Flat Stanley Does Haiti Relief

Flat Stanley Does Haiti Relief is an inspirational video by Carol Claypool that she made after her last trip to Haiti. Carol, who is a first grade teacher at my school, created this video so that her students could gain a better understanding of the needs and lives of the Haitians she has come to love. From watching the video her students also see pictures of the actual families their teacher and friends are helping. All of our K-5 students now see where the school's donations go and more importantly, how desperately help is still needed. This six (6) minute video is ready to translate into other languages on dotSUB. dotSUB is a web based system used to upload and view videos, create subtitles, translate into other languages and share on websites. It is easy to translate the subtitles from the video transcriptions. Flat Stanley Does Haiti Relief - now on dotSUB is ready to share, view, translate and even embed on your site. Please consider translating the subtitles and forwarding this request so that more students, educators and parents can see for themselves too. For those unfamiliar with Flat Stanley, here is a synopsis of Flat Stanley's original story and projects at Dale Hubert's The Official Flat Stanley Project .

What to Do? No Computers in the Lab?

Last week we had a day with no computers in the Technology Lab. Were the students surprised? Yes. Was the teacher worried? No - it was a great opportunity to talk about technology and the balance in our lives.


Technology = a tool that helps us work (more efficiently). If the technology makes a job harder, then choose another tool or learn a better way to use the tool. It takes time to learn to use a tool properly. Ask any craftsman, artist, or electrician.

We could ask our parents and grandparents how they worked before computers. How did they play? Outside was for sports, inside- what? no texting, no Wii?! What did they use in school? Paper, pencils, books, what? no SMARTBoard, no computers?!

We then considered the history of paper. Originally made of papyrus, it was considered a great advance in technology for communication. Paper is taken for granted now and many practice ways of recycling it. I wonder what history would reveal about rules of using paper.

The students thought about what they do in school and the games they play without modern technologies. Our south-eastern region is known for thunderstorms. Students told stories about what they do when the lights go out or the dreaded cable TV service goes down at home (audible groans).

Out came the old-fashioned paper, crayons and clipboards for the activity....1) Fold the paper. 2) Illustrate a game that you play. 3) Write a caption. 4) Smile for the camera.

Rules for game choices were: no electricity and no batteries. So here is a sample of
Games We Play! Batteries Not Included

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I tell my young students all of the time: computers are to help you get work done, so you have more time to play outside where you belong!

We may have another No Computer day....for old-times sake.

Images from Flikr

Elementary Projects- Google Maps and More

If you were to offer 3rd-5th grade students a ticket to anywhere in the virtual world, where would you guess their overall favorite place would be?(*answer below) We have been going all over the map with the help of the updated tools in Google Maps. Driving directions have been the most popular use of Google Maps, but please take a look at what you can find now.

Students wanted to get a close-up look at the Great Wall of China, the Eiffel Tower, and Niagara Falls. Students who have lived in other places got a glimpse of their former hometown, and some even saw their actual home.

These trips took us to Ohio, Tennessee, Florida, Arizona, Georgia, Virginia, Nevada, California, North Carolina, and many more. We also got to see far away places like Rome,Tokyo, Berlin, and Lithuania. Travelers shared vacation spots from San Francisco to Washington, DC. Zooming in on South Carolina in Terrain View helped students in their understanding of our state’s geographical layout.

Explore more at Google Maps Tours Video clips, and detailed tutorials will help your family plan trips, avoid traffic, and help children feel more comfortable before riding unfamiliar public transit systems.

First and Second grade Technology classes joined online projects with classes
nation-wide. Students enjoyed checking the map that shows the schools that
are participating in the Winter Wonderland Project. Students shared their knowledge of places, and they learned many new locations too. See
Google Map of participants

Please click here to see some of our Winter projects listed by class:
1st grade: http://winterwonderland.wikispaces.com/gardner1
2nd grade: http://winterwonderland.wikispaces.com/gardner2

More collaborative projects are coming our way for new Technology
classes this semester!
See other items about our classes:
Foreign Languages on Voicethread and Microscopes in the Technology class.

I wonder if the favorite place of the new semester’s classes will also be their *own home?

Setting Goals for Technology

Goal setting is the topic of the new year. In response to a blog in elementarytechteachers I came up with mine, so I need to document them here in my web log.

Before I do I have to mention a refreshing new blog I read today. Penny's take on the SEVEN THINGS meme was to include what I will call simply images with captions. We teach students how to understand more information by reading captions. What a better idea for our goal setting writing assignments she has inspired. Search for images that reflect your goals and write captions. Many web tools are available to learn and apply here. Just pick one...or two.

Last year was the year of wikis, blogs, podcasts, and voicethread to name a few. Twitter got a third try from me over the holiday and I have now realized the value in its use. I even unblocked messages on this blog - I can handle that now. I have tip-toed around Google docs and played with Google Earth. It is time to move on now.

So here are my technology goals for 2009:

1.Google Docs - For collaborating- I need to find those who know and encourage others to go along with me too.
2. Google Earth - I want to build and use more meaningful lessons. Right now I am working it in on two projects.
3. Collaborative Projects - I love to join other classes whether down the street or across the globe. Now it is time to MAKE them happen too. Working on that and crossing my fingers.
4. Maintain & Repair - Take tools and projects that I started, finished or dropped last year to their next level.
5. SMART Board - Build spectacular :) lessons with every tool for every subject and every level for every teacher... (You all get that way too - don't you?)

There they are. How about you?

Great Finds for Microscope Minds

FREE access to a scanning electron microscope!! What former-science-teacher-now-technology-specialist could resist? While looking for more ideas for our Digital Blue microscopes I found a fabulous website called Bugscope. The "project provides free interactive access to a scanning electron microscope (SEM) so that students anywhere in the world can explore the microscopic world of insects. This educational outreach program from the Beckman Institute's Imaging Technology Group at the University of Illinois supports K-16 classrooms worldwide."

Students mail insects to them, teachers schedule a time for viewing your specimens online, and you all get to have an online chat with members of their team. They provide tutorials and more resources for teachers, so go take a look! By the time classes are ready for insect lessons in the spring, we will have plans and schedules in place. We can't wait to compare the pictures from the different microscopes - and hopefully tiny critters from different regions. Plan ahead and collaborate with us at elementarytechteachers .

Don't forget - microscope projects work great on interactive whiteboards too.

Another great find for microscopes - check these awesome activities, resources, time lines and much more at
http://www.microscopy.fsu.edu/optics/activities/students/index.html

See more reviews and prices for the microscope.

Trade- a-Trick With Technology Teachers

Elementary Technology Teachers teach various hardware, software, and interactive devices and integrate technologies. We spend time teaching how to use technology so that students can apply these skills in other areas. ISTE's National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) are designed for students, teachers and administrators. With these standards as guides for educators, tech teachers support all of these groups in their efforts to use and integrate technologies in their own lessons, classes and schools.

In our school we have found it beneficial for students in the lab to learn about and interact with the SMARTBoard, Airliner Tablet/wireless mouse, Senteo (student voters) and the document camera. Other devices are used in the lab too – cameras, probes, video camera, and computer microscopes. Students learn how to use interactive devices and apply tech skills in their classroom without the "regular teacher" spending as much time teaching tech skills. With the different tech skill levels of teachers and students, both groups have enjoyed teaching each other.

Fortunately, SmartBoard and Promethean lessons for curriculum topics are springing up everyday. In our quest of encouraging everyone to integrate technologies, we find that we do not have many of the tech How-To... lessons for interactive whiteboards. We technology teachers are joining together to create and share lessons in support of our schools’ technology needs.

I have have invited elementary tech teachers in my district to old fashioned face-to-face-make-and-take sessions to create and share Technology How-To... lessons with the new SMART Notebook version 10 tools and the interactive toolkit. Kind of like a Treat-Trade at holiday time - we will Trade-some-Tricks for our technology classes.

We would like some more input and share ideas with you too. Consider the Elementary Technology Teachers ning and join a conversation. Hope to see you there - or share your comments here!

Calling for Collaborative projects for SCRATCH Posts

Technology classes are preparing projects to post on our pages at wikispaces. At least one section will be favorite projects created in Scratch. Since the conference at MIT, a group of us who met there are planning collaborative projects. Our classes are in states from each US coastline and a few in between.

Consider using Scratch in your classes and sharing Scratch news, ideas, and projects too. Contact me - JoNelle Gardner, Technology Specialist at gardnerj@fort-mill.k12.sc or watch us grow at:
http://isurffer-friends.wikispaces.com/SCRATCHposts

Scratch@MIT Conference

We just returned from presenting at the Scratch@MIT conference at MIT in Boson. If you are not familiar with Scratch, it is a new programming tool developed at MIT. Students imagine, create, and share games, animations and more. This past year we used the software in my fifth grade elementary technology classes. Also, students formed a club to continue to learn more ways to program using Scratch. I did not realize how important Scratch has become and what a huge impact Scratch has had world wide until this conference.

Participants all over the world ( US, UK, Australia, Russia, Korea, Taiwan, Poland.....) shared ways we incorporate Scratch in schools and groups in elementary through high school levels. Great things happened each hour including new ideas, resources, research partnerships, and collaborative plans for the new school year.

Four students from various countries were featured during Mitchel Resnick’s Opening Keynote (see video). My students will be surprised when I come back with videos and photos of famous Scratchers. More than once these students heard that they were like rock stars of the Scratch community.

The organization of the conference had other choices that were new for me. One way that worked very well was to have three presenters in a room. In one hour, each presenter gave a 10 minute talk. The rest of the hour was a Q&A session with the audience.

My first session choice began with Tracy Ho sharing her case study of student performance using Scratch. I was most interested in her findings of the patterns of events in which students learn, transfer, and apply Scratch. Tracy is a professor in the music department at Taipei Municipal University of Education, Taiwan. Jeanene Bluhm de Carvajal, founder of the Thomas Jefferson Institute, shared how they implement Scratch to help develop student creativity in their schools in Mexico. Krystof Haber, who has spent eleven years teaching Indigenous students with the last eight years at Antarringinya Centre in Australia, shared his unique teaching experiences with the audience. We were incredulous to learn how he uses Scratch to keep students engaged in having fun learning. His Australia Aboriginal students come and go, so Scratch offers the tools of engagement that he needs and that they love.

Friday at 9:30 am, we (JoNelle Gardner and Audrey Cageao) presented with a professor originally from Spain and another presenter from Russia. With three presentations for the hour, the audience got to hear and talk to:
• Teachers who use Scratch in their technology classes. Audrey shared how she introduces, guides, and supports students in their Scratch experiences. I (JoNelle) added how I integrate Scratch with science, math, language arts and technology via student wiki websites http://isurffer-friends.wikispaces.com/Scratch
• Creator (Juan Carlos Olabe) of a supportive website that has and extensive lists of Scratch video tutorials http://learnscratch.org/
• Head of a laboratory and coordinator of www.letopisi.ru (Yevgeny Patarakin) and learn how young programmers in Russia are using Scratch

Other conference sessions were also incredible. It was great listening to educators of all levels and regions of the world who are ready to lend a hand and work together.

I met educators and high school students from Arizona who are involved with Kimberly Scott’s wonderful program called COMPUGIRLS. http://compugirls.asu.edu/home.php These girls use Scratch with themes of social justice – very inspiring. We exchanged contact information to video conference with my computer club this year.

During Karen Bennen’s (from MIT Scratch Team) Scratch-Ed session, she brilliantly led the group in sharing, learning and supporting professional development for an upcoming new website for the community of Scratch educators.

I’ll describe more sessions in the next blog entry. Until then you can see more about the conference at http://scratch.mit.edu/conference/index.html
Conference Program: http://scratch.mit.edu/conference/Scratch_Final_Program.pdf

A HUGE THANK YOU to the Scratch@MIT TEAM!! Mitch and his team are marvelous. They all are an enthusiastic bunch and show a genuine joy for what they are doing and sharing with us.
And ooooh my… to the fabulous caterers too - you are the best!!

Podcasting, the Super 3 & Tech Lab Activities

Podcasting can improve your child’s reading and writing skills. It’s true. The steps in the Super 3 plan / do / review creating good podcasts require many skills. Students communicate with peers, think through ideas, write (or type) scripts, record, evaluate, and edit-edit-edit. Their favorite part seems to be the challenge of making a satisfactory recording. Students repeatedly listen and record while building fluency skills with each edit.

Some of our 2nd and 3rd grade technology classes are practicing these skills to make their audio and/or video projects. Topics students have chosen include riddles, similes, vocabulary, science, websites, and software. Find more ideas here.

With new 2nd and 3rd graders going to Ms Gardner for technology classes, let’s repeat safety on the Internet. Find out more about potential dangers online. http://www.netsmartz.org/ is a positive place to learn Internet safety. There are no links to outside sites. Go with your child to http://www.netsmartz.org/ for more information.

Students have learned how to format clipart, borders and text in Microsoft Word.
Our hallways are newly decorated with student-made Valentine's Day and signs for Jump Rope for Heart.

Many 4th and 5th grade technology classes are using technology to use reliable resources on the Internet, create electronic presentations, and evaluate their work. Project presentations integrate technology with classroom topics such as presidents, national parks, geometry, and the Revolutionary War. Students learn basic and advanced features in Photo Story 3, Microsoft Word, and Power Point.

iSURFFers say, THANK YOU PTA!!!!!!!!!!!
Students Ready For the Future -iSURFFers - are learning how to save their work with flash drives thanks to our generous PTA! With the purchase of 30 flash drives to use in the lab, our PTA has made it possible for our technology students to practice proper care and functions of flash drives. THANK YOU PTA!!!!!!!!!!

We Have Made it to Wikispaces!

Students in fourth and fifth grade Technology classes now have their own secure wiki webpage. Wikispaces is a special website where students have a secure place to learn and share. Members only in this cyberspace - only our teachers, students and their parents may enter. Teachers monitor the site daily. We are incorporating safety and etiquette rules that we have learned to create the first pages. Soon each student will have a mystery partner in our school to build our first Technology/Social Studies project on Native Americans. We are working together to prepare for a project with 4th grade students in other states. This collaborative project will also help our students build character education and communication skills in Language Arts in our new world of ever changing technology.

What is a wiki? Watch this brief video on Wikis in Plain English

Welcome to GHES Blogger

We have exciting goals in Technology for 2007-08!
Blogging, podcasting, and wikis are new additions to Technology this year. Not sure what these mean? We will explain these here in our blogs and in our podcasts. For now just double-click on a word to find an answer!

Stay tuned and learn along with GHES. Communicating and learning with our terrific GHES families are important to us. The next few entries will explain how this will work for students, parents, and teachers this year.

While you are wondering...help us name our Blog and our Podcast. So far we have

GHES iSURFFers

for

GHES StUdents Ready For the Future

We also need a logo and a mascot!

Sounds like we need some input from YOU!