Miller 2nd Graders Present Technology Projects to School Board (VIDEO)

School projects are no longer a shoebox diorama. In today’s classroom, students are making online interactive posters loaded with text, pictures and their own voiceovers called Glogster.

A computer was hooked up to a large screen and several second graders navigated through the school website and presented their school projects to the Board of Education at Tuesday’s meeting.

“I know it takes a lot of courage to come in front of all these adults and make a presentation. (They) did absolutely great,” said Board President Anne Byrne.

“This is our Thanksgiving Glog,” said one of the students. “To get to it, we go on the school website. We made it on Glogster. We have fun doing this.” Each class has its own glog, which is an interactive poster online. On the Thanksgiving-themed poster, there is a hand-drawn picture from each student in the class, a short paragraph and a button you click that plays a voiceover of the student speaking.

Check out these Glogs by the students from Class:

• 2SM—Thanksgiving

Glogster

“We teach them the tools, but all of this is done by them. The typing and the whole works,” said Miller Principal Betsy Smith. “This was a collaborative effort and … each one of these (glogs) represent each of their classmates.”

“Every second grade class is making one,” said Teacher Margaret DeMont, navigating to another set of Glogs on the school website. “This Glog is on holiday traditions. The students type it themselves and in small groups, we work on how to put their work onto Glogster.”

The Glogs can be access from home or school, said DeMont, adding that it’s a great feature because the glogs can be viewed by family members no matter where they are.

“What’s great about these is that the students can look at them as a class,” she said. “Some of them have had their relatives go on and look at them. It’s something they can share here or share at home.”

Technology Workshops

“Every wed, we have staff development where we have a technology workshop with the teachers,” said DeMont. “Last year, we had workshops on SmartBoard integration.”

There are also resources on the website for teachers to access at work or at home. There are How-To videos of the material teachers learn in technology workshops as well.

“This way we can maximize our technology resources and all the students have access to all the same technology opportunities,” said DeMont. “They can use it at home as well.”

DreamBox

DreamBox is an educational, but fun program that engages the student as well as grows with him/her intellectually.

“The program called ‘Dreambox’ … every student at George W. Miller is on this program currently and we’re working with it at Highview with the third graders. It caters to the child,” said Smith. “What we’ve been discovering with this is that they are right on the cutting edge of the ‘adaptive program’ and that is when any of the children go on, it starts understanding who they are as learners.” She added that as the program picks up on the child’s intellectual development, it paces the lessons, changes the choices, skill sets and difficulty level for the child

Two second-graders signed into DreamBox at the board meeting. They each logged in under their own accounts on the school website with their corresponding visual password. DreamBox can be used when they leave school.

“The other benefit is that it can be used at home with their families as well,” said Smith. “They’re very independent. All these children love using it and some of them have racked up quite a few hours on it as well.”

Smith said that Teacher MaryRose Palumbo worked with the teachers in piloting DreamBox.

“It was difficult to find programs suitable for younger children,” said Smith. “From third grade up, there’re plenty of different options you can go to using technology.”

Other Grades & Projects

There is also a book compiled by first graders on the school website. The students write and finish the sentence “My Special Wish is …” They also create a drawing to go with it and the individual papers are published online in the form of a book with the student’s voice narrating their part of the book.

“(The book) It’s up on the website so parents can go on and see it,” said DeMont.

Another Glog the second graders showed the board included one on communities such as suburbs versus cities.

“We have been learning about communities,” one student said. “We talked about what kind of community we would like to live in.”