Students must save their poet biographies for language arts electronically to Google Docs or to a USB key so that we can access them in computer class.  We will be inserting them onto our Glogster poster this week.

Glogster
Students in middle school  are continuing  to work with Glogster this week.  In an interdisciplinary unit between language arts, Jewish studies,  and technology,  the students will learn a new way to spice up reports and make learning and sharing exciting.  The students will be creating electronic, interactive posters online  in computer class on a Jewish studies topic to be assigned by the Jewish studies teachers.  These posters will be shared online at Glogster.com.

Public Service Annoncements
The sixth and seventh graders continue to create their public service announcements on iMovie.  They are incorporating many of their public speaking techniques which they have just learned in language arts class, as well as research skills and writing skills to come up with wonderful PSA's.  They can't wait to share these later with their parents and friends.

The Integration of Technology in Fifth Grade Language Arts

The fifth graders' young authors books are printed and ready for binding.   Students in fifth grade interviewed kindergarteners and then wrote short, fictional stories about their young friends in their langauge arts classes.  Meanwhile in computer class, they formatted the young authors' books.  They used MS Publisher to write and illustrate the books.  Students  began the  projects by creating an "About the Author" page by learning how to take pictures of themselves on our iMac computers and then inserting those pictures into MS Publisher.  They each wrote a short autobiography about themselves in third person to place on this page. They  also formatted a dedication page with a picture of the kindergartener for whom they wrote their books. 
The actual stories were composed on MS Word.  The students' language arts teachers helped the kids compose and  edit these stories. With a great deal of collaboration and interdisciplinary planning the books will soon be shared with the kindergarten students.  Congratulations to all those involved for the wonderful hard work that has produced beautiful books this year!

The Integration of Technology in the Second Grade Social Studies Curriculum
In computer class the second graders are working feverisly doing research on the internet and collecting data for their "States Project" in their social studies classes.  The students are visiting the following sites in computer class to collect this data:


www.50states.com
www.statesymbolsusa.org
www.quarterdesigns.com

They may also visit these sites at home. 

Second Graders Learn the Internet

In a collaborative unit between social studies and computer class, the second graders will be learning in computer class how to use the Internet to research and collect information for their "State" projects in social studies.

Welcome to Glogster
Students in middle school  are being introduced to Glogster this week.  In an interdisciplinary unit between language arts and technology,  the students will learn a new way to spice up reports and make learning and sharing exciting.  The students will be creating electronic, interactive posters online  in computer class on a Jewish studies topic to be assigned by the Jewish studies teachers.  These posters will be shared online at Glogster.com.

Welcome to Glogster
Students in the fifth grade are being introduced to Glogster this week.  In an interdisciplinary unit between language arts and technology the students will learn a new way to spice up reports and make learning and sharing exciting.  The students will be creating electronic, interactive posters online  in computer class for a language arts class assignment on poets and  poetry.  These posters will be shared online at Glogster.com.

Fourth Grade

After completing a long unit on keyboarding skills, our fourth graders are being rewarded for all of their hard work by getting to work with PowerPoint for a few weeks.  They are eagerly learning how to create simple PowerPoint slides, insert pictures, WordArt, and clip art, and the animation of these objects.  They are having a great time!

Young Authors Books

The students are about to  finish their young authors' books on MS Publisher.  The fifth graders have learned many new technology skills while creating these books, and they have reinforced previous skills.   Just a few of these skills are listed below:

Use Google Docs as a storage place for documents,
Create documents in MS Word,
Create a booklet in MS Publisher,
Copy and paste from MS Word to MS Publisher,
Navigate through drives and folders on our complex file server,
Take pictures with the iMac computers and save and insert these pictures in text documents,
Access other pictures  on the network drive and insert them into text documents, 
Search the Internet on Google Images for appropriate art work, and use clip art and various tools and techniques in MS Publisher.

These books will soon be printed and shared with the kindergarteners for whom they were written.  This has been a lenghthy and involved unit that has required the cooperative planning and teaching of  the fifth grade language arts department, the technology department, our librarian, and the kindergarten teachers.  I know we will all be proud of our products!

PowerPoint/Keynote

The sixth and seventh graders are completing their presentations of their slide shows in class.  The presentations have been outstanding!   Just some of my personal favorites have been:

Scuba Diving by Noah (6B)
The Baltimore Orioles by Jakob (6B)
Origami by Ori (6B)
Gymnastics by Samantha (6B)
Snakes by Nicole (6B)

New York by Stephen (7A)
Washington, DC by Austin (7C)

Congratulations go to all the students for doing such a fine job!   I am especially proud if those listed above.