3D Printing Come to RMS

As an introduction to their sculpture unit, Art 7/8 and Art 1 students experimented with using the emerging technology of 3D printing to create miniature sculptures.  They learned how 3D printing is being used in not only in art, but in science and medicine as well.  Students used Tinkercad, a 3D modeling software to create original sculpture designs.  They worked in the computer lab for 2 days creating their designs in early March.  It took a team of teachers two weeks to print the finished sculptures.  Thanks to Linda Kay and Robin Young for their help in bringing this cool experience to our art department!

~ Mrs. Duvall

Hour of Code and Math

Ms. Ralph,   Mrs. Allen and I worked with the math intervention students these last 2 days to on coding skills, pointing out math skills as we went.  Students started with https://www.madewithcode.com/ Accessorizer and focused on X,Y co-ordinates.  We then talked about the radius of a circle and how that worked into Anna and Elsa's coding on Code.org.     Those that finished early worked on coding a Holiday tree in Washington DC.  It was a great 2 days!

Frog Dissections

Students in 7th Grade Science classes prepared for frog dissection by going online.   The learned about frog anatomy and dissection techniques by running through a virtual dissection on the computer the day before the frogs and scalpels were brought out.   On Dissection day students worked in groups of 3 or 4 to make the cuts and find and identify the various organs.

7th Grade ELA Brushes Up on Reading Skills

Students in Mrs. Porter's and Mrs. Pickle's classes spent the week before STAAR using the school netbooks and online resources to help prepare for the upcoming STAAR Reading Test.   Students worked through stations including grammar rules with the help of BrainPop videos and online quizzes.    Another station had students on Newsela reading current events and answering questions based on their own reading levels.   This allowed the teacher to work in small groups with other students to review key points and review strategies they had learned all year.

Human Body Systems in Science

Students in Ms. Billing's room were learning about different body systems through an online presentation and Brainpop videos.   In addition to checking on the students notes they took from the resources that were shared, Ms. Billings checked for understanding  as she had students composes a paper tweet about what they had learned or what questions they still had about what had been studied.  In Ms. Filary's room students learned about the respiratory system by examining a website and answering questions on a handout.

Math Loves Technology!

Sixth grade students started off the new year by diving into Think Through Math.  "Think Through Math is a Web-based solution that provides adaptive math instruction for students in grades 3 through Algebra 1. Developed by teachers and technologists to help students prepare for rigorous Common Core and TEKSstandards and assessments, " (http://www.thinkthroughmath.com/)


Seventh grade math spent much time in the fall semester using technology to review and practice math concepts with  various websites for math practice for students including Think Through Math, SumDog, and math-play.com. The students also used online quizzing software like Socrative for formative and sumative assessments.   Mr. Ritchie says "My students love using technology! I think it is the future of education. My students use an online educational software called Think Through Math. It is a self paced software that only lets you move on as fast as your knowledge will let you. There are also incentives for the students to be successful. That is an added bonus. "

Eighth Grade student have also spent time on Think Through Math to reinforce skills, especially in the Algebra and Geometry classes.  These students are taking the STAAR 8th Grad Math exam as well as the Algebra and Geometry End of Course Exams, so this program allows students to review math concepts that were covered in previous years.

Road to Revolution

Seventh grade students in Texas History learned to use PowerPoint in a new way this week as they made info graphics.   Armed with information about the events leading to the Texas Revolution, students set out to show that information in a graphic way.   Here are a few student samples from Ms. Dyer's classroom:

Students Become Virtual Archaeologists

Ms. Woods' Texas History classes are learning to become archaeologists as they work through the remains of the La Belle from La Salle's early Texas Expedition.  This activity lets students explore the artifacts and learn about the times of this French Exploration as well as how scientists can piece together history from the pieces being excavated. Students were highly engaged and were excited to discuss what they were learning!


Check out the website here:
http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/belle/kids.html

Food Webs in 7th Grade Science

Science students in 7th grade are making food webs to demonstrate their understanding of the food chain and all the interconnected parts.  After conducting research and gathering notes, students are mapping out the web with the help of Inspiration software.  

Google Apps for Education is now available to Students!

During the month of September students were introduced to their new RRISD google account.  Students now can use this account to email staff members, access Google Drive to create and store documents as well as other apps from the Chrome Education store.   All the students came into the Lab and worked with Mrs. Young to log into their accounts, learn about their email, and to set up folders to help keep their Google drive organized.  They shared the folders for each class with the teacher who teaches the class so they can turn in assignments that way.

To access their account students need to go to:  https://accounts.google.com

Enter in their email address:  s######@student.roundrockisd.org   (###### = their student ID number)
Password:  Is the same they use for the computers at school.

Teachers and students will be exploring these new accounts this year and learning new ways to collaborate and create.

Students Developing Apps

Last week students attended a week-long, before school camp where they began learning how to create apps for mobile devices with the help of the MIT App Inventor website.  Students worked through a series of tutorials that taught the skills and strategies needed to begin designing their own apps.   They were very excited to try out their newly developed program on the tablet and see their code in action.

Students Prepare For The STAAR Writing With A Little Brainpop

Students in Mrs. Porter's 7th grade ELA classes spent some time online today working with Brainpop videos and quizzes to test their knowledge about grammar.  Students emailed their quiz results to their teacher so she use one more piece of assessment to  see how prepared they were for the upcoming STAAR test.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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