What We're All About

CU Students have teamed together this year to learn through exploration how to manipulate many different instructional technologies. In time we hope to branch out and share our knowledge with other educators and peers.
We'd like to serve as a resource to our fellow future educators and professors of Education who would like to put that SmartBoard to use in their classroom, or learn how to use podcasts in the classroom as tools for parent involvement or student assessments. The possibilities are endless!
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Your local Clemson Geek Squad

1.29.2008

Club 2:45 Spring 08

This is where we will document our time spent at Code Elementary working in their after school program. We will keep you up to date on all of our latest adventures as we go through the spring semester.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Monday, January 29, 2008

I arrived at Code just in time to help with homework. After signing in, I went in the gym to help out with homework, but most of the students had already finished. This gave me a chance to get to know some of the students and answer questions such as do you know James Davis, and CJ Spiller? After homework, the students moved to a classroom to work on telling a story from a picture. Paintings were presented on a projector screen and the students used Word to make up a story about the painting. During the third section of the afterschool program, a group of students work in the media center using Magic GarageBand to make songs. The songs come premaid so all the students have to do is tweak the instruments being used until they create a combination that they like.

Anonymous said...

Monday, January 29, 2008

Today was the first day back at code for a new semester and I was very excited! I arrived towards the end of homework session, so the students were pretty much done. I sat down with one of the students and we talked about his homework and he explained to me what he had been doing. I was very impressed with not only his interest in his math homework, but also his ability to explain the process to me.
After we finished here we went to the computer lab with third grade. In this class the teacher provided the students with a picture and as a class they created a story with a beginning middle and end. Then she put up a new picture and the students had to type their own story which will later be made into a book. Here's the story I wrote:
One Saturday afternoon Mrs. Wilson was playing her favorite song on the piano for her husband. As her fingers began moving gracefully across the keys Mr. Wilson moved into a beautiful day dream. You see, Mr. Wilson has always wanted to be an opera singer ever since he was a little boy and now his wife's music has once again inspired him to move towards his goal. As he is sitting on the old, little couch in his dusty, cramped apartment, he comes up with a plan. Mr. Wilson has decided that he is going to audition for the Phantom of the Opera at the end of the month. He is going to practice and practice, and with the help of his wife hopefully he will be ready for the biggest step in his life, the big audition. All the sudden Mr. Wilson realizes that his wife's song is coming to an end along with his beautiful daydream. Will he ever become the famous man he has always longed to be?
I really enjoyed this lesson and the students did too(well most of them)!
Then we moved to the media center with fifth grade. I was very surprised to see all the students sitting with Mac Books! Anna was teaching a lesson on how to use garage band. The students got to pick a genre and the instruments they wanted to be present within their music! They had a blast and I really enjoyed seeing them get involved in the program and enjoying it. I had a good experience today and I learned a lot. I can't wait to see what's in store for next week!

Taylor Davis said...

I went to Code at 3:00 on Friday February 8 and when I arrived the third, fourth, and fifth graders were working on a Valentine craft. I spent about fifteen minutes talking to Ms. Baldwin about the lesson I am planning for Friday, February 22. I am going to dissect owl pellets with two groups of fourth graders, show them how to use the digital camera to take pictures of what they found and also we are going to be using the new microscopes. I am really excited about this lesson because it was one of my favorite activities in my Elementary science class at Clemson. After talking with Ms. Baldwin I worked with the 3rd graders watching a video about responsibilty and then working with him on making a resume. They had to put their skills, why they wanted the job (which was a snack helper) and why they think they are qualified for it. They really enjoyed this and really responded to the character education videos. I am looking forward to working with the 4th graders next week and I will definitely report back, hopefully with pictures!

Anonymous said...

Monday, February 18

Club 245 was quite exciting yesterday because it was the first day of our lesson! Our activity is going to take place over the next visit or too as well! It was a great experience and really fun getting to work with the students and being able to teach them how to use something new.
Tony and I chose to have the students make imovies. Yesterday we met with third grade and fifth grade and taught them how to use the program inspiration, then next week they will make their film or take their pictures and then finally we will put it all together in iMovie.
Third grade is going to use the regular camera's to take pictures of things in nature and then use those to create a movie on a topic of their choice. Some ideas we gave them were living and nonliving things found in nature or the different characteristics found in nature. Then fifth grade is actually going to use the camera and make a short film about a habitat and the characteristics it has.
Yesterday we introduced ourselves and go to know the students a little bit. Then we showed each group a video that pertained to their topic to help give them some ideas. After that we taught them how to use the program inspiration so that they could create a brainstorming web for their movie. This way next time we meet they will be ready to start filming. I was amazed at how fast the picked up on using the program. Once you showed them how to do it they were off and on their own. I really enjoyed working with them yesterday and I can't wait to see how their movies turn out!

Anonymous said...

This past Monday at Club 2:45 we taught our first lesson. Me and Jennifer decided to make imovies with the students about what they were learning. The third grade is working on nature and the fifth grade is working on habitats. We wanted the students to brainstorm first using Inspiration, but before that we showed them videos so that they could start generating ideas. After the video, we showed the students how to use Inspiration and then we let them start their brainstorming. The third grade is going to take pictures, while the fifth grade is going to use video cameras to make skits about habitats. We gave the students ideas about pictures they could take and skits they could make. The lesson flowed well and the students were excited about doing it. I look foward to seeing some of their ideas come to life.

Sarah Perry said...

Kaitie and I had our second lesson at Club 245 yesterday, February 27. We continued our lesson on Photoshop Elements. We showed the fourth grade students how to change the color of their clothes in the picture, how to put their picture into the space scene they had saved in the last class, and how to flatten the image. The kids thought it was really cool to change the colors and even cooler to go into space! One of the boys thanked us for "letting me put my head on the moon." Another one of the boys exclaimed, "Wow! I'm in space!" Overall, they really enjoyed working with the different features of Photoshop Elements. We took pictures, so hopefully we can get those posted soon! We had planned to use PhotoStory to create a story about astronomy, but the Photoshop project took up both weeks. We hope to use it for another lesson later in the semester.

Taylor Davis said...

I finally figured out how to post on the blog, so I have lots to say!

In February, I did an owl pellet lesson with the fourth graders at Code using the computer microscopes! It went really well..the students loved the owl pellets (surprisingly) and really enjoyed the microscopes. They were able to make videos, take pictures and add writing to everything they looked at under the microscope. They also found out which animal the bones they had belonged to. I will be adding pictures shortly! The next week we did a follow-up lesson with the microscopes. I took the students outside and they picked up three items 1. leaf 2. rock 3. soil and a fourth surprise item! They then looked at their items under the microscope and made a video with a partner. It was much better the second week because the students were comfortable using the computer microscope and even found new things to do on their own!