Successes and Sticking Points

IMYM Day 3

Successes

Andrea: Heroes

Students chose a hero and wrote a story – after editing the story was posted to www.myhero.com - if the editors approved the story it was posted. Students knew that their stories were available to people all over the world.

Cindy – 3’s and 4’s did fairytale stories using a microphone to record the stories. These were edited and put on PowerPoint.

Mini-projects have been shared with other schools in the “Iearn” project around the world. The most recent one was on weather and moods.

Carol – 5’s and 6’s developed poetry projects and most recently art projects which have been presented as PowerPoint presentations.

PRTA has developed a Blog on Blogger where minutes are posted.

Leanne and Linda are working to develop a Japan project with grade 4. The students will use digital photos and Photo Story 3 found at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx

Photo story 3 works with Windows XP. Open source pictures can be found at Creatine Commons found at http://creativecommons.org/

The software is free to download.

Marcia is using Inspiration as a tool for creating poetry at the Grade 6 level.

Melanie is using her new IBM computer in her classroom!!!!

Traci has internet at Rosedale. Her students are using the internet to find informaiton on bears. The filtering is very stringent.

Garth is using Power Point for Literature Circle presentations. Students are also making brochures, which they publish on the computer. Google Earth is being used more. Students are learning to make “effective” searches. NOTE: Google has a lot more to offer than just a simple search.

John explored Wiki’s. He created a Rock hound Wiki with a page for each student. Students identified what they had learned about rocks and minerals with several supporting statements. Students learned how to create links to the web on their page.

John developed content related podcasts that have been linked to the grade 4 blog. The software and posting to the net were free. The only costs were the costs of headphones, which were about $16.00. Early years teachers are using podcasts of students reading which are sampled and posted at different times during the year.

Sticking Points

Garth – Needing Windows XP for Photo story 3, keeping his Blog current with all the other demands on his time (Suggestion: get the students who are most interested in following the Blog to enter the information)

Traci and Melanie – the filtering of the information limits the material that Colony students can access.

Marcia – filtering blocks sites that the students want or need.

Linda – Pop-ups are sneaking through the filters. The problem is with the inappropriate content. Note: There is a feature on the Yahoo and Google toolbars that can alow or disallow pop-ups.

Barb – Level of frustration with technology not working.

Pat – differences between the speed of the equipment – not being able to open attachments (depends on the security setting)

Carol – reliability of the equipment

Cindy – dealing with the “glitches” but more significantly the need for more equipment in the school. A need for current licensing of the operating system. NOTE: Some workstations are not licensed for XP because existing software won’t run on XP.

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