Rancho technology update

On Tuesday, I filmed Mrs. Dee's lesson on understanding how cultures differ. She used the simulation training program BaFa'BaFa, one she has been using for years. She split her class into two; one portion stayed in her classroom, the other went to the Music Portable. What did I film? Well, the BaFa'BaFa site describes the training this way:

What happens in BaFa'BaFa'?

After an initial briefing two cultures are created. The Alpha culture is a relationship oriented, high context, strong ingroup outgroup culture. The Beta culture is a highly competitive trading culture. After the participants learn the rules of their culture and begin living it, observers and visitors are exchanged. The resulting stereotyping, misperception and misunderstanding becomes the grist for the debriefing.

What I filmed was the students in the act of observing and visiting another culture whose language they do not speak. They must pick up clues to how this culture works using only their powers of observation. It was truly a wonderful experience to see them so engaged, so passionate, and so perceptive. Ms. Dees was amazed at the quickness with which her students divined the rules of the "other" culture. We're planning on showing them the video we took of them in this "teachable moment" as a way of reinforcing what they learned last Tuesday.

QuickJanuary update

Reading: Rancho students have read 4,068 books, or 67,678,903 words. That's a lot of words. If each word were an inch long, and a carwidth wide, you could drive on them all the way to Butte, Montana.
January has been a time for gearing back up for more exciting times. Lots going on under the hood, but little to show for it yet.

We have installed the new color printer in the lab. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade parents should expect examples of the use of images in exposition to come home soon.

Fourth grade has started Power Point presentations again, and 5th grade is starting to do a presentation.

We're planning on making a student produced video of Ms. Dee's Wax Art Museum.

The 1st graders are beginning their annual migration to the lab. They seem to be enjoying it, but then they always seem cheerful, no matter where I see them.

We will be posting the same links that your children use in the lab on the Rancho Website. Watch the Library page for more.
Enjoy the warm weather.