GCS+Newsletter


 * 3/2011**
 * Many classrooms at Groton Elementary are alive with captivating and customized learning activities as we work to support student achievement with 21st century technology. Here are some examples offered by our teachers:**

· We have been incorporating the Voicethread program into the writing process. We have used it as a pre-writing strategy to allow the kids to story-tell before writing, and also to get feedback from other students. This eases the transition into beginning to write, with ideas and feedback already in place. · We are doing some great things in our room with small netbook computers. We have learned about the different parts of speech by going to www.funbrain.com and filling in some Madlibs and then sharing them with others. Another thing we have done is play Cashflow for Kids to help students learn the difference between an asset and a liability. Lack of financial education has hurt many people in our country; I hope to help my students with some financial literacy. · I have been using the document camera with my kindergarten students to share their writer's workshop stories with the class. The kids love having their work projected on the screen like a movie. · Using a program called Vocaroo to record verbal online, I have given my students more independence. They have individual directions for the 3 activities assigned and links to their resources. · The technology encourages kids to teach each other. When we worked on Powerpoints and some of the kids got "stuff", they helped others. I think the technology levels the field for some of our kids that often struggle, allowing them to shine. We have done powerpoints, scanning and cropping and pasting pictures, research and evaluating the info that we find, and just had fun. · The students in room 17 have had lots of experiences using the netbooks throughout the curriculum. They are comfortable using voicethreads to share their thinking and their work. They can create webs on Kidspiration. They have also used word processing to publish their writing (including pictures and clip art), and create tables for collecting data. Recently they have learned to create graphs on the computer. Students also use the Internet regularly for research (most recently for their biography project). We regularly use online resources like multiplication.com, brainpop jr, raz-kids, learning.com. Students are using type-to-learn to improve keyboarding skills as well. · I've found technology is useful to enhance the curriculum and present it in a way that encourages and motivates student learning. I find searching for games and video clips a necessary part of meeting the needs of the technology savvy learners. The computer is useful for students to learn spelling, Spelling City, practice reading and comprehension, and math. · The netbooks have allowed me to create learning centers with technology to give students the opportunity to continue practicing what they are learning. I also have been using voicethreads in my reading group. The students record comments or summarize the stories. I am also using it so that the student can monitor his/her reading to improve fluency. · Fourth graders have had many experiences using the Netbooks. We are using them in our math centers to help us make change, learn about congruent and similar figures, and practice multiplication. We used Microsoft Word to create word webs of solid figures. This helped us organize the number of faces, edges, and vertices that each figure had. We have also used the Netbooks during Reader's and Writer's Workshops. Every month we create Powerpoint presentations to share with our classmates the independent books we have been reading. In writing we use VoiceThread to help us plan and organized our writing. Our classmates are able to give us suggestions and ask questions. This helps us clarify our ideas and know what we want to write about before we start. We love having the Netbooks in our classroom! · I have been working with 3rd graders using voicethreads to communicate their mathematical thinking. We have been incorporating websites into 4th grade math. · I find technology helps many of the students want to do more without ever realizing that they are learning at the same time. Many students whether high, average, or low, see computers as game-like and they find it exciting to be able to "play" on the computers. Due to the number of sites on line we have been able to expose our Groton students to so many more experiences than they would ever have in a lifetime in my generation. Successes in the Library have included using the library search engines to find books on different topics. They are beginning to use databases to learn about various topics of interest as well. On their own!