SBTS EdTech

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.

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.

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.

Fifth graders at Colvin Run Elementary are one of four FCPS schools participating in a Global Classroom project as part of their social studies curriculum. Students in one 5th grade class have been participating in a special part of the project, using video conferencing to connect with students from Oldbury Wells School, Shropshire, U.K., sharing and learning about each other’s cultures.  This collaborative learning experience was highlighted at the Governor’s Luncheon on October 26th as the 300 luncheon guests, including Gov. Tim Kane, shared in a live video conference between Colvin Run 5th graders and the students from Oldbury Wells School in Shropshire U.K. The video linked here was shown at the luncheon and outlines the Global Classroom Project.

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.

Fifth graders at Centreville ES have been sharpening their technology skills in preparation for their Global Awareness projects.  All 5th grade classes have been using Discovery Education Streaming, Inspiration, Pixie, and Photostory  to complete science integration projects.  Using this software will help students learn the programs so they can decide which software they would like to use for their GA projects.  Students did research and created Pixie movies on Oceans.  They did their research using United Video clips, and put together a Pixie slide with their information.  Students worked in groups to show the geographic characterstics, ecological characteristics, and physical characteristics of oceans.  They illustrated their Pixie slide using either stickers or the drawing tools, recorded their information using the narration feature, and selected transitions and music for each of their movies.  The movies are fantastic and are posted on the teacher’s 24/7 sites.  For the next project students used Inspiration to organize their research of molecules, atoms,  compounds, or elements.  They then illustrated their research in Pixie,  exported Pixie to .jpeg files, and used these in a Photostory.  The kids loved it!  For our next project we’ll be using Web Blender.  Kids will create web pages on their science fair projects using the scientific method.  We can’t wait!

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.