Posted in Food for Thought, Salem City Schools

The New Literacy

Posted on by Tina Coffey

I can’t pass up the chance to mention the importance of preparing our students to be successful in the 21st Century. Here’s another great article I highly recommend:

The New Literacy by Sara Armstrong and David Warlick

Recently, Edgar Murphy of the North Carolina State Board of Education delivered a presentation to a group of technology-using educators in the Raleigh area. He stated that of all the positions he has held in his life, he was technically qualified for only the first one. In the case of those that followed, he convinced prospective employers that he could teach himself all he needed to know while on the job.

Some months back, Michael Cox, a chief economist for the Federal Reserve Bank, predicted to a group of students that they would have at least five jobs after they graduate, four of which haven’t been invented yet.

A fundamental question for everyone involved in education — administrators, teachers, parents, and students — in this time of rapid change is, “What do students really need to be learning today in order to be ready for an unpredictable future?” If Mr. Murphy’s experience is a model for our children’s future, then the best thing we can teach them is how to teach themselves. This requires that students become not only literate, but also able to use that literacy within their personal information environment in order to succeed now and in the future.

Read on…

Posted in Links, Salem City Schools, Tech Tools

Web Search Safety (What Our Internet Filters Might Not Catch)

Posted on by Tina Coffey

Did you know that it is possible for students to run across objectionable material on the internet, even when they are at school? Well, unfortunately, that is very true, even though we maintain an internet filter. The problem is that filters are not foolproof! Sometimes, things “slip through the cracks.” Nothing can replace good student supervision on the computer. If you are using the internet with your students, supervision should be your biggest priority. You never know what might happen.

Second, I highly recommend that you use kid friendly search engines with students in elementary school, rather than Google. Yes, I use Google all the time, you use it all the time, but while supervising young students, it probably isn’t the best search engine to use. While most of the time there are no problems, sometimes our filter does not catch what types of website and articles are returned in a search. Most of the time it does a great job, but you never know.

If you decide to use Google Search with your students, you need to teach them how to turn on the safe searching feature on Google. Unfortunately, you will have to do this every time you start a search…it will not save your settings. In order to turn it on, click on advanced search. If you scroll down a bit, you’ll see where you can choose to filter a search using safe search. But even Google states that, while its filter will eliminate most objectionable material, it is not 100% accurate all the time.

With Google, you also have the option to search images, but once again, our filters do not catch everything here. Our filter uses text to filter sites…it can’t “see” images. So if an objectionable image has an ordinary or deceptive name, our filter may not catch it. If you want your students to have access to pictures (not available as clip art) during a project, you might want to save some to the K drive ahead of time for them to use.

Let me offer you three rules of thumb to use when doing research with elementary students:

1. Use search/ information sites specifically designed for kids. Try using…

For Use While at School:

Grolier Online Kids

Kids Infobits

Biography Resource Center

Infotrac

For Use At School and At Home:

Yahoo Kids!

National Geographic for Kids

Time for Kids

Picture Dictionary from Enchanted Learning

Ask Jeeves for Kids

Fact Monster

Kids Click

For your convenience, I’ve posted links to all these sites on your schools’ website.  To get there,

  1. Open Internet Explorer.
  2. Click on Students > Links for Kids.
  3. On that very first page, click on News, Weather, and Internet Research.

At East, Russ has also placed icons to Grolier, Infobits, Infotrac, Biography Resouce Center, and SIRS Discovery on the web on the desktop of the computers in the lab.   Also, your librarians are experts on finding information and can be an invaluable resource when you are deciding which sites to use.

2. Ahead of time, find two or three sites that contain the information you want your students to research, and have them visit those sites only. You can make a webpage to post the links, use schoolnotes, or use a bookmarking utility like del.icio.us to make it easier for your students. I can help you with any of these options.

3. Finally, supervise your students at all times, especially when they are on the internet. Make sure you are walking around the room and looking at what they are doing. Our labs are set up so that you can see all the screens if you stand in the back of the lab.  If something objectionable does occur, don’t panic. Quickly close the window on the student’s computer, but not in a way that would scare the child. If you need to, discuss the situation with the student. It would also be a good idea to jot down the date, time, and incident…just in case you are asked about it at a later date. Depending on the circumstance, you might also want to let the principal know what occurred, just so she is aware.

If you are interested in more information on internet safety, check out the State of Virginia’s Internet Safety Guidelines.

As always, if you need help, feel free to contact me. I’ll be happy to assist you!

Posted in Links, Tech Tools, Web 2.0

ReadWriteThink

Posted on by Tina Coffey

Okay, another great website I want to share. It’s called ReadWriteThink, and is a partnership between the International Reading Association (IRA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the Verizon Foundation. It has all sorts of great FREE resources, but my favorite is the section called student materials. It contains all sorts of reading and writing activities you can have your students do online, including Acrostic Poems, Bio Cubes, Character Trading Cards, Shape Poems, Timelines, Word Build and Bank, and much, much more! Check it out!! The one drawback to this site is that your students will have to complete and print their activities in one sitting…there is no option to save the activities for later use. For most activities, though, this shouldn’t be a problem if you plan ahead!

Posted in Links, Tech Tools, Web 2.0

Photo Editing

Posted on by Tina Coffey

Do you take a lot of digital pictures? Here’s a site that will help you edit them — www.picnik.com. You can upload your photos to this site, edit them, and then print, save, or even email them.

*Note: While it’s running in beta (a trial version) all the features on the site are free. Later, it will still allow you to use basic editing tools, but you will need to have a paid subscription. *

Posted in Projects, Salem City Schools

Spotlight on Student Work

Posted on by Tina Coffey

Have you noticed some of the creative ways teachers have been using technology in their classrooms with their students? I have! Here are some really neat projects that you might want to check out too:

First Graders in Mrs. Dick’s Class at East Salem responded to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech with their own dreams. You can listen to their dreams at The Patriots’ Podcast. You will be amazed at how well these students did reading their dreams–they sound like professionals! You can also email them one of your dreams at patriotspodcast@gmail.com . I’m sure they would love to hear from you!

Fifth Graders in Mrs. Prettyman’s Language Arts class created and published two school newspapers! They included text, graphics, digital pictures, charts, graphs, and even their own puzzles and drawings! The amazing part to me, though, is that this project was totally student driven! As they put the paper together, I heard comments like, “But I’m not done yet, I need to do more research!” and “I’ll work on that at home tonight!” Talk about motivation!! To see the on-line version, check it out here. Way to go 5th graders for all your hard work, and way to go Miss Prettyman for really inspiring your students to learn!!

Mrs. Heltzel’s Fifth graders at G.W. Carver created a PowerPoint book review on the story, Morning Girl. Students used Max Show to create their slides which Mrs. Heltzel later combined into one big show using PowerPoint! After seeing all that hard work on the students’ part, it sure makes me want to go read the book!!

Miss Hall’s Fourth grade class at G.W. Carver wrote two podcasts based on the book, “Pochantas and the Stranger.” You can listen to their creative podcasts at The CarverCast . My favorite part about this project was how students stretched their writing skills by adding humor, stories, poetry, and jingles! Their use of “voice” was also exceptional, and they were really able to get in character and write from someone else’s point of view. Great job 4th grade!

All the students are very proud of their work, so be sure to give them a pat on the back when you get a chance! Many more projects are in the planning stages at both schools, so keep a lookout for more!