RJ Stangherlin

Keystone Technology Integrator and STAR Discovery Educator

This site is for Mrs. Stangherlin's classes at Salisbury High School.

IP Presentations Debut May 15: Going Behind the Scenes

This year IP students offer 9 different presentations.  Six of these are stage presentations, and three video productions break new ground.  Take a look at behind the scenes this past weekend.

May 15--11:00 AM [Stage Presentation]
What If RFK Was Not Assassinated? Could One Man Adapt a Country to a Changing Time?
Abby Zovko, Colin Ackerman, Emily Miller, Jessica Gates, Drew DePoy, Tony Abraham

May 15--1:06 PM [Video Production]
What If Nixon Defeated Kennedy in the First Televised 1960 Debate?  Could Conservatism Define the 1960s?
Victoria Ravenelle, Matt Mattuiz, Sean McDermott, Alex Weir, Kaylyn Syvret

May 19--10:12 AM [Stage Presentation]
A Revolutionary Decade: The 1960s.  Was Peace Attainable Without Transgression?
Jennifer Picht, Melanie Surajbali, Amanda Wirth, Bailee Johnson, Deaven Freed, Jennifer Picht, Gabby Snyder, Sarah Holzer

May 19--12:20 PM [Video Production]
Korean War
Garred Greenberg, Colton Furbur, Kevin Connors, Aaron Benner

May 20--10:12 AM [Stage Presentation]
What If the Constitution Had Not Been Ratified?  How Much Can One Document Change the Future?
Matthew Croft, Ethan Vokes, Kayla Mjaatvedt, Avery Markle, Casey Feinberg, Michael Russo

May 27--11:00 AM [Stage Presentation]
What if the Thirteen Colonies Never Received Aid from France During the American Revolution?  Can a Monarchy Inspire a Democracy?
Chris Yeisley, Tyler Nolan, Jennifer Singley, Kayla Springer, Anna Novak, Drew Eisenhauer, Cyrus Sholevar

May 27--1:06 PM [Video Production]
What If Prohibition Had Been Enforced?  Would Sober Living Sweep the Nation?
Ashley Gibiser, Samantha Foulke, Rebekah Jerista, Nolan McGilloway, Jeff Yorgey

May 28--10:12 AM [Stage Presentation]
What If Nixon Wasn’t a Crook?  Can One Man’s Honesty Change a Nation?
Mirielle Elchaar, Nicole Bartholomew, Lauren Kolowitz, Morgan Anastasio

May 29--9:23 AM [Stage Presentation]
What If Thomas Jefferson Had Deemed the Louisiana Purchase Unconstitutional?  Could the United States Survive with Internal Boundaries?
Scott Gardus, Rachel Hoats, Donte McCrary-McClain, Matthew Heyer, Melinda Lehman, Paige Marze, Brianna Dee.

Students and Teachers Learning Together: DENs New Kind of Webinar

Cross posted on Pennsylvania’s Discovery Educator Network Blog and Changing Connections.

Steve Dembo been planning this event for ages and he’s thrilled that on Wednesday, April 9, at 11:00 AM EST, it will finally happen.  On my wish list for ages was a event that would bring students and teachers together to learn collaboratively. Leave it to DEN to make wishes come true.  So, I am really thrilled to remind you that in two days, teachers and students across America can tap into the power of Discovery and participate in America’s Army and the Rise of Video Games Webinar through Discovery Connect. If you are looking for a webinar that you and your students will really love, then you want to join us.  Steve says you won’t want to miss this one--and let’s face it: our DEN SuperSTARS (who are in Pennsylvania as I type) always deliver the goods.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.  (The rest of this blog is shamelessly copied from Steve’s original post.)

According to Dembo, the Discovery Channel featured a mini-series entitled Rise of the Video Games. America’s Army, a computer game developed by the U.S. Army was featured prominently because of its ultra-realism and how it was being used for training purposes.

This webinar will feature some of the creative geniuses BEHIND the computer game. They will discuss how they created the game, how they took real Soldiers and real Army locations and put them into the game, and how Soldiers are using game technology to train. They will also answer questions students have about the development process or what courses (or schoolwork) are needed to become a game developer.

While all age levels are invited to participate, this webinar is recommended primarily for middle school and secondary school students.  .

Weekend Winners

Please Note: I am borrowing Miss Brinson’s email to staff almost intact.

Miss Brinson, Coach of our Model UN Team, is pleased (thrilled, actually) to report that three of our delegates took outstanding delegate awards at the DeSales Model UN competition this past Saturday.

Donte’ McCrary-McClain and Niki Bartholomew took the award representing Israel in the Security Council.

Morgan Anastasio took the award representing Pakistan in the Crisis Committee (just a note—this was not only an assignment that required her to think and argue on an impromtu crisis that develops before them—she agreed to take Pakistan at the last moment on Saturday morning)

They were all thrilled (Donte’ pulled a Cuba Gooding Jr.—from the academy awards a few years ago—he jumped up and screamed with delight when his award was announced!) --

Please congratulate them when you see them!

Lauren DeSieno competed at the local competition of PA Computer Fair at IU 21 this past Friday.  She placed second in the Multimedia Division, and Miss Brinson and I are really proud of her performance.  Please congratulate her as well when you see her.

Need Technology Help?  See the Tech Wizards

As part of the online graduate course that I am taking, I promised to create a support system of students helping teachers.  Modeling our name after Lynn Fuini-Hetten’s Tech Wizards in the middle school, the high school now has its own tech wizards, and they are ready and willing to help.  The list is growing, and I will post additional support staff as students volunteer.  The tech help are listed with their study hall periods:

Evan Howard: 2, 3
Tony Hamane 2, 3
Alex Horn: 3
Pat Jacoby: 3
Tony Davis: B Lunch.

Chris Althouse and Kyle Gotthardt have no study halls but if you need help Period 8, please email me and I will try to get one of them to you.

Any student who is willing to join this list, please let me know your availability. 

Compete to Become DENs Science Teacher of the Year

I copied Lance Rougeux’s post to the Discovery Educator Network National Blog.

Discovery Education’s Young Scientist Challenge has officially launched and this year’s theme is “The Science of Space.” In addition to being to being the premier national science competition for students in grades 5 through 8, this year’s challenge is also open to Discovery Educators. Any Discovery Educator can enter the contest and compete to win an all-expense paid trip to Washington, DC, for the competition finals where one DEN member will be chosen as “DENs Science Teacher of the Year.”

If you are not a Discovery Educator, it is really easy to become one.  See Mrs. Stangherlin and to get your application started.  I promise you will love the benefits of being a member of one of the best organizations that supports teachers nationally.

In a nutshell, you have until June 18, 2008 to make a short video about one of the following scientific points:

1. Newton’s Laws of Motion: Just the term sounds a bit formidable to non-physics majors. Using common language, modest equipment and a creative methodology, produce a short, non-threatening video introducing one of Newton’s Laws of motion. Your choice!

2. Acceleration: What in the world is that? Is that something I can do? Create a video demonstrating the concept of acceleration.

3. The first A in NASA: Aeronautics: Many earth/space and physical science curricula incorporate student construction of a model or paper airplane, rocket, or other flying contraption to learn about the forces involved in flight. It is rare to find one that works reliably. Demonstrate your best example: a student made “flying” device that is inexpensive, safe, reliable, and satisfying.

4. Centrifugal and Centripetal Force: What are they and what’s the difference? They sound a bit alike. Are they the same thing? Create a video demonstrating or explaining either…. or both.

5. Scope and Scale: When working in an earth/space science curriculum, large numbers are often encountered. Demonstrate a novel or engaging classroom method for scaling large numbers, great distances, or massive quantities.

These topics are tough to teach, but extremely important for our students to understand. Do you have an interesting method for introducing these concepts in the classroom? We’re looking for the top teachers in the country to show us how they demonstrate these scientific topics. The best videos will be shared with teachers across the country and you might just be crowned “DENs Science Teacher of the Year.”

For all the details, visit the official Discovery Education’s Young Scientist Challenge website. Good luck!

At our National Leadership Council Webinar last week, Lance promised that the top five videos will receive a great prize. Lance never disappoints, so see if you can squeeze some “spare time” (I know, who has that...) to make the video that just might name you “DENs Science Teacher of the Year.”

The World’s Largest Classroom

Cross-posted at Changing Connections.

Welcome to the world’s largest classroom, Oprah’s Web Event featuring Eckhart Tolle‘s best selling book, A New Earth.  Not only does this book have global appeal; it has a global audience.  The numbers are staggering: 136 countries represented with 750,000 tuned in for the world’s largest live web event.  I had to be a part of it, so I joined the Oprah network (free) and reserved my seat for the class.  It’s not too late to join, because there are 9 more classes coming to you at 9:00 PM Eastern, but the doors open at 8:30.  If you missed the first class, you can watch it here.

You really would not need a press release to know that you were part of a world-wide unprecedented event, and that’s really why I joined.  I just did not want to let a ground-breaking technology event of this magnitude pass me by.  The bonus was the book; it either speaks to you--or not.  To me it said volumes about becoming a better person, living in the now, and finding a kind of spirituality.  Although this book may not find an audience in everyone, the event and being a part of it compels me to continue.

The fact that we are participating in this social networking globally, in real time, speaks volumes about the locus of our online culture.  What surprised me about the first meeting was the connectivity; I did not lose my connection until 57 minutes into the program, when the volume of overload had to create glitches for many of us.  But next Monday, I know where I’ll be, tuning in with the rest of the world, having completed my Week 2 homework online, ready to ask my question, if I get a chance.

NAIMUN: Changing the World, One Issue at a Time

Why, you might wonder, would 28 Salisbury High School student delegates join 2850 students from 128 schools from around the world (mostly private/prep with unlimited funding and Model UN embedded into curricula) for 4 days of rigorous schedules and long sessions during Presidents’ Weekend.  Because they meet people from different backgrounds and cultures they would otherwise not meet, enjoy the spontaneous conversation, and collaborate on real-world issues that inspire them to try to change the world, one issue at a time.  Welcome to Georgetown University’s North American Invitational Model United Nations at the Hilton Washington in D.C. 

Our students participated on 10 of the 38 committees that examined the importance, idiosyncrasies, causes and effects of global issues like AIDS, the Kyoto Protocol, racism in FIFA, or any international situation.  Most of the major committees have two issues presented in the background guides.  Students write position papers responding to those two issues from their assigned country’s perspective.  Using parliamentary procedure, each committee decides which issue to bring to the floor.  Through the process of communicating with other countries, student delegates begin to gather allies with whom they can write and sponsor working papers that become resolutions with the goal of passing the resolutions.  Delegates gather allies by listening to people who speak on the floor or by writing notes to one another.  Once a resolution reaches the floor, the debate ensues, and delegates speak for or against the resolution until a vote is called for and passes or is killed in committee. 

The math on this project is staggering.

2 issues per committee + @6 resolutions per issue = 12 resolutions x 38 committees = 456 +/- resolutions = 4 days at NAIMUN. 

So is the mentoring.  An offshoot of Student Government, Model UN is one of the many activities that Miss Brinson sponsors through this organization. 

So is the real-world connection beyond the classroom, substantive conversation, extended writing, and construction of knowledge, the four standards for authentic social studies education.  If you are looking for exemplars of 21st century learning, you would be hard pressed to find a better model of student-centered, inquiry-based, collaborative learning. 

Secrets from the State Department

During Presidents’ Weekend, 28 students traveled with Miss Brinson and me to Washington, D.C. for NAIMUN, North American Invitational Model United Nations, hosted by Georgetown University.  NAIMUN began of Thursday, February 13, with a Keynote Address that promised to deliver STATE SECRETS.  A conference room housing over 2850 student delegates and their moderators suddenly hushed.

Mr. Fort, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, manages the production and dissemination of all-source intelligence analysis to the Secretary of State, other senior policymakers, and heads the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community.  Assistant Secretary of State Randall M. Fort gave the Keynote Address for the opening of the 45th North American Invitational Model United Nations Conference on November 14, 2008. 

Thirty-two years ago, Mr. Fort was a participant at a Model UN and he remembered being bored by the Keynote, so he wanted to do something different.  He offered his audience of 3000 spectators “secrets from the State Department.” At that moment, his audience quieted.

The secrets were a formula for success: 4 secrets containing 3 words each—words to live by.

1. DO GOOD WORK.  Come to someone’s attention that you are better than the mediocrities because you will enable opportunities for yourself.

2. DEVELOP AN EXPERTISE.  Find something you love and become an expert, a skills set that will serve you forever.

3. BUILD YOUR ROLEDEX.  Know people who can contribute to your career.

4. MAINTAIN YOUR INTEGRITY.  Don’t compromise your ethics.  Mr. Fort said this secret was the most important component to success.

After a short but motivating keynote, Mr. Fort devoted the rest of his presentation to fielding a Q and A session.

Meet Mr. McMahon

Young, energetic, global traveler, human rights activist--he’s Mr. McMahon, a senior English and Education major from DeSales University, where his sister, a freshman, also attends.  He graduated from Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, NJ (between Trenton and Princeton) His interests are highly diversified, as his students are discovering.  He draws and paints, preferring acrylics.  He also knows how to read drawings to “scale,” so guess who’s reading the IP stage set designs.  Mr. McMahon is also an accomplished photographer.  Throughout high school, he acted in the plays, and his favorite role was Dr. Einstein in Arsenic and Old Lace. He loves to read, with Whitman, Dostoevsky, Vonnegut, and Albee ranking among his favorites.  A music lover, “almost to the point of obsession,” his current preferences: Brit Rock: Arctic Monkeys, The Fratellis, The Kooks, and Jamie T.  From this point onward, I’d like him to speak for himself.

“My passions in life, besides books, are traveling and human rights (the best is when I can combine the two).  I have traveled all over America and to 18 countries, including: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, India, Egypt, Turkey, Croatia, Spain, and Peru.  Thirteen of those countries I visited when I spent a semester abroad with the program Semester at Sea.  In the realm of Human Rights, I feel compelled both to spread the word on world-wide injustice and go and personally contribute to ending injustice.  This year I helped co-found a new club on my campus called Advocated 4 Awareness.  Each month we select a specific injustice and sponsor events on campus that let people know that these things are happening and what we can do to stop them.  As president, I plan the events as well as take charge of the funding.  I am also very active on campus in other ways.  I am president of the senior class and secretary for the Student Activities Club.  In the summer I am a counselor for our overnight camp for underprivileged Hispanic middle and high school students.”

Mr. McMahon is one of those rare finds who actually walks his talk.  His next stop after graduation: summer in Africa working with AIDS / HIV victims.  Will he enter the teaching profession--I certainly hope so. 

Dembo Delivers the Goods

Cross-posted on STSD Curriculum & Technology, DEN PA, and ChangingConnections.

If you missed Steve Dembo‘s (aka Teach 42) Discovery Education webinar, Something for Nothing: The Best of Web 2.0, then you might not know you no longer need to use your telephone to connect to a DiscoveryWebEx presentation. Nothing beats hearing Dembo direct, but if you missed the streaming--or you want to revisit a packed hour of great new tools--you can check out the Discovery Webinar Archives.  If you are new to the Discovery Educator Network, you really want to explore the wealth of resources available to you when become a STAR Discovery Educator, because the DEN takes social networking to the next level. Now would be the perfect time to pitch a plug for tomorrow’s history-in-the-making Virtual Conference National Event, ground-breaking with local break out sessions at 30 different sites. It’s not too late to register.  Thank you, Tracy Standhart, for a great blog. (I borrowed your image.)

Steve’s list of cool tools began with 6 photo-related sites. Want to capture your stories and save them permanently? Then you want OurStoryWidget, created by Word Press, the weblog platform Discovery uses. OurStory lets you save stories, photos, and videos on a collaborative timeline. And that notion--collaboration--was a theme running throughout most of what Steve shared, an indicator of how embedded social networking has become in our lives.

When Steve mentioned the K12 Online Conference, I connected, because I used a segment on social networking by Jeff Utecht in my Digital English class. K12 Online made a big splash when it premiered, but has since lost some of its buzz. You really might want to revisit this site, because it hold a wealth of 21st century learning we can all use in our classrooms.

Kerpoff is a great early childhood tool that takes digital storytelling into a different kind of venue. But don’t let the elementary school look-and-feel fool you; it’s just a great tool with lots of built-in elasticity for mindful yet playful super-doodling, helping kids to connect online and create together. For the children in your lives, or the child in you, this easy web 2.0 site will engage and delight!

We all know Flickr and most of us probably use it for photo sharing, but according to Steve, there are 3 new tools that will make Flickr your first choice for managing your photo world, if it isn’t already. Uploading and organizing was always easy because you could +Add Notes, but now you can edit your photos as well.  Flickr’s edit defaults to Picnik, one of Steve’s earlier blog best-of-the-week sites. What’s great about Picnik: edit in a click, no registration, education friendly (not blocked in most schools), adjusts red eye and colors. Got to love Picnik, which you can, of course, use independently of Flickr.

If Steve loves FlauntR, that’s good enough for me.  When he says, “incredibly robust,” he wasn’t kidding.  How about it integrates with facebook, Picasa, flickr, myspace, orkut, hi5, Windows Live Spaces, Word Press, Live Journal, Blogger, and iGoogle. Not enough reasons to love FlauntR yet? It can make images for mobile devices. Or your best ever Valentine’s Day card. This one’s just got to be my new favorite tool.

By invitation only (email Steve, but after tomorrow), you can browse collaboratively with others inside your own Photophlow room.  Interesting way to browse photos, however, because if you are online within your room (account), you see everyone else’s photo uploads. Despite a short browse through this site, it is definitely the most interesting social browsing I’ve seen yet. Definitely a network, because acceptance to the site, for now, is a very private by invitation only. Can you imagine the possibilities for collaborative learning with the CFF Mac laptops. We just had our one day Apple Out-of-the-Box training, and I can’t remember which application had the option to share with your wireless network your photos, but Photophlow and Mac should be a great combination.

The next 2 websites are not Web 2.0 tools, but neat.  The World Clock has an almost unlimited number of uses in any discipline. You have to check out the website, and if you are a math teacher who said you could not integrate technology into your classroom, here’s the easiest and best place to start, and the tool is user-friendly. You’ll want to bookmark the website, because googling world clock will likely not get you to this one easily.

Steve’s taught us to teach our students about their new permanent record.  We get to see the updated version at PETE&C, where Steve is Tuesday’s Keynote Speaker. So I think about my digital footprint, but now we can think about our eco footprint at the same time using Blackle, which is Google gone black. Same search engine, just black. Why? Because it’s environmentally friendly. Google is a white screen, and white uses the most wattage; black uses the least. If your eyes can tolerate the black screen and you life Firefox, there’s a Brackle plug-in waiting for you to install.  At the moment that I accessed Blackle, 438,890.943 Watt hours had been saved.

Back to Web 2.0.  Poll Everywhere.  Just like it sounds.  Free for 100 votes; after that, it’s a purchase, but the site is considering offering educators a package deal, making it your new best poll tool, and economically friendly as well. What makes this poll fun and different: online polling, text messaging polling, embedded into a website, PowerPoint; download results as a spreadsheet or RSS feed. I wish I knew about Poll Everywhere two weeks ago when I made my mid-term for my digital English class.  Yet another bona fide educational opportunity to legitimize cell phones in the classroom. And a better polling tool, by far.

‘Tis the conference season, so a timely reminder from Steve about David Warlick‘s hitchhikr, the virtual way to hitchhike onto a conference and blogs connected to it.  Hitchhikr for PETE&C: right here.  Back to Steve’s kindergarten teacher roots for his next pick: Kindersay. Is there a better way to learn to read? You see the word (or letter), image, and you hear a person say it. There’s a word bank of 300-400 and growing, but this site is hard to beat for first-level language as students learn to read and write, collaboratively.

Not just another social network chat, Twitter is a solid educational tool, or can be.  Steve’s Twitter group is a collection of educators almost without exception. Or they are technology integrators, or both. The learning that happens inside this group is off the charts. Steve said that he sent a twitter feed yesterday, asking his group if they could list their favorite Web 2.0 tools. That’s how he found World Clock and now we all have it. The value of this kind of collaborative learning: priceless.

Zamzar is one of my favorites. I use it so frequently that I cannot imagine life without it. A great converter, it is fast, free, educationally friendly. It converts almost anything to anything else you want it to be. The list is endless, so for one stop conversions, this is my pick as well. The last item, like Zamzar, is a converter. ConvertTube will allow you to convert online video like YouTube to more popular formats like wmv, mov, mp4,mp3, 3gp. If you haven’t joined us for a Discovery webinar, you really should. Discovery Education always brings you cutting edge technology, before the edge is cut.

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