Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Upcoming events: Video Game Carnival

In just two weeks, Milwood Magnet School and the MMS Parent Advisory team will host its first video game night!



We are still looking for volunteers to lend their Wii and a game, their time, or resources for the evening, which will be May 15, 2009 from 5:30 - 9 pm. If you're interested, please contact Mary Hoyle at the school.

Monday, April 27, 2009

WGOM: Have you checked in on the salmon lately?

They have gotten big and will continue to double their size as the end of next month approaches, when we will release the salmon at a designated release location. The 7th grade students at Milwood Magnet School have enjoyed having salmon in the classroom and have gained a lot of knowledge from this project.


Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Earth Day 2009

In honor of Earth Day 2009, we have compiled a few resources to better help you and your students help the environment.

What is the importance of Earth Day and what does it mean to us?


Did you know...
38% of kids feel that the U.S. needs to improve what they're doing to protect the environment.
53% of kids feel that the global climate change is the most important environmental issue facing the world today.
47% of kids most admire a world leader who makes the environment a priority.
51% feel that their communities could better help the environment by using solar panels on new public buildings.
66% feel that it is the environment is their responsibility.

A few websites with fun environmental activities for you and your family:
Earthdaytv.net: lots of videos and information on Earth Day.
Waste Management's ThinkGreen.com for students grades 6 - 8.

How much energy do your appliances consume when they're not being used, but still plugged in?
Standby Power will show you the watt usage for many common appliances.

Opening today in theaters:
Disney's Earth follows three animal families around the planet and shows just how fragile our life and our planet really is.

Earth day 2009 from Zoltan Ladanyi on Vimeo.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Tech Tuesday: Blog Spotlight, pt. 1

Just what is this blogging thing?

Blog is a contracted form of weblog. In short, it has many uses and is most commonly described as a website that offers commentary, descriptions of events, graphics, or video. A blog is maintained by individuals and the information is generally displayed in reverse chronological order.

There are many types of blogs:
Personal: This type of blog is a journal of sorts, where an individual writes entries about his or her day in a sentimental manner. Few personal blogs become famous, although it is a fast and easy way to keep in touch with friends and family who you are unable to see on a daily basis.
Corporate: This type of blog is most commonly used by a business for marketing, branding, or public relations. The Lancer Letter falls under the categorization of corporate blog because it is used for the purpose of public relations with our parents and community members.
Question Blogging: A qlog answers questions that are submitted via an online form of some type, an email, or a VIOP telephone call.
A media blog: A blog that contains videos is called a vlog, one containing links is called a linklog, blogs containing photos are called photoblogs, shorter blogs with mixed media types are called tumbleblogs, and those written with typewriters, scanned in and posted are called typecasts.
A device blog: Blogs written with different devices have different classifications, as well. A blog written via mobile phone is called a moblog.
Genre blog: Blogs can focus on particular subjects, such as politics, travel, fashion, projects, education, niche, classical music, dreamlogs, art, music, or spamming (called a splog).

Source: Wikipedia.com

Are you interested in starting your own blog but don't know where to begin? Here are a few different free blog hosting sites and their benefits:

Blogger.com: Undisclosed amount of space to publish your blog. Owned by Google, Blogger.com combines with your Google account to enable you to publish photos and videos seemlessly. Each Google account has 1024 MB of space for file storage. You are able to purchase additional space (10 GB for $20/year up to 400 GB for $500/year). Setup and customization are fairly simple for Blogger and it allows you in incorporate Google's AdSense to help you earn money if you choose to do so with your blog, as well as Analytics to track who is viewing your blog. All of Bloggers features are free to use with no fees added on.

Wordpress.com: WordPress allows 3 GB of storage for your blog and all files associated with it for free. You are able to purchase additional space (5 GB for $20/year, up to 25 GB for $90/year). Setup is relatively easy, as is personalization with templates. You cannot, however, edit any templates with a free account so you are limited with that. The customizable CSS upgrade is an additional $15/year. Because Google owns Blogger, AdSense is not able to be used with WordPress, but it has built in blog stats to help you track who is viewing your blog.

There are other free blogging websites, but the listed two have been reviewed by many and are deemed the most popular, offering the most features, with little-to-know out-of-pocket cost for additional features. If you know of any other websites, please feel free to provide a link to it in the comments.

Stay tuned for next week's article on Blog Widgets!

Monday, April 13, 2009

WGOM: Welcome Back & a Field Trip!

We hope everyone had a fun and refreshing Spring Break! We return to Milwood Magnet School with a renewed focus to educate and learn. Before we left, our 8th Grade A&B teams went on a Gear-Up field trip to Western Michigan University. Students were able to explore the campus via a tour, where they saw everything from the Waldo Library, to a realistic dorm room, to a taste of campus life by having a lunch in a WMU cafeteria.

Students walked away from the experience knowing more about college than they did before the visit and had an idea of the preparations they would need to make in order to be ready for college. They were also able to get more information on what the Kalamazoo Promise will pay for in regards to college, as well.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Upcoming events: Wii Game Night

Milwood Magnet School Parent Advisory is organizing the first Wii Game Night. More details to come!




Today is the last day of school before Spring Break. We will return on Monday, April 13.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Tech Spotlight: Recommended Free Font Sites

In conjunction with the technology spotlight in the April newsletter, here are a few sites that offer free-ware fonts for download:
If you're interested in purchasable fonts, here are a few sites to try as well:

As always, please be careful with any file that you download.