Week 16 - Blowing the conch

I've been getting the sense that not all the students during our 20 percent time have been spending their time wisely.  Some students have been diligent bloggers and working on their projects, but some need a bit more structure.  I decided to blow the conch to gather the civil and savage alike.  I introduced a mini-lesson on creating Powerpoints/Presentations that engage the audience.

Each week students will learn a skill that they'll be needing in order to complete the project, such as creating presentations, speaking in public, and the use of technology.  I showed the students the slide I made below to get us started.

I took about 5 minutes to show students how to add an image as a background, insert text boxes, change the fill and text color.  One thing the students utilized was the rotating of the text boxes.  I also quickly shared how graphic design usually takes advantage of 2-3 colors.  Once students created their presentations, named their document Period X-First Last, Presentation Slides and then shared, I peeked into each student's slide.  If anyone is using Google Docs to create and share items, I'd highly recommend using a naming convention like I have.  You can just hit the period and the name of the assignment and you'll have a list of all the students that shared.

I thought that students would take a few minutes and finish quickly so they can move onto their 20 Percent Projects, but many students used the whole class period to perfect their slides.

Most of the pointers that I was giving them were based on my preferences for design, but I was inspired by Slideshare.  I get a weekly digest of the best slides of the week and when I have time I'll peruse them to get ideas for class.

The thing that I was emphasizing was having an engaging image with minimal text.  I was really pleased with the work that the students did.  Some students finished their slides and wrote on their blogs about their slide.

My intent wasn't for this mini-lesson to take the whole period, but the students were very zealous about creating good slides.  I even had students that normally don't do anything turn in some very nice work.

Week 15 - An absolute rose?

After a week off from blogging, I had students return to their projects and blog about what they have been working on.  I've been going through a series of quick little lessons on what smart people do.  So far I've said that smart people reflect, read, and think flexibly.

As I was reading some of my students' older blog posts, I read a student's that had great potential.  She is a part of the Peer Assistance Leadership team at our school and she blogged about going to a workshop at a nearby community college.  Perhaps to her, her blog is like when Daisy Buchanan says Nick reminds her of "an absolute rose."

This is untrue.  I think she is bit off in adding real purpose and valuable content to her blog.

At the workshop she attended three sessions: one dealing with gun violence, another highlighting how everyone is valuable, and lastly a session on seeing signs of abusive relationships.  She merely summarized the topics of those sessions a instead of reflecting on what she took away from them.  They seemed like pretty powerful presentations, but merely summary.

The purpose of my blogs has been to use it as a reflective tool as well as sharing with others.  I think that even in my blogging, that my writing has leaned more towards what I have done rather than what I've been thinking.

I think I'll need to address this idea of some deeper self-reflection as they continue to work on their projects and blogging.  This is sort of new genre of writing for myself and my students.

Next week I'll present on how to add a bit more reflection to their blogs and why that matters.

Week 14 - We search with research

This week I gave students a break from blogging to focus on research.  I wanted the students to learn more about whatever it is that they are working on.  In my last class of the day, a student asked, "I don't need to do any research for my project."  Questions like this, where students don't really think about what they are asking make a bit upset, especially at the end of the day.

When I found out that she was doing her project on movie reviews,  she totally opened up the gates for a teachable moment.  I suggested that she read professional reviews of movies that she has reviewed.  I suggested she look up how other reviewers leave their stamps on their reviews, be it a thumbs up, stars, rotten tomatoes, etc.  I said, are you including the names of the actors, directors, producers, what movies the actors have been in previously.  She began to see that she needed to do a little digging before moving on with her reviews.

It had never occurred to the student that she could learn from looking at other people's work.  This is precisely why I had students spend today's class period doing that.  Of course I want to keep kids accountable for the time spent in class, so I made a Google Form where they had to reflect on what their goal was and whether or not they accomplished their research goal.

Knowing a few of the projects and how they needed some more information, I also posited that they could search how to take better pictures and videos, find recipes, how to get more traffic on their blogs and websites.  Ultimately, it was open ended and they just needed to research something related to their project that will improve the work they are doing.  Below area couple of students' summary of what they found from the research.

I hope that today was time well spent.  What they did today will hopefully make for good blogging material for the students as well.  I hope that they will periodically do some research on their own and make it a process they internalize so they can apply it to other situations.  I guess that is the whole point of a project like this right?

Week 13 - Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

I felt a bit like Mercutio when Romeo said, "Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much."  Today I had my students share about their progress so far, about 10 weeks into the project.  I was anticipating that today was going to rough.  Students ill prepared.  Students having done no work.  Students just skating by doing the minimum.  On the most part, I was actually really encouraged by the effort and the types of things my students are doing.

 Each group had to create a Google Presentation to share with the class.  For me the genesis of this project came from Kevin Brookhouser's session on 20 Percent Time at the CA GAFE Summit.  From his hour session I was sold and decided to implement the project this school year.

There have been some difficult times and I've questioned myself about whether or not this time we are spending, is time well spent.  Last night I browsed how some other people have implemented the project and I read over Kate Petty's Google Presentation that she shared at the same conference (Kate Petty's 20 Time in Education).  Although there are some common themes between the two presenters and how they ran the project, Ms. Petty incorporates the notion of "Genius Hour" for the first quarter of her class.  Students use this time to brainstorm, explore, and present their findings on topics that they always had questions about.

I gave my students a couple of weeks to figure out a project that they wanted to do, but I never really gave them time to research the projects that they were taking on.  I wanted students to just jump into the project, but in my haste, I didn't build in time for them to become experts or even somewhat versed in the area they are toiling in to prepare themselves.  I think that the really good students did this instinctively, but I know that some have only scratched the surface of research.

After Thanksgiving break, we will spend some time on research and figuring out how to make our projects better.  Students that are doing reviews on restaurants and movies could surely benefit from looking at reviews on Yelp or Rotten Tomatoes.  Students creating videos could learn from watching Youtube videos on editing, shooting, adding effects.

Ms. Petty also dedicates a quarter to becoming a "Presentation Ninja."  This is a thorough exercise in studying what makes someone a good presenter.

I give a two-minute lesson on not reading from the projector screen, but instead address the audience.  I tell them to not have your body all clammed up and look awkward.  I tell them to not write giant paragraphs on their slides, but instead use bullets.

I suppose speaking is one of the four parts of the common core and language in general and after seeing some poor presentations, this will be something that I'm going to address as we move forward not only during our 20 Percent Time.  I think it will be well worth the time, because being able to speak well and communicate verbally, with your body movements, and gestures will open the doors to a lot of things.

Returning to the students' presentations, I was mostly impressed.  The 11th graders did a far better job presenting.  One year of experience in high school is like 5 regular years.  They are so much more mature and responsible than my 10th graders.

One group is creating a Role Playing Game.  When the student presented, she talked about learning to code so that she can create the game to become a computer game.  What???  I had no idea some students were going to these lengths to work on their projects.  I've included their presentation below.
Making an RPG

Finally, this blog has been so helpful for me to reflect on not only what my students are doing for this project, but what I'm doing.

Hope you're finding this helpful.  Thanks for reading.

Week 12 - You don't burn out from going too fast, but being bored going so slow

You don't burn out from going too fast. You burn out from going too slow and getting bored.
Cliff Burton 

So in searching quotes about fast and slow, feeling like that is how my students are working on the project I found the quote above.  I think it captures the essence of how the students approach the project.

The students that are passionate about their project work, collaborate, discuss, and create.  The students not working are the ones that are bored with their project, not fired up, or just plain apathetic.  The funny thing about it though is that they chose their own projects.

One group launched their letter writing campaign by delivering letters to teachers asking them to share with their students to write a Christmas letter to soldiers abroad.  They are teaming up with a group called A Million Thanks.  

Another group created a Google Form and asked me to have my classes fill out the survey so they can have some data about the students and their health here at Savanna.

The projects got me thinking about where students should be in relation to other students.  One student is working on restoring an antique rifle.  That is a project that is going to take sometime, the finished product being the restored rifle.  Some groups have taken on projects where they review, music, food, and movies.  This is an on-going project.  So I'm wondering what the end products will be when groups are doing such disparate things.

Perhaps next week's presentations on their progress will uncover the answers that I'm seeking.

One housekeeping note, I walked all of my students using Blogger to choose "No" in "Show word verification."  I've commented on every blog this year at least once I've had to put in those cryptic codes to prove I'm not a robot.  I'm pretty sure I'm not a robot.  This will save me a lot of time and will keep what little patience I have in tact.

Thanks for reading.  Until next time.

Week 11 - Learning Can Be Messy

A couple of weeks ago I had my students go outside to do talking or conversation cards.  My student teacher and I thought that it went wonderfully.  All students were talking, listening, and getting a chance to interact with students they don't normally work with.  Since my classroom is so small, I had half of the students outside.

One of the teachers comes out and said they were a little loud.  I emailed everyone in the English quad to apologize.  One teacher wrote, "No biggie.  Sometimes learning can be loud."  That really stuck with me.  Now I'm realizing that learning can be messy as well.  I like to have things in order and neat, but sometimes you just have to let it go and just roll.

On Wednesdays my classroom looks like a computer cart exploded--wires and computers everywhere.  It doesn't look great, but it's neat seeing students working.  My 5th period class actually finished earlier than I would've liked, but they get right on their computers and start pumping out their blogs.  I don't know if they are doing it because they enjoy doing or because they have to, but whatever the reason is, I like they're writing.

Today I worked with a group that is going to illicit help from all the English teachers on campus.  They are starting a letter writing campaign for our troops.  They have found an organization called, A Million Thanks.  This organization sends letters to our troops to encourage them, especially during the holidays.  We just missed the deadline for Thanksgiving, but the pair of girls will talk to all the English teachers and they are going to ask them to read a letter that they have written to their students to raise up more letter writers here on campus.

What a great way to use that 20 percent time.  Will update on how many students actually write letters to our military.  Whatever the number, 2 or 200, it's that many more than what was written before this project.  Below are the links to the girls' blogs.

Letters to Troops Blog

Jenny's Letter to Troops Blog

Week 10 - Giving a nudge

A lot of groups are stuck.  They don't know what the next step needs to be in order to move their projects forward.  One student was fired up about going to Venice Beach to interview street performers as well as the motley cast of characters there to find out why they do what they do.

His genuine curiosity about the characters at Venice is wonderful, but I wondered how this was going to become a year long project.  I didn't want to discourage him though.  Anaheim is 39 miles from Venice Beach.  He said he was going to get out there and do the interviews, but since he hasn't, he spends a whole lot of time doing nothing during our 20 Percent days.

In his timeline, he wasn't concrete about when he would go saying, "I'll go on a weekend in October and November."  I commented on his paper that, he needs to plan out his dates better.  We are two days away from November and he has not made his first visit.

I'm going to have him prepare all of his questions in advance and figure how he is going to approach them, ask them questions/conduct the interview, and film all of this at the same time.  Even though he hasn't been there, doesn't mean that he can't use his time wisely.

To give all the students a nudge, I've given them a progress report assignment.  On the Google Presentation I've attached at the bottom, I gave them an assignment to present for 2 minutes max what their project is, what they have done so far, and what the next step will be.

Resources
20 Percent Progress Presentation

I think that presenting what they've done so far and seeing where their peers or at might be the push they need to break through and get some real work done.

On a different note, one of the real world skills that I see that students need to develop or use is communicating with people.  One group called different organizations to see if they could volunteer, but no one answers or they don't know who to talk to get what they need.

One girl asked me to call for her.  I told her to say, "Hi, my name is ******** and I'm a student at Savanna High School.  I was calling to see if you had any volunteer opportunities for me and some of my classmates."  I also said, "If the person you talked to can't help you, ask them for the name and number of the person that can help."

This student and her group members were almost stunned because it never occurred to them what they should say when they called.

Finally, I must stress that you need to be walking around and monitoring the students as they work.  Sadly, not all students make the best use of their time, but if you get around the classroom, their less likely to wander away to inappropriate content on the Internet.

These 20 Percent Days are the most tiring as I'm helping students throughout the whole time, troubleshooting technology issues, keeping kids on task, and offering suggestions about their project.

I'll leave you with a video of an 11th grade student explaining how she was using some of her time today researching examples of how to draw characters for her RPG she and her partner are creating.

Week 9 - A potpourri of progress

This is the last week of our first quarter of school and this was the last 20 Percent Day that we had for the quarter.  Ideally students should have completed 4 blogs for each week they've been working since I showed them how to blog, but most students had 3 while others had none, so I changed the required number of blogs for the first quarter from 4 to 3.

Instead of a fourth blog from everyone, I created a Google Form I had everyone fill called, "First Quarter Survey."    My thinking was that I could quickly read the responses and get a sense of where they are at.  I included questions about how like "How would rate how your project is going so far?" and "What do you need help with or are having trouble with?"

My goal  is to meet with the groups that need help or having a problem with something.  The final question I put on the form was optional and it allowed students to just add a question or a comment about the project.  Most of the students left it blank, but here is one student's answers for what they need help in and their comment.

Some groups need no help, some need a push, and some need some tweaking.  Next week I'm going to introduce the progress presentation they need to start next week they'll be preparing for their peers.  My thinking is that by sharing what they've done so far, they'll either not they are on the right track or they need to crank up it some.

Resources

Here is the link to the form I created. www.bit.ly/20timeform1

Week 8 - A break

Week 8 - Somewhat of a break

This week our school administered the PSAT to all of our 10th grade students during our 20 Percent Day.  No one consulted me about how it might conflict with my schedule, but that's how life goes.  I did not have my 2nd, 3rd, or 4th periods yesterday so I just wrote it off as a break for the students.  I was thinking about a break as well, but I wanted to keep my weekly habit going.  I also worked on grading the blogs.  The requirements were 150 words per week with a picture.

It's really neat to read their blogs and to comment on them.  I'm trying to leave encouraging remarks while moving them towards progress.  I must admit that this is quite a task to go in and comment on every students blog.  And when you leave a comment, you have to put in those dreaded, "Please prove you're not a robot" words and number combination.


One of the biggest problems that I've encountered with this project is having the kids blogging about what they are doing on a weekly basis.  I understand that some students don't have Internet access, but we've had computers in class weekly as well as accessing their blogs form the mobile app on their phones.  If they really wanted to do it, they could have done it.

About half of the kids have setup their blogs and are putting in good efforts. So students had a week from Wednesday to Wednesday to do a blog post to show their progress, but what do you when you don't meet on that day?  Some students are behind, and so what do they do?  Some students have not even started blogging, when they finally begin, where will they begin?

I think that I'll just give students the number of the blog they are on, on the Google Calendar I have on my website.  I'll just tell them so that I can grade the blog based on the week they do it, rather than when they do it.  For example, a student that sets up and begins his blog during this week 3 will not write "Blog Week 1" rather they will just write, "Blog Week 3."

I think I'll have my TAs grade that they are posting, and I'll go through and comment a class a week perhaps, maybe two if I can get to it.  It's too bad that viewing other people's blogs on Blogger is blocked, because I think that it would be neat for the kids to comment on each other's blog and develop a real audience.

I'm going to have to figure out how to get people to start commenting on the students' blogs so that they can take pride in writing the posts and the satisfaction of seeing that their project is of interest to someone out there on the World Wide Web.

Week 7 - Gaining Momentum

As we continue to work on our 20 Percent Projects, I see many students and groups working autonomously.  What a beautiful thing to see.

Because the students were working so well today, I spent the majority of my time taking students outside to film them talking about their projects.  I simply had them introduce themselves and say what they are doing their projects on.  After a few students were filmed, I noticed that many of the students were not comfortable talking into a camera.  I encouraged them to speak with confidence and look right into the camera.

In the video below, one of the groups had a bit of fun with it and did a great job.

  

This group is working on recreating the hit "Hot dogs or legs" pictures that were sort of big this summer.  I've included a link to one of the student's blog for this assignment.  Please feel free to visit his blog and leave him a comment if you have the time.  I'm sure he'd appreciate it. 

Jeikob's Hot Dog or Legs Blog

Since we are nearing the end of the first quarter, I'm thinking about an assignment or presentation in the second quarter when students come up, maybe two or three per week where students will come up and share the progress they are making.  I am thinking ahead because I'm anticipating that some students will need that motivation to produce something otherwise they may wait until the last minute and will have wasted all these Wednesdays.

Until next time.

Week 6 - A glooming peace this morning brings...

Today I had the laptops out and ready to go so that students can work on their 20 Percent Project.  Students seemed to be working.  In a somewhat unstructured time, students were working quietly.  There wasn't a lot of chit chat.  They had their heads buried in computer screens, they were talking about their projects, they were really working.  On the most part, I just stayed out of their way.

Last week students had their first blog post due and one of the neat things about students blogging is that they get to interact with the world.  One student said that a person from South Korea looked at his blog.  That's pretty cool.  Other students are excited about getting 30 page views.

Just to create a spirit of competition, I told them I had over 700 views at the time he was in class and now you can see that I have over 800.  I told the students that I would have a prize for the student that had the most blog views.  When students turned in their blog urls on a Google Form, I had them choose what they wanted their blog listed as.  A lot of students chose to just use their name and blog, for example, Cindy's 20 Percent Project.  Based on title alone, I think the most intriguing blogs are "Teaching a White Boy to Dance" and the other side of the project, "A White Boy Learning to Dance."

One problem we are facing is that our district has blocked urls that have "blogspot.com."  However, they can log on to Blogger and create their blogs and update their posts.  This makes it difficult for kids to comment on someone else's post when connected to the school's wifi, but I may have to leave that out as part of their grade.

From now on, I'm going to highlight one student's blog on my posts.  Ivan is an 11th grader and his project is to create a website for our district where art students can share their art with him and he'll post it to the website.  He's creating a virtual gallery where the audience of exceptional art will go beyond whatever classroom that piece was created in.  It's in the infant stage, but a very promising project.

Ivan's AUHSD Art Blog

Week 5 - Growing Pains

Week 5

Five weeks into working on the projects, we have students at different stages of work.  Most students have their proposals submitted on Google Docs and I have been emphasizing making their proposals very detailed so they can use it as a blueprint for their project.  My mantra has been, "Plan your work and work your plan."

This was the first week that I required students to start blogging.  I am compiling all the students' blogs on my site under "Student Blog" on the right column of my site.  Initially I had students email me their name, period, and the URL of their blogs.  That was a bad idea.  I quickly changed my method to collect the students' URL by creating a Google Form on my website.

On Blogger, like most publishing sites, you have the option of what text you want displayed on a hyperlink so I included a field for URL and a field for "What is the name of your blog?" so that the link to student blogs wouldn't be a nondescript url.

This made it a lot easier for me/my TA to add them to the Blogger page.

I also did a brief lesson on Internet safety.  The main point was not to allow creepers to post on your blog, nor to communicate with them.  Once all of my students have their blogs setup, I'll walk them through changing the settings on their blogs so that they can moderate their comments before they get posted.  This will allow students to review comments and they can allow or disallow the comment to be on their blog.

Students are excited to peek in on others' projects and I think they're excited to get comments from their peers.  The beauty of blogging is that it is outside and not inside.  If a student turns in a paper on what they've been doing on their project, I will most likely be the only person to see it.

If some students' blogs begin to get recognized, their blogging will become a conversation with the world outside our school.  This is the type of authentic audience I think that our students need in order to get them to begin thinking about what they are producing and what quality it is.

Please peek in on a student's blog and leave a positive comment. I'm sure they would appreciate it a lot.

Starting next week, I'll highlight one person's blog on the main post to help them gain a larger audience.

Until next time.

Week 4 - Savanna 20 Time

Week 4

Today I reviewed the directions on how to write the project proposal.  I peeked into a number of shared proposals that students shared on Google Docs.  Most of them did not follow directions and wrote out a phrase or sentence rather than explicitly stating what they were going to do for their projects.

I spent a little bit of time showing how they can turn their project from, "We will be reviewing movies," to "We are going to create a website where we review movies for a teenage audience.  We're going to share a teenager's perspective on films rather than the ones done by professionals who are more than double our age..."  Below is a screen shot from the first section of one student's project description.

The examples I used last weekend to show how to write the proposal were quickly forgotten, as many students had no urgency to complete or begin the project last week, as it is due tonight by midnight.

The other agenda item was to show students how to setup up a Blogger account.  Since all of my students have Gmail, Docs, and Drive, they already have access to Blogger.  Blogger also has a mobile app and allows students to blog from their phones in case they don't have a computer at home.

Below are links that shows step-by-step how to setup a Blogger account, avoiding beginner's mistakes, and the top 25 bloggers and their blogs.  What I did in class however was invite a student up to create their Blogger account on the computer that is projected to the class so they could see the process for themselves.  I had students title their blogs "Joe Rebel's 20 Percent Project."  I recommended they use their names and SHS (Savanna High School) for their blogspot url, for example www.joerebelshs.blogspot.com.

I showed them how to create a post and publish.

Students have a week between Wednesday and Wednesday to create one blog entry set at 150 words (from Kevin Brookhouser) and a picture of what they accomplished or worked on this week.

As far as grades are concerned, since we're spending 20% of our class time working on the project, their work will be 20% of their grade.  I will only be grading three things, which are all writing based.  They will be graded on their proposal, blogs, and a comment on another student's blog.

I know that grading should not be a motivator, but I feel I have to keep kids accountable for their work.

Pretty soon I'll have links to all the student blogs on the right side of this page for you to peruse.  Starting next week students should be in full swing working on their projects.

Resources

http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Blog-on-Blogger
http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Common-Beginner-Blogger-Mistakes
http://techland.time.com/2013/08/05/the-25-best-bloggers-2013-edition/slide/all/

Week 3 - Savanna 20 Time

Week 3

Today I shared with my students on how to write a project proposal (see resources below).  I want students to think about what they are going to do, how they will accomplish it, and how they are going to use their time.  Initially I made a handout on Google Docs that have the requirements, but I later added a document to my shared Google Drive folder for the 20 Percent Project called, "Proposal Template."

Now students can go click on the document, make a copy, and fill in the sections for their proposal.  I gave the students a naming convention, Period #-Proposal-Name, Name, Name.  Some of the students are familiar with Google Docs,  so once they rename the document, they can begin to work collaboratively on the proposal.

While some students began their proposals, others were still wrestling with what they were going to do for their projects.  I would classify the area of Anaheim in which Savanna is located as a working class neighborhood.  In our initial brainstorming sessions, many students wanted to do something related to sports like developing a training for soccer, baseball, or basketball since that is something they do, but now other more interesting and original ideas are surfacing.

One group, a Latino girl and a Caucasian boy, are going to take on teaching the Caucasian boy to learn Latin Dance routines by learning how to dance Batchata, Merengue, etc.

Another group is going to tackle learning and teaching Arabic.  Yet another will make bracelets for sick children for nearby CHOC.  One student was interesting in being a pen pal with a military serviceman, but I suggested she start a club on campus to recruit Savanna students to become pen pals as well.

One group is going to create a blog about color guard, giving advice, collecting memes, and a place for visitors to the blog to vent or share their experiences.  One girl in this group was so fired up that she was literally jumping up and down with some passionate fist pumps.

I don't know if I've seen this type of zeal in my students over regular projects.  So excited to see how Savanna students shine as they work towards beginning, fixing, improving, and finishing their projects.

Resources

20 Percent Project Requirements (Google Doc)
Project Proposal Template (Google Doc)

Week 2 - Savanna 20 Time

Week 2

Following what I thought was a great introduction to the 20 Percent Project,  I introduced the notion of blogging to my students (see short Presentation below) to give them a bit of forewarning before they'd start blogging about their project.  Not all, and in fact most, of the students haven't chosen a topic yet so I don't think they saw the value of blogging for today.

In addition, although we're teaching "Digital Natives" they're not necessarily adept at using technology or web tools.  I'm finding that I have to teach my students how to some very simple tasks, like writing in a subject for emails, how to create book marks on web browsers, and other things I find fairly simple.  In that vein, I'm anticipating that a fair number of students are not going to blog.  I'm making it mandatory, but for those truly without a smartphone or computer access at home, I guess I'll have to allow a physical journal of some type where they can document and reflect on what they're working on .

After showing the Presentation "Why Blog?" I gave them a homework assignment where they had to read and review a blog so they can familiarize themselves with what a blog might look like and what purpose it might serve.

Before moving into groups, I had students take an idea they had last week about what interests them and I had them turn them into a couple of ideas that could be a project.  This to me was the natural progression, taking an interest or passion and turning it into a project. I had each student share at least one possible idea they had so that students could join forces, borrow ideas, or discuss possible topics.

Finally, I gave the students about 30 minutes to move into groups or discuss possible topics.  I told the students that on 20 percent days, they could move around, eat, and have the freedom to let their creative juices flow--picture a poor man's Googleplex.  That was hard for me to release that time to the students.  Some of the classes had students working and researching and thinking, while others wasted time.  I guess that happens in every class, but it is something that I'm going to have to learn to deal with.  Below is a picture of some of my 11th graders working during that time.

Until next time.

Resources
Why Blog? (Google Presentation)

Week 1 - Savanna 20 Time

Week 1

Today I presented a Google Presentation I created to explain the 20 Percent Project to my 10th and 11th grade students.  I must give most of the credit to Kevin Brookhouser, who presented on how he ran his project so eloquently at the CA GAFE earlier this summer.  He inspired me to do this at Savanna.  I framed my 20 percent project around the notion of, "Creating something that will improve someone's life."

I began to explain what the 20 Percent Project was all about.  I used an example of creating a giant rubber band ball as a project the students could do for the year long project.  At first thought creating a giant rubber band ball sounds silly and childish, but if you were to consider how this project could benefit someone else, there lies the beauty.  The ball can serve as a symbol of teamwork.  What if all 2000+ students at Savanna gave at least one rubber band.  Then the ball would represent a community coming together.

In the process of making a giant rubber band ball, a student might consider questions like, "What if the ball was left for generations to add to?  What if the rubber band ball got too big to simply just wrap another rubber band around? Where will the rubber band ball be stored or displayed?"  Now the project requires research,problem solving, and students will need to talk to some one on campus on to figure out where to store such a giant rubber band ball.  The students began to see that a project like this is going to take a lot of 21st century skills.

I hope the students were as fired up as I was after this presentation.

Also included in the Presentation I collected some neat videos and websites that I thought would spark some creativity in my class for this project.  They're all included in the presentation and if you'd like to view it, you can click on the link below.

As Mr. Brookhouser suggested his students do, I started a blog as a reflective piece for the project and I included a picture of myself.  I noticed on Facebook that a lot of parents take pictures of their kids holding such a sign as the one below on a momentous day, so here is my first blog post.

Cheers.

Resources
Savanna 20% Project Explained (Google Presentation)