SBTS EdTech

At Lane Elementary, Fifth Grade special education students are learning to speak math as they teach their fellow classmates strategies for multiplication. The students are using the Smart Recorder to demonstrate their learning. They plan their “lesson” and demonstrate their learning as the other students observe, listen and learn. Their recordings are then posted on the teacher’s Blackboard site so parents can better understand the new strategies they are learning.  

In preparation for the Global Awareness project  5^th graders at Cameron ES created powerpoints  on Syria, Jordan and Spain.  The students researched their topic and took virtual field trips with the librarian and classroom teacher.  The completed projects were posted on Blackboard for everyone to see.  Additionally, the classroom teacher posted one powerpoint per week for the students to blog about within Blackboard. 

At Bucknell ES, a Head Start class took a virtual world tour of their parents’ home countries to see how far they had to travel on the globe to the U.S. The teacher sent a note to parents to write information about their homelands and send it back with their children to be used in this pretend journey! The lesson was related to Thanksgiving and pilgrims.  They also created their own ‘costumes’ and wore them for the school Thanksgiving Luncheon.

Students in 3rd Grade at Rose Hill Elementary are learning about Earth cycles and patterns. A lesson is introduced on the Smartboard focusing on key concepts such as rotation, revolution, seasonal changes, the Earth’s tilt, and the two axis points. Students later move around a lamp in the classroom showing the movement of the Earth with both a rotation and revolution based on images and the lesson presented on the Smartboard. The following day students review key vocabulary words and then are given both digital cameras and flip camcorders to take pictures/video tape objects they find in the classrooms that can both rotate and revolve.  Students also make skits showing these two earthly motions.

At Hayfield Elementary, the SBTS is preparing 5th Graders for the Global Awareness Project. Recently, the SBTS taught a lesson to each 5th Grade class on the Great Wall of China. The lesson included a video from United Streaming which segued into a lesson using Mapmaker’s Toolkit. Students acted as cartographers and added the required elements to the map: title, key, and compass rose. They also added symbols such as a tower to represent guards along the Great Wall and camels to represent those who traveled the Silk Road. Students then learned that they could export maps for future use in their GATP. This week, the entire 5th Grade gathered together for a special GATP preview session. Presentations were accessed via the 5^th Grade Gateways on Blackboard and provided students with a general idea of what is to be expected for the project. The students enjoyed having the opportunity to take part in constructive critiques.

Fifth graders at Mount Eagle are using Audacity as an editing tool. After learning about editing symbols and where to use them, students read their writing and record themselves. They then listen to their readings and edit their papers as they listen. They are able to capture the “oral editing” that students tend to do when reading their writing aloud and add in punctuation and emphasis where they hear it.

At Island Creek Elementary 4^th Graders are collaborating on a weather wiki.  Students formed groups to tackle different parts of the POS including Storm Types, Weather Instruments, and Precipitation. They then demonstrated communication skills and interdependence as they collaborated to build image-rich and informative wiki pages.  Additional emphasis was placed on vocabulary and citations.

4th, 5th, and 6th graders at Oakton Elementary are using wikis in Blackboard to discuss big ideas about modern artwork and important historical pieces. (”How does this painting reflect the concept of change?”) They are also going to be posting pictures of their own artwork and blogging their comments about each other’s work.

After careful writing and editing, 4th grade students at Cunningham Park Elementary School imported their book reviews into Wordle to create colorful “word cloud” visual representations to hang around their classrooms.

SBTS in Neighborhood C have been busy getting our teachers up and running with all the technology that is available in our schools.

 All Kindergarten teachers have been trained in the KMRA and are ready to begin assessing students and collecting online data in order to have a consistent and ongoing view of student progress and areas of need in mathematics.

SBTS are already working on training teachers on how to create their own common assessments using ASPIRE in eCART, with some, creating and entering their own questions. 

We have been working with classroom teachers and specialists to set up class blackboard sites that are ready for students to access.  Blackboard is being used in a variety of ways including; posting announcements and websites for students to access for extra practice or to gain the needed background knowledge for an upcoming lesson.  United Streaming videos have been posted in BB for students to view at home or on their own during centers time. Students are creating their own wiki’s as a place to recommend books for others to read, plus they get to read and comment on other book recommendations and make connections!  Students have also been blogging with classmates as a way to brainstorm for projects or discuss books they are reading.

SBTS are working with teachers to create SMART Notebook lessons that allow curriculum content to be taught in an interactive way that captures student attention and works to engage each learner in the process.

As many teachers review geography skills in the beginning of each social studies curriculum, mapmaker’s toolkit was utilized at many of our elementary schools. In 4^th grade students’ created maps of Virginia where they demonstrated knowledge of the geographic regions in VA. Fifth grade students worked on perfecting their map reading skills by locating states and countries using latitude and longitude coordinates and pinning these areas on their maps.  They also created maps that demonstrated their knowledge of direction and the hemispheres’.  Sixth grade students created maps of the 8 geographic regions as these regions are the basis for how and where settlement began in the United States and will be key in helping students understand settlement in the US.