Biographies using MovieMaker and PowerPoint

Mr. Kunkel's 6th grade students are working on a "fun" biography (as described by Ashli). The biographies are about their peers' lives - 6th grade memories, upcoming events, and the fun stuff of being a 6th grader! Students are using MovieMaker and PowerPoint to develop their final products. Working in teams, students inteviewed each other, collected photos, and created a narrative of each other's 6th grade lives. Images and narratives were then collected into MovieMaker or PowerPoint. Mr. Kunkel's goal is to use different media types to express and present biographical information. Students are having fun too.  :) 

6th grade Skype session on Remember the Titans

6th grade students ask questions of Donna, Coach Boone's daughter of Remember the Titans fame via Skype today. Teachers Lisa Sanders and Teddy Bolton had their students watch the movie and then prepare questions for Donna (an aunt to one of our 6th grade students). Students asked questions related to the realism of the movie and questions related to the social issues of the day. Thanks to WCS Tech Scott Powers for his assistance in getting everything setup. Learn more about Skype and find a directory of classes around the world interested in connecting on our Skype page.

Third graders use PhotoStory for contest submission

Our Wyoming third graders are at it again, this time using PhotoStory to prepare mock-ups of books for the Kids Are Authors competition sponsored by Scholastic. Diann Blizniak, REACH Teacher and Gifted Coordinator for Wyoming City Schools, assisted students in using PhotoStory to create the video mock-ups of three books the students created for submission. You can view the video mock-ups of the books below:
- The Fantabulous Book of Blended Words - written by the 3rd grade REACH students - Elm
- Flagalicious - written by the 3rd grade REACH students - Hilltop
- What Would Happen If? - written by the 3rd grade REACH students - Vermont

Diann notes, "The students not only wrote all the words and illustrated all the pictures, they also decided on the book topics, determined what the layout should be and conceptualized how the book should be formatted! Win or lose, it was a wonderful learning experience."

An excellent, authentic use of technology for our students.

Middle School Surrealism

Julie Anglim's student-artists are pictured here today creating surrealistic images in Photoshop Elements. After students received instruction on the concept of surrealism, they pulled random adjectives and nouns out of a jar which became the basis for their artwork. Using Photoshop Elements, students must follow a checklist for their artwork and note how they used certain tools within Photoshop to achieve particular aspects of the surrealistic style. In the video below, Wyoming Middle School student David describes the activity including the adjectives and nouns he has to work with for his image.

Skyping with author Jordan Sonnenblick

Stefani Brand's 3rd graders conferenced with author Jordan Sonnenblick today via Skype. Mr. Sonnenblick spoke to students from his home in Pennsylvania while in his kitchen where he does most of his writing. Students prepared questions ahead of time for Mr. Sonnenblick focusing on the writing process, the development of his books, and future plans. Ms. Brand worked with one of our tech specialists, Susan Sagan, ahead of time to be sure she was comfortable with the technology and had her students practice ahead of time to make sure they were comfortable with interacting via Skype in a group setting.

Mr. Sonnenblick is known for his "Dodger" trilogy of books for young children, however most of his books are written for young adults. His big words of wisdom, "You cannot be a writer unless you are a reader!" More on the author available at http://www.jordansonnenblick.com/.

Data analysis - from SMARTBoard to Excel to PowerPoint

Ultan Killean has his students reviewing data sets on the SMARTBoard to determine an area of interest for an upcoming project. Students are obtaining the data from the Statistical Abstract - a summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States from the US Census Bureau. Students will be selecting an area of interest for data analysis that will have them download data into Excel, create charts and graphs from the data, and prepare a PowerPoint presentation to share their findings. The Analysis Tool Pack add-on will be used by students as well (learn how to add-on to Excel from our Microsoft Office page). Ultan will be creating his own PowerPoint on a statistical set as a model for his students.

Don't wish to dive into Excel? The Census Bureau has a variety of tools itself to assist with data analysis. They can be found at http://www.census.gov/main/www/access.html.

Geometric shapes, Notebook 10, and stuffed animals?

Jane Lance is pictured here working with one of her 2nd grade students using the SMARTBoard and Notebook 10 software. This math lesson began with students using stuffed animals to teach students the concepts of flipping, rotating, and sliding. She then modeled how to manipulate geometric shapes inside SMART Notebook 10. Students had the opportunity to come to the SMARTBoard and demonstrate their understanding. They then each took a laptop back to their desk and worked off a shared notebook file to manipulate various shapes.

During their use of Notebook 10, students learned and practiced software commands that are common to several applications such as undo/redo, copy, clone, and commands associated with manipulating graphics. In all, a very nice example of going from the concrete to the abstract while working in the tech.

Global exchange of postcards presented

Jen Sauvey and Laurie Marks are pictured here preparing for a presentation last night at the April 27th, Wyoming Board of Education meeting. Their presentation included the use of the ELMO document camera and a laptop to show off artwork from a global awareness project undertaken at the Middle School this year. 7th grade students exchanged personally made postcards with students in Japan by way of an interdisciplinary project that involved researching Japanese history, art, and poetry.

For more information on learning that can involve a global perspective, check our page on project-based learning.

Digital Storytelling in Practice - James and Luca

On April 7th, Vermont's Night at the Museum unveiled student projects on documents and artifacts supplied by the Wyoming Historical Society. Adam Beard's 3rd grade students were charged with interpreting the primary sources and communicating what they told about Wyoming's history.

Traditionally students have presented their findings on presentation boards, but two students, James and Luca, presented this year with a digital story. This was a great opportunity to model digital storytelling and the use of the technologies involved. James and Luca not only collaborated with each other on the content, but taught each other to use specific software and hardware. They followed the steps below:

• Planned their project using paper and pencil storyboard templates.
• Digitized photos of Wyoming homes using the ELMO document camera.
• Typed their narration in Microsoft Word.
• Edited digital photos using Microsoft Picture Manager.
• Imported edited photos into Microsoft Photo Story 3 where they organized their project based on their storyboard, added narration, and mixed their own music to accompany the project.
• Exported a three minute movie for display.

James' and Luca's project was displayed on 6 computers set up as a listening and viewing station. Both students assisted visitors and answered questions about their project. A full write-up on Adam's Night at the Museum can be found in the Cincinnati Enquirer, Students' museum represents active learning. You can find plenty of information on Digital Storytelling right here on our website including ideas, templates for planning, rubric, and help with the technologies involved. Both James and Luca did an outstanding job from start to finish on this project. It was not only an experience in using technology, but an opportunity for them to use technology for an authentic purpose.

2010 Horizon Report - Emerging Technologies K-12

From the NMC.org website on Monday, April 12th... "The New Media Consortium (NMC) today released the 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition, the second in an annual series of reports focused on emerging technology use in elementary and secondary education. The report identifies and describes six emerging technologies that will likely have a significant impact on K-12 education in the next one to five years."
2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition (PDF)
2010 horizon report: k-12 edition released. (2010, April 12th). 
Retrieved from http://www.nmc.org/news/nmc/hzk10-released

New Google features for collaboration

Google announced updates to their suite of Google Tools on Monday. New features include...

Real-time editing to files in Google Documents; multiple people on same document will see each others edits in real-time (already a part of their spreadsheet tool).

New editions to Spreadsheet tool - formula bar for cell editing, auto-complete, drag and drop columns, and simpler navigation between sheets.

New standalone Drawings Tool lets you collaborate in real time on flow charts, designs, diagrams and other graphics.

More on using Google Tools in the classroom available at http://oot.wyomingcityschools.org/training/google.html

Student Action Plans - a great model for PBL

The Earth Day Network provides a "Green Your School Guide" that includes student action plans to guide students in bringing change to their school environment. Mentioned in the previous post, the guide is worth highlighting as the action plans could be the nucleus for some great project-based learning. Each guide is focused on an area of the school campus and includes background knowledge and lesson plans in addition to the student action plan. Action plans include general ideas on organizing such as getting volunteers and fundraising. But where the plans really shine is in the short-term and long-term planning. Tables are included that show students week-by-week and month-by-month strategies for attaining their goals. A listing of "Allies" and resources are included as well. Worth a look even to use as a template for helping students to develop action plans for other types of projects. One example of their action plan available here.

More on Project, Problem, or Challenge based learning available.