Stop Motion Science

8Science students collaborated in the creation of a LEGO Stop Motion Video to demonstrate their understanding of substances and different types of Elements. They created a story line that included MONATOMIC ELEMENTS, DIATOMIC COMPOUND and TRIATOMIC COMPOUNDS!

New Blakers!

Welcome Dash and Dot! AfterSchool Coding Club members are test-driving the new robots which will soon be integrated into the Science curriculum.

Digital Learning Day 6th Discussion Panel

Medfield School District held its 3rd annual Digital Learning Day Conference filled with over 60 workshops for K-12 teachers in district and from schools out-of-district. Wellesley 6th Grade teachers joined Blake's 6th teachers and students for a discussion on their initial year of having 1:1 iPads in the classroom.

A Shout Out to Medfield HS/MS Student Volunteers

Our Digital Learning Day Conference wouldn't have been possible without the support of our wonderful Medfield HS Students and Blake MS students. This photo was taken at the beginning of the day, during a briefing with Neal Sonnenbergy (HS Tech Integration Specialist)

Look out for these future App Developers

This group of Blake MS girls are entered into the Global Competition, Technovation to design a mobile app that solves a community/social issue. Wish them Luck! The final pitch is on May 1st @ Microsoft NERD Center!

Took the Show on the Road

Blake MS Principal Nat Vaughn and 8Science Teacher Jason Heim presented about the Blake iPad Initiative at the LearnLaunch Conference, Harvard Business School.

Green Screen App Smashing

At our final EdTechTeacher Workshop, 6th/7th Grade Teachers explored their creative side by layering green screen videos over images for engaging instructional videos. It was total fun!

Convert Smells to Energy = Smellergy!

Nicolina is changing the world one nose at a time! Her entry was clearly on track with dreaming, designing, and delivering an energy-saving idea into the Blake Energy Invention Contest!

Sometimes the Ideas start here

Planning and drawing out a story board before the creation of an Explain Everything project is an essential step in the process!

2.13.2014

Thinglinking on Grammar Mondays

No More Grammar Monday blues in Mr. Hellerstein's 8th Grade English! 

Nope, not anymore! See Mr. Hellerstein (@setheli) is reinventing how students can demonstrate grammar via ThingLink!   All this means is they can make richer images that come to life with music, audio, video, text, images and more. Essentially, the image becomes a story others can explore!

ThingLink is a both available online through the website and as a free IOS app. (note: the app is more limited than the website version)  First, you'll need an image to upload to Thinglink. Then here comes the interactive part... you simply create hotspots or in ThingLink terms, nubbins that link to text, video, websites, images, etc. for more information.

ThingLink Examples: hover & touch the interactive circles.


Now insert Mr. Hellerstein.... he thought that ThingLink could enhance his students' learning about the somewhat dry topic of grammar! Initially, his class is starting off slow..and eventually, down the road will evolve this idea to include more student-created, interactive media.

Here's how it work:

Students worked in pairs or threes to write a sentence based on the book, The Crucible that had to include as many parts of speech from Mr. Hellerstein's list plus other vocabulary and literary terms. After that step was completed,  they  began marking up their sentences to identify each and discussed  with the class before moving onto ThingLink.


Next, each student then snapped an image of their sentence with their iPad to upload to ThingLink via the app. For this first time, students were asked to tap the image where they wanted to add a hotspot & type in text to further explain the targeted words.






When finished, students turned in their assignment by copying the url address to their ThinkLink and then filling in the google form with their name, period, and pasting the link in the form (found on Mr. Hellerstein's website).




And the final results....





Again, as a first step in learning the process, students' Thinglinks involved adding labels with text.  Thinking forward... students could create Explain Everything screencasts or add images with audio of characters, link to mindmaps of concepts or terms, etc. Stay tuned for follow up posts as his students' work evolves.

New Update to Thinglink for Teachers:

2.02.2014

Remember this.