I got an email today, it mentioned the TEDxNYED conference and how Alan November mentioned the online textbook in his presentation.  It comes at about 12:35 or so.  Give it a watch.  Very Cool...students people are noticing your work. 

Thanks to all students at Beachwood and Chardon who used a google doc to pick five words for each topic to build wordles.  Grant, choose to do this for his independent project.  We will use these wordles after SpringBreak.   Fell free to click them and make it big and then take a screenshot and put it in your blog. 

This is Grant typing:

Wordle is an online program that allows you to type words into the system, and it will automatically come up with an image showing the words used the most often in that document in the largest sized font, then the next largest, than the next, etc.

I chose to create Wordles for my Independent Project to see how members of my class would describe various topics of the Middle Ages. Wordle is a great program to use in order to see this.

This blog is a film of how to record your screen with QuickTime.  Some films will appear in the online textbook. 
All recording need to start the following way:
YOUR FIRST NAME ONLY
YOUR AGE
BEACHWOOD MIDDLE SCHOOL
DATE, and PROJECT TOPIC
For example, "My name is Garth and I am 40 years old and attend Beachwood Middle school.  Today is March 25, 2011 and this is a project about screen Capturing in Quicktime."

Several students from Beachwood attended the NEOtech conference on Friday.  They made this video is five hours after filming 12 hours of video. They did an outstanding job.    In this video they asked several people to explain the power of technology in one word.  What word would you added--lets see how many we can get.   The second video is a Keynote mashup (50 minute presentation by Mr. P an Mr. H in a little over 6 minutes). The images below are the 400 plus audience members.

What did you learn from this....Leave comments.    P.S. hundreds more like this.  Maybe you could make one.

If you want to do this on the web, please click here for the survey:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dExCb25JMnBSdklKSi16LUFYd0JheUE6MQ

The following was a Voki made by a student.  She used her cell phone to call in the message.  I like the sound much better.  What do you think?

A students WORK:   I was woken up at dawn by my squire.  He told me that the king had ordered all of his knights to report to his castle.  I packed up my things, suited up, and me and my squire were off.  We left at midmorning and reached there by evening.  The king had ordered a meeting with all of his top officials and knights.
"Welcome my loyal servants.  You may be wondering why I have ordered you to come here.  Recently, my guards have caught a spy from our neighboring kingdom.  After putting the spy through rat torture-" a few despicable men snickered here, "we have found out that they are planning an attack on us within the next three days.  Now we must prepare ourselves for war."
The next two days, I was ordering around soldiers and preparing for battle.  The weapons were sharpened, the greek fire prepared, and the water was boiled.  Finally, they came.
It was midmorning when they arrived.  My squire quickly dressed me in armor, and we went to the king.  He ordered each of the knights to a different part of the castle.  I was on the northern wing, the side that would be attacked first.  I was in charge of the archers.
I saw the enemies marching forward.  The trebuchets loomed in the distance.  Our men stood tense.
As the soldiers marched closer to us, the king and his advisors rode out to meet the enemy king. After a half an hour or so, they rode back.  The red flag was raised, meaning we were still going to fight.
The attacking generals rode in front of their men.  All of a sudden, they turned and charged.  I saw one of my men flinch.
"Hold steady, men!" I yelled.
"Hold," I screamed as they got closer.  One of my men accidentally loosed an arrow.
"FFFIIIRRRREEEEEE!!!!"  The arrows blackened out the sky.  The oncoming men fell by the hundreds.
To counter, the enemies unleashed a deadly array of fiery stone.  The stones pounded our walls, but they held fast.
"FFFIIIRRRREEEEE!!!!" I yelled once more. The next series of arrows was unleashed.
The enemies had now begun to climb up their ladders.
"GRAB YOUR WEAPONS!".  All the men took out their swords and spears.  As the men came up, we chopped them down.  Some of the ladders were covered in Greek fire. We pushed down the remaining ladders after that.
Next came the siege towers.  My men were pegged down from behind protective walls.  Finally, we were able to take them out.
I look at the trebuchets.  One of them fired.  I watched the stone sail through the air.  It hit a large hole where an arrow slit had been before.  I watched in horror as the wall crumpled. 
The oncoming soldiers cheered, sensing victory was near.  Then I had a brilliant idea.
I led my remaining men to one of the tunnels.
I yelled, "Protect the king!"
My men and I ran into the tunnel.  We took a secret passage that led to a tower.  The enemies thought that the king was there, and had kept going down the tunnel.
I listened to their screams as they were burned by the Greek fire thrown down by the men up top.  They were trapped in a fake passage.  Then my men and I came out and finished them off.
After the battle was finished, I was personally thanked by the king.  Then I went back to my nice manor, and rested.

Maishe  found this great youtube on Castle defense.  Thanks for sending it my way.  I will be watching this film when it comes out.  Mr. H