5th & 6th grade students,
Daisy and J.W. figured out that our final video assignments are too big to email. We will work in January to find a good solution for this problem, but because today is the last day before break, here are a couple of suggestions that might work just for today. There is a low quality video below that explains all the steps and shows an example.
Hello 5th grade and welcome to the end of term for tech class. The following projects ideas were designed by YOU to demonstrate what you have learned this term.
If you submitted a project idea, then choose an option below that is NOT the app you created a project for and send the completed assignment to Jac via email.
If you did not submit a project idea, please choose 2 projects below that demonstrate your understanding of 2 different apps for the iPad. Send completed assignments to Jac via email.
Create a Screenchomp video that explains an App that you would like to create for the iPad.
Requirements:
Create a Keynote presentation that explains either: what you will do over Winter Break or your experience at Westside over the last 3 months.
Requirements:
Create a 3-5 minute video about your life, either at school or at home.
Requirements:
Next Vista for Learning is hosting another video contest for students! Get your creative masterpiece published on a website and viewed by people around the world.
The deadline for entry is January 10th, 2012 and you will need a teacher-sponsor to help you submit an entry.
For more information, visit the contest homepage.
This term students have used Keynote in a variety of settings as a visual aid for presentations to parent communities, other grade levels and each other. As a tool, Keynote allows us to organize our thoughts into a logical sequence and then reference images, video and charts.
As students get more comfortable with the purpose of presentation tools, teachers will be adding requirements to projects: source citations, lists and bullet points, formatting, visual design and more. That said, initial 5th grade projects demonstrate a strong technical understanding of the app’s feature set:
A history of the Olymic Coast, by Christopher (5th grade)
Animals of the World, by Lincoln (5th grade)
5th grade student Emma recently decided to play with Keynote to tell a story. The language in her video is a reference to ICanHasCheezburger, a multi-million dollar Seattle-based website famous for making people laugh.
Enjoy!
What is Novelist?
Novelist is a fantastic resource that is all about reading and all about books! It is a HUGE database of fiction books for children, teens, AND adults. In addition to information about specific books, it also offers:
This resource is available through both the King County Library system and the Seattle Public Library system, though SPL’s version deserves a PLUS because it includes non-fiction books as well!
How can I access Novelist?
Novelist is one of the many databases to which the Seattle Public Library (SPL) and King County Public Library (KCLS) subscribes. You can access Novelist with a valid SPL or KCLS library card and PIN number. Here’s how:
Seattle Public Library:
King County Public Library
How do I use Novelist?
Novelist is very easy to use. Simply enter a title, an author, a subject, a book description (yes, you heard me correctly! Novelist will search for books based only on a DESCRIPTION such as ‘mystery in New York’ or ‘adventure with trolls’.), and series title in the search field and Novelist will track down titles for you. You can then limit those results by age group, genre, writing style, location, award-winning titles, fiction or non-fiction (in the case of Novelist Plus via SPL), and more!
What can I do with Novelist?
I have crafted this Newsletter in an effort to spread the word about the extremely handy AND free databases available through our local public libraries. I believe that the databases featured in this Newsletter are fantastic tools that can be used in the classroom, in the library, at home, and beyond!
….stay tuned for more issues of D’BOM, otherwise known as Database of the Month, brought to you by your School Media Specialist!
“A blog (a blend of the term web log) is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.” (Wikipedia.org, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog)
As a blog reader, an educator can learn of individual classroom experiences and experiments around the world. We can borrow, modify, and build on lessons from around the world.
As a blog writer, an educator can share philosophical insights, classroom successes and failures. By publishing to the world, we invite constructive criticism and spark conversations with other professionals.
Most educators don’t have time to visit 10 different websites a day to see if anything new has happened. Instead, people rely on aggregators – an application or service that automatically checks as many blogs as we want every day and then delivers the new content to a single place for quick scanning/viewing. You already have a subscription to a powerful aggregator with your Westside Google Apps account. The tool is called “Google Reader” and here is a 3 minute introduction to how it works:
If you’d like some blog suggestions to get started, please consider:
And if you’d like to scan a list of 54 top-quality classroom blogs from around the world, take a look at the EduBlogAwards 2011 nominees for “Best Class Blog.”
Between phones, television and computers, students can spend a lot of time in front of a screen. Technology can be so much more than screen-time though!
Elementary students got kinesthetic in art class with CAT5 wiring and learned how to wrap, twist, connect, and bend wire to create sculpture.
Learning about what goes on inside computers and wiring is a step towards demystifying the processes that electronics use to enhance our lives.
Hi students,
Hard to believe it is already December! Next week you will be spending class time putting together many of the things we’ve learned this year. The test will include some questions that YOU provide and a choice of a few projects, also designed by you.
Your homework assignment is to fill out the form 2 times: once with a project idea and once with a question & answer idea. This is due on Friday night, 12/9.
Please watch the video below that explains how to use the TEST IDEA FORM (below the video) that the 5th grade helped to develop. You’ll use the form to submit your ideas for what should be on the test.