Did you notice that the Alphabet Adventure Web site has two main areas: the Alphabet books and the class Web pages ?

The book pages are where your students will post their images and sounds files. And the class Web page is a reflection AND tool communication which you use to communicate with peers and with parents.

These areas may have different purposes, but you essentially create them in the same way, technically speaking. So now is the time to look into how you will be creating your book pages and your web pages.

PLEASE NOTE: I can’t make a URL link here directly to a page in the private teacher area of the site because you always need to login. So your starting point will always be the public teacher area where you enter your user name and password. Sorry ‘bout that.

Once logged in, go to the “Project Resources” and then into the “Instructions” folder. There are two documents under the heading “Publishing on the site”. Print them!

Your first task: Create a mascot for your Class Web Page

As part of the process of making your students aware that they are part of a GROUP that is contributing to an on-line book, discuss with them the idea of having their very own mascot, logo or visual identifier.

The children easily recognise logos such as MacDonald’s, Wendy’s or the Montreal Canadians (or any sports team they love for that matter!) They understand that these stand for something, that they carry meaning (pre-reading and pre-writing). You could suggest that they come up with a way to identify their class so that, when they or their parents go to the list of class web pages, the picture will stand for them and they will be able to recognise it.

This could be a drawing, a picture of the class mascot, or any other digital representation. The important thing is to make it part of the class discovery process.

You post this digital image through the side menu “Class Web page” (see instructions you just printed). It’s as simple as browsing to locate a file on your computer and then clicking on a “Submit Modifications” button.

This step is not technologically difficult and will help you become familiar with the project interface.

If you need instructions for creating the mascot picture, for example, putting an image on your computer from your digital camera, resizing an image, scanning and saving, using image creation software, email me and I will post the instructions for all to see.

Question: how do you think you will use the class Web page in your project process?
Christiane Dufour

As a first step, I would like to point you to some resources that you can use in your class to implement the Two-Minute Mystery writing project.

To access all these resources, you need to log into the teachers area with your user name and password.
http://www.qesnrecit.qc.ca/ccdb/2mmclub/teachers.php

In the left menu, click on “Project Resources” and go into Materials and Ideas. There are tools for your students and stuff for you.

For your students:

• The ingredients of a mystery story
  While reading mystery stories, questions to ask to uncover the specific ingredients that make a mystery
• Writing Planner
  Graphic organisers for planning

There are also some writing resources your students can access themselves in the student public area. So please, do give them the URL of the site so they can use it on their own.

For you

• Teaching and Planning Mystery Writing
  Mini lessons to help students discover the genre
• Writing Mysteries across the curriculum
  Ideas for writing mysteries to work in curriculum areas other than language arts.

Question:
What are the tools and strategies you use with your students to help them uncover the genre. Click on the “Comments” link to reply to this question and share with your colleagues. If you have a document you’d like to share, just send it to me by regular email.

Christiane Dufour

To get started, you should log into the AAG web site using your user name and password. This will get you into the Private Teacher Area. There is a wealth of information and resources there, but right now start by going into the “Instructions” folder to get the document “Where to begin” It’s a check list.

It starts by suggesting you get together your book collection. There are incredibly beautiful books available. In the project resources, look at “Shared resources … ideas and books”. These are suggestions made by past teachers.

In this project, your students will draw a picture, write a word or a sentence on their picture and record their voice.

Using the comment box, could you please answer these two questions so we can share our strategies.

Question 1: How you do you plan to proceed with the drawing and the writing?

• Use software to create a digital image, and write directly on that image
• Draw and write on paper, then scan or take a digital photo
• Create a collage, a construction, collect objects then photograph them.

Question 2: What recording software do you plan to use (Mac or PC). (If you need help to decide, contact me)

OK! Here we go.

Christiane Dufour

I spoke to the October 5 group about my own learning adventures. I have become part of Webcast Academy. Aside from the fact that I love learning new things and I am intrigued by what technology can help us with, I feel that I have to model what I am asking others to do – to put myself out of my comfort zone. It has been a steep and fast learning curve for me. But most importantly – I have become part of an incredible group of educators who are learning along with me. We support each other in many ways and I can honestly say, that despite the fact that we have not met face-to-face (though we have seen each other through video on the Internet) some have already become my friends. I am going to be streaming live (like a radio show on the Internet) on Wednesday, October 17 at 8:30 pm at Webcast Academy with two of the “interns” I met through this experience. Our show, Teacher Talk, is about all aspects of communication in schools. If you decide to listen, go to the site and then click on Listen. This will open a window

We will be streaming in Sandbox A or B (we’re still playing in the sandbox). You simply click on the speaker to listen through iTunes, the blue icon to listen through RealPlayer or the third icon to listen through Windows Media Player. You can also join the chat room by typing an ID (any name will do!) into the space beside username. Beside Room scroll to Webcast Academy. Or – even scarier to me, you can watch our experiment with video at Teacher Talk Studio.

The show will focus on communicating about math. We’ll be interviewing the founder of Mathplayground and we will talk about some other math ideas both on the internet and in books. If you listen, let me know.

It is really scary for me to share this with you and I know for some of you being part of this LEARN-CEFRIO project is a challenge and a bit scary. So be assured that I understand how you feel. I hope you will find in this project the support you need for your journey as well as the excitement of the journey. It takes work, but the thrill of success makes it all worth it.

Susan

PS – Learn about the K12 Online Conference from my blog

If you want to learn about technology integration – go to the K12 online conference
This is an asynchronous (you don’t have to go at a particular time) online conference. It would be great to use this space to discuss some of the sessions. The conference “begins with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 8, 2007. The following two weeks, October 15-19 and October 22-26, forty presentations will be posted online to the conference blog (this website) for participants to download and view. ” There are also some live sessions which use some of the collaborative tools available for education. It is well worth taking some time to participate.

Susan

You will find instructions and discussion questions for the project “Alphabet Adventure Gallery” under the category “Alphabet Adventure Gallery”…. where else! By posting ideas, instructions and discussions here, anyone coming into the project can view the entries and participate when they are ready. Remember newer posts are on top! Each entry gives you the possibility to respond or question by posting in the comment area. When you feel ready to become an active blogger in your own right and to initiate posts and discussions, please let us know and we’ll set you up.