Choptank Technology Club

Due to holiday considerations and busing the next meeting with the 5th grade Tech Club, on December 16th, will be cancelled.

During todays meeting the 4th grade Tech Club members planned out their food chain Blabberize animation. They chose an animal, identified whether it was an herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore, and explained how their animal fit into a food chain. They also included the sun as the beginning of each food chain and explained what scavenger and decomposer would be a part of their food chains. Their Blabberize animations will be completed both before the next 4th grade meeting and possibly during the next meeting as necessary.

The Tech Club would also like to welcome a returning Choptank student. Damien Warner, a 6th grader at Maces Lane Middle School, will be coming to the 4th grade meetings to help us out. He is learning about technology before our projects and will be a second teacher!

Good luck tonight for our members who are performing in the Winter Concert.   Don’t worry about missing out on creating your animation.  I will make sure to catch you up during the school day.

In today’s meeting the 5th grade members of the Tech Club completed their research on a planet for their Blabberizer animations.  Tionie and KaJun figured out how to solve a glitch in the recording of voices.  Unfortunately, problems with the Blabberizer site would not allow finished products to be saved.  5th graders will be completing their animations during Enrichment class.

Check out Tionie’s Blabberizer animation below:

To see more animations from Blabberize go to the Blabberize page on the Tech Club webpage. 

It was brought to my attention today that the Winter Concert for 1st and 2nd graders will take place on the same night as the next 4th grade meeting.  The Tech Club will still meet, but if parents also have children going to the concert, club members can still complete their animations after Winter Break.

Create your own documentaries with National Geographic’s Wildlife Filmmaker.  Drag and drop video clips, then add sounds, music, and captions. 

Make sure to follow the following rules when posting a

 comment/reply to a blog:

1. Your comment/reply should be about the post you are reading.  If you want to say hi or ask the person a question that does not have to do with the post you should email them.
2. Make a point.  It’s great to hear comments like “Wonderful!” or “Great Job!”  Comments like this are fine, but try to make a more meaningful contribution.  Why is it wonderful?  What was great about the post?  If you disagree with ideas in the post don’t just write “Your Wrong.”  Explain why you disagree in a respectful way.  Do not make your disagreement personal.  (From Grammar Girl)
3. Check your spelling and punctuation before you submit your reply.  Remember your writing is a reflection of you.
4. Use the Living Room Rule.  If you went into someone’s living room as a guest you would not be rude.  If you are rude your comments will not be posted and your privilege to post a comment/reply will be taken away.
5. Pretend your mom is in the room.  Comments/replies that are intentionally misleading, contain false information, threats, verbal abuse, inappropriate statements or pictures, or personal information about others are not allowed.  Remember what you have learned about Internet safety.
6. Be yourself.  Don’t pretend to be anyone else.  However, remember not to give out personal information.  Again, remember your Internet safety.

Every Tech Club member has received an email to get ready for the next meeting.  The email gives directions on how to prepare for the next meeting so everyone will be ready to begin their Blabberize animation.  4th grade students will use the Blabberizer Template at the bottom of the Animation page of the Tech Club webpage.  5th grade students will use the Blabberizer Template 5th Grade at the bottom of the page.

In the future you should make sure you check your emails for upcoming directions before new projects.  If we can finish some of the work outside of meetings we will have more time to use technology during the meetings.

Today in the Tech Club meeting we had our first meeting with the grade levels split.  4th grade did a great job using the Blabberizer site today.  They downloaded a picture they wanted to use, learned how to upload the image to Blabberize, and how to create a mouth on their pictures that they could create sound for.   During our next meeting they will add sound to their Blabberize characters. 

We had a few tech issues today.  The Blabberize site would not go through our filters with student logons.  Students patiently waited for me to log them in and did a great job following directions.  The Blabberize site will be unblocked by our next meeting but meanwhile students can create their own at home or during the school day with my help.

Today students also came home with a list of the sites we will be using for the next several months.  Included in the list is their user names and passwords.  Since we have learned about Internet safety students know not to share sheets with anyone else.

Another fun creative site.  Whyville is a kid friendly site where you can create your own virtual world.  You can design your own look, chat and play games, hang out with friends, and much more.  Try it out and let the Tech Club know what you think.

During this week’s meeting the Tech Club members voted on how to proceed with meetings.  Overall students agreed that there were too many people using the computer lab at one time.  Please click on the Meeting Dates tab at the top of the page to see the result of the Club’s decision.  The dates of 4th or 5th grade meeting can also be found by clicking on the calendar at the top right corner of the page.  We are now up to twenty-three 4th graders and fifteen 5th graders!

We also worked on practicing how to create animations using Dvolver so that during the next meeting we can create animations.  If we have time we will also create animations using Blabberize. 

Due to the popularity of the Technology Club we will be voting this week about meeting dates.  The group is up to 37 students with twenty-two 4th grade students and fifteen 5th grade students.  This is causing some issues with the number of computers available and the noise level from all the exciting activities going on.   I am proposing that we change the meeting dates so that only 4th graders come one week and then only 5th graders come the next week.  This will also insure that if students are in more than one activity that meet on Wednesdays they can alternate their activities without missing anything in the Technology Club.

We may also have a new teacher joining the Technology Club.  Mr. Schwickrath has agreed to come in and become a part of the club!