Skills Cafe Newsletter 11-01-10

      Skills Cafe

     A week at a time - November 2010    TAKE this Survey please.

Welcome! Congratulations to our sports teams! Football! F. Links BridgeURL.com This link will take you to all the links we have used. http://bridgeurl.com/Skills-Cafe-2010-2011-1 G. Did You Know? You need to keep track of your community service. Get a form and get started. We can help! H.  What is in your IEP? What is in your accommodations list? Be an advocate for yourself.  I. WatchME Video Contest check the bulletin board

November 1, 2010                                                                    A. Week 10- What's Ahead?- Your Webpage for your Toolkit! Glogster! do you need to make a poster? See Mrs. Oakes for a username and PW. Try BridgeURL to have one link to go to your favorites! Did you take the survey? GOOGLE CALENDAR- add new deadlines! Are you all caught up? Do you have all your Trimester 2 classes chosen? C.  The Weeks in Review What belongs in your Toolkit? As a student you need to have tools in your toolkit which will make your life easier. The google domain has a calendar, a document , a presentation, a website tool, gmail, Quizlet and a way to record audio! Sciencewriter.cast.org, Literary Companion, Sparknotes, Animoto, what else? Snapgrades? Make your own document of all the links. See directions in Moodle. D. Books on Audio, mp3, itouch, shuffle, CD Have you thought about listening to your books? We have Night, Mango Street and many more. But even more if you have a library card from Wells Public Library, you qualify for a Portland Library Card, and you also can qualify and download your own audio books.  See Ms. Cowan, Ms. Jortberg and Ms. Oakes to get other books on AUDIO. E. Do you have a learning tip to share? You can share your ideas here with your classmates. One of your Animotos, a poem, a story, ideas, your own photos or movies! Nothing to Do? Here is the $20.00 Challenge You can write an essay for NPR public radio student essay. If your essay is published, I will give you a $20.00 itunes gift certificate. You can have help with your essay. Here are the essay rules.  http://thisibelieve.org/guidelines/

I am a reader!

Introduction:
Melanie Holtsman posted this challenge at her blog as a way to find/have purpose for blogging. I liked her idea. I blog for TechLearning.com  two times a month, I blog for TeachHub one time a month, I blog for myself, hm, well, uh.... when the spirit moves me. So, thanks to Melanie, I will blog for myself, using her topic prompts for the next 11 weeks. If you are reading this and have been waiting for the right moment to begin blogging, I mean posting to your blog, not just reading blogs, this may be the moment you have been waiting for. Try it. Be sure to email Melanie and she will link back to your blog. You will see the power of your new personal learning network! Here goes!
 The Topic for this week's challenge:
 What is your life as a reader like? Do you read for work, pleasure, instructions or emails? What is your favorite author and/or genre? What is your favorite reading spot? What did you like to read when you were the age of your students?
As a high school student,  in Suffield, CT, I read just about every young adult book I could find in my public library, and when our new high school was built with a beautiful library I read poetry and fiction/fantasy. My favorite poet was Rod McKuen, author was Tolkien, The Hobbit, and newspapers, magazines for current events.
My favorite reading spot had to be my bedroom. My favorite author wrote stories about Maine and I devoured them all. I may actually remember her name, sometime.
Currently, I read hundreds of emails a day, at least a dozen blogs, pages of Facebook and Twitter. You will notice I do not read books for pleasure. However, I listen to hours of books! My most recent is the Girl with the  Dragon Tatoo series. I loved listening to that series so much that I finally bought a book to read during winter. My question to you readers, is listening to audio books reading? I say a huge yes! What do you say?

Skills Cafe 2010-10-4

      Skills Cafe

     A week at a time - OCTOBER 2010 

Welcome! NO SCHOOL FRIDAY FOR STUDENTS! 10/8/10 F. Links moodle.wocsd.org k12wocsd.net www.animoto.com http://www.snapgrades.com udltoolkit.wikispaces.com http://nlvm.usu.edu/ Sciencewriter.cast.org www.quizlet.com learningcafe-doortothefuture.blogspot.com G. Did You Know? You need to keep track of your community service. Get a form and get started. We can help! H.  Fire Drill PSAT next 10/13 for Sophomores and Juniors. Seniors work on College Stuff. Freshman a regular day.  I. Practice your Reading Get signed up for Literary Companion see your case manager. Use your k12wocsd.net user name, you will be given a password.

October 4, 2010                                                                    A. Week 6- What's Ahead?-Support for Reading This week if you have support for reading and English you will be registered for Literary Companion and work on some of your reading. You will also go to SparkNotes and bookmark the site. B. Go from Zero to Hero on your Quizzes A new tool  introduced 2 weeks ago was Quizlet!  This week take charge of new vocabulary with online FLASHCARDS! Please share your Quizlet with me and I will link it on Facebook. http://www.quizlet.com C.  The Weeks in Review What belongs in your Toolkit? As a student you need to have tools in your toolkit which will make your life easier. The google domain has a calendar, a document , a presentation, a website tool, gmail, Quizlet and a way to record audio! Sciencewriter.cast.org, Literary Companion, Sparknotes, Animoto, what else?  Congratulations you have been busy! D. Books on Audio, mp3, itouch, shuffle, CD Have you thought about listening to your books? We have Catcher in the Rye, Farewell to Manazar and many more. But even more if you have a library card from Wells Public Library, you qualify for a Portland Library Card, and you also can qualify and download your own audio books.  See Ms. Cowan, Ms. Jortberg and Ms. Oakes to get other books on AUDIO. E. Do you have a learning tip to share? You can share your ideas here with your classmates. One of your Animotos, a poem, a story, ideas, your own photos or movies! Nothing to Do? Here is the $20.00 Challenge You can write an essay for NPR public radio student essay. If your essay is published, I will give you a $20.00 itunes gift certificate. You can have help with your essay. Here are the essay rules.  http://thisibelieve.org/guidelines/

I did it!

cross-posted from Cheryl Oakes

I made a challenge for myself when I changed positions and moved to the Wells High School Resource Room, that I would hit the google search within the year. I was going to check each month to see when it happened. Today, October 1, 2010, when I googled wells high school resource room this is what came up in .38 seconds! I made it in one month.
Also, in one month, we have 183 visits from all over the world. Thanks to all the readers!

Listen to the message!

SKills Cafe 2010-09-27

      Skills Cafe

     A week at a time - SEPTEMBER 2010 

Welcome!  "Thanks!" to all who have joined in and worked with the changes in Skills Cafe, Support Study, Room 215. F. Links moodle.wocsd.org k12wocsd.net www.animoto.com http://www.snapgrades.com udltoolkit.wikispaces.com http://nlvm.usu.edu/ Sciencewriter.cast.org www.quizlet.com learningcafe-doortothefuture.blogspot.com G. Did You Know?=0 H.  Fire Drill Where do we meet? At the field house Ticket Booth! Go out the building Stairwell #3, around the back of the school past the cafeteria. All meet quietly at the ticket booth.  I. Practice your Reading Get signed up for Literary Companion see your case manager.

September 27, 2010                                                                    A. Week 5- What's Ahead?-Graphic Organizers Graphic Organizers aren't just for writing anymore! I am sure all of you would admit to using graphic organizers when you write. This week will review Graphic Organizers as a way to visually organize your reading.  1. Graphic Organizer 2. Write the main idea from each block in the newsletter 3. Share the main idea with a peer B. Go from Zero to Hero on your Quizzes A new tool  introduced last week was Quizlet! As I looked at Snapgrades many of you did not do well in your Vocabulary Quizzes. This week we will take charge of new vocabulary with online FLASHCARDS! Please share your Quizlet with me and I will link it on Facebook. http://www.quizlet.com C.  The Weeks in Review What belongs in your Toolkit? As a student you need to have tools in your toolkit which will make your life easier. The google domain has a calendar, a document , a presentation, a website tool, gmail, Quizlet and a way to record audio! Sciencewriter.cast.org, this week helped many of you write up your science labs.You created an Animoto at animoto.com, where else can you use that tool? Congratulations you have been busy! D. Books on Audio, mp3, itouch, shuffle, CD Have you thought about listening to your books? We have Catcher in the Rye, Farewell to Manazar and many more. But even more if you have a library card from Wells Public Library, you qualify for a Portland Library Card, and you also can qualify and download your own audio books. See Mrs. Oakes about how you can do this. See Ms. Cowan and Ms. Jortberg to get other books on AUDIO. E. Do you have a learning tip to share? You can share your ideas here with your classmates. One of your Animotos, a poem, a story, ideas, your own photos or movies! Nothing to Do? Here is the $20.00 Challenge You can write an essay for NPR public radio student essay. If your essay is published, I will give you a $20.00 itunes gift certificate. You can have help with your essay. Here are the essay rules.  http://thisibelieve.org/guidelines/ Use the graphic organizer below and find one fact in each section! A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I

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You can run, but you can’t hide!

You can run, but you can’t hide!

 Permanent link

  

http://www.flickr.com/photos/burwash_calligrapher/4245260593/

Back to school this fall season meant back in the classroom for me. Ever since I went to the MLTI Student Conference last May2010, I was yearning for life as a classroom teacher again. Be careful what you wish for, my wish came true. There was an opening at our local high school and here I am. High school resource room teacher/facilitator!

You will be hearing lots of stories this year about high school, special education, universal design for learning, assistive technology and our google domain.

We decided to begin with making some changes in our support study. We now have a Skills Cafe. This is organic, flexible and as one of my peers says  crunchy. Ask the students what they think, they have a few more descriptors like this is not what I want to do, why do I have to do this, this is dumb, and many  more. Anything to get out of being organized and collaborative. However, we have a plan and we are sticking to it. I should mention that some students thought it was cool, especially since they can add things to the calendar like football games, field hockey, drama, and marching band. I will be busy trying to attend something for each student!

  Our first step was to get all students into the google domain, with a shared calendar, shared folder for their assignments and a place to check their email. We accomplished this in a two week span.  At the end of the second week, I left messages in all their email accounts with a good job email and if necessary a reminder to complete missing assignments. I can peek at their grades and see what is missing, send them an email reminder, talk with their teachers and all this from one stop at my computer.

This is going to be a year long journey. We will have some challenges, some celebrations and some student success stories. If you have something to share along these lines leave a comment, let’s build this together and share with others.

Resources:
My new blog Learning Cafe a door to the future http://learningcafe-doortothefuture.blogspot.com/

Our twitter:  Door2Future

Our moodle page:   http://moodle.wocsd.org/course/view.php?id=199

Our Twitter Feed goes right to the blog and to our Facebook page.