SBTS EdTech

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 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.

At Weyanoke Elementary school teachers are working with the SBTS and other resources teachers to use technology to analyze data and create common activities and assessments.

The 2nd , 3rd  and 4th grade teachers are collaborating with their SBTS and 2 SUM teachers to improve student scores in math.  These professionals are creating common activities and assessments and then meeting to analyze the data. This project materialized as teachers were looking at SOL math scores and noticed a disparity between boys and girls, as well as, in certain math strands. In order to work towards a solution to this problem the SBTS organized a plan to implement Destination Math in grades 2-4.  The SBTS trained the 2 SUM teachers and the grade level teachers in the use of the Destination Math software.  The group planned common activities and tests for each grade level that targeted the areas of need.  They are currently working collaboratively to analyze the test results during common planning times and then use this information to drive their math instruction.  In the future the SBTS and teachers are going to use this same approach in creating Aspire tests in grades 2-5.

Science SOL scores indicated that girls were outperforming boys 4:1. The SBTS, 2 resources teachers and all grade level teachers are now working to create common assessment in ASPIRE that highlight the lowest science strands.  The teachers are using the data from these teacher created assessments to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the students.  They are now working to locate remediation activities that would best serve the students.

At Cameron ES, a September training was conducted on Photo Story and Movie Maker. The goal was to get cameras into the hands of teachers who in turn would do the same for kids. The results have been fabulous! Students and teachers at various grade levels are creating photo stories and mini movies that are posted to Blackboard for all to see. The principal spotlights some of them on Cameron Morning News.

Grade 1
School Bus Stop Safety
Students created a mini movie to discuss the importance and procedures for exercising good safety tips for the bus and walkers. Students created posters in groups with various tips and then generated their scripts from the posters.

Grade 5
Social Studies
Students created timelines of their lives, including pictures and memorabilia, on poster board. They took photos of each timeline and narrated them using Photo Story. Students enjoyed sharing their videos with family on Blackboard.

Grade 6
Language Arts
The principal works with a small reading group daily. After reading about the solar system and the planets, kids created posters and a script to create a Photo Story about the Solar System. The kids were engaged and loved the entire process from start to finish.

5th Graders at Island Creek ES told the story of Pangea and continental drift by animating Google Earth screen shots of continents in Scratch. Click link to see a sample: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/6ghokie/723479

Second graders at Hunt Valley are participating in Skype sessions with an elementary school in Alaska.  The Alaskan school is raising salmon and will act as experts as they answer Hunt Valley Student’s questions about the unique life cycle of Pacific Salmon runs and about life in Alaska.  Hunt Valley students will then act as experts about Washington DC and other historical attractions in our nations capital.

The hope is that a relationship will develop between our schools so that future projects on all grade levels will occur.

At Dranesville ES, upper grade students designed snow flakes in Geometer’s Sketchpad and imported them into PowerPoint. In PowerPoint, students learned how to animate the snowflakes into “falling snow.” With these animations, they added winter poetry and winter scenes drawn in Pixie. In addition, some classes are combining all of the individual slides into one “class PowerPoint” adding music and/or narration.

To help support and prepare 5th graders for the Global Awareness Project,  Colvin Run 5th graders have completed research projects on MesoAmerica using PhotoStory and are starting a WebBlender project.  As a kickoff for the project five teachers, the librarian, SBTS and GT Resource Specialist each chose a different question from the eight guiding project questions and prepared a sample GAP project.  These projects use different technology applications: Publisher, Inspiration, PhotoStory, WebBlender, and Power Point.  Students participated in a ”GAP Museum Walk”, spending a few minutes listening to a presentation for each of the eight project.  This helped jump start student thinking about their project before they choose the question and topic they will be researching.  

At Great Falls ES, teachers and students are busy using technology as a tool for learning and teaching.  Fourth grade students are using dialogue blogs in FCPS 24-7 as reading responses and they are doing current events journals where they are finding lots of articles from online kids’ newspapers.  Kindergarten students are becoming quite savvy using Pixie 2 to take a snowman adventure.  Students drew pictures of snowmen in various settings (in space, at the firestation, in the jungle, along a Native American camp) and will be working to add text and voice recordings about their snowman’s adventure.  Students will share their story in their classroom as well as on the morning announcement TV show.  Second grade students created slideshows in Pixie about the lifecycle of crickets and are working on Animal Classification movies in Photostory.