SBTS EdTech

Monday, January 11, 11 SBTS from Neighborhood H presented a SMARTboard conference for 220 teachers in Western Fairfax County at Greenbriar East Elementary School. The conference allowed teachers to register for up to 3 breakout sessions facilitated by teachers, SBTS, and representatives from AVI and SMART that integrated curriculum with SMARTboards and Notebook software. Topics included Reading in the Primary Grades, Elementary Math on the SMARTboard, and Daily Math and Science just to name a few.

Stacy Kirkpatrick, SBTS Deer Park ES, spearheaded this fantastic event. AVI and SMART were gracious enough to present sessions and donate door prizes including a SMARTboard with an integrated projector. A grant was also awarded by North Tier Consortium. The money from this grant was used to purchase a SMART wireless slate and document camera for door prizes in addition to SMARTboard for Dummies books that were given to all participants. Funds provided from the grant will also be used for more staff development opportunities for participants presented by the SBTS throughout the spring. Fairfax Education Association donated money for snacks and eLearnIT donated highlighters and notepads.

This event was a huge success and has been well received as evident from the comments that have already been collected: “Thank you so much for putting this workshop together, it was wonderful,” “Awesome!!! I think you did a great job!,” “Please make this a regular offering.”

The 11 SBTS that organized and facilitated this event are: Lori Purvis, Brookfield ES; Kimberly Perri, Bull Run; Pat Wilson, Centre Ridge;  Nichole Plummer, Colin Powell; Jonathan Magwire, Cub Run; Stacy Kirkpatrick, Deer Park; Reggie Kopecky, Greenbriar East; Cathy McDonald, Greenbriar West; Rama Avadhanam, London Towne; Scott Thimons, Poplar Tree; Kathy Roberts, Virginia Run.

Students in sixth grade art classes at Cameron ES created their most recent masterpieces by drawing not with their pencils but with their computer mice. Art teacher, Katie Jarvis, shared with the students the iconic iPod advertisements from a few years back. Students then brainstormed and used a graphic organizer to help them select a meaningful pose. Student photos were taken digitally and imported into the drawing program Pixie. In Pixie students added a solid color background and created a silhouette of themselves. To complete the artwork they added text and a unique “iphrase” to describe the picture.
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5th Graders at Oakton Elementary are gearing up for the Global Awareness Project by learning to use Inspiration.  Students created mind maps about Mesopotamia and Ancient China. They included pictures, notes and hyperlinked to websites and other files.   Once finished, they will export their files into Power Point and then build a slide show.  They are excited to use this tool for brainstorming their ideas and organizing their information. They are also seeing the possibility that Inspiration could even be used to create their final product.

Neighborhood H in Western Fairfax is holding a SMARTboard Users Conference for 200 participants. Registration is limited to the staff at Brookfield, Bull Run, Centre Ridge, Colin Powell, Cub Run, Deer Park, Greenbrier East, Greenbrier West, London Towne, Poplar Tree, and Virginia Run. The conference will be held at Greenbrier East January 11 from 2:00-5:00. Three 45 minute training sessions will be offered covering 14 topics from basic to advance use of SMART technologies.  Door prizes including a SMARTboard with an integrated projector, document camera, and Airliner will be given away. Support for this event is provided by AVI, FEA and a grant from North Tier. Special thanks to Stacy Kirkpatrick, SBTS at Deer Park for leading this event!  

After an introduction to Mapmaker’s Toolkit, 2^ndand 3^rd grade students at Bull Run Elementary have created their own map projects.  Students were taught how to add text boxes and stamps to their documents.  The students labeled the continents and oceans and then added stamps to their maps.

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.