Anybody jumping in with North Star go to:
http://www.quicktopic.com/32/H/C5BJGRvnrpcxd to continue our discussion and development of this collaboration :)

Rachel, I agree, it is so hard to make a decision. I feel very rushed. I am torn between North Star and Hurricanes.

Wow! Kathy you did a good job of explaining a very broad and flexible program. I am very interested in the North Star approach to a collaboration, especially because I think it will be conducive to each participant carrying out a distinct idea that ties together through the North Star philosophy.
However, I am also interested in the Hurrican topic, especially with respect to the historical aspects of Hurricane of '38 and the possibility/probability that we may have another powerful storm hit the east end in our lifetime.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I am pretty nervous about having to commit within the first section of class tonight! Let's hope it is easier to do so than I think!

Ellen to answer your question about some of the activities that go along with it there are two different fronts that we can look at. First the North Star Activities that come from Fablevision focus on writing about experiences and interests that excite the student, finding what type of smart person you are (Artistic, mathematical, literary, etc.) and then capitalizing on those talents to create collaborative projects that interest and drive the students. The Classroom Activities package provides a guide line for teachers to incorporate that type of approach into their classroom. It contains inspirational posters and methods that you can use to organize your classroom to set off on a personal journey that the students take part in choosing. It provides resources such as sample letters for the parent home connection and inspirational poems that focus on team work and working together for a common goal. It provides masters to use to set up a Navigators handbook and gives you ways to incorporate the program into your classroom. I will bring it to class tonight or you can check it out on the web page http://www.fablevision.com/northstar/index.html. My idea for a collaborative project would be to take the ideas behind the North Star approach and build upon them. It is so open ended that I think that we can go anywhere with projects and ideas.

As I don't know any more about North Star than Kathy wrote about, I am still thinking about the idea of hurricanes. Heidi, your ideas were very interesting and I am not even close to being a math person (as you well know). I think that the cause and effect is particularly interesting. Which would also bring geography of where people are winding up across the country as a direct result from the hurricane.

Being the math teacher that I was just months ago, there is a really easy connection with math and the tragedy as far as graphing and plotting data along with the statistical portions of it all (average, mean, mode, or higher level even). Map skills is also something that can link math and social studies curriculums as well as noting the change in the stock market which links math and economics, (some talk show expert was saying that the stock for a company who builds portable houses went up $5 a share and that is just due to the number of buildings order from last years Florida hurricanes, not even taking into consideration the Gulf). Another topic that could be discussed would be the fact that the credit cards being issued by the Red Cross contain different amounts of money that they can figure out how much you would spend and how much is left. Basic computation of calculating items at a store, and then adding tax (percent) is always something that comes up on middle and high school testing.
Photography is a great math topic dealing with pixels per inch/cm (meter system) as well as the dimensions of the photos when they are done. (aperature and f-stops can also fall into a math category)
Other ideas to follow...

linda...yes we should go forth and thrid

Hey everyone,
Bruce, Linda, I would love to continue with our collaboration, I think I need to just sit and think about where we can go and how I can incorporate all the exciting things I was able to be a part of this summer. I find many of the other topics great but would also like to do more on the PK House.

Kathy, thanks for the detailed explanation about North Star. It sounds a little bit along the lines of our Schools That Travel, where the students decide what their focus of learning is going to be. It sounds very interesting, but I just don't know enough to make a decision.

I'm going to try to make a decision now. Here goes. I've read all the good ideas so I'm off to the Zoomerang. I'm heading for literacy/technology/poetry.

I remembered driving in the car to and from NECC and you guys talking about NORTHSTAR, glad you could meet him Kathy.........Rachel I was so excited to read you are interested in hearing about our work with Pollock/Krasner (East End Artists Site) perhaps we can talk tomorrow and we can explain it to you...also when you look at the site we created in CAMP this summer perhaps you could visualize a way that the two sites could become melded. Yes, Bruce and Dawn...should we go forth?

I remember how excited everyone was about North Star after the NECC conference. It really sounds like such a great starting point for many ideas. What are the activities that go along with it?

Edited by author 09-13-2005 06:57 PM
Sarah, here is a bit of the background info on the North Star. This is a series of creative learning tools based on a book by Peter H. Reynolds. Peter is the author of 3 books The North Star, The Dot and Ish. He worked for Tom Snyder Productions for 12 years and left to start FableVision with his twin brother Paul. Fable Vision’s mission is “to help all learners discover their true potential.” They are “big believers that a well-educated student is not complete without less "test-able" skills, such as self-determination, guiding principles, appreciation of culture, goal-setting, creativity, community service, and a natural desire to learn and improve.” They also feel that “those things seem to be getting less and less spotlight during these times of high-stakes testing.”. Their goal is to find “Educators who expect the best from their students through meaningful challenges and authentic learning.” I so believe in what this program is all about.

Rachel once gave me a copy of the book “The Dot.” I immediately fell in love with it. The story was so inspirational. It was about a child who didn’t believe in herself and how a teacher challenged her to make her mark. She did and her full potential was realized. I was at a poster session NECC and the presenter mentioned the book “Ish.” I told her the story reminded me of The Dot and she said that it was by the same author and that he was at the conference. I was so excited that I immediately went down to his booth to meet him and stumbled on a “world” I didn’t even know existed. It was at the Fable Visions booth that Peter Reynolds introduced me to his The North Star Activities. It is just incredible.

The idea behind The North Star Activities is to inspire students to create their own path to learning. As he states “Every Child is unique and has the right to be inspired in ways appropriate to his or her own abilities, talents, and interests.” The North Star Approach challenges students to master “foundation skills” and, more importantly, how to learn to foster expression and creativity in today’s classroom. So many times we send students down paths that we think are right for them and they follow along because everyone else did it. But in reality that is not the best path for them. That is not what interests them so they continue on in mediocrity. Had we let them choose their own path for leaning and helped them by providing guidance when they needed it their learning would be so much more meaningful and real.

These are the ideas behind a collaborative project that I think we can build. I actually won a copy of the North Star Activities after the NECC conference. Let me know what you think.

Ann I look forward to the process of moving forward in our wellness site! I hope lisa is still with us.

Erin- I have a CD with the songs I use after reading The Outsiders. I will bring it with me to class. Glad it might be of help to you! I also see many great ideas out there and as I talked to Kathy last night we discussed liking out of Just Imagine to other sites (for example maybe the Just Imagine site could link to the North Star group (personal journey)). Just an idea but it might help us to expand our horizons and not feel like we are tied to only one collaboration.