Mr. Miller's Classroom Blog

Posts under ‘Exploration’

Olympic Geocaching Opportunity

Apr 30th, 2012
by John Miller.
6 comments

A Travel bug

As soon as students complete their testing this week we will begin exploring a new project that has been in the works for quite some time. In order to further the geography education of my students I like to develop global projects for them to participate in. One hobby of mine is geocaching – placing “travel bugs” in secret locations identified only by their geographic coordinates. Using a GPS device of some sort, geocachers hunt for these bugs around the world. When found, many of these bugs are swapped out for other bugs and moved on their way to another cache. Bugs are registered on the website geocaching.com and tracked as they travel from cache to cache. Often, owners of the travel bugs generate goals for their items.

I have the opportunity to spend three weeks in the UK during the Olympics this summer and I’ve created a project around my adventure. During my stay, I will be travelling around England, and as far as the highlands of Scotland, “seeding” student travel bugs along the way. Over the coming weeks, students in my class will be bringing in a token of some sort to attach to a travel bug. We will be classifying each bug and develop a database of sorts containing things like mass, dimensions, color, etc. so that we can determine if any of these factors slow or speed up a bug’s progress.

A token with travel bug attached

The ultimate goal of each bug will be to return “home” to our local cache just outside of our school. In addition to gathering data prior to departure, students will be developing a backstory about each bug. Why does their bug need to return home? What adventures would the bug like to have on the return journey? Each bug’s story and goals will be accessible via a unique geocaching.com webpage (example). We will track progress throughout next year and see if any of the bugs make it home and how many goals have been realized.

Maps are automatically generated for each bug

I have five FOUR, Three, TWO bugs reserved for our friends around the world and if your class is interested, or would like more information, please leave a comment below. In order to participate, you will need to send me the item that you would like attached to the bug. I need to receive it by June 15th. It cannot be larger than a box of playing cards and must have some way to attach a travel bug chain to it. See images for examples.

There are, of course, no guarantees that any of our bugs will make it home. However, we will have a grand time tracking their adventures as they scamper across the planet in the coming months. Join us!

Tyrone the Sea Monster

Mar 26th, 2012
by John Miller.
2 comments

Note: This story was created on a shared document by students in Room 162 as well as our Quadblogging buddies in Spain, the UK, and New Zealand.

Once upon a time, there lived a very sad sea monster named Tyrone. This is the story of how he became so sad. Tyrone was once very funny and happy and lived in the Pacific Ocean. He always put smiles on people’s faces. On the other hand his old friend, Rocki, was a mean and clumsy magical sea monster. Tyrone’s parents raised him to be caring and thoughtful. He was as happy as a monster in candy store, until one Saturday morning in February when something went very wrong.

Rocki went to Tyrone’s home and he convinced Tyrone to stole a candy store. They hold up the shop and in that moment Tyrone felt very happy and brave. Next day a piece of news appeared in all newspapers and Tyrone’s parents recognized him in a photo. They were very sad, but Tyrone became a famous bandit and signed autographs all the day for his friends. Two weeks later, Rocki went to Tyrone’s home again with a new proposition

Glimmering and dazzling, the priceless ‘Black Pearl’ was safely cushioned behind an impenetrable golden cage, in the famous ‘Clownfish cafe’. Fish people came from all across the ocean just to be mesmerised by its beauty, especially in the mystical moonlight.  It is said that just one touch from this pearl would make you immortal and be able to live amongst the stars with the Gods.

There had been several failed attempts by many gangsters to steal this 7th wonder of the underwater world. Gangster Granny was almost successful in her attempts to steal the pearl when she dug up though the smelly sewers.  Her attempts were only blocked by a lobster that just happened to be working on the pipes that day.  She is still in prison, 5 years later, knitting her latest evil plan.

Meanwhile,on the top of the ocean, Tyrone gets thrown into jail because of his theft. Rocki hears about Gangstar granny and her mean ways and he did not want his old friend to get hurt, but he did not want to go to jail himself. So, he made contact with Tyrone, to make an escape plan to get out of jail with Gangstar granny, and run away. “Sure.” He say’s. But then, in a matter of time, he sees the one and only: Gangster granny. They look face to face, and granny starts to ask him if he is a thief. He say’s “Yesss.” Very slowly but granny just smiles. “So, another thief. I am one too, you know.” She said slyly. “I have an evil plan to steal a very rare item. The Black Pearl.” She laughed. “The what?” Tyrone wondered. “The Black Pearl. One touch of this, and it shall render you immortality.” She said. “Whoa!” Tyronne exclaimed. He became mesmerized by the thought of this item’s power. “But how in the world are we supposed to get out? “ Tyronne asked, he wondered. “Easy.” She said. She walked over to her masterpiece. “We leave this babe right here and the guards think it’s me.” She started. “Then …” She said. “Then what?” Tyronne asked, and wondered once more…

Later that night, Gangster Granny and Tyrone made their escape. Rocki was waiting outside in his Camaro ready to leave. They escaped with no problem, but soon after the cops realized they were gone and sent out alerts to all neighboring prisons. On a Friday night, Gangster Granny, Rocki, and Tyrone planned to steal The Black Pearl. They snuck around to the back door of the museum. Then BAM, they broke the lock and ran inside. Suddenly, they heard police sirens. They tried to run but the police was too fast and already surrounded the building. Rocki and Gangster Granny were sentenced to life in the highest security prison known to man. But why wasn’t Tyrone? Well because he is the one who told the police where and when the alleged robbery was supposed to occur. He did this because he realized stealing was bad and his parents didn’t raise him to be a thief. The cops let Tyrone go with a warning to  never steal again, but thanked him because if it wasn’t for him, Gangster Granny would have never been caught! The End!!!

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/48413253@N00/2356975080

 

Computer Using Educators Conference

Mar 13th, 2012
by John Miller.
1 comment

This week I’m attending the CUE conference in Palm Springs and looking forward to getting together with old and new friends. My schedule appears below. I’m especially excited to finally get to meet Mrs. Yollis!

Here is the FULL schedule of sessions . . .

World Education Games Challenge Begins!

Mar 6th, 2012
by John Miller.
8 comments

We began the World Education Games today with the spelling competition. Students are busy competing against others from around the world. Here are some photos from today.

I can see my house!

Jan 26th, 2012
by John Miller.
5 comments

Well, not really, but it is an amazing image. Check out the newly released super hi-res NASA image of the Earth that just happens to show the location of room 162. Fun stuff!

Live blogging event – Skype call with India Q&A

Jan 22nd, 2012
by John Miller.
5 comments

Watch this space on Monday, 8:15 A.M. Pacific time for a live blogging event. Room 162 will be video conferencing, via Skype, with two gentlemen from India who will be telling us about Indian culture and Hinduism. They will also be teaching us how to do some ancient Vedic Math operations. Students will be using this space as a backchannel to discuss the session.

Netbooks arrived!

Jan 20th, 2012
by John Miller.
3 comments

It’s been more than a year since room 162 was vandalized and eighteen computers were stolen. Today, we received our replacements. Thirty-two new netbooks arrived and I had the pleasure of distributing them to my students this morning as they walked in the room. We are not ready to have the netbooks go home yet, but each student will be using them throughout the day and we will charge them overnight.

The new Acers are running ubermix and I’ve customized each a bit. As we are a Google Apps school, the default browser is Chrome. Several extensions have been added including the Google URL shortener, Diigo app for our class bookmarks, an RSS reader so that students can easily track their favorite blogs, and one of my favorite extensions, Readabilty to remove excessive formatting from webpages.

I decided to test my assigned network capacity immediately. I wanted to see how my one Airport Base Station would handle 32 simultaneous connections. As with most Apple products, the connection was easy and seamless. “All right kids, let’s try to break it.” They fired up their Google Apps accounts and began sending emails, creating presentations, forms, and shared documents, watched Animoto videos, logged into their blogs, and opened multiple tabs in Chrome. I even had a video Skype call with a student across the room. None of us noticed any slowdown. The network and the netbooks performed brilliantly. Next week I get to return to my “regular” lessons that include plenty of netbook time.

It was a good day.

RWC – It must be the hair

Sep 17th, 2011
by John Miller.
7 comments

Victory! We are very excited to see that the Eagles have scored what is only their third win ever at a RWC.  We’ve viewed the video highlights and photos and read all about the 13-6 win over Russia. We are having a great time learning about the sport from our friends around the world. Mr. Webb at Melville and his students made a fun video explaining a ruck to us.

We’ve had visitors provide further insight from other schools where the RWC is being watched with great enthusiasm. Lucas and Oliver, two SuperScoopers from Dunedin have supplied great information and we look forward to Skyping with them next week. Our new friends, via the blogging challenge, Dr. Schultz and class are following along and learning with us. Mr. Lane and class have connected with us from Ireland and must be extremely excited to see the Irish team beat Australia most recently.

The rugby fanatics, and new friends, from Hamilton East Primary school have jumped in and helped us understand the game better right alongside our Cloud Nine comrades at Russell Street School. We’ve also connected to Mr. Eldridge in the UK at Hawes Community Primary School and he has given us a different perspective on the game.

This has been a great way to begin our school year and to demonstrate to my students and their parents the power of global, collaborative learning!

A tough loss for the U.S. team

Sep 11th, 2011
by John Miller.
21 comments

The U.S. National Rugby team suffered a hard fought loss to Ireland yesterday. The defense was able to hold the Irish team back for awhile, but consistent pressure eventually led to a 22-10 defeat for the U.S. team.

We need some help translating the game highlights from the Rugby News Service. Can someone tell us what a “ruck” is in the following quote:

The USA’s resistance was led by Todd Clever. The openside flanker was everywhere – slowing down Irish ruck ball, supporting ball carriers and piling up bodies on the side of the ruck like a man who knew he had to lead by example.

We are not sure what it means, but we have a few ideas. We would also like some perspective from anyone that was able to watch the match. It did not come on the television until almost midnight here so we only have the highlights to go on. The next match for the U.S. team is on September 15th against Russia.

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