Some interesting things I learned in the Media Center this week...

1. You can move the keyboard on an iPad to the middle of the screen by holding down the keyboard button and clicking "Undock".

When I was showing students how to split the keyboard on their iPads to better facilitate typing to the "Text" Generation, one of them chimed in, "You can move it up the screen too!" We hooked his iPad up to the SmartBoard and he did a demonstration for the class

2. There several teachers in our school who are familiar with Gilbert and Sullivan tunes.

The Elements app by Touch Press has a feature you can use to listen to Tom Lehrer's Element Song. The science teacher and I found that if we played it for the group at the beginning of class it saved a lot of time and cacophony. We had several teachers who walked by our open space media center as we were playing the song and ask "Gilbert and Sullivan?" The kids thought that Gilbert and Sullivan were scientists. Next year we'll have to get the music department involved with the 8th grade chemistry unit!

3. Children are shocked that the names of chemical elements are much the same in Japanese as they are in English.

The Elements app has the option to listen to the Element Song in either English or Japanese. The science teacher told our students that if they worked hard, we would play the Japanese version for them at the end of class. Burning question from all 6 classes: "Why are the words mostly the same in Japanese?" Next year we'll have to get the Language Arts teachers involved with the 8th grade chemistry unit!

4. The Preamble song is forever.

Received an email from a student I taught 15 years ago when I was still teaching U.S. history. Apparently learning The Preamble Song in my class something that has stuck with him and he had the chance to demonstrate his Preamble prowess last week. The idea that he then thought to track down my email and share with me made my day.

5. Middle School children love trivia questions. Middle school teachers, administrators, instructional assistants, secretaries and substitutes also love trivia questions.

Last Monday, on a whim, I posted a trivia question on an easel outside of the Media Center. Most of the school population walks by there each day and I thought a few of the kids might think it was fun. I had the answer read on the afternoon announcements. 

WOW! I had no idea the response this would generate. I posted a new question each morning and by Friday there were an increasing number of traffic jams in the hallway that included both children and adults. People were stopping in to guess the answer and a certain competitiveness has emerged among staff members. I had one student tell me that students in his technology class tried researching the answer

Winter Doldrums at LMS? I think not.