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 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.

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.

At Hayfield ES, a fifth grade teacher and SBTS worked together to create persuasive commercials in Movie Maker. Students worked in cooperative groups and used a classroom set of digital cameras to practice the art of video recording. After the final videos were created and downloaded to the school server by the students, the SBTS trained the class in using Movie Maker. Students successfully added a title and credits, edited the video and created separate clips with transitions and video effects, and added music from a free music production site. The videos may be posted to Blackboard so that students can access them anytime/anywhere.