July 14, 2009
So far this summer, I…
* celebrated Aaron’s graduation from high school
* went fishing for a week on the Au Sable River with three friends
* co-led a Middle School Tech Camp at MSU with Stacey S.
* have been assisting as needed with the Summer Institute at Red Cedar Writing Project. We went on a Writing Marathon for one day of the four-week institute. Also began reading one of their books called Teaching the New Writing.
* read City of Ember and thought about how to incorporate it into the 7th grade curriculum; one of those rare times when the movie may have been better than the book.
* saw the new Transformers movie on an IMAX screen. Pretty impressive.
* scored a goal in a soccer game with my 40 and over men’s team, the Balding Eagles.
* ran across this NPR piece called “Can You Be Friends with Your Mom…on Facebook?” If the topic intrigues you, check out the link; there’s even a link at the top of that page that says “Listen Now” and I recommend hearing Jennifer Sharpe tell her story, too.
* went to Grand Haven with Judy and then visited friends in Frankfort; went sailing for the first time in years (on Crystal Lake). Yahoo!
* experienced the Los Lonely Boys at Common Ground
* watched Man on Wire on dvd and was amazed (I’ll be writing a review of it soon)
* began reading Writing Toward Home at the suggestion of a friend
* spoke with Dean H from school and began planning for the Journalism class I’ll be teaching in the fall
and somehow I still feel pretty relaxed.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:38 am
Hey friend
I’d like to know more about your tech camp for middle school. Was it for students or for teachers? I looked at the plan at the wiki, but was not sure.
(Here is the website from our claymation/comic camp for students: http://claycomics.wordpress.com/
It sure seems like you’ve been busy and engaged. And shoot, you saw The Lonely Boys … I bet it was a good show.
Adios
Kevin
July 15th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Hey there, Kevin
Our tech camp was for 6th – 8th grade students. We had 17 students sign up and it was the third summer we’ve offered it. Most of them took to IMovie quite quickly; we ended up introducing them to Voicethread and wikis too.
Next month, Red Cedar is offering a tech camp for Writing Project TCs from around the state. We have almost 30 teachers coming in for four days around three strands: Collaboration, Social Networking, and Visual Contexts. I’m working with David Sheridan (an MSU professor) on the collaboration strand.
And, yes, Los Lonely Boys were fabulous. Their love for guitar playing realy comes through…and they do it so well.