I had a great opportunity to talk with the Gems (Year 2 students) from Brisbane, Australia. I was introduced to the Gems earlier in the year (2011) through videos and reading their blogs. In June, their teacher, Mrs. Marrinan, was able to visit our school for a day.

Recently, another NH teacher, Mrs. Knee, and I were able to skype in the evening in order to talk with the students during their day. The students were winding down their school year as it was their last two days of school! We had conversations about their year and blogging in the classroom. They were well versed and articulated their thoughts very well. In fact, we recorded the skype call and used it in our workshop the following day!

The Gems will be moving on to the Year 3 classrooms and we wish them well!

The students started the year investigating the eye! We learned about the parts of the eye, how each functions and how it all works so that we can see.

The students used the netbooks cameras to capture an image of their eye. We used this image to create a study guide of the outside parts of the eye. The finished product looks easy but there were several steps involved that required the students to put their technology skills into practice. Some of the skills included taking the photo and saving the photo into their own server folder. They also needed to rename using a naming protol and changing the format of the image. The students used Gimp to edit the photo. As it's a free program, it's not as user-friendly as we would like, but it works well. Students edited out the rest of their face and added text to label the parts of the eye. The final product had to be uploaded to blog. This procedure sounds easy, but it needs to be uploaded in a certain way. Our final products are located in the assignment called "Eye" See You on the 7th grade blogs.

We are off for another school year. Our students get combined with the students from New Castle and anyone who moves into town of course. It's a nice time for the students to meet someone new and meet their new teachers!

In science, we started off the year investigating our eyes! We learned about the parts of the eye and their functions. The students created their own notes by taking a picture of their eye and labeling the parts using a free editing tool called GIMP. The students not only learned about their eye but they also tackled some of the technology standards for this grade level.

You can view the assignment on each individual student blog or they can be viewed together on this page.

Our blogs also register the end of one year into the next with our counter. On the side, the blogs contain a 'ClustrMap' which keeps track of the visitors to our blogs. We are always surprised how many people read the blogs!

My blog.                        7th grade blogs.

It was a busy day day with two guests today! First, Mrs. Amanda Marrinan visited our classes. She is a Year 2 teacher from Brisbane, Australia. She will be receiving an award at the end of the month as an educator using technology in K-2. We've been reading and learning from her classroom blog and videos and trying some of the tools her students use. Thank you 2M Gems and Mrs. M!

At lunch time Mr. Stewart came in uniform and provided lunch for the 7th grade. He is in the Air Force Reserves and is an air traffic controller. He frequently visits our classroom to share about his work and travels to Afghanistan and Haiti.

This time Mr. Stewart brought MREs for the students. MRE stands for Meals Ready to Eat. The military supplies these to the troops. There were several different meals to try, including lasagna, omelette, chili, veggie burger and more. We learned how to heat them up by adding water to the special packets. It boiled the water in less than 30 seconds! The packets contained iron, sodium and magnesium. The packages contained everything you would want for one meal including a spoon, drink, dessert, candy and gum!

Thank you to both Mrs. Marrinan and Mr. Stewart for making it a special day!

The Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS) hosted an event at the University of NH on June 2, 2011. Students who were interested attended the event knowing they were responsible for reporting back in some format for the rest of the school and UNH. They came prepared with note paper, pencils and cameras. Many brought their own devices to document and record information.

The event was celebrating the 20 years of space grants. We received a tour of the facility stopping at the machine shop (for metals), freezer room, classrooms, and research labs. We went outside to view the Sun safely using two telescopes with filters. One telescope had a special film covering the reflector telescope and the other had an Hydrogen-Alpha filter that looked red. The students learned about the ice core samples collected from all over the world and then we donned coats to see them in the freezer. We also went into an inflatable dome to view a planetarium show. Our guides then took us to the researchers who are shooting rockets into the aurorae near the North Pole. They are examining how our magnetic field changes and the particles that come through the magnetosphere. Lastly, we visited various displays of research projects and spoke with their project leaders.

Many of the day's photos are located on our Flickr account. http://www.flickr.com/photos/31386636@N06/sets/72157626875791664/

The seventh graders have completed projects sharing what they have learned. Some students chose to type up their notes in an outline, while others created poster displays, powerpoints, movies, and Animoto presentations. [An Animoto presentation allows for the student to choose their photos, music and format of the presentation.] All will be embedded shortly to their blogs to share with others. Please feel free to view and comment at http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=266813&assignmentid=12585

This year Earth Day fell on Good Friday and vacation for most schools in the US. We were not able to connect with schools on that day, but we were able to connect before Earth Day. Students from 3 different schools in Argentina skyped with our science classes to share their work (using Glogster) about Earth Day. We asked each other basic cultural questions then moved to questions about our endangered species, our areas of pollution and what we are doing to celebrate Earth Day and protect the environment. They asked thoughtful questions that really made us think. Later, our students commented on their posters.

On Earth Day, the 7^th grade students presented information about fair trade, energy conservation, Rachel Carson, the future of nuclear energy, water, where our food comes from and more for our live webcast. We webcasted the whole school day (and after school). This year, we did something new, a live remote. Two students used a cell phone (still live on the webcast) and interviewed students and staff in the hallways. Perhaps, next year, we can expand our interviews to local areas in town, including the recycling station and the public library!

We received feedback from parents and listeners from Mexico, Canada, Argentina, California, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Maine that we could determine. Bill Nye, the Science Guy, gave us a personal, video message for the students, which were able to webcast! Each student earned a badge for webcasting that they posted to their personal blog. During vacation, I was surprised to receive an email from a student appreciative to have the webcasting experience!

By the way, all 6.5 hours are archived and available for your listening/viewing pleasure! The student work will be posted to their blogs.

Ms. Cronin and I have spoken with our classes about our experiences in Belize, Central America. Here are some photos about our trip. This was part of a graduate course at the University of NH. [http://belize-unh.wikispaces.com