HCPS Middle School

Play "Ancient Mummies"

Students in Ms. Searle’s  cross-curricular reading classroom read and researched about the ancient Eygptian pyramids. After a general introduction to the material, her students picked a specific topic and learned how to safely search the internet and gather information. A big part of the lesson involved how to determine a website’s accuracy, reliability, and validity, and a clear understanding of copyright law. In collaborative groups her students created informational presentations and shared them with the class in formal presentations.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Concept mapping can help students organize thoughts and works extremely well for visual learners. There are numerous tools available to students for concept mapping on the computer, such as Inspiration, myWebSpiration.com, OmniGraffle, and more!

Students in Mrs. Sharpe’s English 6 class use Inspiration to identify literary elements in stories.

Popularity: 4% [?]

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

Popularity: 5% [?]

Ms. Alcazar used literature circles in her 6th grade reading classroom to allow students to openly discuss topics within the assigned book Surviving the Applewhites.  After students read and discussed the book in class they were given the task of creating a digital project.  Students were allowed to choose the media in which they would present the project but were asked to include the following criteria:  book title and author, main character(s), conflict (and what type of conflict it is), important vocabulary words from the book, a one paragraph summary of the plot, using the words exposition, climax and resolution, a one paragraph review of the book – what was good or bad and why.  The 1st picture is from an iMovie and the 2nd is from a keynote presentation.

Popularity: 4% [?]

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.

Popularity: 3% [?]