Currituck County Schools Media and Tech

The Interactive Classroom Project (aka Smart Board installs) is moving along. With the exception of the audio enhancement, the project is complete at Central. Installation will begin at Moyock next week. I shared this information with the BOE at their meeting Monday night.

This is a Microsoft Movie Maker production that I uploaded to Teacher Tube. The photos were taken with a standard digital camera. The audio was recorded with a small mp3 player/recorder. This is the same device the Tech Academy participants will receive. The audio is not great on this production. I think I needed to boost up the signal some when I edited it. Oh well, not a bad first try.

Download Video: Posted by pobriant at TeacherTube.com.

CES Video Announcements 005, originally uploaded by pgobriant.

Under the leadership and guidance of Ms. Becky Leousis, Media Specialist, fifth grade students at Central Elementary School have begun broadcasting live video announcements each morning. The students make general announcements, recognize birthdays, report the weather, and lead the school in the Pledge of Allegiance.

On the day I visited, Courtney, Carrie, Nicole, and Tigh, were the news team. The anchors interviewed Constance about her art entry for the school calendar contest.

I was very impressed with the students and the great job they are doing.

I ran across a very interesting report this week on Internet safety. The report is a transcription of Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee Forum called “Just the Facts about Online Youth Victimization.” The Congressional Internet Caucus brought together several experts on issues of Internet safety. They discuss some recent research that calls into question many of the thoughts and ideas we have been teaching for years. This quote summarizes one of the studies.

“Our research, actually looking at what puts kids at risk for receiving the most serious kinds of sexual solicitation online, suggests that it’s not giving out personal information that puts kid at risk. It’s not having a blog or a personal website that does that either. What puts kids in danger is being willing to talk about sex online with strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web like going to sex sites and chat rooms, meeting lots of people there, kind of behaving in what we call like an internet daredevil.”

This research has much to inform our discussions of Internet safety. I encourage you to read the transcript.

Our Technology Academy participants have been very busy putting their new knowledge to work.  Below I’ve highlighted a few of the blogs and wikis our folks have put together.  Maybe these will spark some new ideas!  Did I miss some?  Post a comment and let me know.

Sandy (CO) created a wiki to advertise the Timberlake prints for sale at KIES.

Candy (Griggs) created at wiki to help coordinate the Elementary Battle of the Books.

She also plans to introduce this blog to the students participating in Battle of the Books to give them a place to discuss the books.

Candy’s WannaGottaHafta Read It! blog will be for Griggs students and teachers.  She will promote it during library class time or will schedule time to introduce it to 3-5 graders.Beth (CCHS) has created her English Knights wiki to share resources associated with supplemental reading texts.

Judy (MES) has created a blog for the Moyock Author’s Club.  Check out all the comments!  There is come great student writing here.

Becky (Central) has created a wiki to use with the 5th grade classes when they learn about the Big 6 research method.

Donna (Knotts Island) is using a wiki with her 6th grade students in science.

Congratulations to all who have taken the plunge and are experimenting with these new technologies.  Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect to get started.  Hopefully we are all lifelong learners and will continuously refine our practices to best meet the needs of the students.

(This entry is cross-posted on the Tech Academy blog.)

We have been hearing about NCWISE for years. The time is here for us to move from our old student information management system, SIMS, to NCWISE which is much more powerful and easier to use.

The SIMS data managers have been receiving training over the last month. Everyone else will receive training beginning in January. The actual transition will take place in February. At that time classroom teachers will begin taking attendance on NCWISE.

There is an NCWISE quick start guide available on our website.

This will be a big transition. I am confident that working together, we will be successful.

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Central Students present to the BOE, originally uploaded by pgobriant.

Central Elementary fifth grade students in Ms. Taylor’s  and Ms. Huff’s classes have been studying weather patterns in class this year. Each day they check the forecast and weather maps and track the information with maps and charts. They use the Internet for their daily research. Three of the students, Mia, Jennifer, and Carrie, came to the November Board of Education meeting to show the Board members what they have been doing. They gave a great presentation using the Smart Board.

Below are some additional handouts that Donna Corbo and Candy Sample used at the NCSLMA conference last week.  These first four handouts outline the books within a series, in order.

Hank the Cowdog

Junie B. Jones

Nate the Great

Lemony Snicket and Harry Potter

Multicultural Resources pt. 1

Multicultural Resources pt. 2

Currituck County can be very proud of their Media personnel. We had four people presenting sessions at the North Carolina School Library Media Association Conference this year.

Candy Sample (Griggs) and Donna Corbo (CCMS) gave a presentation on “What every new Media Specialist need to know.” The presentation was filled with great tips and strategies. It was very well received by all in attendance. Their handouts are linked below.

Top Ten Tips for Media Specialists

Resources for Media Specialists

Native American Month

Hispanic Heritage Resources

Asian Pacific American Resources

African American Literature

Survival for Media Specialists

Mary Simmons and Beth OBriant (CCHS) gave a presentation titled “Lucy and Ethel beat the overdue blues.” They shared some of the innovative and fun strategies they use to encourage students to return overdue books.

This week I had an experience that illustrates the impact technology, and particularly video games, are having on how we experience the world. I received the new Motor Trend magazine this week. It includes an article on the new Nissan GT-R which is scheduled to be released in the US next year. This car is obviously out of my price range but it is fun to read about.

My son Timothy was walking through the living room as I was reading the article and I shared it with him. I thought he would be excited to hear about it since we had discussed it previously. Instead he said, “Yeah, I know. I’m driving it upstairs.” Turns out the Play Station 3 game Gran Turismo 5 includes the car as one of the choices. It was included when the game was released but it was not unlocked for play until the day the car was actually unveiled. So while I was reading a magazine and looking at pictures he was having a very different experience. He was using a steering wheel, pedals, and a big screen TV to experience the car from the driver’s seat. Wow.

Our 21st Century students expect experiences that are interactive and engaging. How do we meet this need in our classrooms?

Spam is both an annoyance and a danger.  We have a spam filter installed on our network to look at all the email that comes into our system.  Currently 80 - 90% of the email that comes into our system is either blocked as spam or “tagged” with a bulk tag.  We regularly fine tune the spam filter to improve its ability to identify spam.  Even so, a good deal of unwanted email makes it through the filter and into your mail box.

If you don’t recognize the From: address the safest thing to do is delete the email without opening it.  If you do open email from an unknown user you should NEVER click on any links in the message.  Some of these links download unwanted software and viruses.

The following tips can help you avoid spam.  These tips were taken from Mount Holyoke College.

• Try to avoid listing your email in public. Once it is public, it becomes a target for spam.
• Do not respond to unsolicited email; this alerts an organization that may have randomly hit your email address that the account is active and may subject you to further emails, some of which may not even appear to come from the same place.
• Spammers can get addresses from jokes, pleas for emails going to a sick person, or any other forwarded email with a list of addresses. Do not forward such lists; if there is content in the email you wish to forward, cut that content and paste into a new email without forwarding all those addresses. This avoids inadvertently sending your friend’s address(es) back to the person collecting them.