What happened to all the paper books?

Some of you may be wondering what happened to all of the books that you used to see in our Technology Center (formerly "media center"). In an effort to make is easier for students to access age/grade appropriate books, each of our teachers spent considerable time going through our entire library collection. Each teacher created from that collection a set of four "classroom library" boxes. These boxes will be rotated quarterly to keep the classroom library fresh with new books for students to choose from for classroom pleasure reading as well as overnight checkout. All checking out of books will now occur in the classroom.

Believe it or not, having every teacher choose four large boxes of books didn't even put a dent in our collection! The remaining collection is housed in a room in the technology center designated specifically for our paper books. All of the old shelving was moved to this room and now serves as a resource area for teachers to use to add to their classroom collections or to search for specific books of interest whenever they see fit.

In addition to this, all of our students will be learning how to access ebooks via the public library. I will share more about this initiative in an upcoming blog post.

TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOMS
With each of my posts going forward, I will be sharing examples of how technology is actually being used in the classrooms. This week we see some examples from Kindergarten and 6A/7.

Grade: Kindergarten A

Teacher: Poirier

Subject: Math

Apps: Bubble pop addition 

This app shows the children a problem at the bottom of the window. There are bubbles that float around and they need to pop the correct one that answers the problem.

This activity enhances learning by giving the children a chance to practice their addition skills with a fun activity other than pencil and paper. It also has gotten them familiar with using the iPads. We do this once a week and slowly we will start adding other apps, websites, and games for almost all of our subjects. 

Student feedback: "Awesome!" They love going to use the iPads. It makes them feel like big kids. They ask me every day if we are using them in the afternoon!

Class:  6A/7

Teacher: Galzerano

Subject:  World History

Website:  http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/geography/story/sto_set.html

Activity:  In class we learned about the Epic of Gilgamesh.  It is the oldest known story that dates from around 2000 BCE.  The class used their IPADs to read one of the stories from the book from the website.  The story was how  Gilgamesh defeated a Demon in order to obtain cedar wood.  They answered questions prepared by the teacher along the way.  We then discussed the story and how it relates to similar stories/movies we see today in the 21st Century.

Feedback: Students enjoyed it because it was short and had comic-book type pictures along the way to help them understand it better.  They were able to draw comparisons to today, which amazed them since the book is about 4000 years old.  It made them see the connection between the ancient world and today, which is a wonderful way to teach History.

Summer 2014

During the 2013-14 school year, Mr. Galzerano, Mr. Rudolph, Mrs. Cliggitt and I attended several workshops focusing on the use of technology in the classroom. These workshops as well as guidance from our technology consultant led us to decide to purchase our first set of iPads in December of 2013. This was based on the evidence that tower computer systems and even laptop computers are not going to meet the needs of the students of tomorrow.

As those of you who had the opportunity to attend our orientations may have noticed, we have consolidated our technology workspace into one newly renovated area. The new Technology Center will continue to house our existing PCs, which our students in the lower school will continue to use during their technology classes. In addition, our Technology Center also will house our collection of iPads and provide a central location for our students to use them as well. This will happen not only during their scheduled technology class time with Mrs. Lana Smith, but also with their classroom teachers as well.

Intermediate and Middle school students will be using technology right in their regular classrooms. Beginning this year, we are encouraging all students who have an iPad or a tablet to bring it to school. They are allowed to use them for note taking, research, creating projects, completing assignments, etc. In addition, there will be times that each of their teachers will have apps and websites that they will be using to enrich their learning experiences.

At Brandon Academy, we never invest in anything just to say we have it. If we are going to have iPads and ask our students to bring them in, we certainly are going to do so in order to enhance learning. In an effort to ensure this will happen, we have taken two very important steps. First, our fantastic classroom teachers have spent the summer researching apps and websites that can be accessed with the iPad to enhance the curriculum presented at their respective grade levels. The teachers are currently in the middle of a series of workshops at BA sharing this research with their colleagues.

The second step in ensuring that our technology is being integrated into the curriculum is that our technology teacher, Mrs. Lana Smith, has had her role expanded. In addition to her duties as the technology teacher, she also will be acting as the Technology Integration Specialist. That is, Mrs. Smith will be working with every teacher to find ways to use the iPads to enhance the learning of all of our students. A schedule has been arranged and teachers are meeting with her regularly.

Stay tuned to this blog as I will be posting specific examples of how teachers are using the technology at every grade level throughout the year.