Life-Long-Learners

Sisler High School, the Winnipeg School Division, Eyeconic Media and Microsoft Canada will be hosting a five day Professional Development session on cutting edge ICT skills for digital learners during the week of July 9 – 13, 2012. Our goal is to engage and empower educators through hands-on workshops.

Although the cost for each workshop is $50.00, anyone may sign up for individual morning or afternoon workshop sessions which are of interest:

• Workshop 1: The Cloud Classroom – Monday July 9th, 9:00 am -11:45 am
• Workshop 2: Web & Gaming Graphics – Monday, July 9th, 12:45 pm – 3:30 pm
• Workshop 3: Video Conferencing in the Classroom – Tuesday, July 10th, 9:00 am – 11:45 am
• Workshop 4: Video Editing for the Web – Tuesday, July 10th, 12:45 pm – 3:30 pm
• Workshop 5: Photo-imaging for the Web – Wednesday, July 11th, 9:00 am – 11:45 am
• Workshop 6: Introduction to Web Design – Wednesday, July 11th, 12:45 pm – 3:30 pm
• Workshop 7: Web Graphics & Animation – Thursday, July 12th, 9:00 am – 11:45 am
• Workshop 8: Audio Composition – Thursday, July 12th, 12:45 pm – 3:30 pm
• Workshop 9: Game Design for the Web – Friday, July 13th, 9:00 am – 11:45 am
• Workshop 10: Online Teacher Presence – Friday, July 13th, 12:45 pm – 3:30 pm

Additional P.D. details and specific workshop content can be found in the E3 Workshop Booklet which may be downloaded in PDF format.

There are still some workshops seats available, so register as soon as possible at: Eyeconic Media (www.eyeconic.ca)

Take care & keep smiling

Why do we clap our hands? Clapping in many cultures is used to show support or gratitude. The following activity is one that will have your students clapping and competing.

Students will be challenged, in this innovative educational endeavour, to see how fast they can clap their hands. Have students work in pairs where one child claps as fast as possible and the other student counts and records the number of claps in a 10 second interval. Then the roles of clapping and counting are reversed. Who can clap the fastest in each pair and who can clap the fastest in your classroom?

Challenge students to think of a way in which technology might be used to more accurately measure the number of claps in a 10 second interval. Linux, Macintosh and Windows users might be encouraged to use the free, cross-platform sound editor called “Audacity” found at: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/. Each student can use the Audacity software, together with a microphone, to record a 15 second sample of his/her fastest hand clapping. From within this 15 second recording, one can then pick a 10 second interval that has the most “spikes” corresponding to the individual claps. Ask students to save their Audacity fast clapping image (similar to my sample shown at the right) and indicate how many claps they captured in a 10 second interval. Based on the number of claps in this 10 second sample, ask each student to calculate how many claps s/he could accomplish in 1 minute.

Collect the data from your class and plot the number of claps in 10 seconds, as well as the corresponding extrapolated value for a full minute. Enter the data in an Excel spreadsheet, sort students from fastest to slowest clapping rates, and determine what the average number of claps for your class might be.

Following this activity, ask your students to discuss if they feel that there are people who can clap faster than the fastest student in class. If so, what do they think might be the highest number of claps in 1 second, 10 seconds or 1 minute?

Next, share with them the following YouTube video which demonstrates the world’s fastest clapper, Kent “Toast” French at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNXElmEUIJo

Undoubtedly, Kent demonstrates a rather unique talent. Ask your students how they could verify Kent’s claim to be able to clap at a rate of 12 claps per second.

I like this educational activity because it not only engages students but it also demonstrates how technology can be used to more accurately measure Kent’s very fast clapping rate. If, indeed, one claps to show gratitude, then I firmly believe that the Australian teacher, Simon Job, deserves a standing ovation for sharing this innovative activity in his “MathClass” blog post entitled “World’s Fastest Clapper“. I encourage you to review his post to explore his ideas and resources. Next, adapt his strategies and techniques and formulate a lesson to engage and challenge your own students. I can guarantee that teachers who introduce this activity to their students will be making a “sound” investment!

Take care & keep smiling