EdView360 May Blog Post: Authentically Authentic Audience

If you're interested, check out my May 2014 blog post at the link below for Sopris Learning's EdView360 blog--it's all about being authentic!

Authentically Authentic Audience

2014 Defining Moments

This is a bittersweet post to write for me, as it is my last one I will compose at MRHMS.  These past 4 years teaching at MRH have been amazing, largely because of all of the amazing and awesome students I have had the privilege to teach.  The students are the reason I do what I do, and I am so thankful and grateful for the hundreds of kids I was able to teach--and learn from--these past 4 years.

This fall I will begin a new adventure, and use this blog to document that.  I will be moving to Ursuline Academy to teach technology.  As much as I hate to leave MRH, Ursuline is where I've been called to teach, because my passions lie in technology, and educating others about all of the awesome tools they can use in their projects, and teachers can use in their classrooms.  Stay tuned this fall for this new adventure I will embark on in teaching!

I wanted to share with you all some of the capstone digital stories--Defining Moments--that my 8th graders just completed as their final project in 8th grade.  I shared 2 years ago some of the Defining Moments from my last loop of 8th graders, and I wanted to continue that tradition and share some from my current group of kiddos.

First off, if you don't know what a Defining Moment is, watch this:

Now that you know what a Defining Moment is, I want to share some of these amazing group of students' digital stories.  Each on of these tell a unique story about a moment or event that has changed and shaped their lives.  If you click here you can visit the entire playlist.

I hope you enjoyed these...and I hope you've enjoyed my posts these last several years about our expeditions, adventures, and learning at MRHMS!  Here's to a new chapter in education!

Dauphin Island Expedition Reflection Videos, take 2

A couple years ago, I had my then 8th graders create reflection videos from their experiences at Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL).  This was one of my favorite projects I've ever done--even though it wasn't technically a "social studies" project, I think it was hands-down one of the most important and heart-felt projects that they did.  They really reflected on their experiences from middle school and their expedition and created wonderfully creative and heart-felt videos documenting that.

I decided to go ahead and do this project again, because I loved it so much two years ago, and knew--despite me not being able to go to Dauphin this year :(--these current 8th graders would love it and do great things with it.

During MAP testing week, students spent a few minutes writing their reflections about their expedition and experiences.  This would then serve as their narrative for their video.

After showing a few examples from two years ago and going over the requirements (see below), students set out to create some awesome reflection videos about their Dauphin Expedition.

I was so impressed with how these videos turned out!  All of the students created some amazing video reflections of their experiences and did so eloquently and so heart-felt.  Enjoy these videos below!  And click here for the full playlist of their videos.