Day 1 of Presentations

     I was so very impressed with all the presentations tonight.  I think it was really a testament to the fact that if you give students a project and allow them some creativity, they will blow us away with what they come up with.
    Lexi's students did a wonderful job on their cells.  My daughter - who is taking biology right now, was watching the videos with me and she was naming the parts before the students did, especially the large vacuole.  She thought that was a great idea.  She had to make a cell out of food earlier on.  We also thought it was very fun to watch the infection be introduced.  I especially liked the decorating that happened on the insides of things.
    Ruth and Joel did a wonderful job on their playground and explaining what they did and why.  I loved how they changed some of their original ideas so that they could save money or even be safer.  Ruth's idea to introduce villager children was ingenious to see how they did on the playground.  Then of course, she made adjustments.  The Thinglink was a great way to share with us.  I will have to learn how to use it.
     The fox traps were also wonderful, and I really liked how it was something that the students could relate to.  It was fun to see all the different ones that they came up with.
     Ronna did a great job with her students and helping them get used to Minecraft and exploring solutions to the Monster Lobe.  I also really liked how she extended it to be closer to where they lived so that it was more local and possibly more of a problem.  I also like the idea of Penzu.  I am learning so much about technology from my colleagues.
    Of course I think North did a great job.  We made notes for him to use because he forgot to mention a few things when he was presenting to his class.  So, that is why it may have sounded like he was reading.  He was.  He does a great job explaining it on his own though, and it is fun to hear his emotion and excitement when he does.  I hope you got some of that in the videos.  I really like how he had his own answer to all the questions asked and even shot down some of Chip's suggestions.  He even kept telling me during the rest of the night that it would NOT be a good idea to let people ski down the Monster Lobe because "they WOULD break their ski boards and that would not be good."  The boys were fairly headstrong in their design process.  We played with rolling things down inclines to see what would happen to them. Then we put flat walls up and inclined ramps up before the flat wall to see what happened.  That is when they decided to build the slope.   That is when they talked about energy.  I think he learned about energy and other science things by sitting next to me during this class.

I look forward to next week's presentations!