Tech Happenings @ LvHS

French III students are writing alternate endings to a French video they watched. The challenge is to write dialoge for all five characters, video each person's dialogue, and edit/produce a short 5-minute video using Windows MovieMaker. All juniors have access to the program via their school-issued laptop, and all students expressed access to a video camera either smartphone or otherwise. I can't wait to see results!

Storify lets you build then save and send or embed the resulting single-column of content. here's a link to their blog with great examples. http://storify.com/storify Here's my embedded first attempt. [ View the story "A Storify about Louisville" on Storify ]

Our chemistry teacher has broken ground by using "clickers" to gather student responses to review questions before a test. Lucky for her, her text book includes multiple choice assessments for every chapter in PowerPoint format! Formative assessment is challenging, and this tool gives her immediate feedback in order to review only questions the class needs to review. It also lets her identify students who need more individual help. We downloaded class lists from our SMS, and uploaded them as "participant groups" in the software from Turning Technologies. Then it is simple to display the powerpoint slideshow on the projector with the response system tool at the top. By starting and stopping the system for each question she builds the session data needed to generate reports about the class in general and individual students. Our teacher used her new Eno board pen to work out the problem solutions and quickly delete the "ink" to move on to the next q...

Since we now embed personal computing skills like MS Office into the curriculum, it is not uncommon for me to visit classes to "review" software and teach them some fresh skills. Incoming students don't need to know how to use PowerPoint or Word... but rather need some neat tricks like how to embed YouTube video, and to snip maps from Google Earth. I always cover basics very quickly for those who need a refresher, but the priority of the lesson is to create presentations quickly and conservatively that look professional. No more flying objects and custom color schemes that may be very distracting to the audience while very time-consuming to make. I always enjoy sharing a funny "What not to do with PowerPoint" video with them too. Don McMillan: Life After Death by PowerPoint Students always need to be reminded not to READ from their slides, so asking them to minimize text helps. Eliminating animation also lets the presenter stay focused on what she is sayi...

English teachers are using blogs to solicit shared responses from students based on a prompt or a guiding question about a piece of literature. Students simply enter their writing as a comment, and all other students can view their comments. It's a great way to share writing among the students and to go paperless. Makes good use of the laptops too.

After introducing PollEverywhere to the general faculty as a formative assessment tool, a few teachers "ran with it" and had some sucess! By polling with a web url, students respond using their laptops. Here are two examples: An English teacher figured out how to group questions into a "survey" so that students could respond to several questions at once at their own pace. Then they reviewed the responses as a class. A French teacher created several polls to review some vocabulary. She asked them questions like "what is your favorite season?" and they has to select their choice, all of the content in French. They loved it and asked the teacher if she would use it all the time! These teachers love to try new things. It is fun for them to incorporate new tools as they develop or modify their curriculum. They are a good resource to their departments and the students really enjoyed doing something so engaging.