Todd Williamson's Blog (11)

Announcing one of the first major STEM Collaborations between members of MSP2.



The Pringles Challenge is deceptively simple in concept. Your objective is to design and create a package to send a single Pringles Potato chip to another school in the US, via First Class Mail. The goal is to have the package that transports the chip safely with the smallest mass and volume.



Eric Biederbeck and I participated in our own mini-Pringles Challenge last school year, and it was an… Continue

Hi folks,

The North Carolina Middle School Association had their annual conference earlier this week in Greensboro, NC. I was lucky enough to attend and took notes on the sessions I attended. There were some really good sessions and a few that received a "Not Yet" :) Would love any comments or thoughts on the notes and if you have any questions I'll be glad to answer them if I can! The notes can be found here:…



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On September 16th, I moderated a Tech Talk on the use of Interactive Whiteboards in the classroom. During the session, we had 11 attendees and we discussed some basic strategies for implementing Interactive Whiteboards into the middle school math and science classrooms. Many of the attendees were already IWB users and shared some of their experiences with the group. The session lasted approximately 45 minutes and the recording of the Elluminate session is available below as are the slides from… Continue

On July 29th, I moderated the first Tech Talk for MSP2 using Elluminate via LearnCentral.org. This was the first of MSP2's planned Tech Talks. We had approximately 19 people attend the session.



During the session, I discussed some of the basics of getting started with Interactive Notebooks in the classroom. Below you will find the presentations files I used during the session, the… Continue

Thought some of you might be interested in this opportunity. The National Educational Computing Conference is taking place in Washington, DC from June 28th - July 1st. Chances are if you're reading this post, you're not at NECC being overwhelmed with new ed tech insights. However, just because you aren't in DC doesn't mean you can't join in the fun. There are several ways to join in the action:



--Twitter: Probably your best bet for getting involved is through following the hashtag… Continue

The final day of the Marine Science Academy is what we generally call "Aquarium Day." We load up on 2 buses and take the entire 55 student group to the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. The day is broken up into 4 parts. Students participate in a squid dissection, a remote operated vehicle activity, and a behind the scenes tour of the aquarium. Afterward we gather all the students, parents, school board members, sponsors and… Continue

The fourth day of our Marine Science Academy took place mostly back around Carteret Community College. We started off the morning with two activities to culminate our work at Cape Lookout from Tuesday.





Graphing Transect Data

After the students collected data on the topography of the beach Tuesday, we had to work to make sense out of what they had compiled. Students used Microsoft Excel and created a surface map chart of the data. Many of the students had… Continue

This is the third in a series of posts about the Marine Science Academy I helped lead last week. This is a cross post from my blog, The Technorate Teacher



On the third day of the Brad Sneeden Marine Science Academy, the students had three activities that took them all over the Sound just off Beaufort, NC. My group of students started off on Piver's Island at the Duke Marine lab, then boarded the Susan B. Hudson research… Continue

Isn't that a wonderful view to start off the day? That is the Cape Lookout Lighthouse as seen from the Local Yokel Ferry carrying a group of middle school kids across the sound to the island. We spent our second day of the camp doing a number of activities on the island. The forecast was calling for a 60% chance of rain so we tempered our expectations for how the day would go,… Continue

This is the first in a 5 part cross-post from my professional blog, The Technorate Teacher. This camp was open to students around our county and focused on careers in Marine Science. Enjoy!



Today was the first day of the 2009 Brad Sneeden Marine Science Academy. This year we have 55 students from across Carteret and Craven Counties meeting at Carteret Community College… Continue

Hi all, just thought I would give you a little background information on myself. I'm Todd Williamson and I teach 7th grade science in Newport, NC. I received my BS in Middle Grades Education with concentrations in Science and Math from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I love working with middle school students because every day is a challenge on MANY different levels! I completed my National Board Certification in Early Adolescent Science in 2008. I have just recently begun… Continue