Tom Cole's Home Page

The 2007-08 school year is about to begin. It is an exciting year. After twenty some years of teaching third and fourth grade, I will be moving to primary this year, second grade to be exact. In many ways it will be the same, but in other ways it will be most different. It will be a year of learning for both the students and for me. I am fortunate to have so many wonderful people around me to learn from and to work with. West Friendship's greatest strength is the people who work there. I've rarely worked with such dedicated professionals, people who go far beyond the call of duty. A second strength involves a community of parents who are actively involved in the the educational process. It is the people (parents and teachers) who make West Friendship such an exceptional school. I will continue to use technology as a tool for learning. But I will need to discover new applications that are suitable for the primary learner. I would like to have a second grade newspaper. I will continue to use TeacherWeb as a communication device for both parents and children. I would like to use multimedia in varied and constructive ways to increase the students' enthusiasm for learning. We might even be able to play around a bit with online publishing. As in previous years, I will depend on parents to work as partners with me in the whole educational experience. Ultimately, it is when parents and teachers work together, that the greatest amount of success is achieved. I can't say I initially chose this second grade placement. It wasn't in either my short term or long term plans. But I can say that I am fortunate to be working with the people I'm working with, and I am getting excited and enthusiastic as the year approaches. It is going to be a great year of learning and adventure for everyone involved.

Mr. Cole's second grade class read the book Pezzetino by Leo Leonni. We created our own Pezzetinos based on the book. In art class we artistically created them. In language arts class, we created them in a literary fashion. We hope you enjoy both our art work and our writings. They can be found here.

We also looked at some of the writings of Eric Carle. We particularly enjoyed the story, The Tiny Seed. We turned it into a play, drew pictures, and are in the process of making a podcast. It is currently in rough form, but hopefully we will get the audio smoother so that, you our viewing audience will enjoy it. The podcast can be found here.

We also now have an official Pokemon Club in the second grade. In order to be a member of the club, you have to write good paragraphs about various Pokemon topics. If you are interested in reading a few of these short articles, here is a link to the Official Pokemon Club Page. (Let it be known that Mr. Cole knows virtually nothing about Pokemon. But he is indeed trying to learn from those scholars in his class.

We read the book The Velveteen Rabbit. We then brought in our favorite stuffed animal and wrote about it. We videotaped ourself reading our wonderful stories. If you would like to see us read, just come to this website. Of course, you must know the password (and only our friends and family get to know that).

Stay tuned. We plan to have a WebKinz Club beginning in February 2008. We will take pictures and write about our favorite WebKinz. If you want to be a part of this, just let Mr. Cole know.

We also have a second grade newspaper. I am experimenting with putting it online as well. Here is a sample.

Here is a link to Science Fair Information, for those interested in doing a project for the science fair.

Developmental Assets is a program our school is doing in conjunction with character education. A partial framework of this program can be found here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am now teaching at West Friendship which is a wonderful elementary school in Howard County. I really enjoy being a classroom teacher, but if I ever begin burning out, the idea of working as a technology specialist in education also appeals to me. I do believe technology will radically change how we teach. It is an exciting time to be involved in teaching. West Friendship recently got an iBook lab (15 laptops). You would be amazed at how proficient a fourth grader can be with a laptop. The Internet is being used to facilitate communication with parents and guardians. The iBook lab is being used by the students for research, publishing, graphing, and multimedia activities. It simply is a lot of fun, for kids and educators, to integrate technology into the curriculum and use it as a tool for learning. If you would like to see our class website, go to teacherweb.com. I also have a professional website that is supplied by the county. It will probably eventually become my main website for school related things. One of the things I am trying to do is use the Internet as a vehicle for publishing my students' work. Ideally, a student could actually type out his or her composition and upload it onto the Internet. Last year I had two or three students who were totally proficient at web design at a very basic level. This year I would like to have more. We can use a scanner to upload drawings and other artifacts that go along with the student's writing. There is so much potential in the use of technology. We just have to figure out how we want to use it.

The fourth grade will eventually have a newspaper. It is called the Iguana News. We have to now decide on an icon to go with the newspaper. I will post the icons on an official icon page. The children should look at this page and decide on three symbols that they like. We will vote and the one with the most votes will be the winner. My hope is that we might possibly get the first newspaper out before winter break. If not, it will begin immediately in January. So much to do, and so little time.

Our latest exciting happening at West Friendship Elementary is the production of the play, "Into the Woods". Actually, as of October 1, 2006, we are just on the verge of starting with the production. I will place a page online for communication between actors, backstage workers, and parents. It definitely takes a community to raise a curtain for a play. The following page should facilitate communication among that community.

My class also has a "class calendar".
It is full of trivia and other interesting

I am beginning to help my students create web pages with their special interests.
The first web page is about the Titanic.
The second web page is about castles.
The third web page is about Disney World.
The fourth page is about horses.

Here is a link to our Colonial Town called Acornville.

Our daily word problem is resting here waiting to be solved.

Totally unrelated to school, my mom recently found two pictures online. One is of her and one is of
my Uncle Tom. Both pictures were from World War II.

View My Stats

In 2003, I graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in Technology for the Classroom.
It was an excellent program. One of the projects we were asked to complete was the creation of a
professional portfolio. The above portfolio was created at my school, West Friendship Elementary.
The below portfolio was created as part of the Johns Hopkins program.