Geno's!!

Liberty Bell & Dukw tour

Yesterday we went back down to Independence Hall National Park to view the Liberty Bell.  The line to see it, was well, you get the idea:

 The building that they have it in explains the creation, purpose, care for, history and the popularity of the Liberty Bell.  Once you get inside the building you have plenty of room to move around, read the artifacts, and gain an appreciation for the bell.  At the end sits the bell.

After the Liberty Bell, we went on a Dukw tour of Philly.  We rode in a Dukw, which is an amphibious vehicle, our driver took us around Philly taking us around the famous places, and then splash into the Delaware River.  

We trolled around the Delaware for awhile, but I did get a picture of the most decorated battleship in the Navy, the USS New Jersey

Independence Hall

Mr. Bell in front of Independence Hall!  You can see this was before they had set up for the concert on July 3rd and the 4th of July festivities! 

Philly pops at Independence Hall!!  Great live concert in front of Independence Hall featuring the Philadelphia Pops, very cool, as they played and sang only American written music to stay with the ideal of an American celebration.  They had Chestnut street block off in front of the Hall and then set up chairs on the lawn space between the Hall and the Visitors Center on Market Street.  Thankfully it was a cooler evening with a slight breeze, as the turn out for the concert was huge with many people bringing their lawnchairs, blankets, picnic baskets, and the like to enjoy the evening.

Valley Forge

Today we drove out to Valley Forge, which really isn't that far from Philadelphia.  I guess if I would have read up a little about it, that would have made complete sense.  General Washington wanted a place where he could watch the British in Philadelphia, yet far enough from any surprise attack.  So much for calling myself a history teacher!

Here is a recreation of the huts on the south line of defenses.

This is a picture of the inside of one of the huts that would resemble what the soldiers at Valley Forge would have had.

Here is Brent & I with a re-enactor and his 1772 Brown Bass Musket, pretty cool. He was talking about how to load, shoot, & carry one.  

Here is Washington's house that he stayed at while at Valley Forge.  It's actually pretty big and the Park ranger said that most of the renovation on the house has just been the wood floors and some windows.  Pretty good for a house pushing 250 years!

That's me in the doorway!

They were doing a dig behind the house, looking for Revolutionary War artifacts, while we were there, they showed us a musket ball that had yet to be fired.  

Christ Church & Grounds, Franklin Square, & Betsy Ross's House

We then went to Christ's Church, which has stood & served the people of Philadelphia since the times of Ben Franklin and George Washington, which their two families attended.  It is a beautiful church.

Yesterday, we spent time down around Independence National Park.  Since it was July 1st, there were already people re-enacting the colonial times.  A camp was being set up in front of the National Constitution Center.  Here is a picture of two of them:

We also viewed the burial grounds of the church.  Christ Church had seven men who signed the Declaration of Independence attend their church and then were buried on their grounds.

Betsy Ross House:
We then walked to Betsy Ross's House, there was lots going on with the 4th of July weekend, so we just walked around the ground and took a few pics.

Franklin Square:

Franklin Square houses the Franklin post office, the print shop and apartments that Franklin built.  His actual house was demolished by his grandchildren to improve the property.  It is pretty cool to see the interior of the walls and how the building was built:

The darker areas are where the flus for the chimneys were & you can see where the floor joints were fastened to the walls.  Below is the a good representation of the print shop that one can see, the tools used, and we were actually able to watch the National Parks official show us how the printer works.

Here you can see the tools used to binding the books produced back in colonial times:

Gettysburg!

148 years ago today, one of the greatest battles of the Civil War began, accidentally really, at the quiet town of Gettysburg.  That was the destination of yesterday's travels.  We began our morning at 7:00 walking to pick up our rental that we would drive the 3 hours to Gettysburg.

We were exceedingly happy because they upgraded our vehicle to a SUV due to that certain features of it were broken and it was not suitable for Brent or I.

Our first stop in Gettysburg was naturally the  Tavern at the Farnsworth House, where one can see Brent standing next to the brick wall where one can see dozens of bullet holes in the brick:

We decided that since it was close to noon, that we should just have lunch before heading to downtown Gettysburg.  We walked around the square and even got a picture taken with good ole Abe:

We then headed to the visitors center, went through the museum, which is excellent, and then raided the bookstore!  

After going through the visitors center, we took the auto tour of the battlefield.  It took us 3 hours to drive the tour and take pics.  We even went to a few places even Frauen hadn't been too! Here's just a few pics from the drive:

Virginia Memorial

Devil's Den:

Phillies & Red Sox

Since the ISTE conference is over, and our trip is roughly half over, we thought it would be cool to take in a Phillies game.  It was a beautiful night and even though our seats were up there, it was still fun!

The Phillies won 2-1.  What a beautiful night!

Wednesday morning at ISTE

This morning I went to two good sessions, one by Will Richardson & Rob Mancanbelli, & the other by Tammy Worcester.  Will & Rob talked about how to deal with those in your school who are reluctant to start using ed tech by addressing the "Yeah, but..." arguments that others provide.  They stated that research shows that by just providing a rational counter to their arguments, that most people (10%) will change their behavior.  However, they showed that if you address their social/emotional needs concerning the issue that up to 72% of the people were willing to change.  Very good information.  

Tammy Worcester spent the session talking about how to use Google Docs for projects in the classroom, many good ideas were presented.  I liked the idea about using Google Earth to build virtual maps of each unit where students can add placemarks for major people, events, and other important locations.  You can view her site here: Tammy's Technology Tips for Teachers.

Alan November

I went to Alan November's session yesterday afternoon.  I have heard him speak before and he delivered again.  One of the things that I think draws a lot of people to Alan is that one can truly tell when they listen to him that he is passionate about students & their learning.  That was again the focus of today's discussion.  he noted how important it is for students to be connected to the work they are doing, that they feel as if what they are producing is helping others, not just for their own grade.  He talked about having students create online tutorials for other students.  He also talked about giving students specific jobs while discussing topics in class that way there is a class collection of notes/links/images/own thoughts.  Great job Alan.