Eastwood Tadpoles Webcam

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Embed and Stream Videos from Dropbox to your Website

This video is hosted in my Public folder on Dropbox.  Right click on video stored in your Public Dropbox folder to get the Public link.  Use the html code found below as a template to embed and stream your videos from your Dropbox account. 

<video width="640" height="480" controls="controls">
<source src="dropboxvideo.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
</video>

The text in quotes "dropboxvideo.mp4" must be changed to Public link copied from your Public folder.  Change the video width and height number in between the quotes to fit the embedded video into your website or blog post.  The html embed code for the video streaming from my Public Dropbox account can be found under the video.


<video controls="controls" height="480" width="640">
<source src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/87532981/Ella%20May%20and%20the%20Wishing%20Stone%20By%20Cary%20Fagan.mp4" type="video/mp4"></source>
</video>

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Student Letters to the Author Eric Walters

Dear Eric Walters,

My name is Cindy, I am part of the reading program using Kobo e- readers. I loved that we could read your books since you came here to visit our school last year. When you came to visit that was very cool because you could tell us about your experiences and what you get to see and do. I thought it was cool that you used to be a teacher and now you are an author who's books are being read by millions everyday around that world.

So far I have successfully read 1 book. I read Cat Boy without crying but I almost cried at the end of Alexandria of Africa. Sadly, I only read Alexandria of Africa on the e-reader but it was very fun getting to read and play on them. My class is actually piloting the e-readers that we bought using our Indigo grant. I am very glad that we went to Indigo to buy books. Also our librarian Mr. Wideen told us that you are following our twitter account because you read about the e-readers and that we are reading your books.

Well I must admit when I was reading Alexandria Of Africa it was incredible. Our teacher let us pick which book we wanted to read. I am very glad that I picked Alexandria Of Africa. The first few chapters made me feel that I knew when, how and why Alexandria was in court. I especially liked when she hit a girl's car with a golf club because she stole her boyfriend. I also liked the ending when you wrote “Alexandria how do you spell your name?” “Is it for the papers?” “No, my mom would like to name the baby after you.” I thought that was very nice and the title and events all made sense. I have some questions about the book. When was this book made for? Present or future? What inspired you to make this book?

Well that’s all but I would really like to thank you for reading this and answering all of my questions about the book. But now instead about the book I have some questions for you:

1. What inspired you to teach?
2. Did someone inspire you to write all these books?
3. Have you stared any new books?

Thank you for reading my letter!

Sincerely,

Cindy

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For the Love of Reading at Davis

Davis Public School received the For the Love of Reading Grant through Indigo bookstores in May, 2012.  Davis P.S. received a total of $93,000 from the grant that can be used to purchase materials for the school’s learning commons (library).  Since May, we have purchased new furniture for the learning commons, 53 Kobo eReaders and several thousand dollars worth of books for school and classroom libraries.

I'm Mr. Wideen and I will be your librarian this year at Davis.  Help me create the best school library for you.  I have created an online survey found at http://bit.ly/SGSaba and would like you to answer a few questions about your child’s interests to help me better understand which types of materials to purchase for the school library.  Please be honest when answering this survey so that I can purchase materials that fit the needs of the students and school.  Don’t forget to answer “why” if it is part of a question.  I’m looking forward to a great year with you.

Here is a short video presenting Davis Public School’s exciting involvement in the For the Love of Reading Grant with Indigo.

CBC Indigo Book Buying Field Trip Interview

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Interactive Visual Archive of Twitter Conversations

A few months ago I started using Twitter lists to store links of my students' work.  I wanted Twitter to store the links of the tweets that I posted so that the Twitter links could be accessed later.  I wanted to use the stored links within the lists to create student ePortfolios, which students could access through links provided on this blog along the top bar.  I also wanted to use Twitter to update my blog with the homework for the day through the use of a Twitter widget found on the right hand side of the blog. 

Everything was going great for a while.  The Twitter links within my posts were stored, working and students were looking back at their previous work found under the Student Work tab.  Everything was going great for a while, let's say about a week.  After about a week, the Twitter lists had gone empty.  The tweets just disappeared.  I did not delete any tweets from the lists or edit them in anyway. 

I looked at the Twitter site and found in the Help section a post about missing tweets.  I researched the trouble I was having with missing tweets and found out that Twitter does not archive tweets.  I also found out that tweets disappear from lists after an unknown amount of time.  I could not have this, so I started looking (googling) for a way to archive my tweets for use with this blog.  If my tweets were archived and available online somewhere I could link them back to this site.  

I found a way to fix my problem.  The short version of how to archive tweets can be found here: http://wp.me/p1twQQ-3lE I began using the method by Martin Hawksey.  His method is found with a click on the previous link in this post.  

Another interesting use of a script that Martin wrote is a way to interact visually with Twitter conversations from a specific hashtag.  I am one of the organizers of edcampSWO.  I wanted the learning and Twitter conversations to be recorded from that day.  The script that Martin wrote archives the tweets from a hashtag or Twitter list and creates an interactive visual representation of Twitter conversations.  Click on the link below for the interactive visual archive of Twitter conversations from #edcampSWO.  This is an example of what it can do for your conversations. http://bit.ly/WmjHjF  

http://

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#edcampSWO

Take a look at the storify.com slideshow version of the wonderful learning and connections that educators made at edcampSWO on October 13, 2012 at the University of Windsor. Click "Read More" to view the slideshow.

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Empowering English Learners

Click "Read More" to watch the video by Dr. Jim Cummins

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Where are you from?

Our class has created an online map showing where all of us in the classroom are originally from in the world. Click "Read More" to get to the interactive world map.

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ESL Classroom Strategies Video

ESL Classroom Strategies

Medieval Times lesson demonstrating several ESL teaching strategies. The lesson plan used for this video can be found here: http://goo.gl/aA1IR The demonstrated strategies are listed in pink on the lesson plan. Click on Read More to watch the video.

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Collaborative Medieval Times Prezi

To the left is our collaborative Medieval Times Prezi. We have begun a new unit today about Medieval Times.  As a class we started with the Medieval Times heading and the 5 sub headings: Housing, Foods, Feudal System, Recreation and Clothing.  Prezi allows up to 10 simultaneous users that can edit a single workspace.  Students added text, images and videos about Medieval Times to the 5 sub headings.  Students are able to work on the Prezi through a sharing link that has been provided on our class Edmodo page.  Student worked on this for 1 class period thus far.  I am very excited to experience what students will add to the Prezi during the course of this unit.

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