The students in Mrs. Bowles’s 4th grade class have been learning about the major cities, rivers, and regions in Virginia. Today the students used Google Maps to create a map of Virginia. Using the polygon tool, students were able to create translucent layers to show the 5 regions of Virginia. After students had completed the regions, they created another layer with pinpoints for the major cities and rivers in Virginia. They enjoyed changing the icon picture and color. Here are directions if you want to try this out in your classroom. Take a look at this student’s finished Virginia map!

The 5th grade students in Ms. Edwards’s class have been learning about the layers of the Earth. For this activity, students went to Schoology for their lesson materials. We started by watching a BrainPop video to review the composition of each layer of the Earth.

Next students clicked on a link that took them to ABCya Animate. From here the students used the drawing, text, and duplicate tools to create an animation showing the four layers of the Earth.

The finished projects were downloaded as an animated gif and uploaded to a media album in Schoology.

Check out some of their great work samples!

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The students in Mr. Taylor’s class collaborated on a Google Map today. Working as a team, they were able to plot over 200 coordinates on the class map in about 20 minutes! There were 10 layers on the map, so students worked with a partner to plot all of the coordinates for their group. After 20 minutes, students refreshed the map and turned on all layers so they could see the locations that their classmates put on the map. Students analyzed the world map and noticed that many of the locations overlapped and almost formed lines on the map. The students figured out that these lines actually made up the outlines of the tectonic plates! We talked about the events that can occur where two plates come together or slide past one another. From this conversation, students realized that the coordinates they had plotted were actually locations where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions had occurred.



Zoom in on the map to view the pins and see the outline of the tectonic plates.

After completing the map, students worked on an interactive puzzle of the Pangea. They were able to add layers to show evidence of Pangea to help them put the puzzle together.

The librarian at Jackson Davis, Anna Lingerfelt, had the idea to do a digital breakout for her 3rd-5th grade students to welcome them back to the library. Blair Hart, librarian at Longan, and I put loved the idea and decided to develop a breakout for her intro lessons as well. The new Google Sites is very user friendly and makes creating digital breeze! In this digital breakout, students get practice with using the catalog to search for books, finding non-fiction text in a certain section of the library shelves, and identifying genres. Take a look at the finished LONGAN LIBRARY BREAKOUT and see if you can solve the codes based on the clues.

The students in Mrs. King’s Kindergarten class have been practicing with identifying shapes. Today the students used Play-Doh, a rolling pin, and a cookie cutter to create a shape. After cutting out the shape, they put it on a white piece of paper and used the free Play-Doh Touch app to scan their shape and pull it into a virtual world.

Once in the world, students made their shape walk and jump around the world until they found a Play-Doh cup. When they found the Play-Doh cup, they were able to choose to fill the world with the shape that they had cut out.

Students took a screen-shot of their shape world and pulled it into Seesaw. In Seesaw they were able to use the drawing and recording feature to trace and tell what shape they created.

The students in Mrs. Wilson’s 3rd grade class have been studying graphing in math. Today, we introduced pictographs using this Google Slide Template. Using the Google Drive integration, the teacher was able to easily add this slideshow to her assignment within her math course in Schoology. Students logged into Schoology through Clever, opened the slideshow, and they were ready to work right within the Schoology platform. To gather data, students used this wheel with the options for lunch (pizza, cheeseburger, or taco).

Then they added that food to the graph by clicking on the picture of the food, duplicating the image (Ctrl + D), and moving it to the graph. Students repeated these steps (spin the wheel, duplicate the food, and add it to the graph) to get a full set of data. Then they created another slide where they typed a question that could be answered by analyzing their graph. When students were finished, they pushed the Submit Assignment button within Schoology to send their work to their teacher. Take a look at this finished student sample.

It’s been a great first week back to school! Over the summer, many teachers attended our technology conference, Field Day of the Future, and afterwards I had several requests for this Birthday Board Google Slide activity that they saw in one the sessions. This year our students have access to Schoology and over the summer Schoology added Google Drive Integration, so the teachers were easily able to add the Slideshow template to their assignment within their Homeroom Course. Creating the assignment with the Google integration, it automatically makes a copy of the presentation for the students that they are able to edit. You can do some editing within Schoology itself, but the students seemed to like editing from their Google Drive. In Drive, students were able to take a picture to add to their slideshow, search for images, search for new fonts, etc.

Once their birthday slide was complete, the students went back to the Schoology tab and clicked submit. This sent all of their slides straight to their teacher through Google Drive and through Schoology! Their completed slides will be displayed on their birthday!

Welcome back! I’m so excited to work with you all again. I know you have some fabulous project ideas for this school year! At the end of the last school year, our team was awarded a HEF Grant to bring some new, innovative technology tools to your students! I wanted to include the list of equipment that we have available as an ITRT team. Some of these items may look familiar, while others are brand NEW! If you want to do a lesson using any of these resources, just let me know when you sign up. I can check out the equipment and bring it to your room for the lesson. If you want to learn more about any of these resources, schedule a consult and I’d be happy to explain how they can be used in your classroom.

Field Day of the Future is here!!

We are busy training and conditioning for the big day next Tuesday, August 15th at Deep Run High School! Have you registered yet? We are just about full, so be sure to grab your spot. The SRN for the event is: 20172928801.

Events included are “Lights, Camera, Selfie,” “To Infinity and Beyond with Virtual Reality,” “Get Me Outta Here (Digital Breakouts),” “End of Summer Pic Me Up,” and so many more! You can see the full schedule HERE!

Food Trucks will be on-site for lunch and all accept cash and cards! This year we are expecting The Grapevine, Continental Divide, Goatacado, Slideways, AND Gelati Celesti!

Click HERE for the Field Day Google Site to access all of the menus and more!

Let’s mix up our colors, please wear the following: (or your school spirit wear)
K/Ex. Ed.-Red
1st/Music-Yellow
2nd/PE-Green
3rd/Art -Pink
4th/Library -Orange
5th/Admin-Purple

Grab your Field Day buddy, charged HCPS laptop, and plan to arrive at Deep Run between 7:45-8:30am. We will have donuts!! (You must sign in and out to receive your $60!)

You will receive one more email telling you how to access the Schoology Course, all conference materials will be housed in Schoology this year.

We cannot wait to see you on Tuesday!