The sixth grade students in Mrs. Royall’s social studies classes used the iPads to create websites dealing with 5 areas the Colonial Americans lived in. They used an app called Zapd that allowed them to add text, pictures, and other information. The app was very easy to use and the students LOVED being able to use the iPads!
Here are a couple examples:
One of my thoughts as I watch my middle school students carrying their overloaded backpacks each day is “Won’t it be nice when their textbooks are digital and all they have to carry is their laptop?” Well, my friends, it looks like that thought may become a reality… finally! I just finished working through some portions of Discovery Educations Science Techbook and was so excited about it that I showed and shared with one of our Science classes. When I got to the class, I asked them what they were working on and was told that they were finishing up Energy. I went directly to the Energy “chapter” and brought up videos and activities, even assessments, that they were able to work through with me. The Techbook is not just a digital textbook, it is completely interactive through videos, explorations, and the AMAZING interactive glossary. We had a great time going through the content and many fealt like they understood the concepts more after going through just a sample of what it had to offer. I heard several people comment that they wish they had had this earlier in the year and how awesome it was. Unfortunately, the Techbook is not yet available in Virginia (we had to look at North Carolina’s Techbook), but we are crossing our fingers that it will be available soon. After seeing what the Techbook had to offer, it really made me wish that I could go back to school myself and relearn these same concepts.
With the ever increasing amount of technology going into our schools, this seems like a no brainer. We LOVED it! Thanks for letting us try it out Discovery!
Students in the Pocahontas health classes used geocaching to find information dealing various content topics. They were divided into groups and went caching to find information pertaining to the group they were in.
What is GeoCaching and how can you get started? Click here…
Get ready, (soon to be) Promethean users!!
The slates have arrived and are ready to be picked up for your classroom! If you did not get yours yet, make sure you do! You will need to register the slate with the hub that is given to you. Here is a video to help get you started…
We will have training on Monday, the 27th, so make sure you have your slate registered.
It is almost time to come back, set up your classrooms, and welcome a new batch of students. With the (eventual) arrival of the new laptops, we are going to have LOTS of training this year- so get ready!! I’m looking forward to working with you this year to help our students reach their fullest potentials using technology.
Philippe Cousteau presented information on the oil spill in the Gulf through the Discovery Educator Network. Here is a link to the archived video from his presentation:
Two other fifth grade classes at Varina used Keynote to create review presentations for the other students in their class. Each student worked in either a small group or by themselves to present what information they knew about various science topics, learning more about their own topic in the process. They ended up with some great presentations!
Two of the fifth grade classes at Varina used the ActiVotes to review Social Studies content to prepare for the upcoming SOL tests. We used a simple Word document with questions as our “test” and used the Promethean ActiVote responders to answer the questions. They loved using them and were VERY excited when they all got the question right as a class (even though it doesn’t look like it in the picture)!
The third graders at Longan used Comic Life to create comic book pages dealing with soil. They used the pictures and speech bubbles to explain the types of soil. They really had a fun time making their pages about soil and found soil to be a little more interesting after this project.
The 7th and 8th grade Health class students worked in small groups to create a 30 second commercial dealing with preventable diseases. The students were assigned groups, brainstormed ideas for their commercial, researched the information, and put it all together using iMovie. They are not finished yet, but they got a great start…
