More Current Events in the Lab

I blogged earlier about what we did in the computer lab during the election season. On Tuesdays, I have both 7th & 8th Grade for computers. They had watched the swearing in ceremony and Obama’s Inaugural Speech during their first period of the day. During computer class on that day we began with the Dateline Video: Hope Change & Symbolism on Inauguration Day

Following the presentation we had a discussion about the video and about what they felt Obama’s message was in his Inaugural Speech. We then viewed a Wordle that I had created from the text of the speech to see if the words used most frequently in the speech matched up with the feeling that they got when they watched it.

They found this very interesting and would love to use Wordle sometime themselves. We then reviewed how to write a formal letter and each of the students wrote a letter to President Obama. These are being mailed to The White House for any students that wish to send them. I was amazed at some of the students that definitely wanted their letters mailed. Most of the letters were very positive and supportive, a few were somewhat critical and most of them offered very thoughtful ideas on the items these 12-14 year olds feel are the most important things that the new President should be addressing.

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