At this point in the year we are finishing up the Decisions, Decisions simulation software called "Ancient Empires." Lozar's army is approaching and most of the groups involved have finished their 3rd decision and some have finished their 4th. Most of the classroom groups have decided to stay and fight, whereas a couple of groups have decided to migrate. The consequences of their decisions are examined and new options have been presented. I've asked students to illustrate their process in a six panel story board.
I've been experimenting with some new video equipment that I recently have purchased for the classroom through the BestBuy Teach Tech Award. I plan on using it to put some poetry reading to video for student presentations. Then we will begin gearing up for the Toothpick Tower Contest. This year I am starting the project earlier to give us a greater opportunity to visually analyze our towers when the compression tests begin. To edit video on a MacBook from the new JVC Everio 30 gb HDD camcorder, which saves video as a MOD file, my research has determined that I needed to purchase Quicktime Pro and the mpeg-2 decoder from Apple. Then using the free StreamClip I can now view the video and then convert to mpeg-4 or Quicktime Movies. I save the videon on an external LaCie 250 gb hard drive. The quality is impressive for a classroom set up.
In May we head to Camp Orkila for 3 days and 2 nights. We all look forward to this trip every year.
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