During a week in which
most teachers are preparing for the end of semester exams many teachers are
still working at integrating a variety of tools into the classroom. I had a
chance at the last faculty meeting to present some of the components of using
Google Docs with files and some of the benefits of collaboration with these
tools. Being able to share these tools has opened up a variety of conversations
with teacher’s which has extended from just creating Gmail accounts and
exploring the collaboration features to developing Google Forms for Assessment
in the classroom.
Teacher Highlights:
Teachers in Foreign
Language are integrating variety of podcast tools in the foreign language
department to help students learn language. Students can participate in lessons
driven with native speakers and deep embedded vocabulary.
For the purpose of
improving her connection to her students with web based content a teacher is
developing a blog using the Blogger format from Google. She has developed a
variety of lessons and media to support her existing curriculum. She will be
rolling out the website in the new semester. I have had the benefit of working
with her to develop the technology which supports her teaching methodology.
Teachers in the Social
Studies department are in the process of reviewing web based tools in which to
store and share links of curriculum content to share and collaborate with.
Teachers were introduced to tools such a Wikispaces (http://www.wikispaces.com/), Portaportal (http://www.portaportal.com/), Urlist (http://urli.st/) and https://delicious.com . These tools can add layers of productivity
and collaboration between teachers. For the document outlining these tools
click here.
Teachers are beginning
to integrate Apple TV into their classroom environments either by projecting
their desktops to their class or using the built in applications. Apple TV is
an additional piece of hardware which enables “sharing“of Apple devices (IPad, MacBook’s,
and Phone’s) to the projector. This technology is particularly beneficial to
classrooms in which has access to the IPad or MacBook carts so that students can
project their device as well. To learn more about this technology check out
this page from Apple.
Co-Teaching Experiences
I had the opportunity to
go back into Karen Stevens-Mazmans' class and teach a web design lesson using HTML
(Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) for a marketing
webpage assignment she is giving to students. Students are creating promotional
websites based on a product. Click here to see her lesson write up. Going into
her classroom is a great opportunity to share my skills and deepen the skills
learned in the Marketing curriculum. It’s great to see the student’s interest
grows as they learn how to code and change the appearance of websites.
Andover Innovation
Lab/Help Desk
Students are in the
final phases of their independent technology driven projects at the Innovation
Lab. We currently have a student creating a mobile application (Eli Gukovsky), researching
Minecraft in Education (Viabhav Patel) and learning the programming language
Lua (John Makiej). These students will be presenting their final projects
during the finals week in an online platform. For more information visit:
Teachers are well into
the swing of adapting to all the new technology provided to enhance their
teaching and learning. Wireless projection and understanding the intricacies of
their new MacBook’s is beneficial to student engagement but we also want
to continue a deeper level of integration of a variety of web tools such as
Google tools, Workspaces and a variety of Ipad applications which enhances
student understanding of core concepts. In the Science Department a recent
influx of new applications for their Ipad carts has enabled them to demonstrate
Physics, Engineering and core Physical Science content online.
These updates are just
some of the continual evolvement that is going on with technology driven
initiatives at the high school across curriculums.
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