Seminar Hero Story Presentations

On February 7, Seminar students shared their Hero Story presentations.  Here's a review of their awesome work!

• LK made a wonderful hero story based on his own experiences. 
• JH created an Adventure Map including many tricky, fun elements.  
• EK & GM told us the riveting story of Peyton's Revenge. The film was well written and very entertaining.
• FT created two video game levels. His lighthouse, complete with light, door, and the beginning of a winding staircase, was great! 
• DJ wrote a moving story featuring an inspirational Olympic swimmer.  
• GW created a Minecraft inspired animated short. 
• CW shared a story featuring a heroic bird and villainous zombie.
• FJ penned a very funny script for a humorous adventure movie featuring all his friends, and told us a bit about how to make a movie.

Tools used included:  MS Power Point, Minecraft (creative mode), iMovie, Source SDK by Valve, Scratch, and MS Word.  Students also reviewed skills including: online searches, proper use of flash-drives, sharing files and information via online communications tools (email, messaging), and saving pictures from devices to computers.

Technology Update: Lower Elementary

Lower Elementary students have almost completed their lessons on computer and online safety. We've spent about 5 weeks on the unit so far, and have one week left.  

We learned:

• It's important to know who we can trust (online and offline). 
• Always keep your personal information safe (like name, address, phone number, school name, and picture). It should only be shared with people you can trust. 
• It is best to use a nickname, or username, for online games and activities, and that nicknames shouldn't reveal anything personal.  Students came up with some great nickname ideas, like Pink Princess, Mikey (Mike is not in the student's name), Sit Dog, Banana, and Spiderman.  
• We heard some new computer vocabulary, including: privacy policy, terms and conditions, register, virus (including various sub-categories of viruses and other computer related problems, such as worms, malware, trojans, keyloggers and phishing), antivirus, password, and login. 
• If someone offers you something that sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Always ask an adult you trust! 
• A pop up is a window that opens on our screen that we didn't want or ask for.  Sometimes they can cause computer problems if you click them!  Students learned they can make them go away by clicking the red X, or call a trusted adult for help. 
• We should seek help right away if we think we see or click something dangerous online.  

Next week we will have our last online safety lesson.  We will be discussing cyber-bullying, and how we can make the Internet a nicer place to learn and play.

Technology Notes: Lower Elementary

We're continuing to learn about being safe online. We discussed who we can trust and who we cannot, in Hector's World and in our world! We heard the new vocabulary terms "Terms and Conditions" and "Privacy Policy". We colored a new book for Beth's class library.

Technology Update: Middle Elementary

Students in Keri's, Tulie's, and Andrea's class are going to be doing literacy activities in the lab for the next few weeks. We will use the Raz-Kids website, Tag Readers, and iPad kids-book apps. We will read books and play games related to subjects covered in our other classes (bodies, maps, outer space, and more!).

Welcome back!

Happy New Year!

Students in Seminar and Katrina's class continue to work on their hero story presentations. Students are using various devices, apps, and programs to make a presentation they will share the first week of February.

Technology Update: Middle School

Students in Middle School classes are doing some fun, multi-tool projects in Technology classes. We are focusing on finding exciting ways to share information and being able to use multiple tools on the computer or the iPad to accomplish our goals.

In Seminar and Katrina's Class, students are creating multimedia presentations of their own original hero stories.  Students are using programs of their choice, including Keynote, iMovie, Power Point, Story Creator and others to create these presentations.  Students are including photos, pictures they've drawn or edited themselves, music and sound effects, or videos in their presentations.  All students will present before February 7.

In Emilie's and Linda's classes, students are creating short (3-5 minute) films.  Their films must be related to something they've done in school - perhaps a public safety announcement about the playground, a short computer adventure, a film about mummification, a retelling of a Greek myth...so many choices!  Students are working in small teams and will create their film using iMovie and the iPads.  Individual students may also create short "trailers" or commercials.  I hope to have a "film festival" before spring break; students can share their films on the big screen in the lab!


We're doing very exciting projects in the computer lab!

Fun with iPads

Today the Surfing Penguins are doing fun reading and writing activities with the Super Why iPad app.