Henrico Staff Development

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The Sixth Grade teachers at L. Douglas Wilder used Animoto to inspire their students to stay out of trouble and sign up for a very exciting field trip to Natural Bridge on June 16th.  This video is a great communication tool to motivate the kids to sign up for what appears to be a fun, enjoyable, learning experience!

Congratulations to Dr. Adria Hoffman who was a finalist for the Henrico 21 award for using creativity and innovation in the classroom.  Dr. Hoffman is the music teacher at L. Douglas Wilder Middle School.  She had her class identify and utilize music notation software and digital audio recording devices to create original musical compositions.  The end product of these compositions reflected the student’s musical interests, social identities, and school community.  Click on the play button below to listen to a student sample.

Nice Job all!

AudioPal.com is a great site for students to make audio recordings that can be easily embedded into a website, blog, or social network.  This site has many advantages and allows for students to record audio clips via cell phone, computer keyboard, computer microphone, or they can upload already existing audio clips from their hard drive.  The sample below was recorded by a student pretending to be Thomas Jefferson.  The assignment was to make believe you are an important person in American History.   Your objective was to leave a voicemail to one of your contemporaries stating relevant facts and posing questions that relate to the Virginia Standards of Learning.   This created an enthusiastic, and modern take on the Revolutionary Era.  To listen to the sample below, just click on the play button.

Ms. Sides English Class showed their self expression by creating online posters to share with people around the world.  The assignment was to read a book and report back using the online tool Glogster.  The students had a plethora of multimedia tools to choose from when creating their project (e.g. text, video, photos, and audio clips).  Students in the class also had the option to leave constructive feedback to one another using the comment feature, as well as take advantage of Glogster’s 5 star rating system in order to determine how individual projects compared to others in the class.

• Click Here to View Jame’s Glog

Ms. Heesen’s class logged onto SAS curriculum in order to identify the three West African Empires that dominated trade between 1200 A.D. to 1600 A.D. They accomplished this feat by using SAS’s interactive atlas.  The atlas allowed them to create overlays and add text to the map.  When the students finished their work they were able to download a .pdf and email a copy of their work to Ms. Heesen.

The WUWW staff had a blast hashing out some very creative photos and video to use for the new What’s Up Wilder Wolverines Morning Announcement Intro. They worked collaboratively on taking snapshots and shooting video of each other. Once everything was edited and compiled they uploaded their work to animoto.com for the final product.

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Ms. Waldren and Ms. Fisher, who are art teachers at Wilder Middle School, created a video showcasing some outstanding student work. The video was uploaded to the internet in order to effectively communicate with rising sixth graders and others at the elementary level who are not familiar with the middle school art program. Hopefully, this will get students interested in signing up for art when they enter Wilder next school year.

Ms. Vernon’s 8th Grade students utilized podcasting in order to increase comprehension and writing skills using the novel Copper Sun by Sharon Draper.  There is a particularly dramatic scene in the story about slavery, where the outsiders come to the African village and kidnap the members of the tribe.  After reading the chapter and an introductory lesson on screenwriting, the students dramatized the scene by writing scripts in small groups.  They used dialogue and description, through the use of a narrator.

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The students at L. Douglas Wilder Middle School are working tirelessly on their collaboration and communication skills.  This year Wilder began televising their morning announcements.  Students are responsible for researching upcoming events and relaying the information to the student population and staff.  The written transcript and live broadcast are also available online for parents and the community at the following URL- http://wuww.wikispaces.com.  The goal of this project is to have WUWW entirely student run within the next few weeks.

Capzules.com allows for students to create interactive time lines.  Students can add dates, sound, pictures, and summaries describing the important events.  Here is a link to a time line created by a student in Ms. McInnis’ 7th grade Social Studies class.

Click here to see the sample