Please help my classroom earn $913 to purchase two iPod touches. Donate here: http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=539929&challengeid=153026&more=true.

My Students: “There are three basic skills that students need if they want to thrive in a knowledge economy: the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving; the ability to communicate effectively; and the ability to collaborate,” Tony Wagner wrote in the Global Achievement Gap, and my students do all 3.

My students are scientists who are knowledge creators who want to communicate what they’ve learned with the world. In our classroom, we ask investigative questions, design experiments, and create art to understand the wacky and wonderful patterns around us.

My Project: Imagine how iPod touches can help motivate my students to be even more rigorous, even more creative, and even more inquisitive. They will use iPod touches to document each step of an investigation, then share it on a class blog for parents and friends to comment on. At the end of every experimental trial, my students can enter the data using the iPod touch so that we can analyze the class data, picking out outliers, finding experimental flaws, and demonstrating the importance of multiple trials for scientific reliability. My students will create podcasts and YouTube videos to practice their speaking and presenting skills, and these can be presented to younger students who will learn from my students work as well as be inspired to work harder themselves.

Ultimately, your donation provides my students and I with powerful and engaging tools to help them continue growing as scientists, knowledge creators, and communicators of their work.

My students need two iPod touches to create knowledge in the classroom and share their science with the whole world.

Donate here: http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=539929&challengeid=153026&more=true