This looks like a great collaborative project. If I Were Running for President is hosted by DeAnna Sheets, a teacher in Branson, MO.

Students will poll adults and students from their school and collect data about what issues make them choose one presidential candidate over another. The students will then use that data and create a mock presidential candidate of their own. They will include background information on their mock presidential candidate, key issues, political party ticket, campaign slogan and title. After all of the participating schools have created and entered their mock presidential candidate, an election will be held to see which candidate has been elected as the new president.

• Project Dates: September 2, 2008-November 7, 2008
• Grades 1-6
• Registration is open
• To see the list of classrooms currently registered visit the project wiki and look for the Sidebar on the right.
• Minimal tech tools required. “The basics you will need: either access to a digital camera or a way to upload pictures of your kids drawings etc (unless you choose to do them on a computer). You or your students will need to have access to one computer to type in all of the completed information about the candidate for others to read.”
• Information must be uploaded to the wiki by October 27, 2008
• Election will be held November 3-7th. All students will get to cast their vote.

I would love to see a Willard class participate in this. Let me know if I can help!

Image Credit: EJP Photo

The online Collaborative Projects described below are all sponsored by JenuineTech. These projects are well organized, provide lots of classroom activity options, and are fun for the students. Jennifer Wagner, the person behind JenuineTech, has been facilitating these award winning projects for years and is very experienced.

A Room with a View

• August 10, 2008 to June 10, 2009
• Ages: PreK – Sixth Grade
• Classes will capture a monthly picture of the view from a classroom window, documenting how the scenery changes. Students will write descriptions of what they see change and share with other classrooms their observations.
• Technology Objective: Teachers and students will learn to upload to an online arena to showcase their work.
• Register online now.

Other Upcoming Projects

O.R.E.O.

• Registration opens in about 2 weeks
• Project has 2 parts. You can choose which to participate in.
  • That’s the Way the Cookie Tumbles
  • O.R.E.O. STUF Fashion Show
• This will be the10th year of this project.
• Read about last year’s O.R.E.O. project here.

Hats Off to Lincoln

• February is the 200th Birthday of Abraham Lincoln more on this project soon.

Image Credit: Hurry Formally, Viewing His New World by cobalt123

My daughter and I are participating in Project BudBurst. First, I downloaded the Project BudBurst Activity Guide. We then used the provided map to select a plant that we hoped to find in the lot across the street. We needed to find a specimen that hadn’t budded yet, or at least not bloomed. After printing a field guide and locating our plant, we determined the latitude and longitude of the plant. We recorded our observation with a photo, a description of the weather, and the phenological stage of the plant (first bud burst, first leafing, first flower, and seed or fruit dispersal). We will record our observations each day, studying the timing of the life cycle events. The data that we report online will be compared to historical records to document the effects of climate change.

The site for this online collaborative project includes options for classroom participation including Teacher resources and student games (K-6).

Image Credit: Takshi* CC: by-nc-nd
tag: edtech, k12, Project BudBurst, plants, life cycle, phenological stage, science, collaborative project

Registration is now open for the online, collaborative project, the Great Egg Roll.

• Project dates: March 24 – April 18, 2008
• Grades: PreK-6
• “We will be rolling plastic eggs! Each participating classroom can choose whether
  to fill the eggs or roll them empty.”
• Other optional activities include a decorated egg fashion show and some worksheets.
  
• Sponsored by TechnospudProjects.com

Image Credit: Mundoo. Check out the Flickr Egg Group for more amazing eggs

tag: k12 edtech collaborative project Technospud Projects Great Egg Roll