Guest Speaker and Summaries

Hello everyone! Today we had a guest speaker. Dr. Gundlach, the deputy superintendent of the Oshkosh area school district, explained to us what the district has planned for us as far as technology. Also, Dr. Gundlach showed his electric car. He explained to us how to works and some other basic facts. Finally, we will soon be uploading our election topic summaries to participationnation.info very soon.

Today in communities, Mr. Steve Ellision brought in a hydro powdered motorcycle for us to look at and observe! it was today's brain break and was a very cool thing! It showed students that when they think together they can produce great things! Students also today continued working on their election projects and created an outline! Their final draft is due on tuesday so make sure to check back and see how they turn out! Also the energy project deadlines are getting closer and students are continuing to work on those daily!

Today communities students continued on their energy and election projects. They also had an advisory challenge where famous speeches were given and the advisory had to guess what person gave that speech. Not a whole lot new in the communities world as students continued to do what they have been for the last week! It should start to get interesting though in the next week as students start to wrap up their election projects and continue to work on their energy projects!

 Today was a very busy day for communities students. They started the day of with an energy hour where they continued to work on their projects. It is starting to get exciting where projects are due in about a month! Groups also had partners coming in to help them further there knowledge on their topics. Students then closed off the day working on their election projects which they just started on Tuesday. Students were given a topic something involving elections, past elections to help further their knowledge on the election coming up. A great Friday in communities check in next week to see whats happening next week!

Chances To Volunteer

Today in communities all the students had a chance to volunteer to get more chances to  connected in the community around us. The student were able to volunteer for zoolaween, spooktacular, The November gallery walk and to go to a civic engagement meeting. Zoolaween is a event where the student could dress up in Halloween costumes at the Menominee park zoo and hand out candy to the little kids that came there to go trick or treating. The communities students also volunteered for spooktacular which is a event t north where communities students and other clubs at north dress up in Halloween costumes and hand candy to little kids that come trick or treating there. For the November gallery walk the communities students were given another chance to present their neighborhood pictures. Finally The Civic Engagement meeting is where to communities students and Mr. Leib will for to the meeting and explain to them how communities is doing.

Improving Our Projects

Today all the Communities students met with one of the four teachers and talked about their projects. The made sure they were able to produce their focus questions. In about a week, students are going to have to write a paragraph answering their focus questions so it's good they start practicing and working with answering them. Today also included a TED talk were the communities crew learned about leaders, what makes and leader and what you do to get follwers as a leader. They then will have to blog about specifally their group and how each member is a leader and who would be first to follow. A typical Wednesday as students kept working on their projects and learned techniques to make their project the best it can be.

Wrapping up the Week

This week was a busy one for the communities students at Oshkosh North. The Students had to organize and research their topics for a large project that will be the starting point for the independence that communities eventually will grant the students. Using this project so far as a preview to what communities could become, I have to say that I am impressed. There were some groups who have already contacted experts in their area of research. The groups are using the experts as a sort of guide to what their project could be, rather than for the information the project will have. With this week at a close, the planning stage for the projects is almost done. In the coming weeks, the students will finish up the planning, and begin the actual construction of their projects.

Energy Unit Discussion in LRC

On October 3, 2012 all of the Communities Students met in the LRC to discuss what each group has so far for the energy unit. Mr. Weber asked one person from each group to come up in front of everyone and share their topic. Overall there was probably about 15 to 20 people all sitting at a table. When it was their turn the person stood up and talked about there topic and what they were gonna do for their project. I thought it was very useful to hear what other groups were doing for their project, and some groups gave our group an idea.

Communities Gallery Walk

On Thursday, September 27th, Communities held a gallery walk inviting teachers, professors, and anyone who wanted to learn more about Communities. The gallery walk consists of student's photographs they've taken during their "My Neighborhood" project. Students had to choose one photo that represented their neighborhood and turn it into an 8 by 10. Along with the photo, they had to create a catchy headline to draw the in the viewer. Students then presented their photo by explaining what their photo was about and why it represented their neighborhood. Also, the viewers could ask any additional questions they had about the student's photograph or Communities in general. This gallery walk gave the students a chance to show other people out of Communities what they have learned over the past few weeks.