We Make Mouse Calls

Camp Hazen Highlights

2009-07-14T12:41:00.014-04:00

We Make Mouse Calls culminated with a day filled with fun activities at Camp Hazen in Chester, Connecticut on May 14, 2009. Students participated in team building adventure activities at various stations. Activities were designed to bring a group of individuals together as a team to work on skills such as communication, trust, cooperation, respect, teamwork and problem solving. Observing the students participating in the activities demonstrated the true effect of the program. Despite a dreary weather day, a good time was had by all. Check out the movie which highlights the days activities. To view full screen click HERE.

Montville High School Tech Day

2009-05-06T13:37:00.018-04:00

ASL (American Sign Language) students from Montville High School had their tech day on April 30th at LEARN. Some students created audio podcasts and others created their podcasts with video. It was challenge to squeeze it all in during the 4 hours, but the results are truly amazing.

Anjy, Brandon, and Johnny (Our Experiences with Sign Language)
Nick (Take Me Out to the Ball Game)
Katie and Sean (Being an ASL Mentor)
Brandon (Signing to Dogs)
Nikkia, Shelby and Travis-on camera (Stand Up For Cancer)
Amanda, Melinda, Steph (I Believe)

Tech Days with PPMS, TMMS

2009-05-05T14:12:00.014-04:00

Another Tech Day took place, this time with Preston Plains Middle School (Preston) and Teachers' Memorial Middle School (Norwich). Here are more podcasts created by the students, all who worked in pairs. More great work!

Gabe and Kyle (Yankees)
Zach and Austin (Sports)
Brandon and Joseph (Favorite Things)
Natasha and Evan (Favorite Places)
Rui & Anissa (Our Pets)
Breanna and Shaina (Our Friendship)
Warren and Jeffrey (Our Favorite Video Games)

Tech Days with CLMS and RMMS, DLAA

2009-04-02T17:01:00.019-04:00

During Tech Days students worked in the computer lab at LEARN to create podcasts. Dual Language Arts Academy students wrote letters to their class pen pal, Alexis, and then created podcasts of their letters. Students from Clark Lane and Regional Multicultural Magnet School chose their own topic, wrote and recorded their scripts, and then modified and enhanced their recordings using Audacity. Check out the final products. They are GREAT!

Dual Language Arts Academy (April 1)
Alex
Anthony
Casey
Christopher
Denise
Derreck
Edgar
Haydee
Katelin
Katherine
Keishaly
Roselys
Sierra
Starr
Taiana
Tobias
Tyanne
Zay

Clark Lane Middle School and Regional Multicultural Magnet School (April 2)
Brent and Griffin (Playing for the Black Socks)
Emily and Erika (Cable and Emma)
Jeff (What I Want to Be)
Kevin (Milk)
Sasha, Priscilla, Carin (Our Favorite Animals)
Uriye (The Movie Grease)
Courtney and Adrienne (A Horse Named Jeffrey)
Emily (Slavery)
Joey and Aaron (All Types of Pie)
Poorva and Kayla (Race to Witch Mountain)
Sean (A Practical Guide to Dragons)

May 14th trip to Camp Hazen

2009-04-01T23:54:00.005-04:00

May 14th will be a trip to Camp Hazen where all students will gather for a culminating activity for more team building activities. Permission slips have been given to the teachers to be sent home. All students who will be attending the field trip must have a permission which means if you don't turn in your permission slip then you cannot go. Get your permission slips in to your Mouse Calls teacher as soon as possible. For more information about Camp Hazen, CLICK HERE. If you lost your permission slip you can download one HERE. For the field trip flyer, click HERE.

Tech Days

2009-04-01T23:37:00.001-04:00

April Tech days are here and students from each participating school will visit LEARN to participate in technology training. Students will use iPods and adapters to create voice recordings. The recordings will be imported into Audacity where they will learn about adding special effects.

Audacity is a free application that you can download from www.audacity.sourceforge.net. The application edits audio files. A LAME decoder allows Audacity to export the audio file as an MP3 file. There are many sites to download the LAME decoder; this link is one location that works. You must put the LAME DLL file in a folder beneath the [Audacity] program folder; there is a [Plug-ins] folder within the [Audacity] folder which is the best place for this DLL LAME decoder.

February Visit to LEARN

2009-04-01T23:16:00.004-04:00

LEARN and We Make Mouse Calls was fortunate to have a nurse educator from the Joslin Diabetes Center, affiliated with Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, visit to provide a well-received presentation about Diabetes. Students learned about the disease and how people, young and old, live and cope with the disease on a daily basis. The presentation was engaging and prompted numerous questions and comments that were an obvious indication that the presentation was informative and meaningful. Students also learned about good nutritional choices that people with and without diabetes should practice.

Student teams also worked with iPods and in the computer lab to record their script from January. In the computer lab the students learned about Audacity, an audio editing application that they will learn more about in April.

Remaining field trip dates

2009-01-26T00:21:00.004-05:00

The remaining field trip dates for We Make Mouse Calls are listed below. Note that there is no scheduled field trip in March. Students are transported by bus from their school to LEARN in Old Lyme (44 Hatchetts Hill Road). The day's agenda begins at 10AM and ends at 1:00 PM. Parents, guardians and other family members are welcome to attend the events. Students, teachers and guests should bring their lunch. Contact the grant coordinator if you have any questions or just want to comment on the program...Dawn R. Boch, 434-4800, x109, DBoch@learn.k12.ct.us.

February 25
April 2
May 14

January Mouse Calls Visit to LEARN

2009-01-21T12:33:00.003-05:00

Students met on January 8 for the 4th session of the Mouse Calls grant program. On this day students learned how to blog in the computer lab. There are 3 blogs, one per student group-Cobalt, Denim and Navy. The URLs for the blogs are:

http://www.wmmc-cobalt.blogspot.com/
http://www.wmmc-denim.blogspot.com/
http://www.wmmc-navy.blogspot.com/

Students commented on the blog in response to issues posted by the Grant Coordinator. All comments were monitored for appropriateness. Students are welcome to continue to comment on the blog, remembering the rules-no last names (you can use initials), no vulgarity, no dissing.

Students also began writing scripts for a podcast in response to one of the following scenarios:
Choose a topic; write a script using the worksheet and record using an iPod and recording attachment.

1. Every afternoon when you walk home from school, a bully pushes you around, knocks your books to the ground, or calls you names. What might you do to stop the abuse and, at the same time, help the bully to change his behavior? What kind of courage would this take?
2. You’ve signed up for summer camp with a friend, and you plan to room together. At the last minute, your friend changes her mind and decides to bunk with someone else. Will you still go to camp? What will you say to your friend?
3. Describe a typical day at your school. You might tell about the classes, what lunch is like, extracurricular activities, do you have lockers, how do you get to and from school, etc.
4. Write about a recent holiday that you have celebrated. Tell about the holiday, what did you do, what traditions are part of the holiday, did you eat any special foods, anything else you would like to add about your holiday.

Parent and Guardian Feedback

2009-01-14T13:04:00.003-05:00

Parents and Guardians, I hope that your child has keep you up to date on his or her participation in the We Make Mouse Calls grant program. Newsletters are nominally sent home monthly but you can always keep up to date by what is happening by visiting this blog or by visiting the We Make Mouse Calls website. You can also check out the student blogs via a link from this blog. Feel free to post your comments here to give me some feedback. Also, if you would like to contact me directly, you can reach me at DBoch@learn.k12.ct.us.

December visit to LEARN

2008-12-15T12:33:00.006-05:00

Students assembled at LEARN on December 12 for the 3rd session of Mousecalls. The day began with an activity for students to learn about others, understanding similarities and appreciating differences. Groups of 6 students received a packet with one flower center and 6 petals. Students brainstormed all things that they have in common and wrote those items on the flower center. Then, each student wrote something about himself/herself on a petal. The petals were glued to the center and displayed on a whiteboard. The students showed creativity and enjoyed sharing with others. Here are some examples of student petals: I am a swimmer. I do karate. I can put my foot behind my head. I have 5 fish! I have a pet turtle. I'm 6'0" tall. I have a twin sister. I have 8 siblings. I am the only one in my group who has long hair! Obsessed with videogames. I like to do sports. Some flower centers, showing commonality, read as follows: We all like pizza. We all have our Xmas trees up. We all like chocolate. We all like science. We were all born in 1998. We all think rollerblading is awesome. We all have last names that start with different letters. The list goes on...
The highlight of the session was the American Sign Language (ASL) lesson. Mrs. Bell, from Montville High School, discussed hearing loss and how individuals with hearing loss are able to communicate. She gave an introduction to ASL and then her ASL students from the high school, who serve as student mentors, worked with groups of students to teach them ASL. Students learned how to use and understand sign language and fingerspelling, played SINGO (sign language bingo) and other related activities.

November Visit to LEARN

2008-11-20T15:58:00.002-05:00

Today we did a couple of "getting to know you" activities in your defined groups. Students are assigned to 3 different groups (Cobalt, Denim and Navy), and the groups are comprised of students from all our participating schools (Clark Lane/Waterford, Dual Language Academy/New London, Montville High School/Montville, Preston Plains Middle School/Preston, Regional Multicultural Magnet School/LEARN, and Teachers Memorial Middle School/Norwich). We discussed how appearances and points of view can affect our preconceived notions. Oftentimes what may appear and seem obvious is, in fact, something completely different. Take the case of the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. Listening to the story from the perspective of the wolf makes you consider that he's not so bad after all. In the case of the gift box, how many times have you judged someone or something by appearances? First impressions often do not take into consideration all factors. The moral here...to give people a chance and not jump to conclusions by their appearance, their culture, or what you may think about them without getting to know them. Sometimes we have to put ourselves in another person's situation and consider what he or she is thinking or feeling. We learned about podcasts and blogs and some of their uses. One important to thing to remember about blogs is to be cautious about what is posted. Some important rules include the following:

First names only...no last names, school names or addresses.
Do not link to a personal blog/journal from your school blog; you might reveal information on there that you don't want to reveal on your school blog.
Your opinions should not be offensive. Don't disrespect anyone or anything, whether a person, organization or just a general idea.
No profanity
Keep your posting/commenting education oriented.
Don't write about other people in a negative way. Again, first names only.
Use facts in your writing.
Always make sure you check over your post for spelling errors, grammar errors, and your use of words.

We will be developing blogs and podcasts during the course of this program.

Links used on 11/20/08

2008-11-20T15:22:00.006-05:00

Here are some websites/blogs/podcasts that we viewed during the 11/20/08 Mousecall session.

Are You Blogging This?

Blogs in Plain English

Podcasting in Plain English

BetchuBlogs (Education + Technology + Ideas)

Pottercastings - The Harry Potter Podcast

Miss Baker's Biology Class - Extreme Biology

The Write Weblog

Coolcat Teacher Blog

The Secret Life of Bees

Mousecalls Website Created

2008-11-12T11:54:00.006-05:00

The We Make Mouse Calls website has been created. Check it out! If you find any broken links let me know. The URL is http://wemakemousecalls.org.

Mousecalls Begins 2008-2009 Program

2008-10-23T22:59:00.005-04:00

The We Make Mousecalls kickoff event was held on October 15 at Connecticut College Crozier-Williams Student Center. We welcomed Judy Buch, a Connecticut artist and speaker. Judy is a ventriloquist who shared with us a message about getting along and being caring and compassionate individuals. Judy's performance was absolutely entertaining and the perfect opening to the grant program. After the performance, students participated in 4 teambuilding activities: Photo Scavenger Hunt, Math Addition Box, Spin a Unique Web, and Personality Bingo. Students worked together as groups comprised from different schools, meeting new people and sharing ideas. Check out the slideshow for some photo highlights.

Grant Kickoff is October 15, 2008

2008-10-11T23:58:00.004-04:00

The Kickoff event for the We Make Mouse Calls 2008-2009 Academic Year program will take place on Wednesday, October 15, 2008. This year we have an exciting program to be held at Connecticut College Crozier-Williams Student Center. The event will be highlighted by a performance by Connecticut Speaker and Artist Judy Buch. Teambuilding activities will take place after her presentation. Stay tuned for an exciting recap of the event. Hope you can join us for the kickoff on 10/15/08, 9:30AM-1:00PM in Room 108 of the Student Center at Connecticut College.

Grant Abstract

2008-10-11T22:50:00.000-04:00

"I’m a little boy with glasses, the one they call a geek,” begins the Peter Yarrow song, Don’t Laugh at Me. This song is part of a school-based character education program established by the singer in an effort to help teachers bring respect and compassion to children in all schools. We Make Mouse Calls, a successful interdistrict grant program, adapts segments from this social and emotional learning program as it focuses on reducing racial isolation and enhancing educational experiences. Once a summer program, this grant brings new and meaningful activities to the students during the entire school year as it added new districts and more than doubled the number of students. This program partners schools in urban-suburban/rural teams. Partnered classes from Grades 5 and 6 meet face-to-face during the academic year and participate in a variety of activities that emphasize celebrating diversity; caring, cooperation, and compassion; and resolving conflict creatively. Teams of students collaborate to create digital videos, as they role-play strategies they developed to overcome a real-life problem. A strong component of this program is the infusion of technology into the lessons, from blogging, Wiki spaces (online community encyclopedias) video production and podcasting. High school students act as mentors as they teach the students the sign language component of the program and assist in other activities. This important element enriches the program by increasing the students’ exposure to respectful, diverse young adults as high schools students develop rapport and trust with the younger students. While the focus of the program is to reduce racial isolation and enhance educational experiences, We Make Mouse Calls addresses these concepts through a multidisciplinary, differentiated instructional approach. Language arts skills improve as a result of narrative, expository or persuasive writing activities as student teams outline solutions to solve real-life problems, develop a script for a video production and collaborate throughout the year on a monitored blog and online community encyclopedia space devoted to this project. Character education is addressed on a continuous basis throughout the numerous teambuilding, cooperative learning, and problem-solving activities. Students also improve technology skills through the use of computers and related equipment that provide the vehicle for communicating their strategies. Parents are invited to attend any or all of the sessions and a celebratory event showcasing the students’ projects is scheduled for the end of the year.