Making a Change, LS Technology Update - Guest Blogger Susan Edwards

MAKING A CHANGE

Below is a video that was created by MS students at  Suffern Middle School.  The students were asked to talk about education and their future.  Listen and learn the bits of wisdom that can be gleaned from the students, if we only dare to ask them.  I am hopeful that you will be inspired to take on a new challenge in your classroom to incorporate one piece that will allow you to extend the learning beyond the bells.  My goal is for our students to benefit from HOW a teacher uses technology to enhance instruction not just WHAT technology a teacher uses.

THANK YOU to Susan Edwards for agreeing to make a guest blog entry this week.  Susan has shared a recap of the integration activities that are going on in grades 1-4.  The LS students each attend a technology class once a week.  The focus during this time is to use technology resources to enhance curriculum topics that are being covered in the core classrooms.

Technology Update for LS:

The 1^st graders are learning about Mexico in their classroom so in Technology this week they will each have a sentence that tells facts they have learned and they will illustrate it in KidPix. We will make their illustrations into posters to hang in their room!

The 2^nd graders will be finishing up a slide show about a president next week. They each researched a different president and created a PowerPoint about him. They learned so much about adding and formatting text, WordArt, adding pictures and so much more! Once they have added their transitions, they will begin a dinosaur project where we will use the Random Name Choose in SMART Notebook to pick a dinosaur for each student.  They will be given a website to research that dinosaur and create a poster in  Microsoft Publisher displaying the facts and pictures about their dinosaur. They will look up things such as what it ate, the time period it lived, how long or how tall it was, etc.

The 3^rd graders just finished creating glogs about “Communities”. They learned how to use Google Maps and link websites to their glog! They defined the term communities as it is in their Social Studies book.  They also gave examples of fun things to do in their community. I was very proud of their completed glogs! To see an example, go to ttp://s3rck2n.edu.glogster.com/comunties/ to see a completed one. We used www.edu.glogster.com to create these glogs. You can create an account for free if you have an email address. The students love them! With the premium version, you can create portfolios/presentations of glogs as you can see by clicking here.

The 4^th graders just finished creating PowerPoints about the Southeast Region. They have been posted on Edline under 4^thGrade Enrichment on the LS Parents Page. They are currently working on creating a glog about the Midwest Region. They are learning about the United States in Social Studies
so they are creating glogs about specific regions! They have to list the states included in that region and give examples of physical features and major industries found in that region. They are linking websites and creating fascinating glogs! I can’t wait to share them!