Mon. County

It is wonderful to be a part of this group that has been given the opportunity to use netbooks with our students! My students, middle school in Monongalia County, have used the netbooks to research and work on our community problem solving problem of helping others living in countries less fortunate than ours. We have used the website http://www.kiva.org/ to see the requests of people living around the world. We wrote and recieved a grant from United Way to sponsor several of these requests, and can check frequently to see if our recipients are paying back their loans. In addition, we are using http://www.freerice.org/ to donate rice to these countries in need. We are currently doing a fundraiser at our school to raise the funds to donate a goat and a flock of chicks to these countries through the site, http://www.heifers.com/ ,to provide milk and eggs.

Recently Vicky visited our classroom and the students were using their netbooks to research for their President presentations in preparation for our Academic Games tournament. Students were given a scenario in which they worked for a public relations firm, and a president came to their firm to be represented. The students needed to prepare a presentation for their president client that included past accomplishments and ways for viewers to remember their president. Presentations included jingles, songs, and posters, as well as factual information. What a fun way to learn!

Wayne County

We enjoyed our visit from Vicki M. today. Our students were creating presentations using www.prezi.com. Prezi is a great way to advance our students from the standard PowerPoint presentations. While PowerPoints are great, Prezi's give our students complete control over their presentations. There are no templates, or guidelines. Creativity is our friend! The students used their netbooks and are creating their presentations to put on our Travel page located on our website. They will document places we have been and include facts about each. So far, they look great. We are hoping the students can load them in 2 weeks. We need the snow to stay away to meet our deadline so cross your fingers!

Just an Update

Hello Everyone,
I haven't posted for awhile so I figured I better record what has been going on with the Netbooks in my elementary age classes. The kids absolutely love the Netbooks and are becoming more confident with their computer usage. They have all made All About Me power point presentations that incorporated Flip Cam footage. My second graders are working on mysteries and using sources like readwritethink to aid them with online graphic organizers. My third graders have been using Google Earth to calculate the mileage and days it took the Ingall's family to travel pioneer journeys since we have been reading Little House on the Prairie. My fourth and fifth grade students are working on group webquest activities (one for Where the Red Fern Grows/Great Depression and one for the Civil War). We also enjoyed a visit from Vickie Mohnacky last Friday. She even helped the students create their own portaportals. The Netbooks really have been a blessing and my students have been learning a great deal.

"Snowblogger"

I'm not sure if you have heard, but where I am in the Eastern Panhandle has gotten record breaking snow amounts this winter. So, I had the kids communicate with me through a blog both at home on snow days and at school with the netbooks. I post assignments and they have class time to work on them and finish them up at home. It has been wonderful! You'll have to take a peek!

Snow

We've been off school for 7 days now because of the snow. We got around 45 inches here in Berkeley County. So, as you can imagine we're a little behind on our project.

Annnnnd We're Off!

Here at Tomahawk Intermediate, in Berkeley County, we have finally started our project. We had to finish a few other contests and projects first before we could start this. The kids are currently working on Power Point shows to go with their Social Studies Fair projects that are advancing to Regionals. They are very excited to add this piece of technology to their projects!

First WVDE Visit to BEST

Vickie Mohnacky visited Beckley-Stratton Middle School today and was able to see students using the Netbooks. We've been working on a Personal Brochure based on students' reflections on their own lives. Their brochures are being created using MS Publisher which, when completed, will be printed out on a color printer. Students save their work on a server using ftp as well as in a folder on their assigned Netbook. Saving on an ftp server, which I manage, allows me to electronically evaluate and provide feedback to the students.