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Chris Miraglia

Male

Lakewood, CA

United States

Profile Information:

School / Work Affiliation: Mendez Fundamental Intermediate School. SAUSD
Blog: http://cmiraglia.edublogs.org
Website: http://www.sausd.us/149420115173847153/site/default.asp
Skype Account: dcmm14
Twitter / Plurk / Other Account: http://delicious.com/cmiraglia
About Me: I teach 8th grade US History and utilize technology in a limited fashion compared to what I see now. I do utilize class blogs for posting homework questions, posting surveys from Vizu and instructional videos using Jing. I would like to expand so that my students create their own blogs and have more ownership in the process.

Comment Wall:

Mark Cruthers

Hi Chris,

A couple of tools that might prove useful to your students in your online efforts are Wiziq's virtual classroom and authorstream's web based power point presentation platform. Both have free feature rich basic services that might be fun and easy for your kids. By the way I teach AP History (Euro and US) at night using wiziq and my kids enjoy using the technology

Dec 13, 2008
Jack

Hi Chris!

Hope you're enjoying the winter break. I was wondering if you, your educator contacts or students would be interested in participating in a Vocab Video Contest @ MIT university. We'd really like to get California students involved.

You can view contest details at BrainyFlix.com Please let me know. Thanks!

Dec 28, 2008
Terry Parent

This is great news!
I would love to set up a curriculum of collaboration between our classes culminating with Skype communication. From reading your blog, I believe we are just about at the same period in our classes too.

I've been working hard setting up my students with their own blogs. I will hopefully launch them this week as we are just getting off winter break. Do your students blog? If so, we could link to each other's blogs to create an audience for our students to post, comment, and share ideas.

Jan 4, 2009
Mark Cruthers

Hi Chris,

With your interest in Education Technology, I recommend you take a look at Wiziq's virtual classroom and authorstream's power point presentation platform. Both are web based platforms, have a bunch of features and free basic service.

Jan 4, 2009
Terry Parent

I remember you saying that one of your student's created her own blog? I was wondering if she would want to link to our blogs. Our class is also linked to another year 8 class in New Zealand. She could be a part of our blog ring? As of now we've been posting "About Me" & "What is My Passion" type of blogs. My students are just getting to understand how to use Edublogs, some better than others. I wanted them to soon discuss current events, whats in the news, Bill of Rights, civil rights cases etc.

Also, have you thought about a curriculum for possible Skype project?

Jan 8, 2009
Terry Parent

Hey Chris,

Check out a thread I have with another teacher from Texas. Maybe we could come up with something with the three of us. She liked your idea of Hamilton/ Jefferson debates. Let's brainstorm and get something together!

http://www.classroom20.com/profiles/comment/thread?screenName=1wbqjhotyk6y0

Jan 13, 2009
Terry Parent

It sounds like were all pretty much at the same time period and covering the same issues. How did the "Fireside Chat/ Socratic Dialect" ideas sound? I was thinking that I might do this assignment and my class in two groups since there are the two of you. I was thinking about running the same project twice, once with you and once with Susan.

I lived in Stevenson, by the way. I loved it there!

Jan 14, 2009
Terry Parent

Hey Chris, That's great you've created a Wiki. that is something want to try for sure. If you don't mind, since we were right about the same period in our history books, could my students read your class' wiki for information? You could let your class know that they have an audience in N. Hollywood. I could just put it up as one of our links and they could check it out periodically.

About the Skype. well, Susan and her class from Texas and I are getting it going. Were both working on out debates on the Hamilton and Jefferson topics. We've been having problems with getting a consitent connection. It's been frustrating. I think it might be a firewall issue though on my part. I'm going to test it again on Sunday. We'll see how it goes.

If this works out well, Let's see about our classes getting something together through Skype. I'm thinking Lincoln/Douglass/ Civil War maybe??

Let me know if I could post a link to your Wiki onto our class blog.

Jan 24, 2009
Johnathan Chase

Hey Chris, have you considered incorporating music into your lessons and activities?

Great way to engage middle schoolers and encourage critical and creative thinking.

May find some of the links and resources on my page useful.

JChase

Feb 16, 2009