued with the table tutorial. They viewed their documents locally on the web-browser. The design and layout group continued with their sketches and discussed how they could combine those sketches into one image. The music groups searched for music sites on the web. The editing group discussed with the design and layout group what text will be included on the first page.

Nov 4 Curricular connection: The HTML group worked in pairs. In order to get everyone within the group on the same level, I paired one student comfortable using HTML with another student that wasnt up to speed using HTML. In hopes of understanding the process involved in creating the table, I had them watch me create a HTML document making use of the table tags. The goal for the design and layout group was to realize the possiblities that can be implemented in a web-site. Activities: A few of the groups merged with other groups. the music group and editing group worked collaboratively with the design and layout group to discuss the design and layout of the first page of the class web site. Before their discussion, I had them examine four high-school web-sites and pay careful attention to the specific design features that could possibly be used in their own web- site. The HTML group worked in pairs and continued their study with using tables at the Joe Burns Web site. Mr. Buzzeo is working in the HTML group now so he can learn HTML programming and eventually create music lessons on the Internet for his class. Comments. The students as a whole are motivated and excited about creating a school web-site for their classmates. The students in the design and layout group are working cooperatively in finalizing the design of the first page.

-- lori ann butler (lab76@columbia.edu), November 11, 1998.

Daily Report for 11/12 By Neal Carlson Visited Benjamin Banneker Academy Debate Web Site with Ms. Miller

Ms. Miller told me she wouldnt be here for today, so I was alone with the six students.

Curricular connection: The goal was to begin putting the content that they have finished into web pages. Earlier in the semester, I had hoped that we would have semi-complete framework in which to put content. (Framework meaning empty HTML pages with the title and the colors and layout already finished.) The students didnt produce the content fast enough, however, so we abandoned that idea  and only focused on content. So now well create the separate pages and syncronize their appearance as we go along. It will be a pain, but it seems unavoidable at this point. This might be advantageous because all of the students might be more involoved in the layout and appearance of the site. But I think all of the students were going to be involved anyway, and this will just be more work.

Resources used: the four macs with homepage.

Activities: One of the six was absent, so there were 5 students. Two didnt have copies of their completed content. So three of the students created web pages with their content, and I worked with the other two, discussing the layout of the site.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), November 13, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 11/10/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: Christines class worked on their personal ads. They first practiced writing one for a character in a book which they are reading and one for Christine. By the end they started the first draft of their own. The plan for the week is for the children to type them in on her computer using the word processor.

Curricular connection: It used writing, character traits, and descriptive language.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): There werent any resources this week.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor):

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Tuesday

Length of stay: 9:30-10:45

Amount of prep time this week: 1 hour

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 14, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 11/13/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Sharon Nurse Brief Description of what happened in class: Christine was not in school, so I worked with Sharons class. Because of the change in plans, Sharon and I had to think of a way to involve children in the project without Christines direction. We decided that with the help of 2 seventh grade tutors and a few children in the class familiar with spreadsheets that we could finish the survey questions on the computers. I explained to the class the advantage of using a spreadsheet to calculate the percentages. We made it as far as entering the data into the computer without entering the formulas. We will finish next week.

Curricular connection: It used prediction, supporting an idea, fractions, and percentages.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): The resources this week were 5 laptop computers and the survey sheets.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor):

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Friday

Length of stay: 9:30-10:45

Amount of prep time this week: none

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 14, 1998.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza Date:november 17 School visited: Manhattan Country School Teacher: Dawn Philcox

Curricular connections: Use technology resources to find information about the country that the person they had interviwed came from.

Resources used: The Internet (web sites that listed the previous time) CD-Roms: Microsoft encarda, Grollier, 3D Atlas.

Activities: the teacher had prepared a worksheet for the students. Each student had to find 3 facts for the following areas of the country they were studying: History of the country, Culture of the country (art, religion , language),basic facts (population, size), physical features. it was interesting because students had to rotate the different resources we provided to find all the information they needed, so most of the students used both Cd Roms and the Internet.

Chrystalla.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), November 17, 1998.

Daily Report for November 18, 1998 Neal Carlson Visited Benjamin Banneker Academy With Ms. Miller Time: from 10:45 to 12:05 I was there a little early looking over the students work.

Some students are still typing their work into the computers. Others are proofreading and editing their work. The curricular task for the day was to give them more time to do work. Ms. Miller was not in school for several days, so we both wanted to check up on how they are doing.

The pages are coming along more slowly than we had hoped. But I think we will still be able to meet our December deadlines. Jamaals page is looking very nice  he has already created some anchors and just needs to proofread a little more. Ms. Miller said that next week they will spend two days proofreading each others work.

Because the students were working, Ms. Miller and I had a chance to talk some. We discussed our frustration at getting them to do work, and at times it feels like things are taking too long. She doesnt know if it is something weve done  or if the students just arent performing fast enough. I think we are asking a lot of the students, and they just arent performing as fast as they can. Regardless, things are going okay.

My next visit will be the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. I let her know that Ill probably visit the school twice every week in December because well be working more with the computers. Since the students will have completed most of the work with content, Ill be more useful in the class.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@hotmail.com), November 18, 1998.

Daily Report: Notes by: Liz Benn Date: November 4, 1998 School visited: The New Manhattan School Project: The Nature Conservancy Teachers: Denise Rickles and Eve Mutchnick Curricular Connections: Using the pictures taken at Central Park on the digital camera, we made a file of pictures and then put them together for a Kid Pix Slide Show. Resources: Kid Pix 2, computer Activities: The students were able to view the Slideshow and recall their experiences of the trip to the park. They can record their voices telling about the things they saw while they were there.

-- Elizabeth J. Benn (ejbenn@earthlink.net), November 20, 1998.

Daily Report: Notes by: Liz Benn Date: November 5, 1998 School visited: The New Manhattan School Project: The Nature Conservancy Teachers: Denise Rickles and Eve Mutchnick Curricular Connections: Using the pictures taken of the students in the two classes, digital, we practiced making a Slideshow. Resources: Kid Pix 2, computer Activities: The students were able to view the Slideshow and see themselves on the screen. Again, the students can add their voices telling their names and something about themselves to complete the project.

-- Elizabeth J. Benn (ejbenn@earthlink.net), November 20, 1998.

Daily Report: Notes by: Liz Benn Date: November 12, 1998 School visited: The New Manhattan School Project: The Nature Conservancy Teachers: Denise Rickles and Eve Mutchnick Curricular Connections: We had a meeting to discuss future plans for the project. The teachers are interested in learning how to have the children do writing on the computer. I will show them the software that is available to them, and then we will decide on a final project. At this time of year, any of the writing software is best used as a teacher resource for making Big Books and small books to go along with what is being done in the reading and writing curricula of the class. There is a certain progression of skills that the student must learn in beginning computer use ( such that takes place in Kindergarten) before going on to more advanced tasks. We are working together on this as we move along in our work.

-- Elizabeth J. Benn (ejbenn@earthlink.net), November 20, 1998.

Daily Report: Notes by: Liz Benn Date: November 18, 1998 School visited: The New Manhattan School Project: The Nature Conservancy Teachers: Denise Rickles and Eve Mutchnick Curricular Connections: We met for a short time to discuss writing software - Clarisworks for Kids. The teachers have parent-teacher conferences this week and so, are busy with them. We need more time to discuss the plan for the project so I will return to the school on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

-- Elizabeth J. Benn (ejbenn@earthlink.net), November 20, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 11/19/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: The children received their laptop computers last evening so this was their first day having them in school. The entire day was spent learning the basics of the computers. They set up their computers, worked on a word processing document, practiced vocabulary words using the spell check feature of Microsoft Word, and used a whacked web site about drug abuse for note taking.

Curricular connection: The computer lessons will prepare the children for the rest of the year. The word processor activities connected with Reading/Language Arts. The drug abuse web site was used for their health class.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): The resources this week were laptop computers for each student and the whacked drug abuse web site.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor):

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

Emails between Makulu and class.

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Friday

Length of stay: 7:30-2:15

Amount of prep time this week: none

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 23, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 11/24/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: Christine had whacked a website about the stock market for the children and we helped them to download it onto the desktop of their computers. She also copied their homework which they had done on their computers onto a disk so that she could check it.

The children were then asked to read the first page of the web document and determine the purpose of the stock market. They then brainstormed some words that they found during their reading about the stock market.

The processes are still taking some time, but I have noticed that even since last week when they first received their computers, that the children are much more familiar and knowledgeable. Preparatory type activities are taking less time already.

Curricular connection: Both of these activities were to prepare the students for doing some initial research about the stock market during their Thanksgiving break. The children will be exchanging stock information with their key pals in Chinatown. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): The resources this week were laptop computers for each student and the whacked stock market web site.

Activities: (transferring files from a floppy to the desktop, navigating a whacked web site

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Tuesday

Length of stay: 9:30-10:45

Amount of prep time this week: 1 hour

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), November 24, 1998.

Daily Report:

Notes by: Liz Benn Date: 11/25/98 School visited: The Manhattan New School Project: The Central Park Nature Conservancy Teachers: Eve Mutchnick and Denise Rickles Brief Description of what happened in class: I discussed with the teachers our final project and we decided to use our Kid Pix Slide Show of Central Park in the fall. This is a good software program for early childhood teachers to know, and the children always love to do a slide show and see themselves on the screen! I showed both teachers how to import a photograph into Kid Pix so that the children could write/type their names. I also showed them how they can change the photograph using the tools. I helped one teacher learn how to make a file folder.

Curricular Connections: We showed the children how they can type their names on their photographs by using the typewriter or alphabet stamp tools and selecting a color. We also showed them how they can change their faces using the tools to make all different kinds of expressions! Resources: Computer, Adobe Photoshop, Kid Pix Studio

Day of Visit: Wed. Nov. 25, 1998

Length of stay: 8:50-12:30pm Daily Report:

Notes by: Liz Benn Date: 11/25/98 School visited: The Manhattan New School Project: The Central Park Nature Conservancy Teachers: Eve Mutchnick and Denise Rickles Brief Description of what happened in class: I discussed with the teachers our final project and we decided to use our Kid Pix Slide Show of Central Park in the fall. This is a good software program for early childhood teachers to know, and the children always love to do a slide show and see themselves on the screen! I showed both teachers how to import a photograph into Kid Pix so that the children could write/type their names. I also showed them how they can change the photograph using the tools. I helped one teacher learn how to make a file folder.

Curricular Connections: We showed the children how they can type their names on their photographs by using the typewriter or alphabet stamp tools and selecting a color. We also showed them how they can change their faces using the tools to make all different kinds of expressions! Resources: Computer, Adobe Photoshop, Kid Pix Studio

Day of Visit: Wed. Nov. 25, 1998

Length of stay: 8:50-12:30pm

-- Elizabeth J. Benn (ejbenn@earthlink.net), December 01, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 12/01/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: Last week, the children had to use the whacked web site about the stock market to generate questions. Christine copied all of the questions from their homework into one file which they downloaded to their desktops. Their job was then to categorize the questions by the heading stock market, stocks, and stock companies. They used the colored font feature to designate the differences. They were able to work with partners. They had to finish this assignment for homework.

They also worked on their vocabulary. They first typed in each of the words into a Word document. This allowed them to see when they misspelled words. Then the students were going to look up the words in the thesaurus to try to determine a meaning. Finally, they would formally look up the words in a dictionary.

Curricular connection: The first activity was part of their stock market project. The second tied into their language arts curriculum. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): The resources this week were laptop computers for each student, the downloaded question file, Microsoft Word.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Tuesday

Length of stay: 9:30-10:45

Amount of prep time this week: 1 hour

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), December 02, 1998.

I visited Angela Miller at Benjamin Banaker Academy from 11:15 to 12:00, Wed, Dec 2. I'm jealous of all you elementary people who get to visit a school for a substatial amount of time each trip. I just sit in the subway lots.

The goal was for me to see what they have completed on their web pages, clear up any difficulties they are having, and then discuss what they want to do to improve the site's appearance.

There pages are coming along great. Almost all of the content is complete. They are having difficulty keeping track of which is the latest version and on which computer. They don't have server space to store the pages on, so they are saving the pages on the local hard drives, with floppy back ups. This is only a minor problem - and they've gotten better at saving things in the same folder in each computer, and backing up the pages at the end of every class.

Tomorrow I'll be there to introduce some graphics software. The district technology coordinator hasn't responded to two emails I sent (one before Turkey Break), so I'll use a couple shareware programs which work well. I'll introduce the software, their task for the week will be to create a background tile and a title graphic, as well as anything else they want. Later we'll vote on which graphics we want to use.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), December 02, 1998.

visited Ms Miller's debate team on Thursday Dec 3 for one period.

The goal was to introduce a graphics software program to the students. I finally was able to contact Troy - the district technology director. But the school doesn't have much useful software. My back up plan was to introduce the students to a freeware piece of software I have on cd. But the software wasn't what I thought it was, and another piece of software wouldn't install.

Not to mention the kids still have editing to do on their content, and for the next few days they are not going to work on the web site. So they did editing, and we just talked a some about graphics, and what we hope to do. Next Wednesday I am going to introduce software to them.

So a question is: does ILT have software I can bring? What does anyone recommend? We want to make a simple title, perhaps a background pattern to wallpaper, and anything else we think of as we go along. I will use NIH image maker (I'm not sure if it is that exactly) if nothing else. I'll do some work, and try to make their web site as I think it could look like. But my work will just be an example: they wont use my work, or be able to copy me.

Two thoughts that I haven't stated directly in my daily reports - but they must be apparent. The students are working more slowly than we predicted or hoped. We've been pushing them and giving them a lot of work, but not overwhelming, I don't think. The second thought: the students haven't come up with as many different creative ideas as we had hoped.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), December 04, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 12/04/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: Today the children typed their personal ads into their computers so that I will be able to put them up on the web site. Having the computers caused the activity to go much better than the first time because it allowed for them to edit easily and for them to use the thesaurus to come up with better descriptors for themselves. They then downloaded their homework and the ads onto a disk for Christine.

They also completed the 20 question survey which Christine was bringing to Chinatown this afternoon. Then they can begin to create databases with the information.

Curricular connection: Both activities tied into the Cultural Connections project where the children will be communicating with children in Chinatown. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): The resources this week were laptop computers for each student, , Microsoft Word, and the survey.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Friday

Length of stay: 9:30-10:45

Amount of prep time this week: 1 hour

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), December 05, 1998.

From: Liz Benn Subject: Response to Mini Grant Daily Reports Date: Dec. 8, 1998 Date: Nov. 24, 1998 School: The Manhattan New School Teachers: Eve Mutchnick and Denise Rickles Project: The Central Park Nature Conservancy Today we had a meeting to discuss the letter received from ILT and how to prepare for the response. We talked about activities that have been accomplished to date, and what the teachers would still like to learn before the end of the term. The teachers are most comfortable with doing a Kid Pix Slide Show about "changes" in the seasons for their presentation. We are working towards what fits their time constraints and needs so that they feel some sense of accomplishment from this time. The teachers also discussed making plans to revisit the park and see their tree. Time of stay: 8:50-noon

-- Elizabeth J. Benn (ejbenn@earthlink.net), December 08, 1998.

From: Liz Benn Subject: Response to Mini Grant Daily Reports Date: December 8, 1998 Date : December 2, 1998 School: The New Manhattan School Teachers: Eve Mutchnick and Denise Rickles Project: The Central Park Nature Conservancy Intern: Liz Benn

Today I showed Denise Rickles the multimedia program called Hyperstudio that could be used for our project. It combines graphics and text on a stack of cards. She is interested in learning how to use both for her students even though she may not be able to use it with her group this year. She will be submitting the final letter to Josh with feedback from both teachers about this project!

Time of stay: 8:50-11:30am

-- Elizabeth J. Benn (ejbenn@earthlink.net), December 08, 1998.

Notes by: Chrystalla Mouza Date: Dec. 8 School visited: Manhattan Country school Project: The People who have to America

Curricular Connections: Students used the web to find intormation on the country of the their immigrant interviewee.

Resources used: The web and other CD-Roms.

Activities: Students used the web to record cultural and historical information for the country they were researching. All of us were bored from this activity because this is the third week it is taking place. It takes very long for the kids to read through the sites and find information since they have already found a lot of those information in books anyway. The fact that they use the computers in the lab and not int heri classroom si a major drawback of the project. The computers were not used as a tool among others e.g books, encyclopedias. We kind of forced students to use them and they got tired bacause they haven't been able to find what they have been looking.

This was the last time visiting the school. The teacher said that next week they will be preparing for the Christmas concert.

Chrystalla.

-- Chrystalla Mouza (cpm12@columbia.edu), December 08, 1998.

Daily Report for Dec 9 Visited Benjamin Banneker Academy and Ms. Miller

Curricular goals: to introduce the software package Wep Painter. To assign the students task for Monday - to produce graphics for the web page.

Activities: There were 4 students, and 4 computers. Terrific. We loaded up the program, and I showed them some features. Of course, painting programs are very complex for someone with no experience. Luckily some of them have some experience, but even so we are asking a lot for them to produce graphics in one week especially since they aren't familiar with the program. But the aim is to get a web site up before Christmas, and finish polishing it later. It feels like a crunch at this point, but we'll make it.

We decided that we can scan some graphics, rather than design it all from scratch on the computer. So by next week, we should have a title - either scanned or designed on the computer, as well as a background and perhaps other graphics. When more then one student creates a graphic, we'll vote on it. Each student has been assigned one graphic, but they are free to create others to be voted on.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), December 10, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 12/08/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: For homework last week the students had to make predictions about what the results of the survey would be for a few of the questions. The children were supposed to work in groups and share their hypotheses.

Unfortunately many of the students did not complete the homework. Although Christine tried to have the children who completed the assignment share their predictions, the lesson just was not effective for those who had not done their homework. Those children were going to stay after school to complete it and the lesson would have to be repeated at a later date.

Curricular connection: Both activities tied into the Cultural Connections project where the children will be communicating with children in Chinatown. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): The resources this week were laptop computers for each student, , Microsoft Word, and the survey.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Tuesday

Length of stay: 9:30-10:45

Amount of prep time this week: 1 hour

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), December 17, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 12/11/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: The students worked on the hypothesis lesson about the survey again because it had not been successful last time. The answers were much better and the students were making much more sophisticated predictions based on differences in race, gender, and religion. The students worked together in pairs to make sure that they each had thoroughly answered the questions.

Curricular connection: Both activities tied into the Cultural Connections project where the children will be communicating with children in Chinatown. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): The resources this week were laptop computers for each student, , Microsoft Word, and the survey.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Friday

Length of stay: 9:30-10:45

Amount of prep time this week: 1 hour

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), December 17, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 12/15/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: Today the students began entering the data from the surveys from both the Math and Science School and IS90 into their spreadsheets. Each student is responsible for one of the 25 questions on the survey. He/ she will enter the results from each of the 120 surveys for one particular question. The finished about 2 surveys each today. They will continue this activity during the rest of the week.

Curricular connection: Both activities tied into the Cultural Connections project where the children will be communicating with children in Chinatown. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): The resources this week were laptop computers for each student, , Microsoft Excel, and the surveys.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Tuesday

Length of stay: 9:30-10:45

Amount of prep time this week: 1 hour

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), December 17, 1998.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 12/18/98 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: Today I went with Sharon and Christines classes on their walk around Washington Heights. The classes were divided into four groups each with a different focus: economy, environment, culture, and architecture. The students had to observe the neighborhood near their school for evidence of their particular topic. My group observed the environment and looked at the Harlem River, Hudson River, the George Washington Bridge, and all of the nature and litter in between.

Curricular connection: Both activities tied into the Cultural Connections project where the children will be communicating with children in Chinatown. This exercise will be even more valuable when the children make the same observations when walking around Chinatown. Then they will have a location to compare with their own neighborhood. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): None today although some children brought cameras on the walk.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Friday

Length of stay: 8:00-11:00

Amount of prep time this week: 1 hour

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), December 19, 1998.

Visited Benjamin Banneker Academy on December 21 and 22 from 11 to 12 on both days.

The goal was to polish up the web site and then publish it before Christmas Break. Unfortunately, Ms. Miller was absent both days with the flu. And only two of her 6 students were there.

The two students and I discussed how to improve the site. They worked on their graphics some. At home, I modified all of their pages so they look and work uniformly. There are only three graphics for the site. The site was not published before Christmas.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@hotmail.com), January 06, 1999.

Daily report for January 6, 1999. Visited the debate team at Benjamin Banneker Academy from 11 to 12.

Ms. Miller was back from battling the flu, but only the two boys were there again. The curricular goal was: Decide what still needs to be done to the site. Do it!

I thought it was a very productive meeting. We looked over the site, and discussed how the hot topic page will fit in, and what should be on the home page. Ms. Miller let me know that the background was already choosen. The site still doesn't have much graphics, but none of us are artists or graphic designers, and at least it will load quickly. We'll be able to add to it in the future of course.

We also discussed how we will get the word out once the site is online. We discussed other debate teams she can contact and have visit the site, as well as other students in the school.

The next big task is to learn how to incorporate a forum page to the site. And I need to find out where I can ftp it at ILT. I think that would be much easier for us than using the district's server space, since the director of technology never even returns my emails. Being able to ftp it, and make changes directly would be much easier.

I'm going to ftp it to my personal server space at Columbia temporarily so that we can work out any last minute bugs. Our next meeting will be next Wednesday, and we will hopefully be able to take digital pictures of people for the site.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), January 06, 1999.

Daily Report for Jan 13 and 20. Visited Benjamin Banneker Academy and Ms. Miller both days from 11 to 12.

The curricular goal on the 13 was to go over the web site which is now temporarily posted at http://www.columbia.edu/~nac21/V1.8/home.html Right now it is only content - we are working on beautifying it and fixing problems. They made a list of corrections to make. Up until now, the students have done all of the work, but I feel it would not work to have all of them as web masters. So I'm the one in charge of changing things and ftping them - although for somethings like adding links to the text they'll help out.

At this point I'm more than a little frustrated. I have no experience with creating web sites prior to this experience, and the site is a long way from being pretty. But I'm trusting that developing this site will be a long process. We have the content, now we'll all focus together on the graphics.

The hot topic page, by the way should be up soon too. We'll link it to greenspun.com - just like this report is posted on.

The 20th - we just further discussed the site, and took some pictures. Unfortunately, the software for transfering the pictures from the digital camera to the computer wasn't working - so we'll have to do that next week.

My next visit is next Monday. I'll meet Angela Miller after school so we can discuss everything that needs to be discussed.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@hotmail.com), January 21, 1999.

Woops. The correct temporary URL is: http://www.columbia.edu/~nac21/V1.8/home.htm

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@hotmail.com), January 22, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 2/09/99 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: Today I used a digital camera to take pictures of the items in the cultural box from Chinatown. These pictures will be used by both myself and the students. I will be including the pictures in the projects web site. The students will be using the pictures in their Power Point presentations about the history of Chinatown. While I was there, the students were busy working with partners to conduct research which will be used in their presentations.

Curricular connection: Both activities tied into the Cultural Connections project where the children will be communicating with children in Chinatown. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): A digital camera and laptop computers.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Tuesday

Length of stay: 9:30-11:15

Amount of prep time this week: 1 hour

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), February 09, 1999.

This is a little late. Reports for my visits to Benjamin Banneker Academy on Jan 25, and Feb 3.

On the week of Jan 25, the school was only open to give regents - so classes were not meeting regularly. I went on Monday afternoon from about 3:30 to 5 to meet with Angela and discuss things about the web site. It went well. We both are somewhat frustrated and not happy with the performance of the students. Narrowed down what our current focus should be: to get the remaining couple pages up that are not yet up, and graphics. We decided that having the students write some about the web site - answering specific questions - would get them thinking, and help us go further.

For Feb 3 - I visited the class from 11 to 12. She was having NBC visit on the 4th, so she took some of the students aside to work with them on their presentations. I spoke with a few of them about the site, and the graphics. No real progress.

The newest version is at: www.columbia.edu/~nac21/V2.5/home.html

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), February 10, 1999.

Notes by: Elizabeth Rebull _____ Date: 2/10/99_______________ School Visited: _Northview J.S.H.S._______ Project: Northview Junior High Book Club Teacher: _John Mulhern_and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class: For Mark's class, I helped some students with their word processing skills, mainly how to construct a report. We went over things such as punctuation, capitalizing titles, etc. For John's eighth graders, the students are finishing Of Mice and Men and their lesson on euthenasia. Each of five students had to assume a different position either defending or prosecuting George's killing of Lenny at the end of the book.

Curricular connection: I had the students write a brief (one page) statement justifying their position on the topic. Some actually wrote two complete pages. I assisted them in the general layout of a report. I taught them about making titles stand out, indentation, etc. In general, I provided more grammar support than anything else. Unfortunately, the kids can't spell check because they don't even have MS Word.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) : Books, dictionary, four computers in the lab, Claris, Kid Picks.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) There is currently no internet access, and I am lucky if I can get four of the thirty computers in the lab to work at the same time. I ran into some minor setbacks when some of the kids' disks were not read by the computers.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting: not yet

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Elizabeth M. Rebull (emr37@columbia.edu), February 17, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: _Elizabeth Rebull_______ Date: 2/11/99______________________________ School Visited: _Northview Junior H.S.___________ Project: Language Arts Book Club Teacher: _John Mulhern and Mark Todd_______

Brief Description of what happened in class: The eighth graders finished their personal responses, although I was not able to print anything out on either one of the printers in the lab or the classroom. They also constructed pictures on KidPicks, which they seem to enjoy very much, to go along with their reports. Seventh graders - I only dealt with a couple of kids today. One girl had to finish her paper on MLK, and she did so. Once again, most of my time went to correcting their written grammar.

Curricular connection: I believe the more they write, the greater their writing skills will improve by the end of the semester. I have also noticed how adept they are at navigating through the computer. They know how to do things such as retrieve files and now they can copy, paste, edit, etc. However, they can't insert periods, commas, or capitalize words.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) - Books (dictionary), Claris, Kid Picks.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) : I would like to plan a trip in which I could bring these classes to Playing 2 Win (seperately), where web and technology resources are much more vast, and perhaps get them interested in making a habit out of going there.

Checklist: Kids need new disks.

Student work worth collecting: Because the computers in the lab are not hooked up to the printer, and the one in the classroom was not working (for some reason), I had to collect their disks and print out their work over the winter break. It is somewhat disheartening that they can't see their work or take it home after they do it.

Emails between Makulu and class.

-- Elizabeth Rebull (emr37@columbia.edu), February 17, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 2/12/99 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: The students were presenting their Powerpoint presentations about the Chinatown artifacts today. The students incorporated the pictures which I took of the artifacts using the digital camera into the presentations. They hooked up their laptops to a piece of equipment which projected their presentations onto a television screen so that the entire class could view it.

Curricular connection: The activity tied into the Cultural Connections project where the children will be communicating with children in Chinatown. It also ties into their communications arts curriculum because they were practicing their presentation skills and Christine was providing constructive criticism. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): Laptop computers and a television projection hook-up.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Friday

Length of stay: 9:30-11:00

Amount of prep time this week:

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), February 17, 1999.

Daily report for Feb 11.

The curricular goal was to critique the site, and discuss whether or not we want to put in some frames. The students each looked through and wrote some lists of the good and the bad of the site. At least they were supposed to. The lists never came to much. But we did discuss things, and decided that frames would be nice.

Diana will create some drawings that we'll scan in for the title and contents.

The pictures aren't developed yet, so we havent scanned them in yet.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), February 18, 1999.

Oops - In my last posting I didn't even list what school I went to, or what times. I went to Benjamin Bannaker Academy last Thursday from 11 to 12.

I wanted to post tonight (this morning) twice anyway. Because it is 4:35 am, and the newest version of the site is up! I'm quite excited about it. Hopefully, all the graphics will be replaced by things the students do, because I did the title graphic and the contents graphic.

Anyway, visit the new, GORGEOUS site: http://www.columbia.edu/~nac21/v2.9/home.htm

I did the graphics myself to give them some ideas and motivate them. Finally the background is up - (I had put a capital C instead of a little c!)

Anyway, I'm gonna get some sleep...

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), February 18, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: _Elizabeth Rebull__________________ Date: 2/23/99 School Visited: Northview Tech JHS Project: Language Arts Book Club Teacher: John Mulhelrn and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class: Today, my students finished their reports from an earlier project assigned before the break. Once again, they couldn't see the finished product because the printer misfeeds. Also, we are having problems with the servers. But I actually got six computers to work, and they were all filled during both classes with students eager to write.

Curricular connection: Once again, I am both a computer technology facilitator and English grammar teacher!

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) Claris Works, Student Writing Center, dictionary.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) Next Wednesday, the eighth grade will visit Playing to Win, for one hour during their class. Because they are starting Rome & Juliet, I have already started researching some "Shakespearan" web sites, and found some pretty good ones they can look at when they come in.

Checklist: Still need new disks!

Student work worth collecting:

-- Elizabeth Mary Rebull (emr37@columbia.edu), February 24, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Elizabeth Rebull Date: 2/24/99 School Visited: Northview Teach JHS Project: Language Arts Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd Brief Description of what happened in class: Today was truly productive. Once again, all my computer stations were filled both periods. The kids who needed new disks were happy to get them, instead of having to go through the hassle of sharing disks. The eighth graders got back the essays I had printed out on "Euthenasia" and "Of Mice and Men." The seventh grade finished an essay on their last book (They had to predict where the characters would be ten years from now). Also, I am happy to say I am now able to print their work out the same day from a computer most administrators and teachers use in the lab. When the students are done with their work, they give me their disks and I print it out for them. I then return it to them so they can see the finished product (I think that's important). They then give it to their teachers.

Curricular connection: I am trying to get them into the habit of knowing how to express their thoughts clearly on paper. In some cases, the grammar is so poor I can't understand what the student is trying to say. So I have them repeat back to me the sentence they wrote. This usually works because they catch their own mistakes. Also, some of them formatted a disk for the first time. A few students grudgingly work on the computer, but most enjoy it. Others simply flourish. I am amazed at how some students write several pages on a single topic, eager to come in the next day to finish their work. Also, I try to stay away from overuse of Kid Picks.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) Claris Works, Students Writing Center, dictionary.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor): Working on sites for Mark's class at Playing to Win. They are doing Hamlet.I am counting on this field trip being a success.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting

-- Elizabeth Mary Rebull (emr37@columbia.edu), February 24, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Elizabeth M. Rebull Date: 1/25/99 School Visited: Northview Tech Project: Language Arts Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class: The eighth grade had a lesson on the friendship theme in"Of Mice and Men." They wrote brief essays and poems on what friendship meant to them. Also, seventh graders filled out survey about themselves.

Curricular connection: The kids get very creative on the computer, from the fonts they chose to their writing style. Some spoke about themselves and their best friends, and others wrote poems. Although some of the grammar is so bad that I have a hard time figuring out what they're trying to say, some are able to incorporate spell check (for the computers that have spell check). But in most cases, the major problems are word choice, differentiating between plural and singular, capitalization, and punctuation. If they had a more recent version of MS Word, I think it would be of use to them. At least that way they could see their error(s), view their choices, and make a decision.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.)

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) : Planning on taking students to Playing 2 Win next week. Subsequently, I am working on a lesson plan that will incorporate the internet with their study of Shakespeare.

-- Elizabeth Rebull (emr37@columbia.edu), March 02, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Elizabeth Rebull Date: 3/2/99 School Visited: _Northview Tech Junior High Project: Language Arts Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class: Eighth grade finished their projects on euthenasia and friendship. John wants to collect their work and make a giant mural. Seventh grade was separated into two sections, the boys and the girls, and for each period one group worked in the computer room. Also, John is going to a meeting about Language Arts and computer technology in the curriculum. I gave him a list of about seven things (all problems) to bring up at the meeting (He asked!). The list ranges from five of twenty working computers, to no internet connections, to damaged equipment and outdated software and hardware.

Curricular connection: I've decided that since only the main computer (used by adm'n and faculty) prints, instead of the students giving me their disks and me printing them out, they will each print out their own work. This will at least prepare them for when the printers are finally fixed.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.)

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) : John cancelled his class for the trip tomorrow because he has to take his son to the doctor. But the seventh graders are going next week. I gave both teachers a lesson plan titled "Shakespeare in Cyberspace." It is a small lesson on navigating the web. Of course, the sites they will visit are all Shakespearan. However, according to each classes current lesson plan, the eighth grade will be reviewing Hamlet and the seventh grade will do Romeo and Juliet. I think it will be a nice complement to the novels, and will bring Shakespeare "to life" for them. The reading is difficult enough, that a more humanistic approach seems in order, especially for a class with such a low reading level. The plan is designed to review Q&A about Shakespeare, the respective plays, and also includes small video clips. There's even a trivia question at the end, for which each person will get a prize.

-- Elizabeth Rebull (emr37@columbia.edu), March 02, 1999.

Hi Everyone. Unlike most of you, I am not in a classroom but I will comment on how my work has progressed since our last meeting and where it all fits into the theme of professional development.

As I had mentioned, I am helping Dick Parsons, who spoke with you at the first internship meeting, develop a professional learning community as a way of engendering school reform. The idea is to bring together teachers from the Eiffel Project, expose them to the value of technology in education and to provide them the opportunity to collaboratively develop their skills. The project will involve both a physical and virutal component and take place over 15 months, starting with the recruitment of teachers at the Eiffel Project on April 17th.

A grant proposal has been written to ask for money for the project from the larger Eiffel grant money. In the proposal, Dick and I outlined our vision of how the project would operate, what its goals were and how fostering a professional learning commuity will work towards improving schools. I believed we have designed a project which can foster long term collaborative learning, promote risk-taking and frames teachers as both learning and action-researchers. In addition to the three projects the teachers will develop from the series of workshops, there is a final collaborative research project. The idea here is for the group to choose a theme or topic and for each group member to investigate one aspect in their own professional situation. Once the research has been done, the group will come together and discuss the best way to organize this information and present it. In this way, each member takes initiative, learns to work collaboratively and works towards the professional development of both themselves and the other group members (positive interdepence) **FEEL FREE TO COMMENT ON THE ARCHITECHTURE OF THIS PROJECT**

In the meantime, I am still researching professional learning communities and distance learning strategies. Specifically, I am trying to find literature which addresses mixed learning groups (eg. different disciplines) and the frequency of physical meetings in a project with a virtual component.

My next task on this end is to look into possible incentives for teachers participating in this project and to develop a marketing plan for the conference.

In addition, I have taken the initial assesment tool created for a ILT workshop and developed it to meet the evaluation needs of the entire set of workshops. I thought of ways of determining behavioral change towards and promoting self-reflection amongst the participants. There will be 2 more assessments for the 6 workshops and we hope that the findings will help with our Professional Development project.

That's all for now.

-- Kathy Vaughan (Kibei@yahoo.com), March 03, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Elizabeth Rebull Date: 3/4/99 School Visited: Northview Tech Junior H.S. Project: Language Arts Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern and Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class: Seventh grade finished their surveys; met with teachers and discussed up-coming trip to Playing to Win and how they would like to incorporate a photo-shop lesson into the trip so students can create a Shakespearean mural. Although the district has decided that Shakespeare should not be taught for another couple of months, they are going to continue with it anyhow since they have already started it.

Curricular connection:

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) : Same as usual.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) : Mark wants to have students dress up in Elizabethan costumes as the characters from the play, and then take pics of them for a mural. However, it would be more fun for the kids if they could sharpen their computer knowledge by having pictures of themselves cut and pasted onto different bodies.

Checklist:

-- Elizabeth Rebull (emr37@columbia.edu), March 04, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 2/26/99 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: The students did not work on their surveys today. Instead they worked on a math lesson where they were using an Excel spreadsheet to write numbers as fractions, decimals, and percents. Once they entered the information, the computer was supposed to do the conversion work for them with the format function. The fraction and decimal part worked correctly, but the percentage function wasnt working the way that Christine had hoped. She wanted the students to look for patterns with the resulting percentages, but the patterns for which she was hoping did not emerge. However, the students were able to review the relationship between the three forms of the numbers for their quiz.

Curricular connection: This activity covered many topics in math. They had to understand fractions, decimals, and percents. They also had to be able to problem solve to make sure that they numbers which the computer was generating for them actually made sense. The students with whom I spoke actually did understand the connection. For instance they could explain why a percentage could become more than 100% such as how 1 1/2 would become 150% while 1/4 would only be 25%. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): Laptop computers with Excel.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Friday

Length of stay: 9:30-11:00

Amount of prep time this week:

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), March 09, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 3/02/99 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: The students continued to input surveys answers into their spreadsheets. They had to problem solve in order to determine which information was still missing from the nearly 150 surveys which they need to input. They worked together to pass around the surveys and enter the information.

Curricular connection: This activity ties into the Cultural Connections project and with math. It connects with the project because the students are using data from the IS90 and MAT surveys which they created. The children have to problem solve in order to make sure that they have all of the necessary information in their spreadsheets. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): Laptop computers with Excel.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Tuesday

Length of stay: 9:30-11:00

Amount of prep time this week:

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), March 09, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 3/05/99 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: The students worked on examining one persons spreadsheet with survey information. They checked through it to see what mistakes had been made so that they could be fixed. They realized that errors in data entry would cause the computer to make incorrect calculations once they began to make their pivot tables. Some of the mistakes were misspellings, missing data, missing surveys, and some other problems. They learned how to use the Find/Replace function to fix many of these problems.

Curricular connection: This activity ties into the Cultural Connections project and with math. It connects with the project because the students are using data from the IS90 and MAT surveys which they created. The children have to problem solve in order to make sure that they have all of the necessary information in their spreadsheets. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): Laptop computers with Excel.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Friday

Length of stay: 9:30-11:00

Amount of prep time this week:

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), March 09, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 3/09/99 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: The students worked on pivot tables which they had created from Vivians Excel spreadsheet. Some of the students needed to finish inputting the data from the surveys for their own particular question, but the hard copies of the survey were missing today. Hopefully they will find them and be able to finish entering data and then create pivot tables for their own survey questions.

Curricular connection: This activity ties into the Cultural Connections project and with math. It connects with the project because the students are using data from the IS90 and MAT surveys which they created. The children have to problem solve in order to make sure that they have all of the necessary information in their spreadsheets. They also need to use math when creating and analyzing their pivot tables. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): Laptop computers with Excel.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Tuesday

Length of stay: 9:30-11:00

Amount of prep time this week:

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), March 09, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Elizabeth Rebull Date: 3/9/99 School Visited: Northview Tech Jr. H.S. Project: Language Arts Book Club Teacher: John Mulhern/ Mark Todd

Brief Description of what happened in class: In groups of two, students worked on a new software we tried out for the first time called "Write, Camera, Action!"

Curricular connection: Students truly enjoyed this game. They are given a script to a film that has blanks, in which they have to fill in the appropriate words that determine the set, the characters' moods, and the change of events. This is a great prep to their lesson on Shakespeare because eventually they will be required to act out certain scenes from "Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet." The software gets them accustomed to thinking about things such as set design, costume, character content, mood, and word choice that best expressed the characters' sentiments. Also, when they are done filming all their scenes, they will be responsible for developing a newspaper press release through the same software.

Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.) : "Write, Camera, Action!" I'll also be looking into more creative writing software.

Activities: (planning, using the internet, or word processor) : Tomorrow, the seventh grade will visit Playing 2 Win.

-- Elizabeth Rebull (emr37@columbia.edu), March 09, 1999.

I've been very bad about entering my daily reports the last few weeks. I've been going to the schools regularly, but just not entering reports. It is an easy thing when it is a habit, but I lost my habit...

Anyway, here are the last few times I went to Benjamin Banneker Academy and met with Angela and the Debate Team: Feb 24, March 3, and March 10 Each time I was there when the class meets - from 11 to 12.

A rough overview of what happened on each visit: Feb 24 They saw the new, improved, colorful site and loved it. They had begun to scan the photos in, and I helped on student to do that. The title graphic isn't finished yet, but by next week I expect to come and pick up all the jpgs and the title graphic and be able to put the graphics in the site. There were a few edits they wanted to make on their content pages. I saved an up-to-date version of the site on one of the computers in the classroom. They'll be able to edit it, the next week I'd pick it up and upload it.

March 3 The pictures and the title graphic are ready. One student put all the pictures in the pages. I brought the site home, and polished up the code with Allair Home Site some, and uploaded it. They only work with Claris Home Page 2.0 and the code becomes messy. I had more problems with upper and lower case letters - so I changed everything to lowercase.

March 10 We mainly discussed how the team is doing debating. They have a big debate on March 10. In a way I feel that the web site development hasn't progressed extremely quickly recently, and even though they meet every day for 45 minutes - most of that time is donated to them practicing debating.

I'll visit again March 17 - this time in the afternoon just with Angela. I'm in the process of creating a document of my thoughts about this project so far, so that Angela and I can discuss it. As I wrote a few weeks ago, the goal now is two-fold: to continue to improve the site, and to transfer web master responsiblities to Angela. I'm perplexed by that concept, because I don't know how to describe the little things that I do to the site before I upload it. Like when the photos were scanned in, the student didn't save them as photo.jpg - and I put in all the .jpg And how Claris creates messy code that doesn't run very well on different browsers.

Also, I hope to put the site on Thales, and connect it to a forum on Greenspun today.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), March 15, 1999.

I visited Angela Miller at Benjamin Banneker Academy on Thursday March 18 from 2:30 until 4:30

We discussed basically everything that has been going on, and how we'd like to progress in the upcoming weeks. I created a five page outline of what my thoughts were, and we discussed it and added to it. The things we decided:

Tuesday she'll survey them, and discuss with them what they have learned about computers and HTML. Wednesday I'll come, and we'll discuss what they discussed Tuesday. This way, in case the students don't want to say things in front of me - they'll say them on Tuesday, and at the same time I'll be there Wednesday to discuss it further.

The following week we'll have a few more 'presentation' type days from me. I haven't done much teaching or presenting to the group since last semester - we just seemed to be working on content and the site. Angela and I agree that a presentation reviewing what we've done (using tables, links, etc...) and on Web images, and web files would be helpful.

We also decided that she will download a Dreamweaver trial version onto one of the computers, and experiment with it. I think that Claris Home Page 2.0 is not powerful or good enough to be the only HTML editor they use, so by the time I leave after this year, hopefully she'll be comfortable with Dreamweaver. The plan for her to become webmaster is basically for her to do more and more and I'll try to do less and less.

And we discussed a little more about future changes we want to make to the site: an improved links page, chaning the table of contents graphic (she'll make a new one), editing Makho's page, and including a survey they created on the Hot Topics page.

Here is the outline I brought with me that we discussed (it is a little difficult to follow without the indents):

A look at our web development process. By Neal Carlson March 18, 1999

This paper is a reflection upon the process we've been going through this year. The goals of this paper are to learn about what we could have done differently, and to guide us in the future.

1) What we've done a) We've created, from scratch, a pretty nice and full web site i) It has several pages of content about debating. ii) It has a page of links to sites useful to other debaters. iii) Is has a tournament page with information about tournaments the team participates in. iv) It has pictures and some attractive graphics. v) It has a 'hot topic' page with a current topic people can talk about and debate about. vi) It will have a 'forum' page, and hopefully people will use it to interact with the debate team.

b) This was a learning process for all of us i) For the students: (1) The students have focused on their writing, and began to think of their writing as something that other people can benefit from. (2) The students have focused on debating, and have written about the process of debating (a difficult thing to do). (3) They have learned at least a little about web design. I think the two boys are more interested, and more knowledgeable about the technology, and they have gained the most. The girls aren't as interested in the technology, and we haven't sparked their interest.

ii) For Angela: (1) I can't speak for her, but I'm sure that she has increased her technical skills. (2) She has learned about the entire process of getting a class to produce a web site. iii) For Neal: (1) I've learned a lot about web design and HTML. This really is the first web site I've been involved with creating, and before last September I had no exposure to HTML. (2) I've begun to think of myself as a technology 'expert' - at least to a small degree. (3) I've been gently exposed to some of the differences between a New York City High School and other schools that I am familiar with.

2) Involving the students. a) It hasn't been easy to involve the students as much as possible in the project. b) We had to really push them to produce the content for the site. c) The girls never became very interested in the technological aspects. I think they feel that they don't understand it well, and they might feel 'left out'. d) The boys enjoy the technology more, but they haven't been challenged by it. e) The students haven't been very creative about the site. No one has stepped forward and suggested exciting things to do. Jamaal was interested in implementing some Java script early on, I suggested we wait until the content is finished and the site is up. f) We need to keep them excited in the on-going development process of the site.

3) Technological aspects. a) Currently, the site uses the bare-minimum of technology for a web site - only HTML b) I have been the 'leader' in determining what we would do technologically wise. c) No one has stepped forward with creative ideas that would push the technology, other than Jamaal a few times. We should listen to Jamaal's ideas and implement them now that the content is stable and the site is soon to be published. d) It is difficult for me to convey or transfer my knowledge because I feel like it is an understanding of how computers and programs work, and not a set of information that I could type out and hand to someone. e) Neal is the web master. Since he wont be available next year (although I'd love to keep in touch and help out occasionally), someone will have to take over the job of Webmaster.

f) What a Webmaster does: What I do with the pages that I get at Benjamin Banneker before they are ready to be published on the web: i) I use my home computer, which is much more powerful than the computers in the classroom. This power makes it easier to use, and less likely to be frustrating to use. ii) I use some powerful (and expensive) web development software, and have more software easily accessible to me at Columbia University. This software makes doing the job easier, and much quicker. iii) I make the pages uniform. Each student used slightly different spacing, font sizes (bold vs. not bold) and 'style' to create each page. I want them all to look as uniform as possible. This step is related to the next step where I "polish" the code to make every page look and behave the same. iv) I "polish" the code. (1) Claris Home Page 2.0 creates messy HTML code. (2) Messy code is more likely to look different when viewed on different machines with different browsers. (3) The best example is tables. The tables Home Page creates look different when viewed on different machines with different browsers. I use better web development software (Allaire HomeSite 4.0) to "polish" the code, and make it more likely to look the same on different machines using different browsers. (4) The "polished" code is usually smaller so it loads faster, (5) The "polished" code is easier to edit later on because it is clearer. v) I check the file names and links. (1) Every picture is referred to as a file name; I make sure it is pointing to the right thing. (2) Again, Claris Home Page 2.0 does a poor job of this. (3) Case matters (which Claris doesn't care about), so all the pictures and pages have all lowercase names. (4) I check the links to make sure they point correctly to the other pages. vi) I FTP the site to the web server. This step is fairly easy. vii) Four steps might not seem like a lot, and they are much easier now that I've done them a few times (there isn't as much code that needs polishing as in the beginning). But it takes several hours each time.

g) We need to develop a process to transfer Webmaster duties to Angela (or perhaps Jamaal?) i) ii) iii) h) Other thoughts about the technological aspects?

4) Going public. a) The site will be uploaded to the Thales server at ILT. b) It will be connected to the online forum. c) Is there anything else that needs to be done before we go public with the site? i) ii) iii) d) The process of getting the word around: i) Have the site announced to the school. ii) Speak with other debating teachers. Have their students visit the site. Involve them with the hot topics page and the forum. iii) Publish a little pamphlet about the site to distribute at future debates? iv) Have the URL and a description about the site published in some sort of a debating journal or magazine? v) Have our site linked to in other related web sites? vi) Announce our presence to search engines like Yahoo and Altavista

5) Continual improvement process. a) What else can be improved? i) The link page will be updated, as will the home page (as we discussed March 10). This has not been done yet. ii) The tournament page can be enlarged to include every tournament this school year, along with the results in an understandable form. iii) The links page is a key. This site is small, and we don't have the resources to make it much bigger and therefore more useful. But we can have a comprehensive and organized link page. Quality is more useful than quantity, but we should aim for both, and organize our links so that people can find what they easily. A good links page may get other debaters to keep coming back to our site. iv) The hot topics page is the second key. (1) It is listed last on the table of contents, but the home page doesn't do a good job of "advertising" the hot topic page. (2) Right now the hot topics page is just one article. (3) We'll publish the results of the survey. (4) What else can we do to involve the viewers in this page? v) The forum page is the biggest key. (1) This forum page can make our site a big hit. (2) How can we insure that people will come to the forum, and participate in it? (3) How should we implement the forum? Use Greenspun? Use Delphi? (4) The home page doesn't do a good job of "advertising" the forum page. vi) Anything else?

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), March 19, 1999.

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 3/26/99 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: The hard copies of the survey were never found so part of the survey was done again. Therefore some of the students continued to enter information into their spreadsheets.

Curricular connection: This activity ties into the Cultural Connections project and with math. It connects with the project because the students are using data from the IS90 and MAT surveys which they created. The children have to problem solve in order to make sure that they have all of the necessary information in their spreadsheets. They also need to use math when creating and analyzing their pivot tables. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): Laptop computers with Excel.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Friday

Length of stay: 9:30-11:00

Amount of prep time this week:

DAILY REPORT

Notes by: Susan OKeefe Date: 3/30/99 School Visited: IS90 Project: Mini-grant: Cultural Connections II Teacher: Christine Mulgrave Brief Description of what happened in class: Students were entering the last of the data into their spreadsheets. Most students have also created pivot tables for their part of the survey. The entire class will be working on their data analyses during their vacation which begins on Thursday. I will be eager to see the results when they return.

Curricular connection: This activity ties into the Cultural Connections project and with math. It connects with the project because the students are using data from the IS90 and MAT surveys which they created. The children have to problem solve in order to make sure that they have all of the necessary information in their spreadsheets. They also need to use math when creating and analyzing their pivot tables. Resources used (email, web search, web sites, books, pictures, cds, audio, video.): Laptop computers with Excel.

Checklist:

Student work worth collecting:

------------------------------------------------------------- Day of visit: Tuesday

Length of stay: 9:30-11:00

Amount of prep time this week:

-- Susan O'Keefe (seo7@columbia.edu), March 30, 1999.

Since my first posting, the focus of my internship has changed somewhat but it is still substantive.

For the professional learning community project, our proposal was received by ILT and CCE but the decision was made not to proceed at this time. However, Dick and myself have not given up on this idea. Rather, we are looking to recruit a working group. Initially, we had hoped a series of workshops in the collaboratory, or at Playing2Win would provide participants. Unfortunately, they did not. However, Dick had the opportunity to present a workshop in North Hudson this weekend and got a favorable response to the concept of a working group.

As for may specific contribution in this area, I will take the final results of the assessment tool to determine its effectiveness and make a summation of its data. The primary objective is to determine the threshhold for having a teacher see the potential of technology to enhance teaching and learning and actively try to develop appropriate teaching strategies.

I will also continue to research professional learning communities. I will draft a position paper for Dick as my contribution to this effort.

A new aspect of the internship which has developed is my work with the New Deal Network. I finished preliminary lesson plans and now will try to integrate links and other resources, as well as formulate the lesson within the necessary framework. My initial ideas for a role playing-based situation with students was well received.

Finally, with note to the upcoming Eiffel conference, I am putting together some information to publicize the working groups. I may even try to make the presentation a little hi-tech.

That's all.

-- Kathy Vaughan (Kibei@yahoo.com), April 02, 1999.

I visited Angela Miller and her debate team on March 31 from 11 to 12.

The purpose of the visit was to discuss the survey that they filled out the previous week about what they have learned (and haven't learned) during the process of creating the website. We also wanted to discuss a plan of action for the future.

The meeting went very well. I was impressed by how candid and open they were. It seems that the class is only four students now, the other two are seniors and not very interested in participating for the rest of the year. The remaining group is two girls and two boys. The boys seem to have a pretty good understanding about what we've done - and they are eager to implement some java script in the future. The two girls are confused about what we've done so far.

So, we've decided to break into groups. I will probably be working with the two girls over the next couple weeks, and helping each of them to scan in a photo, and put in on their individual content pages. Angela will work with the two boys, and decide on and begin working on future things for the site. I think this will help all of the students, as well as Angela.

Angela also showed me some graphs and pictures that she put on the police brutality page. It looked quite nice. I forgot to save a copy to my disk before I left, so I'll get it next time (after their spring break).

That is about it.

NAC

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), April 12, 1999.

I visited Angela Miller at Benjamin Banneker Academy on April 14, and April 21 - both days from 11 to 12.

They had a big debate in Albany over the weekend April 16-18, so they weren't focused or worried about the website. We are slowly making changes, and improving things. We are adding images, and posting on the online forum. The website is now up to version 3.6 (a fairly random number, but higher than v2.9 and v.3.5)

The online forum is at www.delphi.com/debateteam/

On April 21, I worked only with Makko, one of the girls, on getting a picture on her page.

-- Neal Carlson (n_a_c@juno.com), April 22, 1999.