BRV Media Center Messages
March 25, 2013
Teacher Feature--Mr. Mangus
Last Wednesday, Mr. Mangus’ speech students learned how important a great hook can be when writing a research paper by coming up with six different hooks for their impromptu skits. Students chose which hook worked best for their skit. Mr. Mangus hoped showed his students the importance of pre-writing when creating a successful hook.
Media Center Moments
Elementary: The grand total for the Spring book fair was $6,502.22!! Mrs. William’s 5th Grade American History Wax Museum was held on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday evening. Students chose a famous person in history to research and became a live replica of that person for audiences.
High School: The marking of AR fiction books in the library is almost over!! The library’s TAs have been working on this project for months to help students identify AR books easier in the library. Also, the library has purchased some new and second copies of popular book titles. I’m sure these titles will not be on the shelves
Technology Classroom
Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art—and share your creations on the web. Students who use scratch learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. The website was developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab, with financial support from the National Science Foundation, Microsoft, Intel Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Google, Iomega, and MIT Media Lab research consortia.
Spotlight On...
“Alternative Search Tools: These options to Google will help students become better researchers.” By Richard Byme. When students get ready to do research for a class project, they mostly use Google to locate information. While this can be a good resource, traditional Google is not the only tool students can use to find research. In this article, Byme provides seven alternatives to Google: Ref Seek, Yolink, Sweet Search, Diiago, Delicious, and Google Scholar. A brief description of each search engine is provided with a link to the site itself. Click on title to read article. (Note: The BRV High School Library has a link to Sweet Search on its homepage.)
Bits and Pieces
National Day of Unplugging March 29-30, 2013
Take time out from technology for 24 hours and reconnect with family, friends, and traditions!!
Smartboard Snips
Crickweb provides 245 free educational interactive teaching resources and activities for Primary/Elementary schools, 56 free to use fun kids games/activites for kids 4-11, and 165 plus links to free interactive teaching activities, educational games, images, and software resources.
Technology Tip
Lucidchart is a free online diagramming tool that can be used in the following 10 ways in the classroom.
1. Lead a discussion
2. Think, Pair, Share
3. Real time feedback on assigned tasks
4. Green graphic organizers
5. In-class individual work
6. Group assignments
7. Brainstorm with mind maps
8. Teach logic with Venn diagrams
9. Go mobile with tablet learning environment
10. Move beyond the classroom
Web Wonders
A free alternative way for students to make brochures without Microsoft Publisher.