CMS: All My Faves

At the CMS ITL meeting this week, chaired by Deb Perry, technology teacher and David Rosvally, Science Teacher, All My Faves was demonstrated during the Tech Tip portion of the meeting.

This site is a great tool for teachers. It provides the top ten sites in 8 categories (see 8 tabs on top: Home, Education, Entertainment, Games, Kids, Shopping, Travel, and Weekly Faves - Image below is from the Education tab.)

(Click on image to display larger view)

Inside each tab there are numerous categories with the "best" 8-10 sites listed with the companies icon. The rating of best is based on use.

Visitors from Irvington, NY

L to R: Christina Rosenblatt, LMS K – 3; Greer Fischer, Assistant Superintendent;
Jackie Richardson, LMS 4-5; Joann Malloy, LMS 6 – 12;
missing from photo - Jesse Lubinsky, Technology Coordinator

Today five visitors from the Irvington, NY public schools (pictured and named above) visited four of our schools to observe the ITL program. They specifically wanted to see instances where technology was integrated into the library media program and/or examples of collaboration between a library media specialist, a technology teacher and a classroom teacher.

OUR DAY:

8:30 AM -- We all met at Long Lots School. Barbara Eilertsen, LMS, and Michael Brownstein, technology teacher, worked with 12 5th graders who produced the daily school news program in their TV Studio. Spanish teachers explained the history of Cinco de Mayo, students read poetry, happy birthdays were given, and summer programs were advertised. Brian Fagan, assistant superintendent, welcomed the group and time was spent discussing our ITL scope and sequence and curriculum, our ITL committee structure in our schools and the process of TV production at LLS.

9:20 AM -- The 5 visitors and I, in role as the EARTH MIGRATION BIOME DECISION-MAKING PANEL from the planet SHTAM (named with the first letters of each of the 4th grade teachers involved: Sullivan, Harper, Taft, Ackerman, Malbin) observed four presentations from Phaedra Taft's 4th grade. Michael Brownstein and Barbara Eilertsen had collaborated and worked with Phaedra Taft and her class on a study of biomes. This activity had been planned as a "Big Think" -- a final activity designed to promote higher level thinking. Each presentation focused on which biome should be colonized by the people needing to leave the overcrowded planet of SHTAM, and the Smartboard with Notebook software was used in the presentation. Two groups chose the Andes mountains, and two groups chose the rain forest. The "SHTAMIAN PANEL" questioned each group and could not decide between the mountains and the rain forest. Students were asked if they could add new facts to persuade the panel to change their decision. (Some new content was provided in a very emotionally charged final plea to colonize either mountain or rain forest regions.) Ultimately the panel decided to give the SHTAMIANS a choice to settle in both regions, with the thought that trade between the two regions would be beneficial. The students suggested that mountains and rain forest exist next to each other in Bolivia. Watch out Boliva -- The SHTAMIANS are coming!

10:50 AM -- Bedford Middle School for a very quick visit. In the library media center we spoke with Rita Hennessey, LMS, about the 7th grade Science research project that was in progress in the media center - Techford Area. We moved to the technology lab where Kathy Fleming, technology teacher, was working with a group of 7th graders on video editing.

11:30 AM -- Staples High School. Julia Roberts and Robin Stiles, library media specialists, prepared several handouts and a DVD for our guests. While we enjoyed lunch, Robin and Julia talked about a new assessment program for ITL skills (TRAILS) that they are piloting with some 9th grade classes this year, which will hopefully be given to all 9th graders next year. They talked about some of the features of their library media program. Natalie Carrignan, director of instructional technology, gave an overview of some district ITL accomplishments and described some works in progress (such as the implementation of an Internet Safety Curriculum in the 2009-10 school year).

1:00 PM -- Coleytown Middle School. John Horrigan, library media specialist, provided an overview of a 6th grade French class working with French teacher, Sharon Gardner, on a study of Quebec. Students used a rubric to prepare a topic, conduct research and present results in a Photostory. [For information related to the class: http://cms.westport.k12.ct.us/cmslmc/foreignlanguages/Quebec.htm]

At 1:25, after visiting the TV Studio we went to a computer lab where Deb Perry, technology teacher and TV coordinator, worked with 8th grade students to setup an electronic portfolio in Blackboard using the content of their recent research projects on green technology topics. John Horrigan worked with the students on this project as well.

2:00 PM -- Irvington Public School visitors returned to New York. It was great to share information and technology literacy stories and activities with each other.

CMS: Music Movies

Amy Laurino, Music teacher at CMS, recently challenged students to create an iMovie on the Eras of Jazz. Students were required to begin with at least two images dealing with American Roots Music and Blues Music. They then had to cover each of these Eras and present information on each composer and style listed:

1. Early Jazz Era (1850-1910)
Jelly Roll Morton and Scott Joplin

2. Hot Jazz Era (1910-1944)
Boogie Woogie, Swing, and Progressive Swing Music.
Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, King Oliver

3. Cool Jazz Era (1944-1970)
Bebop / Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk
Cool Jazz / Miles Davis
Also Afro-Latin Jazz / Dizzy Gillespie
Hard Bop / Art Blakey
World Fusion / Keith Jarrett
Free Jazz / John Coltrane

4. Modern Jazz Rock Era (1970-2009)
Jazz Rock Fusion / Pat Metheny OR Chick Corea
Neo-bop / Wynton Marsalis OR Wayne Shorter

5. Add a conclusion, where do you think Jazz is headed?

Here is one sample of a final product (it is 29 minutes):

CMS: 6th Grade Research Project - Social Studies and ITL

6th grade social studies teachers, Glenn O'Neill and Lucille Hyland recently worked with John Horrigan, LMS, to plan and implement a research project on a disaster. After determining that there were plentiful resources, studens followed their interests around a spcific natural or man-made disaster, such as: the San Francisco earthquake, Pearl Harbor, the Irish potato famine, Hurricane Katrina, the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, the Titanic, or the Love Canal disaster.

Students used the online project guidelines and resources on the LMC page, which included the following:

• Questions to consider
• Disaster project note sheets
  
• A project rubric
• Instructions
• Photostory Tips
• Scanned pictures and music in the R -Drive
• Resources to develop background knowledge
• Specialized resources to develop more knowledge (books, magazines, Internet)
  
• Suggestions for interviewing, viewing videos
  
• Use of Noodletools to cite sources
  

This year was the first year for this Social Studies/ITL project and it was so successful that it will be done earlier in the year next year providing students with the opportunity to become oriented to their new library media center and to both apply and learn new information and technology literacy skills within a social studies context.

Here is one sample by Emily which focuses on the Irish potato famine:

CMS: French Class in the LMC

John Horrigan, LMS and Sharon Gardner, French teacher, co-taught an 8th grade French class at CMS. During 6 sessions, students researched a province in France utilizing a variety of print and online resources following a project description and rubric. They synthesized the information to create a coherent, interesting and informative story, harvested images to support their narration, created a digital story in Photostory and created a written handout to explain the final presentation. All students used Noodletools to create Works Cited Pages, citing all sources used in the creation of the final projects.

The following is one student's final Photostory project:

CMS: What's up with Google Docs?

Deb Perry, technology teacher at CMS, recently completed a lesson with all 8th grade students on assessing various Internet search engines. She used Google Docs for this lesson, since it offered the relative advantage of allowing all students the ability to collaborate synchronously on one document. Everyone saw each groups responses in real time.

All students first reviewed this custom video created by Common Craft called Google Docs in Plain English. (This video is available on YouTube, but is embedded below from TeacherTube, which is not filtered in the elementary.)

The students were asked to remember the search engines and search directories that had been used the week before to look up information on "green" jobs. (They focused on Librarians Internet Index, Clusty, Ask, Surfwax, Quintura, and Scirus.) You can see the categories the students researched for each search engine in the image below.
The students used a rubric which was available in Blackboard. Working in groups, students discussed the values and particular qualities of their search engine and made notes in a Word document. The link for the empty Google Document was available in Blackboard, and the students contributed their findings to the Google Spreadsheet.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FINAL DOCUMENT.

CMS: Harvard Expert "visits" CMS

Recently Meg Berkowitz, English teacher at CMS, used Skype to connect her students to an expert in Renaissance Literature at Harvard University. Here is her story about the experience...

After a few years of doing the same research project on Elizabethan England where kids were put into groups and asked to research one aspect of Elizabethan culture and present it back to the class (via PowerPoint, no less!), I decided that the project needed to be "spiced up" a bit. Last year I made a few changes to it by turning it into a webquest, however I still felt that the kids needed more of an opportunity to make their own inquiries based on the questions that they had about this topic.

As a result, I enlisted the help of Christine Barrett, a doctoral candidate at Harvard University who specializes in Renaissance Literature. Ms. Barrett agreed to be "interviewed" by students over Skype which allowed them to ask the questions that they most wanted answered. Prior to the interview, I asked each of my classes to compile a list of the questions that they thought were most imperative to ask. They were also allowed to ask additional follow up questions on the day of Ms. Barrett's presentation.

After the presentation, students completed a newspaper project where they created stories based on the information they learned during the presentation, combined with any supplemental research they did on the era. The students really seemed to enjoy the presentation and liked having the opportunity to talk to an expert in the field.

REFLECTIONS ON THE USE OF SKYPE

I found that Skype was really easy to use and very user friendly. I loved that I didn't have to shuffle all 100 students down to the auditorium for a guest speaker; by using Skype I was able to seamlessly transition in between my lesson and Christine's presentation. Also, it was much more of a casual conversation than that of a formal presentation which seemed to be more engaging to the students, considering that they were driving the "conversation" with the questions that they had compiled.

What I found the most interesting, though was the comfort level that the students had using this technology. Even something as minute as proving wait time in between when they said hello and when they asked their question proved that this form of communication is not nearly as foreign as it is to us. Put it this way... I had every technological mishap possibility running through my head for days prior to this. On the actual day, we got cut off for a brief moment and I had to call Christine back. I was sweating bullets; not one of them batted an eye. Why? Because it happens to them all the time.