Wii-Smartboard Hack Video

Here is the TED video that demonstrates the Wii-Smartboard hack that I mentioned before we took our exam on Thursday. Take a look at the video, and then click the link below for a step-by-step examination of the process that we would need to undertake to put this into practice with the Eastside students. I am fairly certain that this would require two visits to complete. What does everyone else think? If anyone has time, it would be good to get another digital conversation going via the comments component of this post, in the same way that we did with Sole's post last week. By doing so, we can gauge how we all feel about this as a project and we can sort through concerns about its feasibility.

Click here for the step-by-step.

October 20.

At this time, it is still a little hard to guage where we are going or what we should do with the students. Sole's thought of a journal is a nice idea. This week we may have the same students, we could have more, or we could have less. It would be hard to determine how much art supplies we should bring. I think we all agree that the children should do something this week. If they don't, they may start to lose interest in belonging to our club. Unfortunaltely, no amazing ideas are coming to me. I've been thinking about it over the weekend, but haven't come up with anything clever enough. If we helped the children create journals this week within our 1/2 hour time slot, we can ask them to draw pictures/write journal entries during the next week as to what their hopes/dreams are, what they want to be when they grow up, their favorite things to do, etc. Not sureif this is really what we are going for with this project, but it's at least something fun they can do.

And don't worry, last semester it took quite some time for some of the kids to open up to us!

My Idea for Club Activities

My idea uses Art, College Exploration, and some Technology.

The Dream Book

For next week have the students use paper, stickers, glue, and ribbon to decorate a simple composition notebook. Let them choose the papers they like and embellish it however they want. It will be theirs to do with what they want.

For them to do during the week before we meet again. Ask them to write about their dreams, what they want to be when they are older, what colleges they know about, and want to go to, ect.

On the next week let's sit down with them again and talk to them about what they wrote and where they want to go in life. If we have any suggestions that could help them attain their goals. Then we can go to a computer lab and one of us sit down with each of them and lets look at what it takes to get into whatever career they said they are interested in.

This would just be a good exercise to get them thinking about their future and where they want to go in life. For some of the older kids they can really start to focus on what colleges they like and start to realize what they will need to get to where they want to go.

As far as art supplies go for what we would need for next week:

• Composition books (I have at least 10 already)
• Glue sticks (I probably have a pack or two of these as well)
• Scrapbook paper packs
• Ribbon
• Scissors
• Xacto Knife (we can do this step if its too dangerous to hand that to them)

Here is an example of what I am talking about. It took me longer to pick out what paper I wanted to use than it did to actually put it together.

Some of it may be leading as in us telling them to research colleges and pushing them to think about their future, but a lot of these kids, as Carla pointed out, have no clue what it may take to get into college, but they are excited to go. Perhaps we should encourage them to retain that excitement and start working on their future.

I may be able to talk to the manager of Hobby Lobby and be able to get him to donate the paper and other decorative supplies. We may have to buy up to 10 more composition books to make sure there is enough to go around. If we had to purchase everything it would be no more than $40. That split between all of us would be $4 each maybe.

Topics to Consider

Hello everyone,

These are the topics that came up the most:

• Technology/Computers
• College Exploration
• Art
• Celebrities

These topics may have been mentioned once or in passing.

• Trees
• Football
• Dance/Cheerleading/Gymnastics

Whatever project happens it should incorporate at least two of the most talked about ideas.