Striking It Up: Innovator's Day

Eighth graders in Mrs. Nolan’s Communication Applications class at Medlin Middle School recently explored what it meant to be an innovator. As part of this process, students participated in activities that would lead them to develop an original business, charity, or product that would culminate into a formal professional presentation in front of their class.

To begin, using Genius Hour concepts and Thinking Maps, students brainstormed their passions. This process helped guide them through decisions for which passions they would move forward with in developing their business, charity, or product. After narrowing their list down to their two best ideas, they began doing some in class market research by conducting survey interviews with their peers. This enabled them to see how their idea fit with the need in the market. They also did research online to ensure the idea was unique, yet still directly related to their passion.



Using the Organizational piece from WICOR, students kept their ideas in a booklet provided to them by Mrs. Nolan. This booklet was an integral part to the process and it contained everything they needed to know about their business, charity or product as they moved it towards a digital presentation.

Their next step to building this concept would be designing a logo, slogan, and jingle that would represent their idea. Their jingle would need to be an original tune, or it could be a tune that already existed with new original lyrics. It was especially neat to hear Mrs. Nolan featured as the voice behind several jingles. Tess says, “My favorite part was getting to design my logo for my company that would go into my commercial. It let me express my own artistic skills and it was fun to do.”

Although each student was tasked with coming up with their own ideas, during the process of building their concept, the students sat with the same group of peers each day in class. They collaborated with their peers and were encouraged throughout the process to get feedback from their groups in many of the decisions made about their business, concept or charity. When it came time for their formal presentation in front of the class, students shared about their journey and the development of their idea. Their peer group also stood with the presenter and reported what they contributed during the developmental process.

“Technology helped me learn what a realistic commercial looks like and it gave me a chance to learn about making my own commercial by giving me the resources to do so”. (Tess)

The majority of the class decided to use PowToon to create their commercial. The commercial had to include their logo, jingle, a voiceover, and a minimum of four advertising techniques studied throughout the semester. Student discovered various web tools to tie things together. Many of them are credited for teaching their peers how to try something new on the Chromebook.

When asked about using technology in class, Serena said, “I love using technology in class because it's not boring to learn about different subjects. I get really excited when teachers say we can use technology to do projects or research things because I really enjoy learning online and using my technology. Also, its easier to understand things online than it is in real life." Both Serena and Tess will be presenting their commercials at this year's Techno Expo event.

Additional projects that will be presented at Techno Expo:

• Tess - The Volleyball Store Commercial
• Megan - Trebletide Commercial 

Learn, Experience, Explain: Kindergarten Jumping Into The Frog Life Cycle

Working on the Popplet Flow Map

Students in Mrs. Slimmer's Kindergarten class at Hughes elementary recently learned about the life cycle of a frog. Rather than simply reading about the process in a book, these students got to create their own frog habitat, take care of their own class frogs, and create a collaborative flow map explaining what they've learned. This project allowed the students to explain their learning through visuals and voice over using SeeSaw and Popplet. Popplet gave students the opportunity to draw their learning and connect different parts of the life cycle, which is great for visual learners. Mrs Slimmer pointed out, “This project gave my students exposure to the technology in a very meaningful and purposeful way. They are used to playing games on the iPad, but this project allowed them to create and be producers rather than consumers.”

Owen, Kalynn, Mason, and Alliah had a lot to say about this experience. When asked what they learned throughout the project Kalynn's face lit up as she stated, "I learned that frogs actually live in land and in water." Owen quickly added, "And they need food. They need lots of crickets." Mason adds, "Did you know that frog's eggs look like eyes? They start as eggs and then turn into tadpoles." The group all agreed that their favorite part of the experience was taking pictures of their frog habitat and drawing each step on the iPad. They especially liked drawing the frog eggs and the tadpoles. They also enjoyed being able to use SeeSaw to explain their learning with voice over.

When asked what the most challenging part of the project was, Alliah comments, "I had a hard time drawing the water and finding the best picture of eggs to take from our book." At a young age these students are learning how to gather, organize and sequence their information. They are also able to explain their learning, and work together to create a published product.

Students Take Pictures of Their Frog Habitat
for Their Flow Map

Primary Student ISTE Standards:

• 3C: Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.
• 6B: Students create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
• 6C: Students communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations.

Let's Plan a Party!

Have you ever been responsible for planning a party for a big event? The 7th graders at Pike Middle School were asked by the Principal to plan the 7th grade End of Year Party. A big task, right? The students in Mrs. Morton’s Pre-AP Math class embraced the real-life challenge of being an event planner. They had to put their knowledge of patterns, equations, and rates of change to the test.

“Our project was to plan a party for Mr. Jones. We could choose where to eat and what activity to do, the challenge was to find the best deal so that we could spend the least amount of money as possible.” -Joseph

"The project was fun and took a lot of brain power because you had to think through the problems. We used the comments feature to talk back and forth to one another when we were confused. We don't live close to each other so the comment feature allowed use to collaborate from home." -Evelyn

"We used the website, Create a Graph Classic to make the graphs. Last year in math class, we made pie charts using that website so I figured I could go back to that website and make these graphs."-Raegan

This project challenged the students to be a proctor of their own learning. It is no surprise that they ended this project with more knowledge of real world experiences in the field of Math and had some fun planning a party at the same time. The International Society for Technology in Education would describe these scholars as; knowledge constructors, computational thinkers, and global collaborators.

Frankenstein Project Based Learning: It's ALIVE!

Students in Mrs. Day's English I GT class recently completed work on an amazing project based lesson over Mary Shelley's classic novel, Frankenstein.  According to the project instructions, students were tasked with creating a portfolio of artifacts that answered the driving question: Does knowledge or progress ever become a moral liability? Student groups chose their own area of scientific advancement to research, then explored the driving question from different perspectives and considered both the positive and negative effects of advancement. Based on their subject they created four products of their choosing to represent their findings and related them to the themes found in Frankenstein and how they apply to the world today.

The group of Michael, Matthew, Marcos, and Jonathan chose to do their project on robots and the future of artificial intelligence. "This project was fun because we got to put our own spin on it, both by choosing our own products and in how we did the presentation, which we did as a skit," said Michael. Jonathan elaborated that they "appreciated the product list Mrs. Day gave us because we got to choose what digital tools to use in order to more efficiently represent our topic." This way, students not only got to choose the topic themselves, but they also chose what tools to use. This allowed them to represent their thoughts on the subjects they chose as they related them to the lessons in the book. Michael explained that their research gave them a different "perspective on whether people should do things rather than if they could do things."

The group started by using a Google Doc to plan out the project, including their subject, research, pros/cons of the subject, links to resources and products, and even a script for their presentation. They decided to use a Google Slides presentation to present their portfolio of artifacts, which can be seen here:

The group used multiple tools to create their products.  For example, Matthew used Lucidpress to create their preparing for a Robot Uprising pamphlet "because it had lots of built-in design options for making pamphlets."  They used Imgur to create a Wanted poster for a rogue robot.  Marcos said the ability to choose their own tools, like Canva, and create their own products was very helpful.  He explained that it "gave us ideas how to connect things back to the book.  I chose the Survivor Shopping List because I thought that people would need to know what they'd need to survive, similar to what Frankenstein needed."

Check out the presentation above to see all the products as they were presented, which was in the form of an interactive skit.  The ability of these students to choose their route of learning was evident in every step of this project, and is represented in the quality of their products.  "I love the way these students draw comparisons between a novel from 1818 and modern day technology," said Mrs. Day. "These students prove that literature and the lessons it teaches are always relevant."

Science: Inside Out

Seventh graders in Mr. Crawford’s science class, at Medlin Middle School, recently took a closer look at their inner selves. Literally! In studying the systems of the body, students participated in a dress up day. Their “costume” would be one of the eleven systems of the body they recently studied in class. Using various supplies to represent and label the major organs of a body system, the entire campus was able to see detailed visuals of the learning taking place in Mr. Crawford’s classroom.

Additionally, students were challenged to assume the role of a scientific graphic designer. Their task was to create a digital flyer that represented their new learning of the systems of the body. Working in groups of three and four, students began researching and designing. Initial planning for the flyer took place in Google Slides. Using information gathered through their research, students were able to collaboratively contribute their portion of the project to a shared presentation before moving on to their final product. Eleanor especially enjoyed researching the body systems online stating, “it helped me enhance my learning by giving me endless answers compared to what you get out of a textbook, which is limited information.”

It was also an expectation that their digital flyer would include an original video created by the group. The video should contain information about the body system they researched, and could be presented through a variety of methods. Some groups chose to interview a professional in the field, while others created music videos or newscasts. Fliers included content from their research and images too.

When asked what he enjoyed most about the project, Luke said, “the best thing about using technology in class is that it makes things much easier and quicker. It changes the way I learn by engaging me more and getting me more interested in the project.” Dodge said he especially enjoyed, “interacting with his group in Google and FaceTiming with them while working in Smore.”

It’s no surprise that all students walked away from this project knowing so much more about themselves than when they began. They also walked away with a number of skills that will enable them to function in a digital world, as referenced in the ISTE Standards for Students.

Additional student can be viewed using the links below:

• The Respiratory System
• The Skeletal System
• The Circulatory System

From Pages of Policy to Personal Practice

Students in Mrs. Wilsie's Tech Apps class at Tidwell Middle School were recently challenged with the task of not only understanding the nine page AUP (Acceptable Use Policy), but also working together to create a resource for other students that would help them understand and apply the AUP as well. Students started the unit by creating norms for group collaboration using Spider Scribe. Next, they used the Google Docs Outline tool to create an outline for the AUP as they broke it down into sections. According to Casen, narrowing down the information was one of the hardest parts. He comments, "At the beginning we felt overwhelmed because there were nine pages of the AUP and we had to use three types of multimedia to show how to follow it."

After understanding what the AUP entailed, students used the Tools that Make IT Click Blog to choose the platform they thought would best relay their information to other students.

A Screenshot of Masongo, Keller,
Madeline, and Logan's Blendspace.
Click HERE to View

When asked why her group chose to use Blendspace for their project, Madeline commented, "I was looking at Tools That Make IT Click and I really liked how Blendspace was orgnanized into boxes. We noticed that we could add links, pictures, and box off information off for our audience." Casen, Soniya, Benaiah, and Fatou decided to use Google Slides so that they could collaborate. They embedded videos, animation, and a Kahoot quiz so that students who viewed their presentation could test their knowledge. Maggie, Corbin, Jacob, and Blake created a newsletter using Tackk. They utilized the "button" feature in order to create a series of hyperlinks to send viewers to various student-created resources. Blake pointed out, "Our favorite part was the skit that we made about AUP. We used Screencastify to record our video."

After starting to work on their presentations, classes had the opportunity to connect with, and interview a few professionals via ZOOM. The video conference allowed students to see that the AUP is a part of the 'real world' and that it impacts adults in the workplace everyday. Students talked to Brooke, who works remotely with IBM in sales and Carrie, the Human Resources Director at Fidelity Investments.

After seeing the capabilities of ZOOM, one group decided use ZOOM to connect with each other even when they weren't all in class. Blake added, "ZOOM was easy to use and we were able to work even outside of class. I liked that you can message each other during the conference, so that we don’t interrupt each other."

At the end of the project, students used Google Forms to give their teammates a rating on collaboration and teamwork. They also shared their final product on a Padlet wall for the class to view and leave feedback.

Students walked away fom this experience with a clear understanding of the AUP and how to apply it to their daily digital lives. They also learned a lot about collaboration and teamwork. Maggie points out, "When we started as a group it wasn’t that smooth, but we got better as we worked together. Team work wasn’t easy at first." Casen sums up the unit by stating, " It would be helpful for other students to view our presentation. We made something that would benefit the whole school."

Casen, Soniya, Benaiah, and Fatou's Final Product

Maggie, Corbin, Jacob, and Blake's Final Product

View A.U.P. full version on Tackk
Create your own customized Tackk page

Mucking Through Historical Blogs

Students in Mrs. Proudman's class have recently created blogs from the perspective of historical investigative journalists from the end of the 19th century.  These journalists looked into the dark side of the so called Gilded Age in American history, often dragging topics into the light for others to see, earning them the moniker of "muckrakers."  For this project, each student was assigned their own muckraker to research and learn about.  But instead of writing a report or a standard presentation about their subject, the students used Blogger to create blogs about the journalists.  "I really liked making the blog," said Carlos, a student in Mrs. Proudman's class.  "It made it more fun because we were able to use our imagination more and make it more of a story than a report."

Student working on the Blogger site

According to the project instructions on Mrs. Proudman's example blog, students had to imagine they were going on a "Ride-A-Long" with their journalist as they investigated an issue of the time. Students then created a blog with multiple posts to document that journey, including biographical information about the journalist, photos or pictures from the trip, and transcripts of what happened.  This allowed the students to explore the time period and the subjects in a more immersive way.  "The project was very interesting," said Carlos.  "It allowed us a chance to time-travel back and see their own views, how things looked like to them."  A good example is this blog on Samuel Hopkins Adams, which writes from a perspective of a third person traveling with Mr. Adams.   As the students wrote their blog posts, they took time to ask themselves "What does it feel like? What do you see? What do you smell?"  Some of the blog even took this a step further and wrote their posts from the first person view of the muckraker themselves, such as this blog on Nellie Bly.  The beauty of this project is that not only did it give students a chance to use their imagination to explore the time period, but it also allowed them the choice of how to present and relay that information.  They could write from different angles, include pictures, videos, or anything else they wanted on their blogs.  Students even took the time to comment on their peers' blog posts to leave both praise and constructive feedback.  Take a look at some of the blogs linked above or some more examples below, and enjoy your trip back in time!

Blog on John Spargo
Blog on Lincoln Steffner

Triple Threat… Culture, Creativity, and Technology

When you think of a traditional art class in elementary, what comes to mind? Pencil, paper, paint, pottery and maybe a few other ways to create. At Peterson Elementary, Mrs. Mock and Mrs. Ericsson’s 5th grade art classes are taking it up a notch. They are incorporating 21st Century Skills and school culture into Fine Arts Education.  

Making of the movie...ACTION!

After viewing a variety of stop motion animation videos, a technique that makes inanimate objects appear to be moving, the students were given the task to create their own. They were given the prompt “How We Do Things at Peterson” and were able interpret that idea however they saw fit, giving students ownership and choice. Once they were in their groups, students assigned roles and split up tasks.  Being able to develop, implement and communicate new ideas to others effectively is an important skill to learn at this age. Everyone had different ideas on what they thought the video should be about. Presley pointed out, “We had to work together to come up with a plan. We knew we wanted to make sure that we represented what we do here at Peterson, so something that is really big here is our assemblies.”

Once the plan was in place, the groups created comic strips of the story they wanted to tell in the stop motion video. Mrs. Mock and Mrs. Ericsson gave them all different types of materials to to choose from for the creation of the background scene and characters.

Now it was time for the making of the movie! Students took images of their characters, moved the objects frame by frame, and created an illusion of movement in the iMotion app on the iPad. For many of the students, it was their first trying stop motion animation, and they were surprised how easy it was to create. Some groups wanted to take their movie up a level and add sound. They decided to smash the app Shadow Puppet Edu to voice over their video. Sydney commented, “Adding the second app was fun, it made our video more exciting and we were able to tell our story better.”

Mrs. Mock and Mrs. Ericsson found a way for 21st Century Learners to explore creativity, find the value of the importance of school culture, and actively use technology in the Fine Arts classroom.

Kid Created News

Teachers know the importance of communication from the classroom to the community. Our teacher challenged the class to come up with ideas of new ways to send out monthly newsletters to our parents. Getting students involved and to take charge of this classroom task was quite a challenge. Mrs. Degnan, 4th grade teacher, Nance Elementary had the students look at several options and once she picked her editors it became clear to use the subscription service called Smore.com.

The top editors were chosen by Mrs. Degnan and the class. Redd, McKenzi, and Lexi where honored with this position. All three students were chosen because of their leadership and their ability to get the job done. The team begun to hire other students for the different jobs: photographers and writers. Publications feature articles about each of our content area subjects, as well as the exciting happenings going on in 4th grade and around the building. Articles included, diagrams, fun facts, pictures and/or videos. We used the classroom iPads at first for our choice of device, but sometimes quality was an issue. We eventually hired a student who was a professional photographer/videographer who participated in the photography club at school. This made our pictures and videos much higher quality! We also borrowed laptops from 5th grade because they were more adept at meeting our needs and were easier to navigate than the ipads.

Over time we wanted to include student made video tutorials explaining how they did the problems in math (division, multiplication, etc.). We also added many science videos too. We had another great idea...interviews! It became our mission to feature all students in our classes. It was easy to feature kids that stand out, but we found that some of our reluctant or shy students have loved having the opportunity to be highlighted. Some of the students in our class were really good at interviewing people so we hired them. These students chose special people to interview and even formed their own questions. We interviewed people like Mrs. Chaney, the principal, PTA members, and teachers and they became part of our interactive newsletter. This exchange of information became a teaching/learning tool as well. Students that missed concepts or did not understand a concept would ask for videos to made for better understanding. Students led these informal tutoring sessions and parents were delighted to understand how their child was learning in school.

To engage our readers, we added an interesting piece called “Fun Facts”. Throughout the given school day students would walk around ask weird things like “How many teeth does a rhino have?” so we researched them and posted them on our newsletter. Our students here at Nance are extremely good writers so we have a section to showcase student work like essays and poems. A LOT OF POEMS! Again, student work became the highlight of our newsletter. We wanted to give all students a voice in our newsletter.

Our teacher nominated us to present our newsletters at TechnoExpo 2016. We had a blast preparing our presentation and as luck would have it, one of our editors came down with Pneumonia. McKenzi and Lexi brainstormed ways that Redd could still participate even though he had become very ill. We called our campus IT Coach and she suggested why not use the web conferencing tool called Zoom? With her help we ZOOMED Redd in and they presentation went as scheduled – the girls were at NHS and Redd was at home. We felt empowered and our presentation was great!


Our newsletter has sparked the interest of hundreds of followers around the world. We have been delighted in the response. Check us out! We really are fabulous!

We hope to inspire students all across the world to use technology to present and share their work to others.

This article was written by Redd, Lexi, and McKenzi in collaboration with Mrs. Egle

Click each image to view our newsletters

Technology is Making a Big Impact

Google Sheet Learning Journal with Peer Feedback

How did technology influence, impact or change _______? 6th grade students in Mrs. Wilsie's Tech Apps class at Tidwell Middle School were tasked with this question and got to fill in the blank with the topic of their choice. They soon realized that keeping up with their ideas, sources, and summaries would be a big task!

The Tech Apps class has had many opportunities to utilize their Google Drive this year. This project, however, revealed that Google Sheets could be more than a place for numbers. Mrs. Wilsie found a resource to share with students that allowed them to organize their research and thoughts in different columns and tabs. After a few days of research, students shared their sheet with a small group to gather feedback on their progress. They then used the feedback to go back and fill in gaps.

Aryi wants to be a dermatologist, so she chose to research how technology has influenced the medical world. She's especially enjoying using Google Sheets for the learning journal. "The learning journal was very helpful. When I use technology for projects, it’s usually not very organized, so I go back to using paper. The learning journal showed me how to organize my information." She added, "I got to write out what I had learned in the different columns which was good because it kept me from just pasting a bunch of research in one place." Another student, Brody, points out, "I like using this because it’s an easy way to track your data. The sheet keeps up with the dates for us, so that we can go back and find them. I also like that I can have group members comment on my research." 

Students using a variety of tools from the
Tools That Make IT Click Blog to
create their final presentation

Another neat aspect of this project, is the amount of choice involved. Now that the research is complete, students are grouped based on their research topic. They will be putting together a presentation for the class on their research. Students are using the Tools That Make IT Click Database to get ideas. Brody comments, "We went through the tools and saw Emaze. I have used it once before and we chose it because we think that we can embed our different projects within the slides." 

Tatum is doing her research on Quantum Physics and is presenting her information in a Google Site. She wants to take something big and outside of the box and make it easier for others to understand. Another student LiLi is creating a PowToon video for her presentation. "I’ve never used it before, but it looks like a cartoon and I think my class would enjoy watching this." 

Students will be presenting their research presentations to the class this week. According to their research, technology has influenced many different areas of life, but it has also made a BIG impact on these Tech Apps students who get to try new tools and learn new skills daily!

EXTRA! EXTRA! Read All About IT Online!

The Byron Nelson High School newspaper The Paw Print has taken off this year and found themselves in the clouds, or rather, THE cloud. By utilizing Google Docs and Google Drive this year in the classroom they have streamlined their writing and editing process and allowed for better management of their newspaper. Their teacher, Tammy Litchfield, has pushed the students to adjust to using this digital method of data sharing and editing. "The best thing is the immediacy of it," says Tammy. "Editing is instant, feedback is instant, and everything is expedited. We can get things done quickly and in real time."

Oliver, one of the newspaper's co-editors in chief, breaks down the process the students use when creating a new article. "First, the author types his story into a Google Doc which is shared with the editors and teacher. The copy editor then suggests grammatical and formatting corrections in the doc by making comments or highlighting errors. The author is notified by the document that it has been edited, so they fix any errors after discussing them with the copy editor. Then they notify the editor in chief that it is ready for review.  The editor adds content comments and addition edits and collaborates with the author to finalize the article. Once this process is complete the doc is then accessed by the design editor who places the finished article into its proper place using Adobe InDesign." The teacher can go in at any point during this process and interact in the same way, using Google Drive's comment system to leave suggestions and notify contributors.  As Oliver said, "It's way better than using email, the comments in docs are amazing and have really streamlined our process.  We can edit and work in real time. It's really a step forward to go fully online and better facilitate the process."

Not only has Google Drive revolutionized the newspaper's creation process, but it is also helping to facilitate their plans for having a fully online print version of the newspaper next year. Sarah, the section editor, just finished designing and creating the new Paw Print website that will host the online version of the paper next year. "The online version will be checked more than print and give us the opportunity to stay on top of the news," said Sarah.  Thomas, the Social Media Director, says that the online version "will sync with our Twitter account, @thePawPrintBNHS, so we can tweet out new stories as they are added."

The newspaper team here at Byron Nelson High School envisions a more interactive and modern type of paper, one that will be highly visible to students, teachers, and parents alike.  They have made some huge leaps forward in taking the paper to the next level digitally, and those improvements will continue into next year. With the Paw Print now in the cloud, the sky's the limit on how far they can go.

ELA Podcasting

Students in Mrs. Bush’s 8th Language Arts at Chisholm Trail MS class have recently discovered the wonderful world of podcasting. Before actually creating their own podcasts, students learned a lot about the process that leads up to being ready to record: research, script writing, editing, recording, publishing. Part of the process included finding and listening to podcasts for inspiration.

For this project, Mrs. Bush had students individually brainstorm a list of hobbies and interests they would feel confident talking about. Students then shared and discussed the topics on their cards with their peers and were able to partner up as they found commonalities among interest and hobbies. These partners became teams that would collaborate on the podcast. They created a title for their podcast and began scripting their first episode. Partners worked with Google Docs to collaboratively write their podcasting scripts. Their scripts were shared with Mrs. Bush for feedback along the way. When it was time to record, students used Audacity and shared their recordings on a Google Site.

Canaan and Asia partnered up due to their passion for debate. It was decided their podcasts would center around various topics of their choosing that the two would choose a side and debate it out. Their first episode was a debate over which era of music was better, the 80’s or 90’s. Canaan had never heard of podcasts before this project. “I enjoyed having the voice in my writing actually be heard. Pen and paper writing can cause your voice to be lost and the reader to not truly understand that you are saying.” Both students agreed that their communication and writing skills were strengthened through this project. 

These students also had the opportunity to present their podcast at this year’s Techno Expo. Asia said, “It was so much fun presenting our work and such a different experience. Having an audience made us feel like people really cared about the work we were doing”. Receiving feedback from their audience at Expo provided them with possible topic ideas for future podcasts, as well as suggestions for ways to improve their next episode. 

Mrs. Bush hopes to continue using podcasts throughout the year. She would like to see her students eventually begin creating podcasts in response to books they have chosen to read for the campus 25 book challenge. Because of this project, both Canaan and Asia have expressed an interest in joining their future high school debate teams. Stay tuned!

An Experience Worth Every Penny

A tool for the presentation, a tool for feedback, and a tool
for presenting information. 

Freshman in Mrs. Hayes Principals of Business Management and Finance class at Steele High School recently had a great experience not only researching currency exchange, but presenting ideas, and receiving/giving specific feedback. Students were told whether they would be researching a first, second, or third world country and then got to chose which country's currency they would explore. Each student used Thinglink to display research and Doceri as they presented their information to the class. The class then gave feedback to each member that presented using Verso.

Fine Tuning Presentation Skills
with Doceri

Punn and Emily got a lot out of this project and shared a bit of their experience. When asked what they enjoyed about the project, Punn states, "Using Doceri was very helpful. I enjoyed being able to go in to edit mode, circle words, and emphasize key points for the audience without having to use a laser pointer." Emily enjoyed using Doceri as well and actually grew as a presenter as she used it for the first time. "I learned how to get over rocky situations with Doceri. This was one of our first times to use it. I learned to keep smiling and presenting if there were bumps in the road." To be more specific, she added, "the free version of ThingLink did not let me present full screen, so it was a little difficult. If I had the option, I'd practice with Doceri ahead of time. I think that all students should use Doceri because it helps the speaker maintain eye contact with the audience. If the speaker looks at the visual rather than the audience, the presentation seems detached. Despite the challenges that I faced, I loved being able to look at my audience rather than the screen."

Perhaps the most powerful aspect of this project was that students got immediate feedback from their peers. Punn comments, "Verso was nice because you got anonymity from your peers, so you could be honest and give true constructive criticism. At the same time, you got instant digital feedback." As seen in the image to the right, Verso allows the students to be anonymous when responding to each other, while the teacher can see student names.

Punn also expanded more on the research itself. He points out, "We used several sources while finding our research. The CIA world fact book was helpful for determining our world’s economic status, and a simple Google search gave us most of the information that we needed otherwise." Researching currency exchange was only a part of what students learned from this experience. It was a mix of organizing and communicating research, presenting ideas to an audience, and both receiving and giving feedback that made this experience worth the time invested!

Emily's Thinglink: 

Punn's Thinglink:

Science and Technology- Engineering the Force

So, how does a middle school teacher motivate students to continue learning with enthusiasm and encourage the motivation to take their learning deeper? Mr. Jason Deardorff, 6^th Grade Science teacher, challenged his students with just a few simple questions to get their creative juices flowing about the topics of mechanical energy and force.   

What is the relationship between potential energy and kinetic energy?

Based on what you know; how would you explain the change in motion when potential energy is changed into kinetic energy?

How could you determine the push or pull on an object?

Based on what you know, how would you explain the differences between balanced, unbalanced, and net forces?

Choice was all over this project and every part was student driven once the student received the rubrics from the teacher.  Four students at Wilson Middle School wanted to prove to their teacher their knowledge of energy in a creative way.  With  a bit of imagination, planning, and some technology tools Mr. Deardorff was not disappointed.  The tools of choice were: PowerPoint, Movie Maker, Smore, a Drone, and a video camera.  The students uploaded their projects onto their ePortfolio for presenting in front of the class and to showcase at TechnoExpo 2016. 

                                          

Surfing The Great Wave

Fourth grade students in Mrs. Rhoads Art classroom, at Haslet Elementary, have added a digital component to their most recent artwork. As an introduction to this project, discussions were had about various career opportunities in the “tech art” field. Students were familiar with the process of combining art with the digital world. They were able to make connections to this type of art by referencing popular movies, like Harry Potter, as examples.

Their project began with a study on the Japanese artist, Katsushika Hokusai. He is most famous for his print “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa”, part of the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. Students were inspired to create their own version of the print using watercolors. Students worked on drawing and painting skills as they layered colors to create depth in their piece. Students discussed the way movement is suggested by the repetition of curved lines.

Then it was time to turn their artwork digital by adding not just the suggestion of movement but actual movement as they surfed their wave. Using the Green Screen app by DoInk, students worked in groups to insert themselves into their own “great wave”. This process involved taking a still shot of the painting and importing it into the Green Screen app. With their background set, the artists brushed up on their surfing skills and pretended they were surfing on the wave they painted.

Emily said, “It was fun to draw my own waves and it took a lot of time. When Mrs. Rhoads told us we were going to use the green screen I couldn't wait”. Riley added, “Adding the technology made me like art more and made it more interesting. I liked seeing myself in the picture I drew”. Emily and Riley, two of the fourth graders who will be presenting this project at Techno Expo 2016, were excited to talk about this project and are looking forward to showcasing their talents.

World of Research

Second grade students at Beck elementary recently explored the world! This cross curricular unit allowed students to learn about other cultures, as well as expository writing and communicating their ideas. Mrs. Moses and Mrs. Jeffcoat opened student's eyes to global communication by contacting families around the world and having them post videos about their Christmas traditions on a padlet wall. The project consisted of four parts: Learning about other cultures, writing an expository essay over research, creating a poster of facts to present to the class, and making a video using Shadow puppets to highlighted a chosen country. 

When asked what they learned about other cultures, Morgan commented, "I learned that in Italy they

eat eel for Christmas and they call cake figgy pudding, it looks really good!" Colbie and Reed added, "I wish that we opened Christmas crackers like they do in England."  

One of Mrs. Moses' students (Ben) lived in Italy for three years. Ben and his family made a video about Italian Christmas traditions and put it in the padlet wall to share with the class. They used Shadow Puppets for this video. Ben comments, "I choose Shadow Puppets because my sister used Shadow Puppets for a 5th grade report and I liked it."

While this project was fun, it was also challenging at times. "The hardest part was presenting the information and working with our table," said Sam. "We had to try to spell everything correct and everyone wanted to draw at one time without talking about their idea first," expressed Reed. They added, "We did rock paper scissors to decide who got to write first." Colbie and Morgan pointed out, "It was kind of hard working in a team. We were both managers for our team, so we had to give everyone something important to do." The essay was also challenging. Reed commented, "The first draft was challenging because we had to have a hook and write about all of the things that we learned."

All of the students enjoyed using Shadow Puppets to make their video. "I like picking out the photos for the shadow puppet video and working with the special effects," said Sam. "We used smiley faces, snowflakes, stars, and other emojis to make the video more fun for others."

Morgan and Colbie summed it up well, "We loved this project because we got to learn facts about what other cultures do." They both agreed that next year's class should do this project. "I think they’ll have fun," said Morgan. "They will have to learn to be friends with others. I think every class should do it."

Come check these projects out at Techno Expo 2016. You can also view these student's videos in the padlet, or by clicking on the links below:

Created with Padlet

Morgan's Video Exploring Italy

Colbie's Video Exploring England

Sam's Video - Exploring Mexico

Reed's Video - Exploring 

Ben's famliy video about Italian traditions