Rob Gillies and his class at MECDHH/GBSD

robots

2008-04-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

We continue to work with our Lego Robolab kits. While researching for this unit, I have found one college that uses the same kits to teach some pretty advanced engineering principles. The picture above is of a gearbox the students built. I found it on one of the college websites.There are seven gears in the gear box, all connected, some with 8 teeth, some with 24. We turned gear A, then gear B, and the results were very interesting. Gear A is pretty hard to turn by hand, but makes gear B spin rapidly. Gear B is very easy to turn, but makes gear A turn only very slowly.
We have only scratched the surface obviously, but some good basic principles have been learned.

humbug!

2007-12-10T04:59:00.000-08:00

We have been reading Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol the past three weeks, and we should finish it this week. It is a favorite story of mine, and the group has really enjoyed the telling of the story, and are working very hard with an excellent abridged text I have found. I hope they will want to return to this story every year to enjoy its pure and timeless charms.

city lights

2007-11-22T19:49:00.000-08:00

This blog has been pretty quiet recently, but I hope to be a little more regular in the weeks and months ahead. We just finished our unit on light and color, which was great fun, and really opened my eyes. We will build on our knowledge of light and color and continue to work with Jeff Beaudry at USM on future projects relating to analysis of plants' health.
There is no real connection between this post and the picture above; your correspondent is an avid photographer and happens to like this one. And we are using Chapin's City Lights for our writing prompts...

football season

2007-09-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

All the students are involved now in the socer team, coached by Conrad Strack and myself. We train three times a week, and they all seem to enjoy the game very much. We traveled down to Rhode Island last week to play a side that had more experience, which was the main difference between the two teams. Traveling to away games is also a great chance for my students to mix with other students, as the GBSD team is drawn from the students at Portland High School and deaf students from mainstream schools. We have another month of our season to go, which ends with the New England tournament.

why is it what it is?

2007-08-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

My love of the bicycle is well known: it, and the Voyager spacecraft, wherever they are now, are twin peaks in the history of transportation.
Another man who loves bicycles is the engineer and inventor Dr. Alex Moulton. In the 1950s he bought a high-end 'traditional' 10 speed bike, and marveled at how wonderful it was to ride.
But Dr. Moulton the engineer got off the thing and studied it with his highly critical mind. He analyzed its 'architecture'; its geometry, the sizing of its wheels, everything, asking himself: 'why is it what it is?'
He developed and carefully tested new theories, and produced his first Moulton bicycle in 1962. It had small wheels, suspension, and no top bar. It was more effcient than traditional bikes, and truly unisex. It was an odd looking machine, but became as much an icon of the 1960s as the Beatles.
Then in the late 1990s Dr. Moulton returned to his invention, bringing the same analytical approach, the same testing of ideas and theories, and the same engineering genius.
The result can be seen in the picture above. The Moulton New Series, with its intricate web of a frame and Flexitor suspension, is a thing of beauty, and, by all accounts, a joy to ride.
Dr. Moulton is clearly a man who never kneels before received wisdom, but will subject it to his sharp and critical mind. He is a fine example to anyone, and I like his question 'why is it what it is?' almost as much as one of the answers to it, the fabulous New Series bicycle.

night vision

2007-06-16T10:02:00.000-07:00

This is another picture from the photonics lab, which I like very much. Mr. Chapman pointed a very 'weak' flashlight at all of us: in the darkened room it did not illuminate anything or anyone. But when we stood in front of the video camera, the same light - infrared - produced this bright and pretty clear image on the screen. This is the same technology used in 'night vision'.

light and color

2007-06-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

On June 5th we drove up to Bangor to visit the Photonics Laboratory at the United Technologies Center. The word Photonics means anything to do with light. Although we spent several hours driving there and back, there is no doubt it was well worth it. Mr. Ralph Chapman runs the lab, and he showed us some wonderful experiments. In the picture above, he is holding a filter that blocks out light, but the heat from the bulb passed through and was able to leave a clear impression on a heat sensitive pad just out of this picture. This and other similar experiments - which I photographed extensively - will really help with clarifying the concepts we will be studying in this unit.

getting along

2007-05-20T07:14:00.000-07:00

Some days the people you have to be around get on your nerves or upset you. What to do? Given that the adult world hardly provides the best models at times, it can be hard for our teenagers to know what to do when these times come up.

Making things worse through insults or teasing is not an option. Nor, I tell the students, is the opposite behavior practical. As an example I told them the story of a school I worked in long ago, where there had been a week of many upsets among students. The principal called a whole school assembly, and expressed her disappointment that so many students were not getting along. In conclusion she asked the whole school, staff and students, to stand up. We all did, with some curiosity. "Right," she said, "everyone hold hands with the person either side of you."

My students cringed at the thought of having to do such a thing, as I had cringed. So I don't ask them to do that.

There is a middle ground, one that is civil, or neutral, and when we do have a conflict, that is where I tell them to go.

the last quarter

2007-05-04T11:50:00.000-07:00

Time seems to accelerate in May...just a few weeks left for the school year. Still, we continue to work hard with all our reading, writing and math projects: as excited as the students are about an approaching long vacation, they are still working to a productive routine.
We are closing in on the end of our tie dye project, which has been great fun, and the work is beautiful. More news about this soon.

reading

2007-04-27T11:04:00.001-07:00

We use a number of strategies to promote reading skills with our students, following The 15 Principles for Reading to Deaf Children in particular. Click on the link and take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with these principles.

Our group reading book is The Hundred Dresses , by Eleanor Estes. I prepare up to eight 'slides' for each reading class, using Powerpoint. Each slide has 'manageable' blocks of texts for students to read, analyze, and then switch to ASL. I project each block of text to the Smartboard, and this friendly method of presenting the text is helpful to our reluctant readers, who can feel daunted by a thick book, or even a long page of text. It's been nice to see students curious and even impatient at times to see what is in the next slide, and trying to find out by reading it.

In one slide this week, the phrase putting yourself in someone's shoes came up. It's something we teachers need to do when thinking about what it's like for our students to climb the mountain called English.

in the loop: writing what you see..

2007-03-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

We have established a weekly routine for individual writing assignments, using a new technique for a writing prompt. This typically involves the films we use for Literature. I select very brief clips - around 20 seconds or so - and on the laptop I can set this clip on a repeating 'loop'. This is projected on the Smartboard and the students use their laptops to write what they see. The goal is for them to try and be as accurate as possible, which means including all the dialog they see, plus actions and expressions. The next step will be to add relevant information that is not always explicit in the clip: such as setting, background, emotions and thoughts. As I said to one student who was working with Chaplin's The Kid, if there is something touching in the movie clip, then I want to be touched in the same way by your writing. We have a good editing process in place, and I am seeing improvements in their first drafts.

cotton bolls

2007-03-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

Last week we had ASL story time with Rita Gipson, and the theme was cotton. The tie-dye project is using cotton T-shirts, and so it was interesting to find out more about the fabric we are working with.
Leona and Emily, our great, creative librarians, organized a wonderful activity after the stories: examining bolls of cotton and removing the seeds. It's not easy! And as we are also looking at the role of cotton production in US history, it felt like we were getting our hands on the past too.

silent, but busy

2007-03-08T16:47:00.000-08:00

Sorry it's been quiet on the blog lately. We have been very busy in the classroom and finding the time to publish new posts has been difficult. But the wheels are turning again...

I.O.C. tie dye shirts

2007-03-08T08:25:00.000-08:00

The Middle School business, Island Ocean Crafts, is in the middle of its next great project. The students have been settled on making and selling tie dye shirts.
Several subjects are addressed through the project. We have been researching cotton and its importance in US history. We have also been working on managing budgets, and the math related to borrowing (and the concept of negative numbers). Our writers have come up with some slogans for the catalog, and there are some very persuasive ones!
Once the catalog is out, we will process orders and begin production. All just in time for the warm spring weather, whenever it comes.

Portraits come to life

2007-02-10T07:09:00.000-08:00

Here are four portraits currently on show in the John Brewster exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art: the portraits bear an uncanny resemblance to four students I know.

If you go to the exhibit at the museum you can see these portraits come to life, when each character talks about their portrait, in ASL.

The Portland Phoenix reviewed the show on February 2nd, and made special mention of the students' contribution to the show: "It's an incredible collection of performances and, however small and quiet, a powerful component of the exhibition."

For more information go to the Portland Museum of Art website.

showing films in the classroom

2007-02-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

Literature and films

At GBSD, we teach units that address learning standards of the Maine Learning Results. For English Language Arts, under Literature and Culture, are these:

Identify the main and subordinate characters in literary works.
Explain how the motives of characters or the causes of complex events in texts are similar to and distinct from those in their own experience.
Demonstrate an understanding of lengthy, complex dialogues and how they relate to a story.
Recognize the use of specific literary devices (e.g., foreshadowing, flashback, different time frames such as the future or the past).
Recognize complex elements of plot (e.g., setting, major events, problems, conflicts, resolutions).

Literature is usually associated with thick and inpenetrable books, like War and Peace: but in fact literature is not a reading class, although it is often taught through reading. It is about great themes: love, passion, jealousy, compassion, change, and power, to name a few. Literature is a rich collection of stories that try and reveal insights into humanity and society. If my students can not explore these themes in books because the process of reading is often difficult, then we must try something else. That brings us to films.

I select films with great care, trying to find something that will interest and challenge the students. The pause button is used often, and the technology we have in the classroom is wonderful. With the laptop I can bookmark clips or freeze frames, so we can go to any point in the film with a click of the laptop, and have excellent discussions. The question Are People Good is one we are considering, and the first film I picked enabled us to ponder this question.

In January we watched Jean de Florette. This is a very simple story, magnificently told. Set in post WW1 France, it is the story of an old farmer and his nephew who want to get the farm adjacent to theirs, because it has a source of water, a precious spring. A young city man, Jean, inherits this farm, and sees it as a place to live the ‘authentic’ life with his wife and young daughter. Jean is trusting, indomitable, honest and enterprising. His neighbors, in order to get the farm, need Jean’s dreams to fail, so they can buy his land cheaply. And to facilitate this failure, they secretly block up the spring. Jean’s heroic struggle to water the plants on his farm is watched pitilessly by the old farmer, and with very mixed emotions from his nephew.

Jean’s struggle ends tragically: and his daughter, Manon, learns that the tragedy is not caused by nature, but by human greed. This knowledge sets the stage for the second part of the story, set 10 years later, in the film Manon des Sources.

Anyone hoping to see vengeance on the uncle in this second part will be disappointed, and I can not add any more comments as that would spoil the story for you!

Using great films like this one, with the wonderful technology we have in school, enables us to have great discussions and activities, which ensure that my students can enjoy the same kinds of exciting literature classes enjoyed in classes all over the state.

Jean de Florette may be a difficult movie to track down, but if you can rent a copy you will not be disappointed, and it will be a treat to share it with your child at home. I will save Manon des Sources for later in the year.

Expectations

2007-02-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

Expectation is a word we use often in class. We have two main expectations for the students this year.

Staying TOGETHER during lessons mean we all pay attention to whoever is talking, and we all work as a unit - unless there are individual assignments.

In the picture above we see 14,000 people following this rule perfectly as the latest offside rule is explained to them.

The other expectation is RESPECT. This word is open to interpretation, so our meaning has to be defined often, and illustrated by real life examples. In class, it means you treat others as you want to be treated yourself.

Better late...

2007-02-01T06:01:00.000-08:00

As you can see from the other 'posts', we have been ready for some time with this blog, and have now sorted out the details that were holding us up.
So welcome!
Please bookmark this blog, and keep checking for updates.
Comments are most welcome.
RG

Art Museum project

2007-01-12T09:37:00.000-08:00

A crew from Channel 6 News were here on Friday to watch the students describing some John Brewster portraits. The students wore costumes to match those in the portraits they were describing. The video the students have made will become a part of the John Brewster exhibition at the Portland Museum of Art. More about this soon, but well done to our art teacher Julie Clark; this is a great project.

2007-01-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

Here are two of my students. Some photographic 'mistakes' make great pictures! Guess who?

Are People Good?

2007-01-07T11:43:00.000-08:00

I have posted the question in the classroom. We will keep it in mind throughout the rest of the quarter, perhaps for the rest of the academic year.
At some stage we should discover that the question itself, because it asks for a 'yes or no' answer, is inadequate. We will keep this in mind as we explore the question in news topics, stories, literature...and in the way we treat each other.

We were lucky to have the story of the wonderful Mr. Wesley Autrey to refer to shortly after we introduced the question.