St. Albans City School Tech News

Grade 7 & 8 Teachers Get Tech Savvy

2009-06-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

A Team of teachers from the Grades 7 & 8 Learning Communities are starting their summers by upgrading their tech skills in preparation for next year's restructuring.

Check out their hard work at http://sites.google.com/a/stacsvt.org/7-8-teams/Home

Using Flip Videos in Primary Grades

2009-05-13T17:31:00.001-07:00

Literacy coach, Ms. Greenfield, will be presenting her work with Partner Reading in Primary Grades at Dynamic Landscape at Champlain College on May 14, 2009.

Technology helps students participate in historic event

2009-01-30T12:40:00.000-08:00

The countdown towards a historic event in our country’s history created quite a buzz at St. Albans City School. In an age where technology brings you instant access to view world events, expectations ran high that students and staff would not only have the opportunity to view the first African American be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, but also participate in some of the events that surrounded the day.

While classroom teachers prepared their students with lessons on history, government and the Constitution, the school librarians and the technology staff teamed up to make sure that everyone had a place to gather and watch the Inaugural Events.Mr. Lyndes, the school network administrator, estimated the amount of Internet bandwidth that would be required for each computer to stream the video from the many available websites, then calculated how many computers the school’s Internet connectivity could successfully handle.

Ms. DeLaBruere, the school educational technology specialist, set up locations with computers, speakers, screens and projectors for groups to gather and view the event using the school’s Internet system in the gym, cafeteria, and two classrooms.Librarians, Ms.Wade and Ms. Lang, tested the school’s cable system and located enough televisions and live cable connections to set up certain classrooms to act as hosts viewing stations. They also worked with Mr. Pelkey to turn the center of the school from a library to a large group viewing center, equipped extra chairs, patriotic decorations and a large projector screen displaying a local cable feed of the Inauguration activities.

Even the cafeteria staff contributed by supervising extra equipment in the midst of a busy lunchroom to allow students scheduled for lunch to watch the President take the oath at high noon.After the oath, some classes continued to watch some of the afternoon events, while others participated in debriefing activities.

While attendees in Washington DC were aiming their cell phones to capture photos and videos of the events, City school students were using the Internet to post comments using an educational tool called Voice Thread, where students can add their voice or text comments to reflection questions.
Click here to see the online version of this VoiceThread.

Older students participated in free write activities that allowed them to express their thoughts and feelings, while some of the younger students passed around Flip Video cameras to capture their ideas. The school website hosts some initial pictures, videos, and the Educational Voice Thread activity of this historic event; while additional videos are being prepared by students to be hosted in City School’s lobby kiosk.

Cast your Votes Here

2008-11-04T06:30:00.001-08:00

Use this electronic ballot to cast your vote for the St. Albans City School Mock Election.

Friday Five - Self Image

2008-09-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

Today was picture day at school. As I walked into the gym I saw the girls peering into small compact mirrors fixing their hair and adding a bit of lipstick. Therefore I thought I'd make today's Friday Five about children and self image.

If you haven't seen the Dove REAL Beauty Videos, they are a MUST see for all who care about our young people's development.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U
Dove Evolution - a 1 minute video displaying the use of cosmetics and technology to create a warped perception of video in today's young women
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1731400614466797113
A powerful 1 minute video that shows that young girls are not immune to self image issues
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8klueT2OK_I
Another short video similar to the Dove Beauty Videos, but featuring a young man.
http://pdtogo.com/smart/?p=91
A Complete Lesson with Accompanying Smartboard Files relating to Female Body Image
http://pdtogo.com/smart/?p=92
A Complete Lesson with Accompanying Smarboard Files relating to Male Body Image

Add an Election Theme to Your Curriculum

2008-09-09T06:14:00.000-07:00

Although your students may be too young to vote, they are never too young to become engaged in local, regional, and national politics. Whatever your content area or grade level, adding an election theme to your lessons is an ideal way to create high interest, add fresh content, and increase the level of critical thinking skills in your classroom.

A great place to start exploring the possibilities of using social digital tools with an election theme is by exploring Googlitics (a site filled with links and lessons to help students participate and learn about American politics with online tools from Google for Educators). Not only have Cheryl Davis and Kathlen Ferenz compiled a wealth of resources that will help educators infuse 21st Century tools in their classroom, they've also modeled a real 21st century approach to organize these resources - sharing these resources via an I-Google Tabs. If you don't already have an I-Google account - this would be a great oppotunity to experiment with the power this tool has for sharing resources amongst educators.

Create and I-Google Account and log in. Then

Click to add Googlitics' "Election Central" tab to your iGoogle homepage

Click to add Googlitics' "Election Road Map" tab to your iGoogle homepage

This will automatically add two new tabs in your IGoogle page that Cheryl and Kathy have created and shared with you using I-Google's ability to share Tabs with others. You and your students are now equipped with a compilation of election data for some higher order thinking as you analyze the history of the electoral vote of your state from 1782 - 2008 with the 270toWin Gadget now at your fingertips.

Check out Googlitics Lesson ideas for instruction on how to add your own gadgets, or other check out Googles Election Tools for Your Classroom for more tools and ideas that will engage your students in exploring the candidates and issues.

Google's Elections '08 Map Gallery and Google's Elections 2008 Gadget can keep you up-to-date on the 2008 election. These maps and gadgets can even be embedded in your own wiki, blog, or school web page.

Chris Pirillo provides a great tutorial (both print and video) on how to use Google Doc's new Form Feature to create your own polls or mock election.

Perhaps this would be an ideal opportunity to experiment with cellphones in your classroom by using Poll Everywhere Voting and Polling Website. You can set up polls and allows students to use either texting on their cellphones or any Internet enabled computer to vote. The results can be displayed on a Website or using Powerpoint.

How about getting your students involved in Letters to the Next President -- a writing and publishing opportunity co-sponsored by Google and the National Writing Project? Perhaps you can help your students experience the process and power of the voting process by getting involved in the National Parent/Student Mock Election Project.

Check out the wealth of Interactive Games, Gadgets, and Tools at PBS Vote 2008 or use the full multmedia curriculum Election 2008: ACCESS, ANALYZE, ACT: A Blueprint for 21st Century Civic Engagement, developed in partnership with PBS Teachers and Temple University’s Media Education Lab to help educators develop middle school and high school students' understanding of the Presidential campaign process by harnessing the power of Web 2.0 for teaching media and information literacy, critical thinking, communication, collaboration and technology skills.

And there has never been such an abundance of primary source videos from the campagin trail on video sharing sites like You Tube and Google Videos. Even the well-respected Common Craft video series added its Simple and Plain English Style to help us understand the Election with this 3 minute video (Electing a US President in Plain English). You can even encourage your students to create similar videos on a wide variety of topics with these 'behind the scenes" instructions.

News programs like NBC have made their videos available with accompanying education materials through sites like Hot Chalk. The free subscription to Hot Chalks will include the 5000 chunks of NBC news videos archives through December.

Whatever your content areas or grade level, the resources are as plentiful as the lesson ideas which you can find at sites like:

Election 2008: Lesson Plans from Scholastic.com (includes a Special Report on Election 2008, with lesson plans designed to complement presidential election coverage for Scholastic News and Junior Scholastic magazines and Scholastic News Online.

Elections Theme - Lesson Plans, Thematic Units, Printables, Worksheets, and More from A to Z Teacher Stuff which includes Units and Lesson Plans that integrate election themes across the curriculum for all types of grade levels and reading levels.

Education World® : Special Theme: Primaries, Voting, and Elections. (Although this site is 4 years old, I found some great links here and there are updates for the 2008 elections)

Or for a real global perspectives lesson, check out the You Tube tutorial on using The US Election 2008 Web Monitor which provides weekly snapshots of global Web coverage with results that reflect attention and sentiment towards the US presidential candidates from several different countries. But don't limit your use of digital social tools to helping your students understand the U.S. Election, continue to use these tools to help students gain an increased global awareness by following similar elections and political events from around the world. And please, please, please share your ideas on how to use these tools with other readers by adding them in the comments section. I can't wait to read them.

Tech Savvy Kids Help School Ready for Opening

2008-09-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

Sometime what appears to look like a big mess, turns into a great opportunity. Or so found a handful of Tech Savvy Kids as they attended a training session on how to properly setup classroom computers, followed by the opportunity to use their new skills to help St. Albans City School get ready for opening day. Water damage during this summer‘s roofing project resulted in extra challenges getting the classrooms ready. Ms deLaBruere looked at this challenge as an opportunity for middle school students to practice their leadership skills and tech skills by organizing a team who students who welcomed the opportunity to help their school community prepare for the opening of school.

The team of middle school students were part of the Tech Savvy Kids network at St. Albans City and Town Schools. Each of them has been learning leadership and tech skills through the annual Tech Savvy Kids Summer Camp and other Tech Savvy Kids activities at their respective school during the school year. The students arrived on the scene to see large piles of tangled wires amongst hallways full of furniture and computer equipment waiting to be put back into classrooms. While cleaning and construction crews put finishing touches on the rooms, Ms. deLaBruere provided the student team with training on how to setup computer equipment that met safety guidelines for a classroom. The students then plowed through the classroom, attacking one room at a time, learning leadership, problem-solving, troubleshooting and how to work as a team.

“We learned that sometimes you have to create a bigger mess to come up a good solution” noted student leader, Nichole as she and her teammates decided that they needed to disassemble everything and start from scratch in one room. Dylan felt he learned the importance of good communication skills when working as a team “I gave calm directions to get the jobs done faster, and the whole group benefits when there is a person that calmly leads the way to get things done and helps the group.” Explained Dylan.

Powerpoint Animation Tutorial

2008-02-21T06:41:00.000-08:00

A tutorial teaching custom animation and slide transitions in Powerpoint.

Using Digital Tools in the Arts

2008-02-21T06:33:00.001-08:00

Mr. Galle uses a variety of digital tools in his art curriculum. Check out some of his student projects.

Email Conversion Procedures at SACS

2008-01-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

St. Albans City School is in the process of converting to a new email system effective January 8, 2008. Our new email addresses will be the same as the old ones for the first part; while the second part is changed from stalbanscityschool.org to sacsvt.org. If your old email address was doej@stalbanscityschool.org your new address will be doej@sacsvt.org.

You old email system will be disabled on January 31, 2008. Both the new email system and the old system will be available for the month of January.

To easily convert over we suggest the following steps with more specific directions and tutorials at SACS-ONLINE.

1. Log into the new system using the Email link on our home page. Change your passwords.

2. Change your old email to automatically forward to the new email. You will receive anything anyone sends to your OLD account to your NEW account.

3. Set your old email in "vacation" mode. (Anyone who writes to it will get a message that our email address has changed and that your new email address is .....

4. Only access the NEW email from now on.

5. You will notice the new email starts with a new ADDRESS book. We have created a simple IMPORT addresses for anyone who wants to add our staff to their address book. (The directions and tutorials are at SACS ONLINE.

Tech Savvy Parents Learn About Keyboarding Skills

2007-01-04T14:55:00.000-08:00

The 2nd in a series of workshops for Parents was offered tonight to parents interested in helping their children master an important 21st century skill - keyboarding skills. As the use of computers continues to increase in living and learning, individuals who can't keyboard quickly and efficiently will have a harder time keeping up. Whether it be completing class assignments, homework, or keeping up at work, keyboarding is a key to success. Tonight's parents learned some tips and techniques to help their children acquire this important skill. CD's full of free and demo software were also distrubuted.

I have uploaded some resources for you to use at home with your students at this location.
http://learntotype.wikispaces.com/studentsites

Tech Savvy Student Leadership Winter Update

2006-12-11T09:20:00.000-08:00

The Tech Savvy Students Leadership Teams format will be slightly different this winter. The changes are a result of scheduling conflict that made it hard to meet this Fall. The new format kicks off with a Holiday Meeting on December 21 from 3:30 - 5:00, then resume with an 8 week Open Doors Session on Thursday starting in January. There will also be a Tech Savvy Girls Sessions offered on Wednesday nights. Click here for more information.

Acceptable Use Policies Revised

2006-12-11T09:16:00.000-08:00

Revised Acceptable Use Forms were sent home this week with an introductory letter from our Principal Ms. Riggs. The slight changes to these forms reflect some of the increased use of technology to support learning in our school. Please return these signed forms to your classroom teachers. Click here for a copy of these forms.

Tech Workshops for Parents

2006-12-11T09:08:00.000-08:00

St. Albans City School is offering a series of workshops for parents this Winter.
The workshops will be held on Thursday nights 6:00 - 7:00 in the Computer lab.
For more information about these workshops Click Here.

The Topics include
Dec 14 Holiday Gifts and Crafts
Jan 4 Learning to Type (for me or my child)
Jan 11 Supporting Gr K-3 Students with Tech
Jan 18 Supporting Gr 4 - 6 students with Tech
Jan 25 Keeping your Child Safe in the Digital Age
Feb 1 Supporting Grades 7 - 8 Students with Tech
Feb 8 Keeping your Computer Healthy and Safe
Feb 15 Student Technology Showcase

Pondering the Future of Voting

2006-11-13T05:32:00.000-08:00

St. Albans City School Middle School students ponder the future of voting

Below are the 7th grade results. For Total results including results by grade, click here.

“By the time you vote, there is a strong possibility that you will be casting your vote electronically” predicted Mr. Steve Moore, Social Studies Teacher at St. Albans City School as the students used electronic remotes to cast their votes in Tuesday’s Mock Election conducted throughout the Middle School classes. This year’s election day tradition of conducting a mock election brought about a new twist, as Technology Integration Specialist, Lucie deLaBruere introduced teachers to electronic audience polling technology.

Following tradition, each middle school class cast their paper ballot, but votes were also collected using polling devices similar to the ones seem on many popular game show. As each class cast their votes, the results were immediately projected on a large screen to the class. Pleasant surprises, disappointments, or disbelief was heard throughout the classroom as students viewed the immediate results. They were eager to learn how their class votes compared with the rest of the school.

Not only did students listen attentively, as social studies teachers reviewed the candidates running for office of Senate, House of Representative, and Governor with the students, they also discussed the pros and cons of paper versus electronic voting procedures. Eight grade students also filled out voter registration forms and their teacher, Mr. Moore, introduced both the procedures and responsibility associated with casting your vote as a U.S. Citizen.

By the end of the day, paper ballots were tallied and compared to the electronic results. Electronic results were quickly available for the whole middle school, as well as for each grade level through the school web site under the “What’s Happening in Tech News” www.StAlbansCitySchool.org Veteran Social Studies Teacher, Bill Gorman, shared the fact that the 7^th and 8^th grade mock election results had traditionally proved to be very accurate predictions of the official election results from their community. This year’s students successfully predicted the winners of the both the Governor and Senate race, but failed the predict Mr. Welsh’s victory over Martha Rainville for House of Representative.

Tech Savvy Kids Receive Exxon Mobil Incentive Grant

2006-10-11T03:32:00.000-07:00

Lisa Blouin, from Switchyard Mobil, is seen presenting Lucie deLaBruere and some of her Tech Savvy students the Exxon Mobil Incentive Grant. Ms. deLaBruere is a technology integration specialist at City School, who is working with the students to provide them with skills that they will need in the workplace. The grant will be used to purchase equipment that will allow more students to have access to technology as a learning tool in their classroom.

Music in your presentations

2006-10-04T18:50:00.000-07:00

Finding music that you can use in your presentation can be challenging, especially when you practice computer ethics and do not use copyrighted music. One place to look for music is the Creative Commons Web Site which links to many sites that hold Creative Commons Licenses. Another source is RoyaltyFreeMusic. Royalty Free Music is providing us with permission to use music for this web site for school presentation. Another place where you can download a rotating array of free music is this pay on Royalty Free Music. The music on this pages changes occationally.

http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/free-music-resources.html

Preparing for NECAP testing in Math Classrooms

2006-09-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

Fourth grader teachers used the DOE website to help students prepare to take the NECAP assessments next week. They downloaded the NECAP review sheets off the Department of Education Website and reserved data projectors to help display the problem sets to the class.

The PDF files were then printed as Windows Journal Write files, so they could be used on a Tablet PC's Journal Writer program. This allowed teachers to use a stylus to markup the documents using the tablet's stylus during a group problem solving process as they examined sample test items. The colorful pen and highlighter tools, projected on an oversized screen helped students stay engaged during the extended period. "We didn't even notice that snack time had come and gone"

This was the first time Tablets were used in the academic classrooms. Fourth grade teacher, Ms. Walters transitioned from her overhead transparencies to the tablet quite naturally. "with no stains on my clothes from the overhead markers" laughed Ms. Walters.

Welcome Back

2006-09-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

Newt, Rita, and Lucie would like to welcome you back. This year is off to a busy start with us working together to support the use of technology in teaching and learning.

In order to better support you, we've implemented a new online Tech Support feature. This will help improve communication, along with organizing and documenting our work.
The Five Year Tech Integration Plan has been launched with Grade 4 classrooms equipped with the technology they need to be the focus of our grade level tech immersion. New computers have been installed and smartboard and projectors are on the way.
A team of your colleagues have been learning new tech tools, including Web 2.0 applications such as blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, and virtual communities. Look for some cutting edge applicatiosn of these tools during the upcoming school year from the Tech Savvy Learning Community.
A team of 50 students from town school and city school received training to kick off our Tech Savvy Student Leadership Teams this year. They are ready and eager to work with their classrooms and help move our school forward.

Let's gear up for a new and exciting year!