Our 3rd Annual Trash to Treasure Invention Fair went incredibly well...again! We had lots of great inventions and ideas on display. Throughout this project our students created (from scratch) an invention using the idea of "What problem do I have that I want to solve?" They had to use recycled materials to make their protocol. Along with the invention, students researched a famous inventor, created a display board with information about their product, and wrote and recorded an infomercial for their invention. Check out some quick looks into this year's fair below... **Currently Blogger won't upload the YouTube video directly, so here is the link to the video: http://goo.gl/jk7Vo** ENJOY!
We had the unique opportunity, for the second year in a row, to have a Google Hangout with a patent attorney today. He joined our classroom, as well as the other three fifth grade classes, to discuss what a patent attorney does, along with share his insight into the inventions our students are creating for the 3rd Annual Trash to Treasure Invention Fair. This was a great opportunity for our students to have to think about how their invention relates to the real world. Students had to be prepare to discuss their invention, as well as the rationale behind it. It was a great viewing and learning experience. As he did last year, once again our patent attorney did a great job informing our students. Check out some of the clips from today's Hangout below.
Our model technology classroom has always been extremely fortunate. In the past two school years (this year included) we have had the opportunity to test out a class set of Dell Netbooks with a generic Google Chrome interface, a SMARTboard, two documents cameras (was an iPevo and is now a SMART Document Camera), iPods, iPads, and probably some other devices I am forgetting. At the end of last year, we determined that for our fifth graders to really model a 21st century classroom, in terms of technology, a smaller ratio per student of iPads was needed and to continue with a 1:1 ratio of netbooks. The thought was to also replace the Dell Netbooks with a Google Chromebook. A year ago, Chromebooks were not as affordable as they recently have become. Long story short, this week our "old" Dell Netbooks were replaced with a "new" set of Samsung Google Chromebooks. The transition was literally seamless. In fact, Mr. Hendricks was gone, so Mrs. Olson and a substitute introduced the new device with little to no glitches. They are fast, responsive, and seem to really get the job done. Plus, the screen and keyboard is significantly larger than with our netbooks. Typing already seems to be a bit less of a task than even a week ago. Check out our new Chromebooks in action below...
