Welcome to Mr. Bartosh's Tech Talk!
Lott 5th Grade visits New York State
What a neat idea! Yesterday, April 24, Mrs. Denson's 5th grade class in Lott, Texas held a video conference with a 5th grade class in LaFargeville, N.Y. They had our students quessing what Dr. Suess book they were quoting from and our students put on a skit from one of the books they had been reading. Both classes enjoyed the presentations and had plenty of questions to ask of each other. LaFargeville is about 6 hours out of New York City and is located on the upper end of Lake Ontario. It is a little over 1700 miles from Lott. The school has approximately 580 students in grades K-12. It is located slightly north and west of Latitude 44.19 N, Longitude 75.97 W, if you would like to view the school on Google Earth.
Firefox instead of Internet Explorer
On our next trip to Belton we will need to use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. You can still use IE here on campus, but off campus you will need to use Firefox. This includes your network at home. This deals with a proxy issue here on campus that has to do with students bypassing our filtering devices. Every laptop should have Firefox already installed. The problem is Delicious buttons are not installed on Firefox. I have sent out e-mail instructions on how to install them. If you have any difficulty please let me know.
TxDLA
TxDLA conference in Galveston was wonderful. It's not as large as TCEA. That means more one to one learning experiences. Smaller groups in the training sessions. Easier to make more contacts for future distance learning opportunities. Every session was filled with teriffic ideas on how to utilize distance learning or with folks willing to share experiences they have had that we can use. Not to mention the food was great. And the time to "unwind" was nice as well.
TCEA
All I can say is WOW!! TCEA was WOW! From Sally Ride to the final goodbye this was something else. So many opportunities to learn, so many opportunities to see new hardware & software. Needless to say by Friday I was exhausted. Even won some software to share with our Teachers. Will have to come up with some contests for them to compete in to win the software. Am trying to learn all about Podcasting but am having difficulty finding a free download of Jodix that is not corrupt. Will just have to keep searching. We have several "Weather with Rusty" video conferences coming up in the next two months. These should be exciting for our younger students. Our video cameras are here! Just need to get memory chips and we can start to use them. Each campus will have access to 2 of the camcorders. Hard to believe February is half gone. This year sure is flying by.
Tech Literacy Assessments complete
Tech Literacy Assessments have been completed for the 7th graders. All worked hard and did a good job. We'll test them again in April to see how they have progressed. A great big "Thank You" to our Schoool Board for all the time and effort they put into Rosebud-Lott having a great school district. Well next week is the 2008 TCEA gathering in Austin. I look forward to experiencing this for the first time. I know all the technology is going to be overwhelming yet exciting. Hopefully I can bring back some things to use with our teachers and our students.
Tech Literacy Assessments
First group of 7th graders completed the Tech Literacy Assessment today. We will assess one group each day through Friday until all 7th graders have been assessed. This will allow our teachers to see where the students need instruction as far as technology is concerned. Two of the Middle School students will be presenting their video projects at the School Board meeting Tuesday night. All did a great job of putting their presentations together. It is exciting to see these young people use their creative ingenuity to complete class projects.
Tech Update
Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. Now it's back to work. We will be testing the 7th graders to see how literate they are in technology. This is the baseline for the Star Grant results that we will be looking at over the next 2 years. They will test again in April and then again twice next year as 8th graders to gauge how they grow in technology. Big screens are going up in the classrooms, the rest of the ELMO document cameras have arrived and technology is on the move at Rosebud-Lott ISD.
Half Way There
We are half way through with the Star Grant training for this year. All teachers have now created a newsletter using word. They have also created a lesson integrating technology and critical thinking. All have worked very hard and are looking forward to Christmas Break. Hope everyone has a restful and happy one.
Tracking Technology
We start our Star Grant TechLiteracy testing tomorrow 12/19 at the Lott Elementary campus. 4th graders will be tested now and again toward the end of the year to assess how they have progressed in technology. 7th graders will be tested after the holidays and toward the end of the year. Both groups will be tested again two times next year, but as 5th graders and 8th graders. Hopefully this information will help convince the State government to keep funding technology grants for our schools.
Laptops and Big Screen Moniters
All the Star Grant teachers now have their laptops and a USB Drive to assist them in their classrooms. The flat screen moniters have arrived as have the ELMOs, video cameras, and projectors. Maintenance is working as fast as possible to get the screens installed for the teachers. It is so nice to have all this technology for our students. And we have only just begun, there is more to come.
Polycom Visit
Mr. Wright and I visited Polycom in Austin Wednesday 11/28. We learned some interesting things about Video Conferencing and what to look for in the future. We also made some great networking connections to help us in our VC growth.
Ask the Experts
Mrs. Lorenz class in Lott took part in an "Ask the Experts" video conference over the book Monkey Island. This is the story of a homeless boy. The students questioned folks from Waco who run organizations for the homeless. All the students had very interesting questions to ask about the homeless and how they could help those people who were less fortunate than themselves. We were all very proud of them. Way to go Lott Elementary students!!
Laptops Arriving
Great news...the laptops will be here tomorrow!!
Texas has subscribed all libraries, both public and for schools, to a series of databases that will be extremely helpful for research projects and more.
Star Grant - round 2
Round 2 of Star grant training has been completed with Belton ISD. All core teachers created power points to be used in their classroom lesson plans. They also learned about Rubistar rubric creator. This tools makes designing a rubric as simple as a drop down menu. Next project to be tackled at Star grant training is publishing using Microsoft Word.
Weatherbug
Last week Lott Elementary took part in the WeatherBug teleconference. The program was shared with students from 27 schools in 14 different states. I think all learned how powerful hurricanes can be and how to be safe when one approaches. Students from many schools had some very interesting questions for the meteorologist.
Discovery Education Streaming
We have added Discovery Education Streaming (AKA United Streaming) to our list of services for teachers. This terrific site allows teachers to use videos in the classroom. It also has very helpful modules, such as Assignment Builder, Test Builder, Writing Prompt Builder, Calendar, Lesson Plan Library, Thematic Focus and even a Prifessional Development Site with all sorts of ideas and training. I know this will be a time saving and useful tool for the classroom teacher.
Star Grant News
Exciting news for 2007-2008. All core teachers will be getting laptops to use in their classrooms. This is part of the STAR grant that we have partnered with Belton ISD to receive. There is more...we will also be receiving flatscreens or projectors to use in the classroom as well. There will also be a set of 30 I-Pods for each district. What a great way to get a lesson to someone who is out sick!
Jim Bartosh
Instructional Technology Specialist