NYSAIS Teaching with Technology – May 1, 2009
Workshops 1
1. Beyond Reader Rabbit: Technology in the Pre-K and K Classroom
The Town School
OdetteMuskin, Head of the Nursery-Kindergarten Division,
English/Language Arts
History/Social Studies
Math
Technology
Other: Gross/Sensory Motor
Early Childhood (PK-K)
In this workshop, Pre-K and K teachers will share how they are using a variety of technological tools to enhance curriculum in the Early Childhood setting. Incorporating the Reggio Emilia theme of documentation, we will share how young children can utilize digital photography as one of their 100 voices in documenting their work. Focusing on the development of the whole child, the workshop will also focus on how the use of Smart boards, flip videos and digital photography can enhance curriculum and assist in the development of visual spatial, sensory, gross motor and grapho-motor skills.
Enrollment: 20, some comfort/experience
2. Claymation with IMovie
Churchill School and Center
WendySemsel, ES Computer Teacher,
English/Language Arts
History/Social Studies
Lower (1-4)
Middle (5-8)
Create original claymations. Storyboard with a slideshow program in computer class, create original artwork and take digital photographs in art class. Insert photographs into Imovie to animate. Can be used to bring stories to life from Language Arts classes, or illustrate ideas from Social Studies.
Enrollment: 20, some comfort/experience
3. Technology in Science
Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School (LREI)
SherezadaAcosta, Middle School Science Teacher,
Science
Middle (5-8)
Upper (9-12)
This workshop focuses on using technology in the classroom to teach an inquiry-based science curriculum that is both student–centered and project based. Examples of computer simulation and robotics technology projects from 5th and 6th grade science courses will facilitate discussions on the use of technology to enhance students’ experience as scientists. Some of the specific technologies we will discuss include Interactive Physics, LEGO NXT Mindstorms and MIT’s Handycricket. The themes discussed in this workshop can be applied to any grade level.For more specifics on the topics covered in the workshop and the projects mentioned you can check out the video found in the following link:
No - some comfort/experience
4. Leveling the Playing Field: Using Assistive Technology to Differentiate Instruction
Albany Academies
AlexBrosowsky, Director Center for Teaching and Learning / Learning Specialist,
English/Language Arts
Foreign (World) Language
History/Social Studies
Science
Lower (1-4)
Middle (5-8)
Upper (9-12)
Teachers want to personalize instruction for all of their students but many of us are concerned about the amount of work involved. Assistive technology gives teachers a no prep solution to their differentiation needs. All students can gain access to the most challenging curriculums through the use of Inspiration 8, Kurzweil 300, and Dragon Naturally Speaking 10. This presentation will introduce these three software packages and demonstrate their benefits to all students. Participants will learn how to obtain the software for their students and when use of the software is appropriate. Teachers will gain a basic working knowledge of all three programs and will be able to bring their new insights back to their schools.
no comfort/experience
5. Integrating Podcasts into Your Lessons
The Browning School
Giurissa A.Félix, Spanish Teacher,
English/Language Arts
Foreign (World) Language
History/Social Studies
Technology
Middle (5-8)
Upper (9-12)
Adding podcasting to your curriculum is a simple way to help students display mastery of subject goals and provide differentiation so all students can be successful. This hands-on workshop will discuss how to incorporate this technology, assess students' progress, and teach you how to create a podcast. Macintosh recommended. Please bring your laptop. If possible, bring an iPod with cable.
Enrollment: 20, no comfort/experience, some comfort/experience
6. From Pixel to Paper -Creating “Day of the Dead” Banners In Adobe Illustrator
City & Country School
IanKlapper, Technology Teacher,
History/Social Studies
Technology
Middle (5-8)
In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the power of Adobe Illustrator; a vector based program. We will explore how digital and traditional cut-paper techniques can be used to bring social studies projects to life. The only pre-requisite for this class is imagination. For hands-on participation, bring a laptop loaded with Adobe Illustrator.
Enrollment: 12, No-some comfort/experience
7. Sixth-grade Newspaper
Albany Academies
Mary EllenMcQueen, Grade 5 and 6 English Teacher,
English/Language Arts
Middle (5-8)
Three years ago I started working with our Resident-writer and reporter from our local newspaper, Paul Grondahl. Together, we have created a unit in which each girl establishes a topic for an article, creates interview questions, conducts interviews, researches topics/subjects, etc.. After the initial rough draft is created, Paul and I edit them and then the girls are broken into newspaper teams: layout and design, copy editors, photo/visual editors, production and distribution editors, and editors-in chief. This unit lasts about a month and a half.
a lot of comfort/experience
8. The livescribe(tm) Pen: Accommodation or Teaching Tool
Darrow School
LindaTaylor, Director of Tutorial,
Technology
Other: learning skills
Middle (5-8)
Upper (9-12)
A brief demonstration of the features of the livescribe(tm) pen and how it works. This will be followed by examples of how teachers at Darrow have used this technology both as an accommodation, for those students needing scribes, and as a teaching tool to improve the entire classes notetaking skills.
Enrollment: 25, some comfort/experience
9. Using the Smart Board to create Lessons that take into account different learning styles
The Calhoun School
ErikaZamfirescu, Mathematics/Computer Science Teacher,
Math
Upper (9-12)
I developed classes/ games that take advantage of the Smart Board. I teach Precalculus, a subject that is very dry by its nature and I enhanced the curriculum by taking advantage of the SmartBoard.
a lot of comfort/experience
Workshops 2
10. Digital Art
Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School (LREI)
CarinCohen, 7th and 8th grade Art teacher,
Title/topic of your session
Arts
Technology
Middle (5-8)
Explore art in the digital age. Join in on a conversation about digital art and technology as I share ideas and student examples from our Eighth grade digital art curriculum. Topics will include digital photography, Photoshop and imovie. The idea of digital art will be discussed as well as the possibilities for intersection between digital and studio art. Come learn and share with each other as we think about curriculum ideas, computer programs and managing technology.
Some-a lot of comfort/experience
11. Strategies for Teaching with the Smartboard
The Browning School
Giurissa A.Félix, Spanish Teacher,
English/Language Arts
Foreign (World) Language
History/Social Studies
Middle (5-8)
Upper (9-12)
As a language teacher, the Smartboard has become the resource for engaging students. I will be discussing strategies to integrate the Smartboard into your curriculum. Although I am a language teacher, these strategies can easily be adapted to be used in English Literature and History courses. I have developed many lesson plans that I will share. Participants will come away with lesson plans, materials and a unique perspective for dealing with the new demands of teaching in this age of technology. All levels of expertise are welcome.
Enrollment: 20, no comfort/experience, some comfort/experience
12. Online Oceanography Labs and Investigations
Canisius High School
Gregory, Garzon, Science Teacher,
Science
Upper (9-12)
I have developed a half year oceanography elective for Canisius High School in Buffalo, New York. This course elective is very popular with senior year students. It is offered during each semester at Canisius. Although Canisius High School is eight hours from the nearest ocean, online resources and laboratory activities are used in conjunction with classroom lectures to bring the "Ocean World" alive for students and to give the course material a more tangible and deeper meaning.
Enrollment: 25, some comfort/experience
13. PowerPoint Virtual School Tour with 6/7 year olds
Corlears School
JanetGross, School Librarian/Educational Technologist,
English/Language Arts
Technology
Lower (1-4)
My presentation would show how I helped 1st and second graders create narrated virtual tours of our school using PowerPoint, digital cameras and sound files. The tours were created during a 6-week long afterschool class with children of varying reading and technology abilities. The results were spectacular and helped raise the awareness of technology possibilities in the school for younger children.
Enrollment: 25, all comfort/experience levels
14. Integrating Computer Techology into Teaching Chinese As A Second Language
Spence School
Cynthia Chiu-HuaHo-Donaldson, Chinese Teacher,
Foreign (World) Language
Lower (1-4)
Middle (5-8)
Upper (9-12)
I will be presenting what computer technology I have incorporated into my teaching of Chinese language in a classroom setting. It includes Smart Board, Powerpoint, Moodle/elearning, audio and video media etc. I will demonstrate how I integrate different types of the media into my lesson plans.
Enrollment: 8, some comfort/experience
15. SmartBoard Use in Judaic Studies and Hebrew Language
Ramaz Middle School
MiriRubon, Technology Coordinator,
Foreign (World) Language
Technology
Other: Judaic
Lower (1-4)
Middle (5-8)
Many Judaic studies teachers in private Jewish school in New York are now beginning to integrate the SmartBoard into their curriculum. This workshop is intended to show some best practices and examples of uses throughout the Judaic curriculum, as well as to address technical problem with dealing with right to left fonts and encoding in the Notebook software.
Enrollment: 15, some comfort/experience
16. Blurring Boundaries: Using the internet to build bridges across geographical, economic, and cultural spaces
Poughkeepsie Day School
TraceSchillinger, English Teacher/ English Department Chair, p[f
English/Language Arts
Technology
Middle (5-8)
Upper (9-12)
As an English teacher at Poughkeepsie Day School, I lead a group of middle and high school girls as they pursue the question, “What does it mean to grow up ‘girl’, and how does the media influence this experience?” One outcome of our work is the publication of Scarlet Magazine, which has a presence on the web, and is also published in hard copy. In the process of preparing this publication, I noticed the extent to which my students articulated different versions of “growing up girl” (White, 2002). The notion that multiple versions of growing up girl existed, led me to wonder what happens when girls from different backgrounds read and reflect on feminist texts together. As a teacher/researcher, I was curious to discover how female readers would communicate their impressions about shared reading assignments across cultural, racial, geographical, and economic boundaries (Stover and Tway, 1992). The internet offered the perfect opportunity to connect students across these boundaries, expanding the walls of our school in a sense. To explore this question, I connected my students with another class of eighth grade female students from Anacostia, Washington DC to read and discuss two young adult novels and our reading experiences using a site I created on wikispaces.com. As the semester long project continued, the wikispace provided a safe space where students could get to know each other, write about important issues related to their reading and “growing up girl,” and write collaborative articles for Scarlet Magazine. Digital technology also helped prepare the students involved for a final face-to-face meeting at the project’s end. In this presentation, participants will view the wikispace and other artifacts from the project and learn about the successes and challenges involved in digital connections and collaborations. References: Stover, L. and Tway, E. (1992). “Cultural Diversity and the Young Adult Novel.” Reading Their World. Virginia Monseau and Gary Salvner. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc. White, Emily. (2002). Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group.
Enrollment: 25
17. Integrating Technology into the Teaching of Poetry: My Favorite Poem Video Project
The Chapin School
MaraTaylor, Chair, Upper School English Department,
English/Language Arts
Arts
Technology
Upper (9-12)
This project was inspired by the former poet laureate Robert Pinsky's "Favorite Poem Project," in which Americans of every ilk were recorded as they read and talked about their favorite poems. For this project, students are required to make a video about their favorite poem. Components of the video include a recitation, an explication, and a personal story. Students gain comfort working with technology (e.g., video-making and editing with iMovie) while making a personal connection to poetry and exploring forms of expression--that is, forms in addition to the written response. During this workshop, participants will learn about a structure for organizing this assignment and view models. There will also be the opportunity for participants to share the various ways they use technology to facilitate the teaching of poetry.
All comfort/experience levels
18. Using computer based probes and sensors to collect and analyze data
Ethical Culture Fieldston School - Fieldston Lower
Michael Wilkinson, Math-Science Teacher,
Science
Math
Middle (5-8)
Upper (9-12)
This workshop will demonstrate how 5th grade science students collect data from controlled labs investigating the principles of evaporation and convection as part of a study of hurricanes. Students use Vernier probeware and LabPro software to collect and analyze quantitative data. These data are then used to reach and support conclusions describing the nature of the phenomena of evaporation and convection. Both the actual labs and student data will be presented in this workshop.
some comfort/experience
Workshops 3
19. Giving Your Elementary Students Their Blogs
The Dalton School
Monica Edinger, 4th Grade Chair,
Ellen Nickles, technology teacher, Jennifer Kirsch, associate
English/Language Arts
History/Social Studies
Technology
Lower (1-4)
Middle (5-8)
A fourth grade teacher and technology specialist have collaborated for the past three years to introduce and support students with individual blogs. In this presentation we will share our journey including a carefully constructed curriculum and the steps used to implement it. We use the blogs for language arts, social studies, and a myriad of other activities. Every year our use of the blogs; for instance, this year an associate teacher has been using them to teach various expository writing techniques and we hope that she will join us in this presentation. To see the class blog, go to blogs.dalton.org/edinger. There is a page with links to all the students blogs for these past three years (most of this year's students have public blogs as of this writing).
some comfort/experience, a lot of comfort/experience
20. "Can we write about this?" Edublogs as a Classroom Communication Tool
The Churchill School
LisaFischler, Learning Specialist,
English/Language Arts
Science
Technology
Lower (1-4)
Middle (5-8)
Upper (9-12)
This presentation will show you how to use Edublogs to develop an online learning environment that will enable your students to communicate and explore ideas in visual and written form. We will use a currently active class site as a model and examine the ways in which students can use it to communicate and explore ideas, as well as document what they've learned. We will also address how to integrate this technology into the life of the classroom and how it can be used to communicate with families, the school community, and the wider world. Edublogs is a free online blogging service specifically designed for use in education.
Enrollment: 25, all comfort/experience levels
21. Lights, Camera, Take Action: Documentaries in the Classroom
King Low-Heywood Thomas
JeriHurd, Library Media and Technology Specialist,
Science
English/Language Arts
Foreign (World) Language
History/Social Studies
Middle (5-8)
Upper (9-12)
Participants will learn the stages of student documentary production, from pre to post production, along with ideas (and resources) for guiding students through the process.
Enrollment: 20,some comfort/experience
22. A Social Network of the Gods: learning history through social interaction
City & Country
Rebecca, Kaye, XIIs Group Teacher (7th Grade),
English/Language Arts
History/Social Studies
Middle (5-8)
This presentation looks at how to use a social network like Wordpress as a venue through which students can learn history. Through written role play, students "publish" their work online, read and comment on each others' writing, and cooperatively engage in the curriculum outside of the classroom.
some comfort/experience
23. Explorando Nueva York: Modern Language & Tech Classes Team Up to Explore Identity
The Calhoun School
JosephineSalvador, Director, School & Society Initiative,
Andres Richner-Maldonado, Technology Teacher and Middle School Technology Coordinator
Foreign (World) Language
Arts
Technology
Other: interdisciplinary study
Middle (5-8)
Upper (9-12)
Participants learn about an interdisciplinary middle school class focused on exploring NYC's Latino cultures through field trips. The class was co-created and is co-taught by a Technology teacher and a Spanish teacher. The presenters will share: outline of class rationale/tools/outcomes, student-produced digital material, reflections on fostering individual and community awareness of cultural identity, and tips/demos on designing explorations.
no comfort/experience
24. Technology Integration with Google Earth
Ethical Culture Fieldston, Lower School
CharlesVergara, Technology Integrator,