Lots of Changes this Year for Technology!

Many exciting changes have been happening in the world of technology for Torrey Pines Elementary! With the district initiative towards technology integration, I will be spending more time in the classrooms helping to integrate technology and less time in the computer lab. Students will soon be using new district equipment purchased with Prop S Funding (due to arrive in October for Grade 3) and will also use Foundation purchased laptops to work on technology projects in their classrooms. I have been busy so far this year holding a staff development workshop on technology projects for the teachers, providing one-on-one assistance in teacher website building plus performing yearly maintenance on laptops and computer lab stations.

Here is a brief summary of what went on in the computer lab during the first week of rotations:

Grade 1: Students were introduced the lab then received instruction on using the mouse (left click, right click, double click). Following their introduction, students had a chance to practice their skills using a program called mouseprogram.com. Students were introduced to basic computer terminology such as desktop and icons.

Grade 3: Third grade students will focus on learning to type this year in the computer lab. Students were introduced to the keys typed by the left and right pointer fingers (12 keys in all)! The children practiced typing with the left and right pointer fingers along with a song.

Week 17

Second grade students have been busy getting familiar with using the laptops. Mr. Serafin's class created Powerpoint presentations to showcase their knowledge of animals. They also created friendships quilts in which they typed messages to each of their classmates. Mrs. Nieto/Gordon's participated in a digital storytelling project in which they wrote, illustrated and narrated text to make their stories "come alive". Completed projects were displayed at Open House and enthusiastically received by parents. Click here to view one of the digital stories. Students in Mrs. Nieto/Gordon's class also completed their claymation projects, culminating a writing/research project on animals.

Week 16

The laptop carts continue to be in high demand with Mr. Ramirez's fifth grade class using the laptops to create Powerpoint presentations on the Revolutionary War and Mr. Serafin's second grade class utilizing the laptops to turn their animal reports into Powerpoint presentations.

This week was the last week of rotations taking place in the computer lab for the 2008-2009 academic year. Here is a summary of what each grade worked on in the lab this week.

Grade 3: Students in grade 3 completed typing and editing their friendly letters. Remaining computer time was spent practicing keyboarding technique.

Grade 4: Students in grade 4 typed and edited friendly letters. Grade 4 students also worked on increasing keyboarding speed.

Grade 5: Students in grade 5 were introducted to a number of technology terms such as wikis, twitter and basics such as hardware and software. The remainder of the 45 minute class period was composing and edited a friendly letter.

Week 15

The laptop cart again was again buzzing with activity during Open House week. The digital story project for Ms. Nieto’s class was completed in time for Open House. Parents just loved seeing the results. Mr. Devore’s and Mr. Ramirez’s classes began creating a Revolutionary War Powerpoint projects. Ms. White’s class finished making their storybooks using the laptop cart.

Grade 3: Students completed typing and formatting their friendly letters. This was the last meeting of Grade 3 students for the year. Outside of computer lab time, students in Ms. Jabbour's class came to the lab to type and format papers they had written in class.

Grade 4: Students continued to practice their typing using the Sponge Bob Typing software. Proper keyboarding technique was stressed throughout the lesson.

Grade 5: Students received brush-up instruction on creating a Powerpoint and were also introduced to some of the advanced animation features that could be included in Powerpoint presentations. Students created a short Powerpoint on themselves that they shared with fellow classmates.

Week 14

The laptop cart again was buzzing with activity. Mr. Devore, Ms. White, Ms. Nieto/Gordon and Ms. Randi used the laptops for various projects. One project that was particularly exciting is a digital storytelling project that I have been working on with Ms. Nieto. For this project, students wrote narrative stories and then the stories were made to "come live" with the help of scanned pictures and narration. Several problems were addressed this week including a backspace key that had fallen off one of the laptop keyboards, a glitch that prevented one of the batteries from charging, a bad video card also a laptop that was re-imaged. Additionally, there was a teacher laptop on which the hard drive failed. A network printing problem is plaguing the computer lab. The problem is still being investigated.

Grade 3: Students returned to the computer lab after 2 busy weeks of testing. Students were introduced to an online piano (http://numbera.com/musictheory/piano.aspx) on which they could play music while at the same time practice their typing. Students also began typing a friendly letter.

Grade 4: Students practiced their typing using the Sponge Bob Typing software. The break from the MicroType Pro typing software was welcomed by the students.

Grade 5: Students used Microsoft Excel to create graphs for their science fair projects. Students also performed an online frog dissection in preparation for their science class frog dissection lab. The online frog dissection was found at http://www.froguts.com/flash_content/index.html.

Week 13

Students did not come to the computer lab this week again due to STAR testing. The laptop cart was very popular though with use by Mrs. Gillespie, Mr. Devore, Ms. White, Mr. Ramirez, Ms. Randi and Ms. Nieto/Gordon. I was very excited to be involved in the classrooms with Ms. Gillespie and Ms. Nieto. In Ms. Gillespie's class, students created slideshows using Powerpoint to showcase their state research. Student's really enjoyed this project. These reports turned out absolutely gorgeous! Students in Ms. Nieto/Gordon's class are making their narrative stories come to life by transforming them into digital stories. Several technical problems have arose with using laptop cart 2. These include: inconsistent internet access and a computer that currently won't boot.

Week 12

The laptop cart continues to be used by Mrs. White's class as they make progress on their states brochures. Next week, Mrs. Gillespie's class will use the laptop cart to start creating Powerpoint slideshows. (Week of 4/28 and 5/1 - students not visiting computer lab due to STAR testing. Laptop cart used by Ramirez, Devore, Saldivar, Gillespie, White. Second laptop cart is up and running).

Grade 3: In the computer lab, 3rd grade students received a review lesson on proper keyboarding technique. Student spent time keying in words as they were announced. They also spent time trying to advance through the Type to Learn keyboarding software. Children who had completed at least 10 keyboarding lessons were encouraged to use the keyboard covers.

Grade 4: In observance of National Poetry Month and Earth Day, 4th grade students composed acrostic poems using the letters in the words “Earth Day”. Once the poems were composed, students created word collages from the words in their poems using a website called “wordle”. Completed poems have been uploaded to the 3rd grade drop.io website. From drop.io, poems can be downloaded and printed.

Grade 5: Students in grade 5 continued to work on a project in which they are creating a brochure that ties into the required 5th grade science curriculum. Students selected their planets, researched the planet and are beginning to create their brochure in which they advertise adventure travel trips to their planets. Students are creating their brochures in Microsoft Word.

5th Dimension: 2nd and 3rd grade students in the after-school 5th Dimension program participated in a newspaper scavenger hunt this week. They were asked to find items such as a compound word, a word that has at least syllables, the names of 2 countries in Europe, the names of 2 countries in Africa along with many other items that helped to reinforce their classroom learning. Students worked as a team with their UCSD buddies and really enjoyed the game! The 4th and 5th grade students began working on a Reader’s Theatre play. Student divided into groups and decided on their parts. They also began making props. Students will work on this project for several weeks.