9/30/08 - Roman Life

We started this morning with a bbc.com website about family and child life in ancient Rome. Ms. Sheffie led a discussion about the site, and asked students to read about and then reflect on what life would be like as a child in Rome. Students were surprised to learn that schooling was only offered to males of privilege who lived in major cities, whose parents could pay tuition. We shifted gears to focus on Roman Mythology, by showing a PowerPoint presentation that was created by a Teacher at King George V school in Hong Kong. The school has British roots, and continues to teach class in English. The presentation was very well prepared, and offered a description of all of the major Gods and Goddesses, and their role in Roman Mythology. To reinforce the material, we had students take a quiz online to test their knowledge as a class, and asked questions about the roman family life website.

bbc.com Roman Family Life: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/romans/families.shtml
Roman Mythology Powerpoint: http://www.kgv.edu.hk/history/Y8/Superstitions_and_Beliefs/ROMAN%20GODS.ppt
Roman Gods and Goddesses Quiz: http://www.quia.com/rr/149909.html

9/25/08 - 5th Grade Cell Structure

Today we spent our 45 minutes looking at the structure of plant and animal cells, using great website and PowerPoint resources found by Ms. Briceño. The PowerPoint (slightly modified) provided a thorough introduction to cells, their parts, and the difference between plant and animal cells. We watched a youtube video of an amoeba, when we got to the point in the presentation about prokaryotes. We ended with a test on quia.com over organelles (the parts of a cell), and passed the wireless mouse around the classroom to give different tables a chance to answer. The game was called rags to riches, and was similar to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. After two tries, the class nearly made it to the top.

Cell Powerpoint: http://www.science-class.net/PowerPoints/Cell_structure_function.ppt
Cell Structure Rags To Riches Game: http://www.quia.com/rr/354661.html
Another Cell Structure Rags to Riches Gamehttp://www.quia.com/rr/107541.html
Amoeba Video: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zTFsn9xt7b0&feature=related
Flagella and Cilia video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGAm6hMysTA&feature=related

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office 2007 Software has been installed on all computers in the library, and both media carts. It is amazing software with great capabilities, and it is ready for student and staff use.

Microsoft Office is Coming!

I heard, this morning, that 35 copies of Microsoft Office were ordered for our school by a generous Microsoft employee, and should be shipping out in the next few weeks. Once we have the software, it will take a couple of days to install Office on all of the computers in the lab, and the teachers' laptops. The Office suite (Office Professional Plus 2007) has the latest versions of Access, Excel, InfoPath, Outlook, Powerpoint, Publisher, Word, and Communicator. You can find out more about it here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/suites/FX101674101033.aspx.

Media Carts

This summer, Saint Columbkille purchased and equipped 2 mobile multimedia carts for use in the classroom. They each have a projector, speakers, a small desktop computer, and a document camera; and they are ready to use. With a cart in your classroom, you will be able to integrate technology into your lessons with minimal interruption. All you need to do is plug it in, and turn it on, and in a matter of minutes the cart is ready to project PowerPoint slides, work with Excel spreadsheets and graphs, show DVD video, connect to the internet, or show a live image of whatever you put on the desk (using the document camera). And, with the wireless keyboard and mouse students can be a part of the lesson.