Campwide Briefing October 14-21

You are invited to the ‘eLearning Conference’ in Los Angeles on Saturday October 19^th at the Westin Bonaventure, co–hosted by LAUSD and Converge Magazine. This one-day  tech showcase will be a lot of fun and includes lunch with Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary (whom Camp Internet is working with on a Student Peace Project). Camp Internet Teachers Carmela Gomes and Vernita Mason will be presenting. All teachers in Southern California are invited. See more about this FREE event at http://www.convergemag.com/events/conference.phtml?confid=81

Converge magazine did a nice feature piece on Camp Internet and you can read that online at

http://www.convergemag.com/magazine/story.phtml?id=2030000000001304

Northern California Teachers – the CUE Conference is coming up and fellow teacher Jan Zalom will be presenting on her application of Camp Internet in the classroom. Join us at the Sacramento Convention Center October 25-26. we will have a booth both days and Jan will present Friday in the Convention Center.

THIS WEEK ONLINE with Camp Internet

Columbus resources are now online in America’s Original Promise open to all Campers – see http://www.rain.org/campinternet/american-history/

Start writing your Halloween, Ancestor, and Saints stories. This month we host a writing contest for multi-cultural Halloween, All Souls Day, and All Saints Day celebrations. The Campwide Field Reports Room will be open M-F 8am-3pm for you to post student stories. A spooky (but no gruesome) ghost story ? A loving tribute to a departed relative? Or a story admiring a wonderful Saint ? A book report on one of the above ? Whatever religion your students observe, one of these story assignments will be appropriate. Winning story earns their class a Mark Twain storytellers CD ROM! Room will be open through November 1^st.

Want to Host a Family Film Night? We are opening our online doors n October 24^th for a family film chat 5-8pm. Teachers can host an evening video showing and have parents and kids answer teacher-determined questions online, or invite parents and students to join us from home to report on a video with educational value. Let’s get families watching educational films! If you want to host a classroom session – let us know (even if it needs to be on another date this month) and we will help by drafting a flyer to invite your families and can provide a suggest viewing list. Classroom with the most family postings will win a classic Zorro movie!

SPECIAL EVENTS - TWO NEW GROUP PROJECTS are ready for ALL Campers – we need your input this month!

1. FIRST - Post your SCHOOL INTRODUCTION (as a class or as individuals) in the FIELD REPORT room for your Expedition track. Menu to select your room from is at http://www.rain.org/campinternet/nfieldreports/  Tell us about your school, your community, your class, and special projects you have planned for the school year. This month we also invite reports on animal sightings on campus – who visits or lives at your school ?

2. THEN - See the first GPS school project “Where is Your School?” in Field Reports – GIS. There is a form to fill out to enter your site data, and a way to then copy and paste that report into the work room to share your findings with one another. You don’t need to have  GPS as there is an online lat/long calculator. This event will be open all month and will add-in changes Animal Sightings. Room for postings is at http://chat.rain.org/cgi-bin/nph-gis-fr .

SEVEN NEW STORYBOOKS ONLINE TO VISIT!!

Something NEW this month – we invite you to try out the first early reader Storybooks we are piloting. The first completed books are in the Islands section under Chumash History and under Storytelling. They are in English AND Spanish, so try it out and let us know how you think this style and format will work for younger readers, or ESL developing English skills. Send feedback to camp@campinternet.net if you have comments to offer.

You can access the new bi-lingual Storybooks directly at

http://www.rain.org/campinternet/channelhistory/expedition1/unit1B.html

http://www.rain.org/campinternet/channelhistory/stories/

REMEMBER to USE YOUR DIGS – these are excellent content and comprehension exercises that can be made use of every week.

You have DIGS open for student use in Islands, Backcountry, Southwest, America’s Original Promise and GIS – use them any day, M-F, anytime 8am-3pm. These allow students to research one or more questions, post answers – and – teachers can use these as a graded assignment by printing the results each Monday afternoon.