Heights Technology Blog

Today you will research the cultural elements of the Maya, Incas, and Aztecs. Use the links at the Heights Website to gather information about your particular culture and cultural universal. Over the next couple of weeks you will create 2-3 slides with the information, which will be combined with other members of your group to form a comprehensive slideshow of each of the civilizations. For the first slide of your show, create a Wordle with words that represent your civilization. Below is a sample of one culture and one cultural universal.

Today you will visit A Journey To A New Land website to research information about important archeological artifacts relating to the first peopling of America. In the classroom you will be assuming the role of an archaelogist and composing an email to your employer informing him or her about your discovery. You will also be asking for increased funding due to the important nature of your discovery. Click the picture below to go to the link.

The Grade 5 building block of character focuses on citizenship, and citizenship also applies to online interactions. Today you will watch movie clips from Brainpop concerning three important topics in digital citizenship: digital etiquette, cyberbullying, and copyright. After watching the movies, you will use Etherpad to collaborate online with members of your group to answer questions about the movie. Click on the picture below to take you to the movie clip. Visit my eboard to learn how to enter the collaborative writing environment.

Today you will work with a partner and visit the National Geographic website Crack The Code. It appears that thieves have stolen some very valuable maps. They fortunately dropped a scrap of paper behind with clues as to the location of the maps. However the clues are in code. Use your knowledge of latitude and longitude along with Google Earth to find the identity of eight cities. The discovery of the identity of all the cities will lead you to the maps. You may not use the Fly to Search, but must spin the globe to find the coordinates. Be sure to turn on the Google Earth grid in the View menu. Please take turns using the mouse. I will hand out a copy of the scrap paper with the clues. Use the back of the scrap paper to write down your answers. Good luck!

Open House is right around the corner, so you will create a pretend magazine cover for your parents featuring a student of the year- you! I will bring the digital cameras to your classroom where you and your partner will take pictures of each other with the props you have chosen for your cover. During our next class session we will head to the lab and use the Magazine Cover Maker from BigHuge Labs to create the final product.

Thanks to Kevin Jarrett for this cool idea!

Today you will visit Ms. Cooperman’s Geography links. Scroll down to Geography and choose any link from her list to explore.

Today we will work in your classroom to learn how to handle, setup, and use the laptops. Ms. Cooperman has a short word processing assignment for you as part of your Open House Collage project.

Welcome back to the Computer Lab. Today we will assign seats, review the rules of the lab, make sure everyone can log in, and review the dock and the Heights Technology Blog. We will also learn how to create a folder to store all of last year’s documents.