Posted on December 7, 2009 by Janine Lim
It’s December 7, and we’re remembering Pearl Harbor by having three sessions interviewing panels of our local World War II veterans. Here are some of the questions the students asked:
- What was your inspiration or motivation during the war?
- Which front do you think was the most difficult?
- Do you think it made a difference in your experience if you were drafted or volunteered?
- Do you think the U.S. did anything to provoke the Pearl Harbor attack?
- What did you miss besides family? (Coke & milk)
- What do you think was your greatest accomplishment during the war?
- How many pounds of equipment did you carry and what all was part of your gear?
- How did Hitler’s decision to invade Poland affect your life?
- Have you ever been back to Europe and what were your impressions when you went back?
- How did the war affect you & your family economically?
- Did 9/11 affect you the same way Pearl Harbor did?
We had three panels participate today:
9:30 session
Arden Pridgeon, Army; Frank Smith, Army; Don Sprung, Army; Frank Cupp, Air Corp.
10:45 sessions
Ray Sreboth, Army; Jimmy Butt, Army; Rich Ziebart, Air Corp.; Bob Ziebart, Army
12:30 – 1:30 pm
Rich Ziebart, Air Corp.; Bob Ziebart, Army; Val Ripsco, Women’s Army Corp
What a great set of panels and students asking questions! Another excellent day of learning!
Filed under: ASK Programs | Tagged: Lest We Forget, World War II | Leave a Comment »
Posted on December 3, 2009 by Janine Lim
Today we have four classes participating in the TWICE ASK program with Tuskegee Airman Alexander Jefferson on his book Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free. Wayne RESA hosted, bridged, and facilitated this videoconference for TWICE.
Some of the questions students have asked are:
- What was the food like in prison?
- What went through your mind as you ejected from your plane?
- How was your mental and physical health affected by being in the war and being a prisoner?
- What were some of the major battles that you participated in?
- What did you do to help young people, other than teaching, after you got out the war?
- Were you happy that you wrote about your experience as a Tuskegee Airman?
- What was it like to experience segregation?
- What was it like seeing war from above rather than on the ground?
- If you had a chance to fly again would you? “Oh heck, yeah, in a minute!”
- How did you feel when you had done so much for America and then you had to come back and fight for your rights?
Our World War II veterans are always adamant to tell students that the Holocaust did happen and don’t let anyone ever tell you that it didn’t happen?
This week we also had four days of ASK programs with author Janie Panagopoulos. There is still room in upcoming spring semester TWICE ASK programs.
Filed under: ASK Programs | Tagged: Tuskegee Airman | Leave a Comment »
Posted on December 3, 2009 by Janine Lim
This morning we have another EcoConversations connection with Dowagiac Middle School and Westcliff High School for Girls in the UK.
The first presentation was from a group of students in the UK who shared how McDonalds (eating burgers) is making a negative impact on the rainforest and the environment: no recycling, litter, impact on health, and where the rainforest is cut down for raising cattle, etc…
Next our class presented about our community and what the students do for fun. They shared about the agriculture grown in our area. Then our class shared our the invasive species in our area.
Next another group in the UK shared about recycling and impact on environment.
Then, as Mr. Tsang said, “the business over”, the students asked each other questions. Here are some of them:
- How many McDonalds do you have?
- What kind of music do you listen to?
- Two of the students in the UK sang to our students! That was a hit!
- What kinds of food do you eat? What is your favorite food?
- What’s your favorite subject?
- What are you getting Christmas?
- Are you on Facebook?
- What grade are you in?
- What’s your favorite sweets?
- What time is it there? (This question never gets old in a videoconference!)
- How many students are in your school? (1000 UK / 600 MI)
- Do you guys think we have funny accents?
The students had a great time chatting and we are talking about setting up some more collaborations between our schools.
Filed under: Collaborations, International VCs | Tagged: ecoconversations | Leave a Comment »
Posted on November 30, 2009 by Janine Lim
Last Wednesday afternoon, just before the early close for Thanksgiving, I VCed with Craig in Alaska, and Janet & Rachel in New Zealand to experiment with desktop VC.
Rachel beat me to it, with a great write up of our little experiment. I totally agree with her, that the big issue is accessibility with VC. How can we make this accessible to more students & classes?! Take a moment to read Rachel’s review!
Filed under: Techie Stuff | Tagged: Desktop VC, H323, SVC, Vidyo | 6 Comments »
Posted on November 24, 2009 by Janine Lim
Yesterday and today we’ve had several HistoryQuest8: Revolutionary War sessions. These ones have been nicely full with 3-5 classes in each session. The clues have been challenging, so the students have had to work hard. In face in one session, with 10 minutes to research, none of the classes guessed any of the answers! Still, I heard from those classes that they enjoyed it and learned more about the Revolutionary War in the process. I’ve been able to collect some great footage to make a HistoryQuest movie sometime soon as well.
Here are some examples of the clues:
An amazing drawing!
A clue for a person, can you figure out their position/job title from this clue?
From the same presentation… I liked the poetry!
Notice the nice bold writing! Easy to read & record.
Another poster example.
Yikes, what a math problem!! How would you have taken a shortcut in writing down this clue?
Love this clue: “No one sinks ‘em better”. Can you think of what revolutionary war ship this would be about?
In the last session, we had a scheduling glitch so I had five classes in a 45 minute session. Believe it or not, it worked!! We ended right on time. This is good to know that it is possible. We’re not doing any clues repeated. I ask the school to repeat a clue during the presentation if it doesn’t seem clear; otherwise I let it go. And there are no clarifying questions either. But the classes are giving really good feedback, so it’s good to know this format will work in a middle school short class period. I’ll be running MysteryQuest World Geography in February this same way (registration will open in CAPspace next week.) Hope you can join us for a Quest in the future!
Filed under: MysteryQuests | Tagged: HistoryQuest8 | Leave a Comment »
Posted on November 23, 2009 by Janine Lim
After a very successful Monster Match this year, several of my classes wanted to do a turkey match with the same idea. We called it Turkey Talk. Roxanne and I partnered our classes, and ended up with 18 classes participating! The sessions occurred Friday, today, and a few more tomorrow. We were able to use the training materials and agenda for Monster Match. Interestingly, some of our classes had done Monster Match just a month ago, but they still wanted to do it again with turkeys. Clearly this project is meeting writing and art objectives!
Here are some pictures of the turkeys from Friday:
Notice how the turkeys are easier to see and compare when they have a plain background behind them.
A funny comment: One of my classes said to their partner class in TX: “We weren’t surprised that your turkey was so big since everything in TX is bigger!”
This is what we are calling an “accidental project”. Didn’t intend on it, but it just grew! I think I’ll be making this a project for next year for sure.
Filed under: Collaborations | Tagged: Monster Match, Turkey Talk | 1 Comment »
Posted on November 17, 2009 by Janine Lim
Last week I wrote about our videoconferences celebrating veterans day. One of our World War II veterans, Ray Sreboth, wrote a little reflection on the experience. I obtained permission to share it here with you:
This morning, I was once more was involved in one of those two way interactive TV, living history sessions at the Berrien Regional Educational Service Center where I had served as Superintendent for some 14 years. Unlike previous gigs, we had one or two Vets on a panel, each, from WWII, Korea and Nam. Of course, that made me the senior member of the group. We interacted with kids in Texas, mostly from the Dallas School District and they were terrific! Grade levels varied from 4th grade, middle school to senior high school. There were a lots of Jr. ROTC members, boy and girls, Army and Marine Corps units. They were the best prepared of all of the classes I seen in the three or four years. The Lest We Forget Org has been participating in the program and I salute the students and their teachers: all of them did their homework. The pupils asked good questions, very clearly, were attentive and were taking notes. The ROTC Cadets stood at attention when asking a question and remained standing till the answers we forthcoming; they thanked us and took a seat. Each grade seemed to have distinctive and uniform clothing, i.e.; one group had red shirts, another blue etc.
Though I wasn’t feeling very well, I made an effort to show up and I told the Director, given the opportunity, I wanted to made two points. If nothing else this day: (1) That as these youngsters grow up they will run into Holocaust Deniers, perhaps even their college professors will be in that group and I wanted them to know I saw the prisoners who had been freed /released from Buchenwald — at least those who were alive — and I told the kids they should not believe who say those crimes against humanity never took place and that I would never forget the sight of those living skeletons wearing what appeared to be pajamas made from flour sacks. And (2) that those entering college ROTC should understand, as should their parents, that the were not going to get a “free college education” in such a program, at they were not signing up for the Boy Scouts or Camp Fire Girls and that, when commissioned, they would probably be required to serve in the military and that they just might be put into harm’s way as a result of such service. I suggested that their parents should be fully aware of such circumstances as well.
I concluded my remarks at one session by mentioning how in my school days we observed Armistice Day, which marked the end of WWI and that it was a big deal in my day and I recited the poem In Flanders Fields, which we learned in about the 5th grade in the CPS. I did not tell them how at 11 AM on Nov. 11, we stood, in silence and Faced east for the boys who went west.
What a powerful experience for students, veterans, and videoconference coordinators!!
Filed under: ASK Programs | Tagged: Lest We Forget, World War II | Leave a Comment »
