Day 25 - Emma Jones, Burlington High School Sophomore

I am a swimmer for the Burlington High School Girls' Swim Team and this year we have been incorporating the use of iPads into our practices. The idea of using iPads during practice was brought to our attention when our coaches discussed what our themes for this year were going to be. Our first theme was unity and we were able to accomplish this through team-building activities such as pasta parties and team sleepovers.

Our other theme was the “science of swimming," a way for each member of the team to develop as swimmers.  In order to accomplish this theme split practices were implemented. Every Wednesday practice was split in with one half of the team practicing for the first 45 minutes and the second group practicing for the last 45 minutes of the practice. During the half of practice where swimmers were not in the pool, we use the iPad video cameras to film our strokes so that we could have a visual of what we were doing correctly and what we need to work on. The ipad’s use during practice has overall proved very helpful and has helped everyone to improve. More advanced swimmer’s have been able to perfect their technique and newer swimmer’s have been able to get the basics down.

Day 24 - Hannah Lienhard, Burlington High School Sophomore

A brief MASSCue Reflection

BHS Help Desk Students at MASS Cue 2012 

MassCUE was personally the first major conference I had been to. Not that it was particularly large, it was merely the first conference I had been to that was almost completely vendor oriented. At BPSCON 2012, we were gearing up for the coming school year by nipping off problems at the bud, where at MassCUE, we were expected to almost sell our concept of a help desk to a large group of teachers.

The idea behind a conference presentation in and of itself was simple enough – to tell a body of people your experience with this particular class, and share our opinion or two about being a student in a 1:1 learning environment. That said – no amount of facts will prepare you for the social interaction segment of an interactive presentation. It is one thing to know the facts as they are, and another to present them in an appealing way that reflects your opinion on the subject, while still remaining professional. To add to this, we chose an open forum, question and answer style of presentation, adding to the pressure of an accurate and informed response.

In general and despite the pressure it was an informative and, dare I say, fun experience. It was fascinating being in a community of educators who, for the most part, just want to enrich the lives and learning of their students. 

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Day 23 - John Lyons, Pine Glen Elementary School Principal

4th Grade Rocket Day

The fourth grade teachers, students and parents had a great time today at Rocket Day (check out all of the great pictures below).  With help from Ms. Pavlicek and Mr. Musselman from the Burlington Science Center students learned about such concepts as gravity, thrust and force.  Fourth graders also learned about Sir Isaac Newton (One of Mr. Musselman's favorite scientists).

Students greatly enjoyed launching their rockets and using their iPads to record the event.   Students walked away from this hands-on learning experience telling me that science and learning is fun.  The fourth grade teachers and I learned this first hand as we had a 'blast' launching our rockets.

Day 22 - Jake Moreira, Burlington High School Sophomore

The Importance of Passwords

In class today, the topic of passwords came up and we were talking about how there were 72 different options for a one character password.  I though it was fascinating so I did a blog post on it to share what I found

Everyone in the world has a password whether it is to log in to facebook or to unlock your iPhone. The only thing that is stopping you from identity thieves and hackers is a word or a sequence of numbers.There are 72 options for a one character password, the equation for finding the possibilities of you password is 72 ^ x   and x being the amount of characters in you password. Most of the time the minimum of characters that are required for the password is 6 characters. That means that there are 139,314,069,504 combinations, that sounds like a lot but hackers use multiple computers  and that amount of combinations would not take a very long time. This link explains passwords very well http://www.commoncraft.com/video/secure-passwords 

If you don’t want to watch the video, basically it explains that passwords keep people out that you want out. Your password should not be something close to you like you dogs name or a significant date. Your password should be something like a phrase that is had to figure out. Then you can put  numbers and characters in it to make it harder. An example is “In God We Trust” take the first letters in each word to get IGWT,then make it 1GWT. Then take that and modify it to something like 1GWTfb for facebook and and 1GWTtw for twitter. Passwords are important make sure yours are safe.

Day 21 - Patrick Larkin, Assistant Superintendent for Learning

It is hard to believe that I am entering my sixth year in Burlington! Moving to my new post in central office this year has certainly brought a new set of challenges as I am feeling like the "new kid" who is trying to learn all of the  names and navigate new hallways.   However, there are tremendous learning opportunities available when you step out of your comfort zone and accept a new challenge.  I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to accept this challenge in a place like Burlington where education and educators are supported.

As an administrator and a parent, I am impressed daily by the learning taking place in our schools. While none of us purport to be the perfect educator, there are so many examples of high-quality learning experiences taking place every day. Fortunately for me, I get to see a number of them first hand!

But there is good news for those who can't be in our classrooms each day to witness the happenings. Because more and more of our staff members are sharing a window into their classrooms with blogs and other online spaces, there are opportunities for others to follow along.

Day 20 - Patricia Sullivan, Grade 6 Marshall Simonds Middle School

I like using Socrative for exit tickets and warm ups in the classroom. It gives me instant feedback on what I still need to work on in the classroom. Instead of going home and looking through the informal assessments I give, I can have the results pop right up while I am still teaching. It is great because I won’t waste my students’ time on something they have mastered (like action verbs) and I can move on to the next (more difficult topic) like helping and main

verbs.

Day 19 - Kevin M. and Liam G., Pine Glen Grade 4

(Editor's Note - These iMovie videos were created for parents to watch at Pine Glen's Back To School Night)

Kevin M. 

Creating our movie was hard at first then it got better in all it was really fun. My parents thought it was the best trailer they had  ever seen they thought the disappearing  into the wall trick was really cool I felt happy because when it was finished it was an awesome trailer.



Liam G.

Making the imovie was really fun. I liked how we got to do it on our own with no teacher helping us. My parents loved my movie. They said they were really proud of me. They said it was really creative. I felt like I did a good job on my movie.



You can check out all the videos made for Parents' Night Here.