Updates from Around North Shore

When you are in the middle of the forest, sometimes you forget to look around and take a look at the various new projects which have germinated around you. I know that I spend time spreading and cultivating ideas and it exciting when things begin to take root. I want to share a few of the projects and with you.

1st Grade Blog and VoiceThread

Just over a year ago, to support a social studies unit on Community, our first grade teachers created a blog (Getting to Know Us, Getting to Know You) to begin to connect our first graders with others around the world. The connections have slowly and steadily grown. This year, they have added VoiceThread Ed into their toolkit, and their latest post, A Tour of Winnetka and North Shore Country Day School, shows what can be done by creative and motivated teachers and students. Come join them on their journey.

3rd Grade Blogging Unit

Amy Kenyon, one of our 3rd Grade teachers, who blogs professionally at Life in the Lower School, presented her classroom blog at the Northern Illinois Computer Educator’s January Mini-Conference. Her notes from the conference provides great resources, including their class blog, The View From 3rd Grade. She did an excellent job inspring and sharing with others.

Art at North Shore

The art faculty have begun to share highlights of student work on the blog, Art at North Shore.  This is a great medium to share the various different projects our students undertake each year. I look forward to watching this project.

Head of School Blog

While not quite ready to be completely unveiled, our Head of School has dipped his toes into the Web 2.0 world by creating a blog to share his thoughts and stories. Once some of the kinks have been worked out, I will be highlighting this project.

Again, while you may think that your efforts are falling on deaf ears, it often takes more care and nurturing than we are willing to wait to see the first shoots grow from our efforts. But once they take root, watch out, things grow quickly.

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