Gateways to Technology

Mr. Redden’s Gateway to Technology students have been working on designing, building, and programming a variety of robotic devices this semester. The devices are motorized and have several types of input devices or sensors to help students to solve a number of different problems. Students use a variety of C programming language to make their robots work… there was loads of “de-bugging” involved in getting the programs right!  One of the robotic challenges was to design and program a robot to follow a black line on a pieces of paper.

Geometry Gets SMART

Mrs. Rutherford's geometry classes are learning about the medians and altidues of triangles with the help of geometer sketchpad and the Smart Slate.   Mrs. Rutherford drew the triangle in Sketchpad and then had the students use the slate to add in lines to demonstrate the concepts being learned.  The hands on time of the students helped them understand the concept better and engaged them in the lesson as they took turns drawing the lines and labeling the points.  The technology also allowed Mrs. Rutherford to move around the room and interact with the students as she taught.  Great use of the technology!

  

Making Connections in US History

Students in Mrs. Collins, Mrs. Koch, Ms. Sphar, Ms. Webster and Mr. Jasman's classes used technology to research a "Seed of Democracy" and then constructed a paper slide video to explain how that seed played into the Constitution and how we run our country today.   Paper slides were recorded with Flip cameras and then viewed by the entire class so they could learn from each other and review they Constitution.

View Student Projects

Career Cruising with Mr. Damron

Sixth Grade students have been exploring their career possibilities by completing an interest inventory survey through Career Cruising.  Mr. Damron, 6th grade counselor) has been meeting with students through their World Cultures classes to lead them through this website from logging on, to completing the survey and exploring the results.   This is the first of several activities student do with the counselors to explore future careers and how that plays into high school course planning with the counselors. 

Edmodo in English

Students in 8th Grade English classes are using Edmodo to guide their Hunger Games book study.  Teachers are able to create classes in a secure environment and the students then join the class using the code provided by the teacher.

In Ms. Mark's class students were asked to give examples of literary devices they found in the novel.  Mrs. Marks was then able to grade their assignment and give comments on their response all online through the website.  She says that "It is great!"

What if Elements had facebook accounts?

In 8th grade Science the students in Mr. Alexander, Mr. So, Mrs. Gibson, Mrs. Palermo and Ms. Parks' classes recently studied the Periodic Table.  They showed what they had learned about elements by creating Facebook like pages with the help of a  powerpoint template.  Students had to learn how their elements interacted with other elements and specific properties in order to complete the assignment. 

Here are some student samples:

ELA Classes are Creating Documentaries

Students in Ms. Maki, Ms. Russell, Mrs. Ratica, Mrs. Salazar and Mr. Cross's classes have been reading biographies and are turning those biographies into documentaries.  To do this they are using the information they have learned, their skills in writing narrative posts and  online images.    They are then using  PhotoStory to create a mini-documentary to show to the rest of the class.    They are also learning how to create bibliographies with the help of Easybib.com.





Here are some of the finished products:

Super Scratch Camp 2012

Today marked the last day of Super Scratch Technology Camp.  For the past week students gathered each morning at 7:40am to learn how to program video games using a program from MIT - Scratch.  

Students learned to add elements, control those elements and finally have a game that others can play through the Scratch website.

This camp was run by the campus ITS, Robin Young.


To play the game please visit the Gallery at: http://scratch.mit.edu/galleries/view/181246

The next technology Camp will be December  3-7.   Check the RMS website for more details in the next few weeks.

Learning What Students Know With Turning Points

Mrs. Gibson reviewed her 8th grade Science students on their knowledge of elements with a Turning Point Quiz.  This uses clickers assigned to students who read the question and do their best to answer the questions.   Mrs. Gibson then reviewed the results of each question with the students and clarified any misunderstandings or questions they had.   This was in preparation for their upcoming assignment on creating a Facebook like page for their assigned element. 

Come to Texas!

Ms. Dyer, Ms. Conrad, Mr. Cockroft and Mr. Wrinkle have been keeping their 7th grade students busy as they have been assigned to work for an empresario to get settlers to come to Texas!   First they gathered information about what Texas was like in the 1820s and then created a storyboard plan to create an advertisement using images of Texas, key information from the 1820s and a modern web 2.0 tool -  Animoto.  The results were a commercial that covered the key TEKS for the unit and some great technology skills in creating a multimedia presentation.

The students enjoyed the project as well.  Here are some of their comments:

• "its like a powerpoint but not as boring"
• "This project was very fun and I enjoyed doing it. I liked having the power to be creative and choose my own style."
• "I like that there's a hint of my inner self and style in there"
• "I love how easy it is to make the video, but I don't like the character limit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
• "I loved the animoto itself, it is way easier than powerpoint! I think the most challenging part about this project was find the right pictures."

Here are some student product from this project:

My Come to Texas Project

Lorenzo do Zavala

Come to Lorenzo de Zavala's Colony

Come to Texas - David G Burnet

Come to Texas - Stephen F. Austin

Dewitt County

Come to Burnet County

Career Cruising - 8th Graders Make Plans for High School

Mr. Jasman helps students in his class complete their 4 year plan. 

Mrs. Leverette, 8th grade counselor,  has been working with the 8th grade social studies classes to get students to think about their four year plan for high school using an online tool - Career Cruising.

Students plan what Math, English  Social Studies and Science courses they want to take and see what they need to do now to be eligible for the advanced courses.

Parents and students can log into this program at home any time to review choices and see the possibilities.

In teaching, Mrs. Leverette took advantage of the new technology on campus, the Mimio Teach and the MimioPad which allowed her to use the board interactively and to move around the room and still control the computer to navigate pages and annotate the screen.  These tools allowed her to show the kids what they needed to do in the program and what decisions they needed to make without being tied to the computer and/or document camera.

Research in 6th Grade World Cultures

Students in 6th grade World Cultures have been busy in the labs and on netbooks researching a Latin American Country using online resources such as Culturegrams and the CIA Factbook, found on the library research page.

Students will then demonstrate their knowledge of that country and of PEGS by constructing a poster board of their country to present to the class in the next few days.  

Students are gaining valuable research and note taking skills in this project that they are sure to use in future years.

Plotting the Storyline with Comics

8th Grade English Language Arts has been working on analyzing linear plot development (TEKS 6A).  To reinforce this with the students Mrs. Marks, Mrs. Pinson, Ms. Anderson and Ms. Salazar had their students create a comic strip to depict the parts of a linear plot development as it related to short story they had been reading in class.  The students were able to use a free tool - MakeBeliefsComix to create their comic strips and them save the strips into word for a final product.

Seventh Grade Science Explores Food Webs with Inspiration

This week seventh grade science was studying TEK 5C - diagram the flow of energy through living systems, including food chains, food webs, and energy pyramids.   Ms. Filary, Mrs. Billings and Mrs. Klaus addressed this TEK by bringing students into the labs to work with the software Inspiration that allows students to make a diagram using images and connect those images with arrows to show the direction of flow in the food web.  Students were highly engaged and were able to create their own food webs to show mastery of this concept.


Here is a sample of the food webs that the students created:

Seventh Grade Mathematics

Ms. East, Ms. Ortega, Ms. Nunez and Mr. Ritchie are integrating technology this year into their seventh grade math curriculum.    With tools like Socrative to give online quizzes and games like SumDog that test student's math skills as they compete against each other, students are learning about rational numbers with netbooks.

Science Compounds

Mr. Rozsa's classes have been exploring compounds.  He took video of the students as the experimented with building their own compounds and created an Animoto with that video and posted it on his website.  You can see the students in action here:

Candy Compounds

Technology is up and running at RMS

Technology has played a big part in getting back into the school routine this school year.

•  Moodle is in use in sixth grade as World Cultures and Science are assessing student knowledge. 
•  7th grade math is using technology to reinforce math skills using Sumdog.   
• Science teachers are using Stemscopes and Explore Learning in sixth and seventh grade to teach concepts and run simulations.
• Math teachers are assessing Algebra readiness using TEA's MSTAR.

This is going to be a great year for technology at Ridgeview!

ELA Explores the 1960s

Ms. Copley's and Mrs. Mark's 8th grade ELA classes recently researched the 1960s as part of their book study, The Contender.  Students then displayed their research findings in glogsters, or virtual posters.  They used these posters to present their research findings to the class.

Leadership Class Uses Prezi

Mrs. Klaus' Leadership Classes were asked to present on several topic this spring including great Leaders and  tips to help students be more successful.  Several students choose to use Prezi to complete these assignments as a presentation tool.  Here are 2 examples of these presentations:

George Washington on Prezi

Time Management on Prezi

Math Students Collaborate

Students in Ms. Berner's Math classes collaborated on their assignments today with the help of a virtual whiteboard on http://www.dabbleboard.com/.  As Ms. Berner loaded a new question the students were able to write on the screen using their mouse to try to help solve the problem.   This was a great way to engage students to learn from each other and to talk about their math.

BYO Comes to Science

In Mrs. Gibson's 7th Grade Science classes the students were needing to use timers to complete the lab assignment.   In order to supply enough stop watches for the classroom, Mrs Gibson allowed students to use the clocks and apps on their cell phones with great results.  The students enjoyed being able to use their devices for academic purposes, and those who did not have a device had access to the classroom stopwatches.

Stop Action Animation

The week before Spring Break a group of 6th, 7th and 8th grade students gathered in the morning to learn how to create stop action animation movies.  The used netbooks, webcam for cameras, and MovieMaker to put together a short film of their choosing.

Virtual Microscopes in 6th Grade Science

Mr. Hardesty is introducing microscope skills to his sixth grade science students with the help of a virtual microscope.  As part of their exploration of cell theory,;differences between Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes students need to learn how to work a microscope to examine the specimens.  Using this website, students learn to use the different adjustments of the microscope in order to get the best picture possible.    Images are then recorded by drawing them on to their assignment paper.  This is in preparation for bringing out the microscopes in class on Friday so students will have some understanding on how to work the microscope to be able to master the unit objectives.

BrainPop helps with Clauses

Mrs. Porter is using the netbooks and Brainpop as a station in her room to help students understand what clauses are and how to use them properly.  Students take a quiz at the end of the video and email the results to the teacher.  This activity is in part of their writing unit in preparation for the STAAR Writing exam coming up in a few weeks.  Brainpop is a subscription service paid for by the RMS PTA this year.

Netbooks Make a Splash in Dance

Students in Mrs. Garcia's dance class, under the direction of Mrs. McLain, are working in groups and using the netbooks to learn new dances.  Students are watching instructional videos on how to do a dance then learning that dance as a team.  The technology allows students to watch the video over and over again as well as to rewind to certain parts and  to slow it down to get the subtle parts of the movement.  The dances they learn will then be demonstrated to the rest of the class.

Teachers Use Moodle to Prepare Math Students for EOC Exams

Students in Algebra and Geometry are preparing for the online End of Course Exams by taking their class tests online through moodle.  Students are learning to read the questions on a screen, use scratch paper for computations and how to enter, review and submit answers so they will scored, all valuable practice for the End of Course in May.

Here is a sample screen of a test question:

QR Codes Hit the Library

The RMS Library is using QR codes to link students with more information about books and authors.  Mrs.Kay is using this as a way to highlight and promote books celebrating to African American History during the month of February. Students can pick up a QR code from a container or find one on the back of the book and scan them use the webcams located on several of the library computers.  The student will then be directed to a video summary of the book, interview with the author or a webpage that gives more information about the time period the book was written.  The kids love the opportunity to learn more about the books before checking them out and books being tagged by QR codes are being checked out more than before.  Look for more QR codes in the library soon!

Mrs. Pickle's Class Uses Cell Phone to Discuss Literature

Mrs. Pickle recently explored allowing students to bring their own technology (BYOT) in class to discuss the class Novel, The Outsiders.  Students answered multiple choice and short answer questions about the chapters they had just read through the use of Poll Everywhere and their cellphones, tablets, or school provided netbooks. After each question,  Mrs. Pickle reviewed the responses and asked the students to explain their choices as she led the classroom discussion.  Students loved seeing their answers pop-up on the screen and were anxious to defend their opinions to the question.  This activity provided the students and teacher with instant feedback and gave all students a chance to voice their thoughts and opinions about the characters and the story.  Look for more BYOT opportunities in Mrs. Pickle's class soon!

Texas History Writes Civil War Diaries with the help of Technology

Over the past few weeks students in Mrs. Collins, Mr. Wrinkle and Mr. Jasman's Texas History classes have been learning about the American Civil War.  The culminating project has been for the students to create a Civil War diary from a particular point of view of someone who would have lived during this time period.  This year the teachers added a technology component by having the students create a book of diary entries with the help of Voicethread.com.  The students were to create a jpeg slide to go along with their diary entry that would be narrated.   The students found images from Matthew Brady online and used PowerPoint and Easybib to create the jpeg slides.  The files were then uploaded to Voicethread where the students narrated the image with the text from the diary.  The students loved seeing their slide online and found using easybib an easy way to cite their images.

Mrs. Collin's Class Voicethread