Learning Area 20

This term, LA20 and LA21 have been working on an inquiry unit titled “Can We Make A Difference?” with a focus on the Port River Dolphins. So far, we have done some tuning in activities including a photo priority exercise and a mindmap. We also had a guest speaker, Ann from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society who answered many of the questions generated by the mindmap activity.

As well as investigating facts and understandings around our local dolphins we have been reading and discussing other information sources about dolphins around the world to see if there are any common ideas and connections between humans and dolphins. As one class member, Amarildo pointed out this morning, it is very interesting that humans seem to be most interested and concerned about water based mammals in preference to other species that are also impacted by humans. So, this morning, we watched an online video from the EarthOcean.tv site titled Disappearing Dolphins.

It looked at the impact of overfishing in the Ionian Sea on the dolphin population while the banning of fishing in the Amvrakikos Gulf has produced the opposite effect. There were many important points raised by the class which will be covered in their blog posts. What I want to write about now is how I followed a link out of the EarthOcean.tv website and learnt quite a bit more about a unique dolphin known as the Baiji.

The Baiji dolphin is a unique species of river dolphin, but it is feared that it may already be extinct. It lived in the Yangtze River in China and had evolved to be slow moving and with limited eyesight because the waters are so muddy.

Map of the Yangtze in China from Wikipedia.

Even this dolphin’s dorsal fin has evolved into a different shape and in 2006, a scientific expedition was held to try and establish if there were still any significant groups of Baiji dolphins left. I watched a video interview with a Californian scientist who went on that trip and they found no evidence of the Baiji at all, leading to the conclusion that the Baiji may already be extinct. Another link led to another news item where a Chinese local had videoed what he believed to a Baiji dolphin in 2007, raising some hope that there may be some of these unusual dolphins left. When I saw the video, I wasn’t too convinced of anything. What do you think?

The scientist on the expedition made some really good points about this issue. The extinction of animals like dolphins living close to humans is a real possibility especially when saving the animal is stacked up against economic issues like jobs. There are many people who will say it is more important to be able to feed their family than to save a species of dolphin. Especially in an area like the Yangtze River where there is a reasonable sized boat every 100 metres, it would seem that human priorities will win every time. Could this eventually happen here in Adelaide with our Port River Dolphins?

I hope not but you never know.

Here are a few introductory videos on the fraction as we start our Maths work on this topic. Fractions have been around a long time (your Mum and Dad may even remember them from their school days!) as the first 1948 filmclip shows.

This is an interesting video that gives out some great examples of how fractions are used in real life - watch the first seven minutes as the final minutes refer to an online tutoring service. It is American and a little bit corny but maybe, you will see that fractions do have relevance to our daily experiences.

Here are a few websites that are useful for fraction practice.
Visual Fractions.
Number Nut - Fractions.

For our lesson today on data collection, you will need to use the following link to take a simple survey.

Click Here to take survey

A site with stacks of data - The Australian Bureau Of Statistics.

This classic video is a really interesting way to get our students thinking about measurement and its relationship to Maths and Science. It’s called the “Powers Of Ten” and is much easier to see here on our blog than on our interactive whiteboard where the subtlety of  the stars and galaxies are hard to see clearly.

The class really enjoyed the activities on World Maths Day even though there were a few issues when we logged on with the wireless laptops. At first, we thought that it had to do with the complex website and that being closer to the wireless access point on the wall would help. As Stac08 and Amarildo were in a straight line with that point and were amongst the first logged on, that theory seemed to be true! But later on in an email, the truth about just how popular the Maths Day website was revealed:

We apologise for the difficulties which you experienced yesterday. The response to World Maths Day was overwhelming and consequently many users experienced difficulties logging onto the site and with the game. World Maths Day continues until it is no longer the 5th of March anywhere in the world so children are able to continue playing. We have also decided to extend the time the site is available until the end of the next school week so students are still able to play. Our IT team is working their hardest to improve the system so that it is better able to cope with demand next year. We hope that you will register to participate again next year.

So that was great. Quite a few more LA20 students enjoyed the extra time - Kostas11, Samster and Langer11 were amongst the keenest participants - and their keenness has really paid off when we got the following email.

We pleased to announce that [LA20] have won a free subscription to Mathletics until the end of the school year. Mathletics is a complete mathematics learning platform, including both the arithmetic game used in World Maths Day and interactive curriculum activities covering most topics and all year levels. Mathletics provides many benefits for teachers and schools. Of greatest value is the continual formative assessment, which is used diagnostically to guide both class and individual instruction.

How great is that? I know that some parents were keen on the Mathletics website but were unsure if the cost of subscription would be worthwhile. Now using your Maths day username and password, you can access the full Mathletics website for the rest of 2008, and you and your parents  can work it out for yourselves.

Let me know in the comments here what you think. If your parents have any feedback, they can add that in here as well.

Well done, everyone!

As part of our Inquiry Unit looking at success, we are going to be writing our own fables. A fable is quoted by Wikipedia as being:

  … a brief, succinct story, in prose or verse, that features animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities), and that illustrates a moral lesson (a “moral”), which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.

To help get your brain wrapped around the concept of a fable, I’ve included this YouTube video as a starting point.

Here are the links for some of the sites we will be using to examine famous and modern fables before we start the drafting of our own.

Simple Aesop’s Fables.
University of Massachusetts - Aesop’s Fables.
Fable Library.

We’ve been tackling the concept of timelines in Maths over the last few days. Firstly, we had a look at a timeline constructed on the web based on one of the stories logged on our CoRank site - the Timeline of the San Francisco Zoo Tiger Attack. We could see that something could unfold in minutes and that could be called a sequence of events.

We then created our own sequence of events based on a recent Sunday. Mr. Wegner gave us a demonstration on the IWB and we wrote our sequence into our Maths books. The next step came after Mr. Wegner came in with a pile of coloured strips of card for the next activity. He showed how to calculate the length of card to match the start time for each event in the sequence. Once everyone in the class had the idea, we got started and used our coloured card to create 24 hour coloured card strips to represent our Sundays. Check out the pics below to get an idea.

What was challenging:

• rounding off events to be in 15 minute segments to make it easier to cut strips to the correct length
• getting the day to match the correct length for 24 hours - 96 cm. Some people lost time and others had a 25 hour Sunday!
• sometimes segments were taped sideways and that affected the timeline’s length.

As we get our individual blogs up and running, I am starting an initiative that will help focus the students on writing for an audience beyond the classroom. I have been blogging for over two and half years and I read blogs from over 130 educators around the world. Over that time, I have built up a professional learning network that covers all aspects of education from early childhood to university. These educators are smart, willing to share and are good users of the types of online literacies that our students will need in the very near future (even now!). I wondered how I could use their expertise in LA20, so our students can benefit from more than just my and Mrs. Huddy’s point of view and skill level.

So the idea of Blog Coaches was born. I blogged about this last night over on my professional learning blog and I’ll repeat some of what I wrote here:

…. Al Upton and his mini-Legends came with the Mentor A Mini idea to give his students interaction from adults from beyond his school to help guide them and give them feedback…..
What a great idea! So great I am appropriating and re-badging the idea for my own class. I’m changing tact slightly and calling for Blog Coaches (to appeal to a slightly older age group) to be connected to an LA20 blogger for 2008. I want the students to connect to other learners beyond their immediate surroundings and be a reflective commenter on their learning and posts throughout the year.

I then outlined what I expected the Blog Coach to do. The Coaches I am looking for are proven educators from around the world with their own blogs detailing their work in the area of learning and are referred to by others as being excellent in their use of the internet in their learning.

What will a Blog Coach do?

• Visit our class blog to see who’s in LA20.
• Email me (learningarea20[at]gmail.com) and request involvement, picking a name or leaving it to my discretion.
• Write an introductory post to the student that they will publish on their blog. Include a link to your own learning blog, show where in the world you are and why you think reaching beyond the classroom is a good idea.
• Once notified, (by your protege) be prepared to put their blog in your aggregator and add comments in from time to time, tracking this one learner throughout 2008.
• Point your protege towards other useful resources and learners when and if the opportunity arises - for example, when my students start their Personal Research Projects and start looking to answer their questions.
• This could lead to other connections / ideas - you can help guide my learners as an extra Coach on the sideline, cheering your one young blogger on.

I’ve had four responses already from top notch educators already. Without revealing their identities already, I have a US classroom teacher, a Technology coach, a TAFE lecturer and an online professional development expert with 35 years classroom experience. Connecting an LA20 student to one of these global experts will be fantastic in terms of the students receiving feedback about their writing, giving them advice about their research, and helping them to become critical readers and producers of information.

I’ll post here again when things look ready to go.

This should be a lot of fun. Thanks to Kostas11’s suggestion, the class has been booked in for our shot at participating in this very interesting event. So, World Maths Day, roll on - LA20 is ready with laptops booked ready to go.

Things are getting exciting. Quite a few Blogging User Agreements are flowing in and the class’s new online community will be ready to launch very soon. I have been busy creating and setting up your new blogs - hopefully, we will be ready to roll by Tuesday’s computing room time. In the meantime, it is a good idea to see how other students around the world have been using their blogs. Here are some starting points - take the to browse, read and if time permits, add a comment.

The Denali Students - Fairbanks, Alaska, USA.
Many Voices for Darfur - Read the instructions at the wiki, no comments yet.
Room Twelve - Grade 3’s in Seattle, Washington, USA.
Thoraz Thinkers - Grade 5’s in Bangkok, Thailand.

I’ll add some more here as I find them, but there are some good starting points.

LA20’s work last year on our Spin The Globe wiki meant that we have been added to the links at Youth Twitter, which is also another place to connect to other similar aged students worldwide online. Thanks to Paul Allison, a teacher in New York City for pointing this link out to me.