Again this year Carlos Celdran gave us an entertaining tour of the walled fortress of Intramuros. Carlos describes what happened to the Philippines during World War II.
A recent owner of movie theaters in Britain has announced that he was going to ban popcorn from his theaters starting in September. Read the article here.
We take to the halls of ISM and ask students and teachers what they think of the idea.
After starting this podcast as an experiment last October, I never imagined that I would still be working on it now. As the school year starts again, it promises to be bigger and better.
Some ambitious goals for this year include:
1) have more student input
2) have the RSS feed placed onto the student portal page
3) try for an even more eclectic mix of podcasts
Welcome to school year 2008-2009!
Over the summer many people in China have found the site and have download many of the podcasts. Let us know who you are and where you are from!
Field trips are enjoyed by both teachers and teachers alike. However, often they are not treated as the great learning experience that they can and should be. Recently, as part of the Classroom Without Walls program, Grade Six students produced reflective and interpretative podcasts about their experiences. Have a listen, and if you like these, check out twenty more at ISM6 CWW.
After a recent Middle School survey regarding homework, Sturgeon’s Locker Force spoke up about with their thoughts on the subject. Midway through a teacher drops by the room and gives her opinion. Overall, a very interesting, mature discussion. As you will hear, there is a wide range of thoughts on this topic.
David Pogue: New York Times Technology search for David Pogue in at the iTunes store
If you subscribe to any of these podcasts and get them onto your MP3 player, show it to me. I am always interested in who interested in who is enjoying the podcasts!
Copy the feed then a) in iTunes… click Advance Tab, then Subscribe to Podcast, paste OR a) go to the iTunes Store in iTunes and search by title
Middle school students can encounter problems when researching on the web. This can lead to a wasting of a great deal of time and energy. Here are some very tips that should make the job much easier.
1. Spell keywords properly.
2. Choose strong keywords. For example if you were trying to determine what turtles eat, you may want to use turtle and diet as your keywords. Example: If you want to buy a car, don’t enter the keyword “car” if you can enter the keyword “Toyota.” Better still, enter the phrase “Toyota Dealerships” AND the name of the city where you live.
3. More keywords narrow your focus.Poodles black quiet “for sale” will result in fewer hits.
4. Keyword order counts. When using multiple keywords, the first word may carry more importance
depending on the search engine.
5. Fine tune your keywords. If the number of results is too large, add keywords or change them.
6. Eliminate subtopics. Dogs –poodles, or you can eliminate words. This is using an option in the Advanced search of most search engines as well.
7. Use the Advanced Search option. This will give you more options. You can add or eliminate keywords or phrases and even search for specific document types such as PowerPoint and PDF files
8. Use “quotation marks.” This will lock in your words. “smelly turtles” will only fins sites that have the two side by side.
9. Choose the correct search engine. Use different search engines depending on your need. Understand search engines: general search engines for specific needs, directories for broad topics, metasearch engines to search many search engines at once. If you insist in writing and entire question such as, “What is the tallest building in the world?” then sites such as answers.com, or brainboost.com may be for you.
10. Go Old School, use books! Printed materials are often much easier and more efficient. Students often think the web is the only place to find information.
At International School Manila, students are fortunate to have the opportunity to travel the world. At the end of one day, I quickly asked the students where they spent their holidays.
Check out the wide variety of responses.
Where did you spend your holidays?
Just in time for the holidays coming the latest video from ISM teachers! Mr. Dingrando uses fellow teachers and even security guards to go round and round and round and round and round and round…
Keep an eye out for the clever filming and editing tricks that he uses.
Check out their previous videos on YouTube:
Thriller ,
Bebot ,
U Can’t Touch This
I am just playing around with this cool site called Voicethread . It allows multiple users to comment on the same pictures. On the Voicethread site itself, you can add you own comments to the presentation and they would then be included.
Think of it this way. Your family goes on vacation. One person goes to VocieThread and uploads some pictures from the trip. The relatives, long gone back to their faraway homes, can all locate the same file on VocieThread adn leave their own recordings adn comments. In turn, all relatives can read and listen to comment sleft by others. This is one just idea. Do you have others?
If you subscribe and have get them onto your MP3 player, show it to me. I am always interested in who interested in who is enjoying the podcasts!
Copy the feed then a) in iTunes.. click Advance Tab, then Subscribe to Podcast, paste OR a)paste into your Netvibes or iGoogle page Alternatively, you can go to the iTunes Store in iTunes and search by title.
4. Why? The Science Show for Kids http://feeds.feedburner.com/whyscience
Copy the feed then a) in iTunes.. click Advance Tab, then Subscribe to Podcast, paste
OR a)paste into your Netvibes or iGoogle page
Alternatively, you can go to the iTunes Store in iTunes and search by title.
Check out Mr. Sturgeon and his brother shooting the rapids on the Cagayan River in Mindanao. They are both sitting at the back just in front of the guide.
My Lakbayan grade is B-!How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!
Leave a comment about the places you most like to visit in the Philippines. Despite being a relatively small country, there are many great places to visit. Let us know your favorites!
After a long motorbike journey from Puerto Princesa over haggard roads and a two hour hike through the daunting “Monkey Trail,” we finally made it to Subterranean River.
Listen here to our hike to the river and our experience while in the impressive cave system. Listen to our guide speak about how about how it was formed, how the sea has an influence, descriptions of the different stalactite formations, and cool bat facts.
The Puerto PrincesaSubterranean River is located about 50 kilometers north of the city of Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines. It is also known as St. Paul’s Subterranean River National Park. The entrance to the Subterranean River is located a short hike from little town of Sabang.
It features a limestone karst mountain landscape with an 8.2 km. navigable underground river. A distinguishing feature of the river is that it winds through a cave before flowing directly into the South China Sea. It includes major formations of stalactites and stalagmites, and several large chambers. The lower portion of the river is subject to tidal influences. The underground river is reputed to be the world’s longest.
The area also represents a significant habitat for biodiversity conservation. The site contains a full mountain-to-the-sea and has some of the most important forests in Asia.
Here is sample from the recent grade Seven annual Automated Wax Museum. Students bring to life historical figures fro m the time of the Renaissance, Reformation, and the Age of Exploration.
Renz performs as Lapu Lapu, the first national hero of the Philippines. Lapu Lapu is known as the first leader to resist Spanish colonization in the country. Renz speaks bout “his” and recounts the Battle of Mactan. He describes how he and his followers combat and kill the Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan.
Continuing in the podsafe music mode, here is a great little song reminding people that you don’t actually need an iPod to listen to online music! Students in our class know that they can listen via their RSS Agrregator (in our case, Netvibes, as it has an embedded audio player.)
I have been investigating what music is “legal’ to use on podcasts. After investigating, I now understand that some music is considered “podsafe.” In short, if you are using certain music in podcasting or for your own non-commercial use, then the artists give you permission to use it.
Mr. Dilworth explains more on this topic of legal use at his blog. Check out the link on the lower left.
If you link this song, you can visit the site below to purchase it.
“If Every Day Were Christmas”
The song is a collaboration between 32 singers from 9 countries — a group collectively known as Podsafe for Peace — all brought together by the populist phenomenon of podcasting and the desire to pool their talents for a worthy cause. And few causes make more sense at Christmastime than UNICEF, which aids children in need around the world. The song was produced by Slau and co-written by Orlando Pagan.
Friday night saw the ISM Boys Varsity Basketball team facing Brent. Trailing by as many as 22 points midway through the third, all hope seemed lost. By the end of the quarter the lead was trimmed to 12 and stayed that way until five minutes remained.
Listen to some of the sounds of the game as the Bearcats battled back to tie the game on the final shot of regulation time.
The comeback was capped off by the boys winning the game in overtime.
Spiderman is safe! Listen to the latest update on the location of Spanish class Spiderman. Let’s hope re recovers well. Leave a comment of your best wishes for webbed wonder!
Mr. Pethan is furious that his beloved Superman blow-up doll has gone missing from room. Hear the anger and frustration in his voice. Do you know where Spiderman is hiding?
Again this year Carlos Celdran gave us an entertaining tour of the walled fortress of Intramuros. Carlos describes what happened to the Philippines during World War II.
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A recent owner of movie theaters in Britain has announced that he was going to ban popcorn from his theaters starting in September. Read the article 
After starting this podcast as an experiment last October, I never imagined that I would still be working on it now. As the school year starts again, it promises to be bigger and better.
Field trips are enjoyed by both teachers and teachers alike. However, often they are not treated as the great learning experience that they can and should be. Recently, as part of the Classroom Without Walls program, Grade Six students produced reflective and interpretative podcasts about their experiences. Have a listen, and if you like these, check out twenty more at 
After a recent Middle School survey regarding homework, Sturgeon’s Locker Force spoke up about with their thoughts on the subject. Midway through a teacher drops by the room and gives her opinion. Overall, a very interesting, mature discussion. As you will hear, there is a wide range of thoughts on this topic.
Middle school students can encounter problems when researching on the web. This can lead to a wasting of a great deal of time and energy. Here are some very tips that should make the job much easier.
At International School Manila, students are fortunate to have the opportunity to travel the world. At the end of one day, I quickly asked the students where they spent their holidays.
Check out the wide variety of responses.
Where did you spend your holidays?
Just in time for the holidays coming the latest video from ISM teachers! Mr. Dingrando uses fellow teachers and even security guards to go round and round and round and round and round and round…
Keep an eye out for the clever filming and editing tricks that he uses.
Check out their previous videos on YouTube:
Another great free, legal tune!
Here is sample from the recent grade Seven annual Automated Wax Museum. Students bring to life historical figures fro m the time of the 
A great song presented by the MS Choir at the final assembly before the holidays.
I have been investigating what music is “legal’ to use on podcasts. After investigating, I now understand that some music is considered “podsafe.” In short, if you are using certain music in podcasting or for your own non-commercial use, then the artists give you permission to use it.
Friday night saw the ISM Boys Varsity Basketball team facing Brent. Trailing by as many as 22 points midway through the third, all hope seemed lost. By the end of the quarter the lead was trimmed to 12 and stayed that way until five minutes remained.
Spiderman is safe! Listen to the latest update on the location of Spanish class Spiderman. Let’s hope re recovers well. Leave a comment of your best wishes for webbed wonder!
Check out what some attendees of recent Beyonce concert had to say . You may be surprised who went!
Mr. Pethan is furious that his beloved Superman blow-up doll has gone missing from room. Hear the anger and frustration in his voice. Do you know where Spiderman is hiding?
Listen to Ms. Vergel being interviewed by some Grade 8 students.
I met someone today who is visiting and looking for strange creatures.
Students in Social Studies class comment on making maps of the world from their memory.
r. Sturgeon tells the story of one crazy sturgeon!
