December 22, 2014

Great Things Noticed:

Our Week in Pictures

• Connecting Our Schools - Students from the Preschool program came over to work in one of our classrooms.  There were two different groups that came over and I was lucky enough to catch a piece of this.  Our 8th graders were teaching the little guys and girls how to play some holiday games.  Our students were so encouraging, kind, and empathetic you would have thought they were in a Christmas movie.  I know sometimes students can challenge us, but we really do have tremendously caring students in this school and this was just one example of this.

• Student Choice -- A teacher has a rotation system set up to ensure he meets with students in small groups.  While the students are not with the teacher they have a total of nine activities to complete.  The students must choose and complete 6 of the 9 activities accurately by a certain date for full credit.  The students loved the power they had in their class to say ‘No’ to certain activities, and the teacher was not only teaching math but time managements skills as well.

• Show Me - On In a science class students were creating contour maps, which have lines of elevation all over them and are really difficult for me to read.  The teacher had the students use containers of water to help SHOW the students this concept instead of just tell them.  The final product was amazing!

• Make it Hands On - In another science class students were not just talking about the definition of a living thing, they were examining specimens to determine what characters of a living thing each had.  This is an activity that could have been completed simply by reading the text-book and asking the students to memorize definitions, but the teacher make the learning experience much more hands on and it is one the students will remember well after the test.  

• Make it Memorable - In another science class the students were attempting to separatea a mixture that one student described as discussing. The students had to create a plan to separate the different materials and then execute this plan, all while trying to avoid turning the science lab into a huge mess. The students will then have to write a lab report about the experiment. All of this occurred on the Friday before break, great to see the learning taking place even during the Holiday Season.

• We are Lucky - Blown away by the student and staff participation in the daily activities that were decided on by the student council.   From dress like a twin day to pajama day to ugly sweater day it was fun to see so many people involved.  I think Mr. Vogel is a fan favorite, everyone wants to dress like him.

• Thank you to everyone who pitched in and helped with the benchmark testing this week.  It was by no means picture perfect, and I know it was a bit crazy the first time we did this and the connection issues we had.  We are working to fix these issues and I am glad we were able to identify them before the PARCC.  I am so impressed with how far we have come.  Last year we were killing tons of trees copying the New York State tests and giving them to the students.  Then had you spend hours grading these assessments.  This year we had the students take the tests online saving paper, and had the software correct the answers, to allow you more time to develop engaging lessons.

Events This Week:

Dec 22: Faculty Meeting after school - Bring a Gag Gift - Max $10

Dec 23: Halfday

Dec 24-Jan 4 School Close Winter Break

Jan 5 School opens

Nuts and Bolts:

Any student who was absent for Plato testing please have them take it today or tomorrow.  As a team you can decide when the best time for this would be.

Enjoy the 12 days off!

Tech Tips:

Math Would you Rather Google Docs?  

or

Would you Rather WordPress?

Have you ever been in traffic and said to yourself you would rather just move, even if you had to travel farther?  Take a look at these amazing activities with real-world application where the students have to find the data necessary to solve the problem.  These problems scream Turn Me Into An Algebraic Expression!!  know this activity is designed mostly for upper level math classes but I thought the concept could be spread to other subject areas.  

6 Best Google Docs Apps for Writing Productivity and Collaboration

Google Docs has been one of the most powerful editing and collaboration tools for years. And it’s free! The built-in ability to create documents, invite editor and collaborate in real time is awesome. The rest can be achieved through helpful add-ons that are available all over the web.

December 15, 2014

Great Things Noticed:

• Exit tickets are a great way to assess student learning at the end of a lesson, and entrance tickets are a great way to assess what students remembered before a lesson starts.  This week we noticed exit tickets being used in a classroom where the students would write a paragraph on a particular question.  The teacher grades one of these a week on a scale of 0-3 using a rubric the students are familiar with.  What a great way to assess student learning.  

• Hour of Code - We were amazed to see how many students really took to coding.  We know it took some time for you to plan how to roll it out to the students, but you did an amazing job.  The classes we entered were energized to learn how to code and anytime the students are this energized we want to try and take advantage of it.  This left us thinking what some next steps could be for the students could be....computer club, computer programming, student tech-helpers.....let us know any ideas you might have about this.

• Language Arts and Social Studies Alignment - Loved seeing ELA and SS classes that are working so closely together.  In one class we saw students taking notes on specific event in history that they would then have to teach to the whole class as a jigsaw activity.  This was happening in Language Arts!  In another class students were practicing pulling out important events from a short video and then organizing them into a paragraph to summarize what they have seen.  This activity took place in a Social Studies class!

• Real World Learning - In two math classes students created budgets for different events.  One was for a birthday party where the students could not exceed $250, and another was for the students to plan a trip to Disney using a ‘reasonable’ budget.  I would love to see how the students pitch the Disney Trip to mom and dad.

• On a daily basis we are blown away by the art-work the students are able to create.  Our halls are beautifully decorated and the students in art class have talents that I was not aware of when I see them in their regular academic classes.

• It was great to see the new bulletin boards that went up this week.  We love to see the work the students have done in your class displayed proudly for others to see.  

• Google Classroom - (again) -  This is a tool that was not available during our Chrome Camp sessions over the summer and several teachers have gone out of their way to teach each other.  Both Fran and I feel lucky to be part of a staff that reaches out and helps one another.
  
  We are continuing with our Week in Pictures

Events This Week:

• 6 Days of Christmas from your administrators...yes 6 we are half Jewish.
• Monday - Dunkin’ Donuts Raffle on Morning Announcements
• Tuesday - Dress Down Day
• Wednesday - Bagels and Coffee before school
• Thursday - Staples Gift Card
• Friday - Holiday Goodies in the Conference Room - Ugly Holiday Sweater Day
• Monday - Monday Christmas Party instead of a Faculty Meeting.  Please bring a ‘Gag’ gift of $10 or less

• Monday Dec. 15th
• Log in to Plato and play so that you know how to navigate the site
• Plato Page
• school acct login: BTSD
• Plato name: lastname.firstname
• password: password
• To test the site like a student you can use this information
• school acct login: BTSD
• Plato name: test.student
• Password: password

  
  

  We have created 12 practice student accounts

  For example: test.student

  test.student2

  test.student3

  ....................

  test.student12 
• Tuesday Dec. 16th
• Walk Through for Plato Testing with students
• Tech Tuesday in the Library to answer any questions about Plato or other Tech 3:45
• Wednesday Dec. 17th
• Plato Testing ELA, adjusted schedule
• 5th grade will test with 1st period
• 6th grade will test with 3rd period teacher
• 7th grade will test with 1st period teacher
• 8th grade will test with 1st period teacher
• Teams do not need to meet today
• Thursday Dec. 18th
• Plato Testing Math, adjusted schedule
• 5th grade will test with 1st period
• 6th grade will test with 3rd period teacher
• 7th grade will test with 1st period teacher
• 8th grade will test with 1st period teacher
• Teams do not need to meet today
• Friday Dec. 19th
• Byram Spotlight 2:30 - Please wait to be called down to the Gym

Nuts and Bolts:

PARCC Resources:  

This is a symbaloo which was created by Natalie Franzi who is the head of curriculum and instruction in another district.  There are MANY helpful resources here to help you and your students become more comfortable with the test.  Symbaloo is a great tool to help organize your links, and might be helpful for use with your students.  

PARCC Resources Part 2:

This is a resource that provides resources for not just Math and ELA, but Science and Social Studies as well.   There are End of Year (EOY) examples of the test that will be taking place in May, as well as Performance Based Assessments (PBA) that will take place in March.

Classrooms:

It is amazing how many Byram Township events are held at our school and there is little to keep the students from moving in and out of rooms.  We want to ensure that all of the items in your room are kept safe and secure and the best way to do this is to have you lock your doors when you leave at the end of the day.  I know many of you do this already but we need to have everyone doing this.  Thanks in advance for your help.

Chromebook Procedures:

• First time a student misuses the chromebook they lose this technology privilege for two days. Please record this on the Google Doc where all the chromebook assignments are kept and contact the parents.
• Second time a student misuses the chromebook they lose this technology privilege for 5 days. Please record this on the Google Doc where all the chromebook assignments are kept and contact the parents.
• Third time a student misuses the chromebook they lose this technology privilege. Please record this on the Google Doc where all the chromebook assignments are kept and contact the parents.  The administration will determine how to move forward at this point.

Tech Tips:

Easel.ly

In today’s world our students will have to read and interpret information that is a combination or graphs, charts, text, and pictures.  This resource allows you to create your own infograph.  You load the information, pick a few visuals and then Boom -- you have created your own infograph for the students to examine.  You can share it digitally on the Chromebook so there is no wasted paper, or print out a poster size version for your whole class to see.

Twister

(Shared by Richard Byrne)

A fun tool from Classtools.net. Twister, like Fakebook and Fake SMS allows you imagine what historical figures would have done if they had access to social media. On Twister you can create fake Tweets as if you were Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, or any other person in history.

To create a fake Tweet on Twister just go to the site and enter a name, a Tweet, and date stamp for your Tweet. Twister will pull a public domain image for the profile picture and show you the fake Tweet. Your fake Tweet will be given its own URL. You can also just take a screenshot of it to save it.

Creating fake Tweets through Twister could be a fun way for students to summarize the main points of notable speeches like the Gettysburg Address. You could also have students use Twister to create fake Tweets about important events in history.

 

Block Poster

This website allows you take a picture, infograph, or anchor chart that you have created in class and print it out as several pages that can be put together like a puzzle.  These can then be displayed on a bulletin board or some other place for your students to see in your classroom.

December 8, 2014

Great Things Noticed:

So many times we have heard teachers requiring students to show direct evidence from the text.  Language arts teachers we are thrilled about this and even more excited that it is happening in classes like science and social studies as well.

The 5th graders have an amazing competition going on with the Ren Learn program.  Students are so motivated I overheard 2 students discussing how they budget their time at home so they can fit more reading in, awesome!

Google Classroom has made assignments more manageable for many of our teachers.  It allows teachers to create a doc and share with students MUCH more easily.  When students turn the assignment in they are all in the same folder wonderfully organized.  

Some teachers are taking advantage of the new technology afforded them to increase communication with parents.  Several teachers have begun using Kidblog.org as a blogging platform for students to reflect on what they have learned.  Parents then log in to see the progress their students are making and leave comments for the class.  Other teachers have begun creating newsletters to explain upcoming events so parents can stay informed.  Two free and easy ways to create these newsletters are Smore and Tackk.

This week we began posting many of the other great things you do to our school Facebook page.  For those parents who are not on Facebook, we also emailed a collection of these pictures via Storify.  We received a great deal of positive feedback from parents about the learning experiences you have created for theirs students.  Thank you!!

Events This Week:


Monday: Faculty Meeting Tuesday:   Progress Reports available to parents

Tuesday Band and Choral Winter Concert

Day Time - 9:30 Lakes students

10:30 BIS students

Evening - 7:00 PM

Thursday: BEA Party at St. Moritz

Friday: 7th & 8th Grade Dance 7-9 PM

Nuts and Bolts:

Plato Testing -

This is designed to give us a benchmark test to see where students are and what skills they need reinforcement on.  This data will help to inform you about what lessons need to be continued, added, or skipped to ensure students are moving at an appropriate pace.  We have scheduled two dates when the test will be administered in December and two more in the beginning of February.  During these days students will be assigned teachers to administer the test and we will proceed at a delayed opening schedule.  This will allow us to test our band-width while giving the students an opportunity to take a PARCC-like assessment.  Information for how to have your students log on and take the test will be coming soon.  

December 17th ELA

December 18th Math

February 4th ELA

February 5th Math

PARCC Dates (subject to change)

• March  2nd-5th  Grades 7-8 Math then ELA
• March  9th-12th Grades 5-6 Math then ELA (Make ups for grades 7-8)
• March 16th-19th Grades 3-4 Math then ELA (Make ups for grades 5-6)

It's the Most Wonderful Time Of The Year..................Yep, QSAC

This means we need to ensure that our rooms are up to code.

• Please make sure there is nothing hanging from your ceiling
• There can be nothing closer than 18 inches from your ceiling so if you stack things on top of closets you can no longer do this
• If you have a secret coffee pot hiding somewhere you need to remove it
• If you have a secret refrigerator hiding somewhere you need to remove it
• If you have a secret snow-cone maker hiding somewhere, make me one first, then remove it
• There can be no wires exposed where students could trip

Byram Spotlight Dates:

• December 19th
• Jan 23th
• Feb 13th
• March 13th
• April 17th
• May 8th
• June 12th

Tech Tips:

Google Drive:

• In Docs, you can already customize tables with different colors and line thicknesses, and now you can also merge cells together to get your table just right.
• Plus, you can now customize images right inside your document by recoloring them, changing the transparency, brightness, and more.
• In Slides, you can now add slide numbers to help guide you and your audience through presentations. 

Get Kahoot - A Kahoot is a collection of questions on specific topics. Created by teachers, students, business-people and social users, they are asked in real-time, to an unlimited number of “players”, creating a social, fun and game-like learning environment.