Meadowmere's teacher, Andrea Carr, has incorporated technology into the kindergarten classroom since the beginning of the school year. Students learned basic procedures for technology safety, practiced using the keyboard and mouse, and learned the basics of various software programs. 

As the students continued to learn and practice their technology skills throughout the year, they also began to integrate more science into their ELA. Students began working on life cycles and started researching about their favorite plant or animal. As a class, the students researched about the life cycle of a pumpkin and created their third Powerpoint presentation using pictures and information they gathered on their research.

Each student in the class took part in this research based project and was in charge of designing a Powerpoint slide with the assistance of the teacher as needed. After completion of the Powerpoint presentation, the students re-enacted the complete life cycle of a pumpkin using props they made.

What a simple and easy way to get kindergarten students involved in integrating technology in the classroom! The students love being able to take part in class projects, designing their own Powerpoint slides. They continued to create more Powerpoint presentations throughout the year with the students needing less help from Ms. Carr as they gained more experience in using Powerpoint. 

As a part of a building wide initiative at Martin City, students are setting goals for themselves in all areas of academics, and 1st grade teacher Nicole Burkemper wanted a way to introduce the idea of setting goals to her students.  She decided to start with them setting goals for their behaviors using Class Dojo, a free online classroom management system used in grades K-12.

Every Monday, students set goals for themselves by looking at how many points they earned on Class Dojo the week before.  Ellie, a student in Mrs. Burkemper's class, has learned that she needs to set her dojo point goal higher every week, otherwise it is too easy for her! Great self awareness for a first grader!

Students earn/lose points throughout the week with Class Dojo depending on their behavior.  Students know exactly how they can earn points and exactly how they can lose points in order to reach their goal.

Students who reach their goals by the end of the day on Friday, will participate in Fun Friday!  Mrs. Burkemper has students choose from centers such as drawing/coloring, playdough, iPad, building blocks, puzzles, and more.  Students also get to roll on her homemade "Dojopoly".  Not everyone meets their goal, which is the harsh reality of goal setting.  Students who don't meet their goal by Friday, are sent to another room during Fun Friday, but get a fresh start on Monday.

Diane DeLaTorre

Creating websites isn't just a great way for teachers to share information and communicate, students can create websites for a number of purposes as well. 4th grade students in Cassie Fuller's classroom recently created their very own websites to share information about the famous Missourians they were studying.

Ms. Fuller's students utilized Google Sites, a website creation tool that is a part of their district Google Apps for Education accounts, to create their projects. The students created a home page for their topic, and additional pages to discuss specific information about their famous Missourian.

Although creating a website may sound difficult, and has been in the past, tools like Google Sites and Weebly make the process fairly simple, and create an opportunity for students to demonstrate understanding and be creative in new ways. Their are dozens of ways teachers can incorporate websites into the teaching and learning process. If you are interested in learning more about these possibilities, please don't hesitate to contact the Instructional Technology Department!

Check out a few examples
Mark Twain
Charles Lindberg
George Washington Carver
Lucile Bluford

Scott Sisemore

Also, here's a shoutout to Mr. Levy who created Grandview Middle School's first ever Sound Gallery! Students used the GarageBand app to create a unique piece of music that demonstrated their understanding of AB form.  Then, Mr. Levy took those creations and displayed them as QR codes outside his room that played the studets’ creations when scanned!  Take a listen to one student's work that went above and beyond the assignment expectations!