Olympics: Love it or Hate it, we can't ignore it-aka A Day in a Sentence

The Olympics is probably on the mind of most of us at the moment.
We might be teachers using this opportunity for our students to do a little bit of real maths, or google geography, or civics and citizenship or just a bit of fun keeping track of how our country is going. Perhaps on the other hand you are trying to avoid it all by spending more time outside in the beautiful weather if you live in the northern hemisphere or staying by the heater and reading a good book to avoid the freezing cold weather if you live in the southern hemisphere.

Perhaps you are a sports junkie and you are struggling to stay awake each day if watching it overnight (again it will depend where you live) or perhaps during the day you are finding all sorts of reasons to wander past the tv or stream it live on your computer or iphone. Either way the Olympics have given me a theme for our Day in a Sentence for this week.
Let's call it Olympics, Love it or Hate it, we can't ignore it.

It is my privilege to host Kevin's ( of Kevin's Meandering Mind fame ) A Day in a Sentence for this week. Kevin is on holidays on a beach somewhere I think. And so a few readers of his blog have been volunteering over the past few weeks to keep the Day in a Sentence process going via our own blogs.
Check here for the archives of all Kevin's Day in a Sentence.

So my challenge to you is to come up with a sentence that encompasses your Olympics 2008 experience. Love it or hate it, it's a bit hard to ignore so why not embrace it.

Write it in the comments section of this post or send it to me at annieb3525 (at) gmail.com. On Sunday I will collate them and post them all for you to see. Feel free to send any images that demonstrate your thoughts and ideas to my email and I will add them as well.

I can't wait to read your thoughts.

Working with Nings

This semester I have decided to try something completely different with Year 9/10 IT elective class. I want my students to consider how their world is influenced and is changing due to the internet and in particular Web 2.

Using curriculum framing questions as our guide, I have posed the questions

How is our world changing? as our essential question.
Then as our unit questions I have asked
How does the internet influence our lives?
Why do so many people now share their lives on the internet?
How do people share on the internet?
How can we ensure that our online safety and reputation is not compromised or damaged?
and as our content questions I have asked the students to answer
What does the term Web2.0 refer to?
What are data mashups?
What are blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, social networks, video sharing sites?
What is an online profile?
What is cybersafety and cyberbullying?

While they are exploring these answers they will be using web2 tools such as a wiki to share their resources, their own blog to reflect on their own and each other's learning, a ning to communication and collaborate with each other and many other online tools to demonstrate their learning.
It's only early days and this is a journey that we will all be undertaking together.

I have already enlisted a class from a neighbouring school who will be joining us this week and we would love others to join us. So if you have a class of 14, 15, 16 year olds who are interested in joining us on a journey of discovery please email me or comment to this post and I will send you an invite to our ning and our wiki. As teachers we can also collaborate in the projects and activities that we will have students undertake.

Wiki http://web2teen.wikispaces.com/

Ning http://web2teen.ning.com/ Because this is a ning for Year 9/10 students at this stage I have made the settings private so you will need to email or ask via the comments on this post to ask for an invitation.