Get Set for the WESTEST!

The students of Spring Hill Elementary registered to attend a conference hosted by the teachers and staff of Spring Hill Elementary. This conference, Get Set for the WESTEST was developed in response to low achievement scores on the 2007 WESTEST. The students arrived at SHE on Saturday, April 26 at 8:30 am, were provided with breakfast, attended an assembly with the principal, and then broke into small teams where they were scheduled to attend sessions until 3:30 pm. These sessions focused on Content Standards and Objectives that were identified as weaknesses according to the 2007 WESTEST results. Our goal was to provide targeted instruction to the students of SHE so that they would have every opportunity to be successful in 2008.

I got the idea for this project during the CTB McGraw-Hill Writing Roadmap study which took place in October. Because this study provided payment for each student essay completed, we had a nice sum to work with. The principal, teachers and I decided that it would be beneficial to offer the students a conference, one that would allow them to understand the importance of their success on the WESTEST. The project was a tremendous success, and we hope that it will be an annual event at Spring Hill Elementary. Visit the page link located in the Web Index for more detailed information.

Parent Partner

Title I funding provides for a Parent Partner position at SHE. This position acts as a liaison between the community of parents and Spring Hill Elementary. Our own Karin B. resigned from the position this year to pursue a career elsewhere. We wish her the best of luck; she will be missed. Together with Karin, her replacement Jake Boltz, and a number of parent volunteers I was able to work on a variety of projects. Much of what I was able to do with this team involved photographs, video, and graphics work. I enjoyed these projects as an opportunity to utilize my creativity. Additionally, I was able to offer technical assistance and mentor training to those working and volunteering in the Parent Room. Below are links to a couple of brochures that have been created in order to provide SHE parents a general overview of Adequate Yearly Progress and the No Child Left Behind Act and Title I Services and Programs. I hope to adapt these documents so that they might be made available to a wider audience of parents at other Title I schools in Cabell County.

• AYP and the No Child Left Behind Act
  
• Title I Services and Programs
  

WV Essentials

Early in March, Karen and I were invited to become Master Traines in the Intel Teach to the Future Essentials Course. Our good friend at the state department, Bodie Fulford recognized our interest in the Intel initiative when we worked with her to become Master Trainers in the Thinking with Technology course. The newly renovated Essentials course utilizes Web 2.0 resources as a method for classroom implementation of the Intel units. Instructor Dan Morris from Colorado, along with participants from Wyoming, New York, and from across West Virginia gathered together in a small room at the Marriott in Charleston. We had a truly great experience; and Bodie's lunch selections were the best ever! Feel free to visit the WV Essentials wiki to view all of the units created during this week. To read more about my Intel experiences, please access the link on this page under Web Index.

IC3

Because of the number of training hours required for TIS certification, the county enrolled both Karen and me in the Cabell County Tech Cadre. This team of ten professionals would become a "Task Force," eventually sent out to offer professional development sessions to the staff of Cabell County Schools. Being enrolled in the Tech Cadre also meant completing the IC3 course. Each of these courses were instructed by Steve Beckelhimer, STEM Science Coordinator at the June Harless Center, Marshall University. County support for the Cadre was coordinated by CCBOE Technology Director, Dennis Adkins.

According to Certiport, Inc. The Internet and Computing Core Certification (IC³) program is the world's first validated, standards-based training and certification program for basic computing and Internet knowledge and skills. Successful completion of IC³ ensures you have the knowledge and skills required for basic use of computer hardware, software, networks, and the Internet.

After the Tech Cadre course was complete, the members were assigned to offer specific professional development. Together with Heather S. and Kathy W., I was assigned to develop a 2 hour session on Podcasting. The purpose of the course was to identify an interest in a longer course to be developed for the Fall, 2008. We chose to focus on a general overview of podcasting and possible integration in the K-12 classroom, resources available on the web (including implementation of those specifically available on iTunes), and a brief introduction to Audacity, open source software for recording and editing sounds. Course resources are posted on Wanted: Global Citizens, located in the Web Index.

• IC3 Certification
• Tech Cadre Agenda

Continent Studies

In October, SHE students are involved in a multi-cultural program that allows them to study people and traditions from across the globe. Fourth graders are assigned to study the continent of Asia. In Ms. James' class, students were introduced to the customs and language of South Korea. Ms. James has a friend who was born in South Korea, and was able to bring in some costumes, etc. to share with the students. Coincidentally, I had a friend who was teaching at Brighton Junior English School located in the city of Gwangju. The students at Brighton were assigned to write a letter to the students in Ms. James' class. After visiting the school website together, viewing a photo slideshow with images from South Korea and Gwangju, and examining some items that my friend had sent me as a gift the SHE students each drafted a return letter. We tied this opportunity together with Friendly Letter Writing, completing a series of mini-lessons which incorporated writing one's name in Korean, etc. At the end of the unit, the students' work was Air Mailed to the students of Brighton School, together with some information about Spring Hill Elementary and the state of West Virginia.

• Letter from young-hyun Ko (Betty)
• Letter from ga-hyun-Lee (Alicia)
• Letter from mi-ji-Park (Debbie)
  

Exploring Paint

I have always underestimated the Paint application which has come preloaded on nearly every PC with a Windows interface. In October, many of the teachers at Spring Hill Elementary were enrolled in an Adobe Photoshop course through CCBOE. Each was challenged to incorporate digital photography in their classroom instruction and to prepare a lesson plan that would outline this implementation. A fourth grade teacher, Ms. Dement had come across an idea that was posted in the October issue of Technology Times which utilized Paint for basic image manipulation. Gilda had been the one to post the idea for this project in an earlier issue of her technology newsletter. This was the perfect time to introduce the students to their unique drive space located on the SHE server. Ms. Dement and I uploaded all of the student photos to a Flickr account and tagged them so that they could be located easily during classroom instruction. Once the students pulled them down in a lower resolution and saved them to their folder on the server, we deleted the images from Flickr. Students were directed to save both the original image and the one that had been manipulated using Paint. Check out some of the results in the slideshow above!

Classroom Web Pages

An additional goal for creating an interactive classroom environment was to assist the teachers in developing a classroom web page. With the web folders already in place, the System's Operator and I came up with what we thought would be a fool-proof plan for every teacher at Spring Hill Elementary to begin creating an online classroom. The Technology Director at CCBOE asked that we use Word to create these pages. I don't know if you have ever tried to create a web page using Microsoft Word, but it is no easy task! First, I established a table format and developed a four-page template. Once distributed, the teachers could easily open the Word file to edit and make the page their own. Using a template allowed for the design to remain uniform, which is not only pleasing to the casual web surfer but also offers parents familiarity as they navigate the various classroom pages. The training for these web pages, particularly embedding hyperlinks, was challenging for some of the teachers. They hung right in there, and we made it! You can visit these pages by accessing the Classroom Pages Index located on the Spring Hill Elementary home page.

• Adobe Captivate: Adding a Table