I will be at a conference today.  While you fill out your Database Information Hunt remember these little hints, and put your name on top of your paper:

1. Results and Pages are different. Results is how many hits you have, and pages is how many pages there are. See if you can find that out yourselves.

2. When you leave Student Research Center and go into Biography, I ask you a question that might have no results. That's okay!

3. As Mrs. Tuttle may have already said, ignore the last question. Ebsco updated the database after I made this hunt. Sorry about that!

4. I want you to practice saving articles into folders, pictures int folders, making notes, looking at citations. CHOOSE A TOPIC OR PERSON THAT INTERESTS YOU and save some information on them. I'll look at it next week.

5. Be Good.

I appreciate a laugh and have a good sense of humor. I am willing to post videos - and remember, I have to watch them all before I post them - and some of you are trying to post totally inappropriate stuff.

My time is valuable and so I put forth two criteria for posting videos.

One is that they are less than two minutes. The second is that you have prescreened them before posting and so if they contain material that is sexual or words not used in polite company. I am going to protect you from making yourself look, well, just plain wrong.

Before we can write a story that someone will listen to, we need to  hear good examples of storytelling.

On the Related Links table on the left side, bottom, you will see links to StoryCorps and This I Believe.

Please listen to whatever stories appeal to you. Next week we will talk about how to craft an essay.

Attention Sixth Graders! The address for email is mail.jamestownstudents.org. Your last name, dot (.) first name@jamestownstudents.org and then your password (see me). So for example:

johnson.carla@jamestownstudents.org       then put your very numbered password in.

Please click on this link for an article in TweenTribune. That is the essential question asked at the end of this article. Do you think a bench would work for us? What would?

This is my catcvcl.mit.edu/hybrid/cat2.jpg

From the time of the first Thanksgiving, when the Pilgrims were grateful for a bountiful harvest, to the present, we Americans should be grateful for so many ordinary blessings that we take for granted. Hurricane Sandy has left many without the simplest, and most important things: Fresh water, electricity, food, a home. How often do we take these things for granted? How often do we spend our time and energy wishing for things we really don't need, and forget how much we already have?

I would like you to think seriously about what you are thankful for, and reflect and write about it. I want a paragraph, not just a bulleted list. Why are you thankful is just as important to include as what you are thankful for.

For myself, one thing  I am grateful to be working as a school librarian with you here in Jamestown. Why? Because I love helping you  discover a world of books and technology and information. I enjoy it just as much when you help me discover books and new information .These things enrich my life and I hope they do yours. I love being around your excitement and enthusiasm and intelligence. I am grateful to teach children who are kind and thoughtful.  I can't imagine a better place to work. And I am thankful for all of it.

 Vokis, Cyber Pets, You Tube, Xtranormal....any animation or film needs to be embedded into your blog Text box. If you forget the steps, use this cartoon as a reminder. Keep it minimized, pause it when you need to, and let me know if this was helpful. Please continue to read this article, it continues below the cartoon.

How to Embed in your Blog

by: LisaCasey67

Can you post two or more animations? Sure you can. Just tap the enter key to give yourself some room (or make me happy and write something!) and then paste the next embed code into your article.

P.S. Once you have the animations in your article, you can open it and change the color or size in graphical. Hooray!!

Okay. Use this time to create a voki or pet at bunnyherolabs or find a video that tells you how to do something, like make an origami yoda, tie a tie correctly, cook a dish, skateboarding tricks. Something useful, something you are interested in, nothing inappropriate. We can share your work next week.

Hey guys, Remember I told you we would be blogging with students from New Zealand? They will be brand new bloggers and looking at your pages. We have already received a response from their teacher, Lorraine. It was posted to my comments, but I share it here with you:

Hi There (From the land of the long white cloud, New Zealand) I'm looking forward to visiting you with my students at the end of September. Sadly I don't have a fulltime class to visit with you more regularly. I do work with lots of classes and I will be encouraging them to drop by too. In the meantime here are my 7 random facts.

1. Our oldest cat is 21 years old and doing well!

2. NZ's native frogs don't "do" the tadpole stage. Unique, they hatch as almost fully-formed frogs.

3. Even brown pond fish are called goldfish!

4. I have never played 7 random facts before

5. I can't wait for summer.

6. New Zealand is known as the Land of the Long White Cloud and these days I know why!

7. I enjoy painting with acrylics Who is next?

Comment Posted on September 8, 2012 at 11:18 PM by Lorraine You can comment back by clicking on New Zealand or Lorraine's  name.

This just in:  Mr. Gonzalez's class is doing their 7 random facts. See the Related Links box on the left. Get going!!

We have new students from New Zealand, your age, who have never blogged before and will be visiting us in late September. In order to start a "conversation" with them, and other bloggers you will be meeting around the states and around the world, we will start, as always with 7 Random Facts that the students can comment on. I will start, then you will go to your page and list your random facts. You can look at the 7th grade blogs for inspiration. It will be their first article.

7 Random Facts:

1. I went to Paris and London this summer (two weeks before the Olympics, watched London getting ready for the world's visit).

2. I just made my first "from scratch" (that means I did all the ingredients - not from a box!) chocolate pudding - and it was good!!!

3. I really need glasses!

4. My famous cat Merl is getting fed by the whole neighborhood, and the fisherman next door is giving him scraps from his catch.

5.  I love old movies and silent movies.

6. I went to Rhythm and Roots and saw Hugh Laurie, who plays Dr. House, play the piano with a New Orleans backup band - and they were totally smoking (David Bromberg too - rocked the house or should I say, the field?)

7. Autumn is my favorite season.

Your turn.

Welcome New 6th graders and welcome back to the new 7th. I haven't made separate blogs for you but that's coming in the near future.

FOR 6th - we will examine the blog and choose new blogger identities for you.

For 7th - Check this out: pinterest.com/cumberlandpl/rhode-island-teen-book-award-nominees-2013/

Some of you may know pinterest, an online bulletin board where you can pin images, and videos. Tech coordinator Sarah Ludwig uses her account to give tutorials on keyboard shortcuts, how to use Glogster (in case you've forgotten) and book trailers. Yours truly used the Lawn Library Lounge but please tell me if you like this better:

ow.ly/bGHeq

and how you think you and I can use Pinterest. I'd use it if you would visit it, and more importantly, can you see a use for it educationally? Please think about how you can use this tool and put it on your blog so I can read it.

7th Graders: I am showing you the complete list of RITBA books but some of them are for upper high school and I don't recommend your ordering them. Wait...you will be there soon enough. Don't rush. Plenty of great reads waiting for you out there.

Welcome Back.

Image courtesy of West Vancouver School District/Ecole Secondaire/Sentinel Secondary School http://www2.sd45.bc.ca/schools/sentinel/Library/reading/Pages/default.aspx

Hello Summer Bloggers! I will be out of the country for two weeks and won't be near a computer and won't be able to post your stuff. You can still write, or get a virtual pet, it will just wait for my approval before posting. Hope you are all enjoying your summer.

image from visitrhodeisland.com

Well folks, we've learned a lot this year. We've blogged, virtually visited with other classrooms, aired our views on censorship of books, learned new software programs, and continue to learn about how to stay safe on line, how to behave and conduct ourselves in the digital world. Is there any particular lesson that resonated with you? Would you be interested in keeping your blogpage, even though I won't have you next year? Will you use the Lawn Library Lounge to find/share books? This will be your last blog post of the year and I will be putting it as an assignment so we can share our thoughts.

As this will be the last week for 6-2 (field day next friday), I am sticking with tradition and presenting you with not one, but two, holiday hangman games! No playing till you've done the assignment or Boney will have some nasty comments for you!

Blogging image from http://jmgroupdesign.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/blogging-benefits-seo/

Our shared Friday writing prompt for April 27th, inspired by our vacation last week, is:

Food that I enjoy

What is it you like to eat, and why? Does where you eat it (a ballpark, the beach, or picnics, or barbecues) make the food taste better or more enjoyable? Is it from a specific country(e.g., Italian, Mexican, Chinese...or local treats)?

I'm sure your results will be delicious to read and comment on.

Thanks to Glogster you can see a video with the Director/Co-Screenwriter Gary Ross. Watch the videos to learn about how he filmed Hunger Games, and about his advice on writing. Click this sentence to get there.

 Secondly, and perhaps more importantly you can prizes and help your community by creating a really rocking Glog for Earth Day. If you read the contest rules carefully I think that some of the Imovies you made about Jamestown last year, and information from Save the Bay and other RI ecological institutions can help you. Participate and I can enter us as a classroom competition! Deadline to submit is April 22. Click here for Earth Day Glog info.

LASTLY, I know all caps is SHOUTING, but PLEASE check your comments!! I have posted comments from other students who have been doing Friday writing and I think you should get back to them.

Mockingjay image from http://www.businessinsider.com

Name three things that you are grateful for...

 Image from sistersrunningthekitchen.com

Welcome to I-Safe! We will be learning how to stay safe online, about recognizing predators, netiquette, cyberbullying, social media and more. We will start the curriculum next week.

NO BULL.

I-Safe is sponsoring a "No Bull" teen video contest for 6-12th graders about cyberbullying. I am providing a link below. You can only vote for one video a day so please look through a few before casting a vote. I found this video very powerful. I hope that you will never bully anyone, or be bullied.

Contest details

Contest details

Welcome to Rhode Island!

We look forward to working with you all, and reading what you've written. Today's Friday prompt is:

Between the ages of 5 and 10, what was your favorite activity. Why?

Photograph of the Newport Bridge by Mike Richard from vagabondish.com. This bridge connects Jamestown (our town) to Newport. And yes, we have a lot of working lighthouses here.

We have been invited to share "Writing Fridays" with a few classes in Canada, by Kimberly Brown of the Haultain Hawks. We will visit these other blogs to see the writing prompt and respond. I'm not sure when it's our turn, but I thought I'd do a prompt for practice at least, and see if the other classes want to use it as well. Here it is:



Describe a perfect winter day and activities on that day.

Image from tjwriting.blogspot.com

Sometimes I find good things like Hot Potatoes - go to it and create your own quiz but I doubt you can do it at school as you have to download the quiz software. I'm going to do a book quiz for you. But just like you I can get distracted from academics by finding a cyberpet. Meet my kitty Merl. I didn't put him in the control panel because I think I'd get tired of it, so I'm putting him in an article that I can pull up and play with when I want to.

and you will see the link to Mrs. Ruffing's awesome cougars of Bethlehem, PA! They have written some lovely full paragraph answers to your seven random facts...TAG!! You're it! Your turn to visit Mr. G's classes in Washington, Ms. Brown's Hawks in Canada, Mrs. Parisi's Dynamos in NY, 743 Blogspot in Colorado, Mrs. Smith's class...

Have a lovely visit!

Vokis can be pasted into an article, if you use TEXT, not Graphical. If you posted it incorrectly, I left you a comment. You can view teacher comments by

1. log in and click on articles


2. view that article with a ? in TEXT, not graphical


3. You will see, in teacher's comments, my...comment!


4. Lastly, you should just copy the code, and then open the article in TEXT, and paste.

Please respond to the assignment on Banned Books. You can also comment on other blogs, like 743 Blogspot because they also commented on banned books. Those who are looking for comments should be leaving them, it's not a one way street.

or if you need it in another language  or maybe  or perhaps 

I'll keep trying until you get the message.

And that would be...Censorship. You should be able to have the freedom to read and no one should be allowed to ban books. If a parent doesn't want their child to read a particular book, they have that right. But to block other's right to read is simply UnAmerican. Here is Judy Blume talking about censorship: And Whoopie Goldberg reading a poem from a banned book (maybe you know it?)

How do you feel about censoring books. Would you fight it...or just go back to that funny new Modern Family episode? Because that is how we start to lose our freedoms, through apathy.

I have been working you very hard so I think a break is in order, yes? It turns October this weekend, which is my favorite month of the year. Even though I really despise seeing holidays advertised too early (have you seen the CHRISTMAS stuff coming out already, for goodness sake??!! It's SEPTEMBER!!) I found this on a colleague's blog site and I guess I couldn't resist. I mean, we can't be all work and no play. Therefore, I present to you: Halloween Hangman with an insulting skeleton to jeer at your every mistake! By the way, best I've done is 260 so let me know if you beat that score. Okay - get back to work!   9/30 update: 845, woo hoo! Kacie, Made Man and others - just keep at it (the word that defeated me was Gargoyle but some tough ones; cadaver, misanthrope, yeesh!  UPDATE: 10/4 with Mr. Casey as my partner, we scored 1090!!!

It seems like every good book is destined to become a movie. Why not make your own 30 second  book review? Write a very short summary, find images (if you want) and choose music from animoto or use your own. This is the first one I made. I need to experiment and make the images clearer. Every good piece of work takes time. Try it!

It's just that you are in a generic lump called seventh grade.  I will sort you out but in the meanwhile if you want to continue on with stories you've been writing, or to post new articles, just find your blogger identity in Seventh. Same passwords, same everything.

Thanks to Lorraine Watchorn, an E-Learning Facilitator in Rotorua, New Zealand, we have great new software to play around with and can  learn more about manipulating images online. Just take a photo of a person  (or something with a face) and try out the different effects. If you enjoy this you can thank her by emailing her at LEWatchorn@wave.co.nz 

You can play with PhotoFunia by clicking the link on the blogroll to the left of the articles. My cat Merl is a good sport about being a model. Only use someone's image (unless they have four feet and are furry) with their permission. It is illegal and just plain wrong to do otherwise.

We're off from school today because of the flooding, torrential rain. I am trying to get over my cold, and so to amuse myself I was looking at photos of silent movie stars. I am a silent movie fan, but I don't think you are familiar with silent films, except maybe for Charlie Chaplin? The whole movie industry started with the silents, and everything, Westerns, comedies, horror, epic films, serials, cartoons - and big, big stars and a glamour and publicity industry all started back in the early 1900s. You know how we all wish, sometimes, that we looked like, say, Brad Pitt or Keira Knightley? The stars of yesteryear had more glamor, I think, and I do like black and white a lot!  Two questions: if you could look like a movie star for a day, who would you choose? and can you guess my two choices? I'll give you a hint: One was known as The Girl with the Black Helmet and the other was ranked as the fifth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. Got the answers???

Through our Yahoo emails, we teachers help each other and share assignment ideas - and some fun online places to play.  Thanks to Mrs. B from the ACS in Beirut we have Vokis, Dopplegangers and Typing of the Ghosts and now from Kathy Rice we have the ability to make a short movie cartoon by going to http://www.xtranormal.com.

If you enjoy these games, please say thank you to those teachers (I just added Ms. Rice's site in Canada called Technology Infusion) and check out the cartoons Ms. Rice made. One more toy - at http://www.freecodesource.com/image-generators/morphing allows you to "morph" (look up the word) images. Please remind me who shared that. It's fun! Lastly, type in "Make your own cartoon" in Google and try some sites out.  Let us all see what you did, what you recommend, what to avoid.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in his "I Have A Dream Speech" that he hoped for an America in which his children would "not be judged by the color of their skin, but on the content of their character" and that we could join hands across race barriers.  How impossible it seemed at the time.  How proud he would be today.

You are living witnesses to a great moment in American History. A moment when racial barriers were swept away and Dr. King's dream came true.  A moment of hope, and a promise of change. Your children and grandchildren will ask you about this time. Think about it.  What does President-Elect Obama's election mean to you? What does E Pluribus Unum mean - and why is it significant to this election?  Please answer in at least one well written paragraph.

It will soon be a requirement for you to show the technical skills you've learned by taking state tests to demonstrate your technical literacy.  I would like you to tell me what you found easy, what was difficult, and what you think you need to learn. The site will not let me link you directly to the sample test so show your tech literacy by clicking HERE and then scroll down to the last paragraph where it says "Test Administration" and then click on the link Sample Assessment.You will see a demo  consisting of a few slides - but just wait - in a few seconds, another START button will appear and you can push that to start the test.

You will not be scored - you may not know if you've done it correctly.  We will discuss this as a class.  Please let's share our thoughts and reactions to this - and we welcome the comments of our Blogmeister buddies.