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February 27, 2007 09:54 AM
REAL Activity
At the second meeting of the Lane County Ed Tech Cadre (funded by one of the mini-grants), participants will be learning about the resources available on the REAL web site. Their task is to then take back what they learn and teach others in their school/district about the REAL web site. Attached is the one-pager that they will be doing to investigate the site. My intention is for them to leave with at least a couple of ideas that they can use with their staff.
Prior to doing the REAL activity, we will be doing the LIKE ME staff development activity. This will allow time for socialization and will result in a pairing of people with similar interests. In this way, they will be able to work together while they research the REAL web site. To wrap up the activity, we will use a PAIR/SHARE strategy so that folks will be exposed to some other resources that they can incorporate into their school/district sharing.
Posted by llary on February 27, 2007 at 09:54 AM in Meeting Activity | Comments (0)
February 18, 2007 01:31 PM
MediaWiki
I was interested in providing a Wiki for individual classroom use, specifically for student collaboration. I found MediaWiki which is a "free software wiki package" to run on your own server.
Has anyone tried this yet? Any thoughts on running your own wiki versus students contributing to Wikipedia?
Posted by stacybuglione on February 18, 2007 at 01:31 PM in Emerging Technologies | Comments (0)
K12 Wiki
Check out the K12 Wiki Project site to see what high school students are doing with wikis.
Posted by llary on February 18, 2007 at 01:14 PM in Instructional Integration | Comments (0)
Wikipedia and 3rd Graders3/27/
Check out this Wikipedia entry on the Pitot House which is a plantation house in New Orleans. The entry was created by a third grade class (according to the person who posted the information used to work with the 3rd grade teacher who led the Pitot House project).
Posted by llary on February 18, 2007 at 01:02 PM in Emerging Technologies | Comments (0)
February 12, 2007 10:30 AM
Qwest Grants: Blachly Sch3/27/
The goals of this project are to 1) increase teacher and student access to teaching and learning tools, 2) use technology to increase student achievement in social studies, and 3) increase teacher and student ability to integrate technology into daily classroom lessons. Through the use of a interactive white board teachers and students can construct interactive presentations utilizing various types of technology.
As an example: an innovative approach to local history might be to use SMART technology (interactive white board) to generate layered maps of a local area. These maps could include topograghy, economic concepts, historical sites and so on. Using the mapping software students could construct layers to be added to the base map. The story of who came, when they came, and why they came could be told on the interactive white board. Active buttons on the interactive board could be added to show oral interviews, pictures and video recordings of the locality. Groups of students would be responsible for portions of the final presentation (SS 08 HS 07 and SS 08 HS 08). The completed project could be recorded on the laptop for distribution to those who participated, absent students, and/or special needs students.
Information on white board techology-http://smarttech.com/
Posted by tonywynn on February 12, 2007 at 10:30 AM in Ed Tech Grants | Comments (0)
February 11, 2007 10:58 AM
Qwest Grant
Project Title: Kids, Kameras and Kreativity
The three goals of the Kids, Kameras and Kreativity project are to:
Integrate tools of emerging technology into classrooms in a simple and friendly manner
Engage students with these tools through a process that illustrates application, analysis and evaluation of their learning
Demonstrate and facilitate these uses in other classrooms throughout our school
Project Overview:
Funds awarded by this grant will be used to purchase approximately 15 digital cameras, a student response system, and other materials to support those tools.
The gist of this project is students going out and taking photos using digital cameras, then interacting with their photos, and those of their peers, through the student response system.
For example, students in primary grades may take photos of things that start with the sound "ca" as in "cat". With appropriate guidance and instruction, this will bridge to lessons that help children associate the sound with different spellings, and many different words. They will use the student response system to interact with photos that they and their classmates have taken, identifying those that fit with the concept being taught.
Intermediate students may use the cameras and response systems in a similar manner to demonstrate an understanding of geometry in the natural world, or to increase their understanding of the classification of different species. These tools could also be integrated into writing lessons dealing with word choice and descriptive language, or science lessons on native and non-native plants.
These are just a few of many joint uses of these tools that I have come up with. There are many more possibilities, and my ideas for their independent uses are never-ending!
Furthermore, because I am an Instructional Technology Specialist part time, as well as a part-time classroom teacher, I am afforded a wonderful opportunity to develop content-based lessons to use in my own class, teach and refine them, then modify those lessons in order to model the use of these tools in other classrooms around our school and district.
I hope that these model lessons will inspire other teachers in Central Oregon area schools to develop ideas for the use of either one or both of these (simple!) tools in conjunction with their curriculum, and apply for some of the many grants available to obtain them for their own use.
At this point, I am still waiting to receive my digital cameras. My student response system has arrived, and I am learning how it works. I look forward to sharing my successes, challenges, and lessons with all of you once my complete program is up and running!
Respectfully,
Amy Lundstrom, Instructional Technology Specialist and 4/5 Teacher, Bend LaPine Schools
Posted by amylundstrom on February 11, 2007 at 10:58 AM in Ed Tech Grants | Comments (0)
February 9, 2007 08:24 AM
QWest Grant
Project Title: Panther Prints
Where we are at so far:
We?re up and running with our photo-shoot business! This grant allowed the Business Ed teachers at Redmond High School to purchase a photo-quality color printer and wireless notebook computers. With this equipment, we operate a business that markets and sells action photos at school events and activities. At the events, we take digital photos, download them to the computer, let customers view the photos on the laptops where they can then select photos and purchase them on-site. The business teachers act as supervisors or mentors, while the students take the photos, download the pictures, and process (print) the final photos on the color printer.
The Panther Prints business has operated at several athletic events thus far. We conducted sales at a 3-day basketball tournament (8 visiting teams) during the holiday break, at 2 wrestling meets, and we will be again operating the photo-shoot business on February 20 and 22 at our last home men?s and women?s basketball games.
Students continue to be the primary ?doers? of all aspects of this business. They handle the on-site sales and productions, they complete pricing and cost analysis activities, they create and post advertisements and flyers, they email and/or mail customer solicitations, they archive the finished photos by burning them to a CD, and they handle the bookkeeping and recordkeeping. The money made from this student-run business is used for three general purposes: 1) to reinvest back in to the business; 2) to help pay for an end-of-year educational field trip; and 3) to fund college scholarships for graduating seniors.
Goals:
Our goal is to expand the photo-shoot business to a variety of other school activities. Business students have prepared a publicity kit whereby examples of the quality of the photos are displayed in portfolio form. This kit is being used to present and solicit our business endeavors to other organizations within our school and to community members. We have been given the nod-of-approval to do future photo-shoot events such as dances (prom and homecoming), senior graduation, and more. Our coaches of the Baseball and Track teams have already contacted our Panther Prints business to do photo-shoot sales at upcoming Spring sporting events. By next year another goal is to have our sales made available online. Making photo sales available online requires having a means of an electronic order-taking and electronic payment system. We are already investigating the logistics of how to make our online sales happen next year.
What we hope to accomplish:
Our high school is in the process of restructuring the curriculum for our six high school Academies (Business, Health, Arts & Communication, Science, Human Resources, and Industry & Engineering). Staff and administrators see the relevance for student-based projects such as the Panther Prints business. A new Business course that is scheduled to be taught next year is a course titled Project Management. This is a marketing-related elective course that will involve students managing all aspects of a variety of on-campus businesses, projects, and endeavors?including the Panther Prints business. The idea for this Project Management class came-to-be as a result of recognizing the need for students to learn business and marketing skills in a hands-on environment. Furthermore, there is a need at our high school for students to learn the importance of managing on-going project work, of working in groups to accomplish project goals, and of being able to multi-task on project endeavors.
Posted by dawnlillis on February 9, 2007 at 08:24 AM in Ed Tech Grants | Comments (0)
February 8, 2007 12:44 PM
Qwest Grant-Blachly Schoo3/27/
Title: Student Mathematical Achievement Realized Through Technology (SMARTT)
Goal: Provide 4th and 5th grade students access to technological tools to enhance mathematics instruction and improve student achievement through the use of innovative technology.
Through this grant I hope to bring technology to rural students. It is my desire to use a variety of technology including an interactive whiteboard, laptop, projector, and digital cameras to enhance mathematical understanding. For example, we will be photographing pictures around our school where geometrical rotations occur. We will then download those photos onto our SMART Board graph paper, students can use "digital ink" to draw the access of rotation and using the manipulative, virtual protractor, we will measure the angle of the rotations.
I now have my SMART Board on my wall and ready to go. I have had some bugs with my projector but after having it replaced by the manufacturer, hope to have it up and running by the week's end. I still need to acquire the digital cameras, and the laptop works beautifully. My students are very excited to start using the board and applauded the day it was brought in. I am thrilled at their excitement to learn with the new technology.
Posted by jreed on February 8, 2007 at 12:44 PM in Ed Tech Grants | Comments (0)
February 1, 2007 08:18 PM
Qwest Grant: South Lane 3/27/
Project Title : Math and Science Alive!
Goal: The overall goal is to narrow the ?Digital Divide? that separates my students in this rural and low SES school from other students who have knowledge and access to technology tools. By embedding technology tools in the existing content areas of second grade science and math my students will use these tools daily to share and explore their thinking. Not only will my students become more proficient in these two content areas, but also will become comfortable, competent, and competitive with technology, therefore eliminating it as a barrier to school success and career choice.
How Will This Be Accomplished?: By making a computer, projector, screen, and cameras classroom tools, students will become proficient in the use of these technologies. Students will increase their discourse by presenting their visual models using the document camera, digital cameras, and computer. Additionally, my students will communicate and collaborate beyond their immediate peers to include real-time/real-world science and math experts using telecommunications. The diverse interests of learners will be efficiently addressed by accessing information through streaming educational movie clips, investigating web sites, and creating a weblog thus learning from each other and creating shared experiences.
Status: Just today the laptop computer, document camera, projector, speaker system, and assorted cords and cables arrived in my classroom. With some head scratching my building?s tech specialist and I set up the workstation in the front of my classroom. We got everything working after consulting the instructions. My students are going to be stunned tomorrow morning to see the monstrosity of cables, metal, and light in the spot where the rickety, but sleek, overhead projector used to be. I can?t wait!
Posted by nunruh on February 1, 2007 at 08:18 PM in Ed Tech Grants | Comments (0)
Qwest Grant
Project Title: Digital Technology and the School Science Fair
Goal: To create an interactive teaching and learning environment that will enhance all areas of the 6th grade curriculum, and in particular, the school science fair.
This grant has provided the funds to create an interactive classroom which will include an interactive white board, 6 student 'slates' for small group use, handheld voting devices (class set), a projector, and speaker system.
What I hope to accomplish: I will be using these new items along with other peripherals such as digital cameras, document cameras, video cameras, and a classroom set of laptop computers in order to instruct students in creating their 6th grade science fair project presentation in a digital form. We will use this new technology to brainstorm, collaborate, collect data, compose reports, edit and revise those reports. Instead of the traditional 3-fold cardboard display, students will create a powerpoint presentation to demonstrate what they have learned.
Current status: We are in the process of comparing pricing and features of different manufacturers of this technology and will then be ordering and installing the equipment.
Posted by kellybeaudry on February 1, 2007 at 01:20 PM in Ed Tech Grants | Comments (0)
What's Your Doppleganger?3/27/
Here all the handouts and links for our work at the OASE/OACOA Winter Conference workshop. What is your doppleganger powerpoint. 
- REAL : Here is the pdf we used on Searchable Standards.
- BlogHunt
You can click the embedded links from the slide show or click here if you want to get to any webpage used.
- Citysearch
- Youtube, Friendster, Linked In, SecondLife
- Technorati
- Bethel Blog
- WayBack Machine
- Fanfiction
- Safe Quiz, Internet Safety, Google Search
- Web 2.0 Tools
- Google Docs
- Rubic Atlas, NetTrekker, EdGate are all standards linking lessons paid tools schools are using.
Posted by jena on February 1, 2007 at 12:15 PM in General | Comments (0)
