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The Zen of interactive student notebooks- a bit presumptuous? I don’t think so. I began this whole interactive student notebook thing with a beginner’s mind: I had no clue! I was looking for something to engage my grade nine students come September. I wanted something that would grab their attention from day one. I believe that interactive notebooks will do that, but I have to get my students  to buy into them. So like all good sales people (teachers) , I had to come up with an advertising campaign that I hope will  get them to buy into  my notebook idea. I’d like to share my advertising campaign with you.

My students aren’t really keen on reading handouts. I know this because when I give them a handout to read, they promptly ask me what I want them to do. (Sound familiar?) They don’t automatically start reading the handout. I learned early on that not everyone shares my obsession passion for reading everything they see. My students  like me to tell them what to do and show them some pictures illustrating the steps.

So, I know my students  like to hear instructions and and see pictures illustrating the instructions.  What to do? Audio/visual  presentation comes to mind.  The challenge for me is to create a presentation that will  get across all the info about interactive student notebooks in a simple manner.  Usually, I tell myself to  K.I.S.S., but for some reason  KISS sounded kind of lame today. What else could I call the process? (I just realized, I’m trying to sell the idea to myself here.)  Later, when I was out on my walk  enjoying the beautiful late summer weather,   “the Zen of Interactive Student Notebooks” popped into my head.  I liked that.  I’d read about Presentation Zen and The Zen of Blogging. Why not “The Zen of Interactive Student Notebooks”? I like the sound of that. So old, yet so new.

I created the following presentation keeping the Zen of interactive student notebooks in mind.  I kept it simple. (KIS)  If you’d like a copy, just send me an email, and I’ll forward one on to you.

I’m not totally satisfied with the final result. I used Open Office Impress to create the presentation, but for some reason and some how that remains a mystery to me, I ended up saving everything as Open Office Draw.   Draw is not  Powerpoint,  and I don’t know how to make the changes I want in Draw. I’d like to change the background from white to another colour, and I have no clue how to do this. Do you think white is OK?  Now I have a confused beginners mind.

If you have any ideas, I’d appreciate some help. Thanks. I don’t want to redo the entire thing just because I want to make one change. Why do I have to keep learning these lessons?

Photo thanks to Clearly Ambiguous

A Spanish toy maker, Berjuan,  is selling “Bebe Gloton”, a doll that pretends to breast feed. It comes with a little halter top that kids can actually wear so that they can nurse little Bebe Gloton. Apparently,  the halter top has a couple of daisies placed you know where for  little Bebe to latch on and when Bebe’s mouth touches the flowers the sensors in the flower little activates sucking sounds and motions.   For real authenticity,  Bebe will burp- available on ebay for $122.  And, I thought Catty Cathy was too much.

Apparently specialists in early childcare education  like Kimberly Bezaire think Bebe is too much. She says that “Bebe is an example of how electronic toys undermine make-believe play, giving kids too much information.  And it also raises a larger question: What on earth are adults doing to playtime…It turns the child into a prop rather than the child playing with a prop.”

I totally agree.  Is there anything good about poor little BeBe that I might have missed?

In September, I’m going to be teaching a grade 9 applied math class, and I’ve been thinking of ways to engage my students.  See the problem is for the last few years I’ve been in a classroom with computers.  I love using computers to teach, and my students love using computers to learn. There are no computers in the  new  classroom where I’ll be teaching this grade nine class so except for the odd time that I’ll be able to book the class into the computer lab, we’re out of luck. That’s why I’m planning to introduce interactive student math notebooks in my math classes.  I’m hoping that the interactive student math notebooks will engage the students like the class blog did and  make them accountable for their own learning. A tall order, I know.

I just discovered interactive student notebooks myself this summer as I was surfing the web some what desperately.These interactive notebooks are regular spiral notebooks, not the fancy digital Smart Boards. I don’t remember how I found Mrs. Gannon’s site explaining all about interactive notebooks,  but I’m sure glad I did. Many of you  are familiar with the concept, but I wasn’t- life long learning in action. Then I found this by Kimberly Riggins about interactive math notebooks, and I was good to go. I’m not going to explain interactive student notebooks here because both Mrs. Gannon and Kimbely Riggins have done an excellent job of that,  much better than I could. I’m just going to comment on why I think they’ll work with my grade nine students.

I like interactive notebooks because they  encourage students to get involved in their own learning.  I find that my students  will let the lessons I teach just wash over them and not put too much effort into learning  if I don’t get them involved in some way.  Just sitting and listening to me lecture just doesn’t work.  My students are engaged by graphic organizers and I use  them a lot.  I also use group activities a lot.  I got the activities and graphic organizers  from  a series of  Barry Bennett workshops that I attended a few years back.   His  book Beyond Monet that he co-wrote with Carol Rolheiser is a great resource.  I use  it all the time.  If you ever get a chance to attend his workshops, go.  You won’t regret it.

Many of my students are visual learners and so really like graphic organizers and using colour to highlight certain things. Other students enjoy writing math journals and poems.  Still others like to draw.  All of these activities are part of interactive notebooks.  So I’m thinking that this strategy will work.  I’m going to have the kids use spiral notebooks so there’ll be no loose pages or fewer loose pages on the floor under their seats as they rush to the door when the bell rings.  What do you think?  Any suggestions. I need all the help I can get.  Thanks.

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.”
Herman Melville

I can really relate to what Melville says, especially how it applies to the World Wide Web and blogging. A thousand fibers do connect us to one another and result in the formation of countless online communities. Without one another there would be no blogging, no communities, or World Wide Web as we know it today.

For me,  a blogger, the fibers  are the posts I write that others read and the comments we leave for one another. These are the fibers that bind and have linked us together to create the Teachers at Risk community.

It is ironic that Melville talks about a thousand fibers connecting us to one another and that’s just the number of comments readers have left. Thanks to all of you who took the time to interact this way.

I want to show my appreciation to everyone who has visited Teachers at Risk, and since I’m an avid gardener as well as an avid blogger, I can’t think of a better way to say thank you than to say it with flowers.  So please accept my thanks and this wonderful summer bouquet of flowers.

photo thanks to normanack

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