Technology Spotlight, Tiffany Hawthorne, Lonnie B. Nelson Elementary

Tiffany Hawthorne is working closely with Dawnn Turner, the Technology and Learning Coach at Lonnie B. Nelson Elementary through peer coaching. During the time she and Mrs. Turner have worked together Tiffany has increased student use of the technology with her daily lessons. Tiffany is very eager to add a variety of teaching strategies to ensure her students are involved with technology in all of the content areas. Her students are very excited to be using Chromebooks. Tiffany's students are becoming very confident using technology and the students are excited to share what they are doing with the Chromebooks. Tiffany is using SMART Notebook along with a variety of Google Apps for Education tools. She was also the first person to show interest in planning for the hour of code. Tiffany works with her students to create Google Draw and Slides. Most recently the students created their own version of a Thanksgiving plate in Google Draw. Then wrote a description of the drawing.

Tiffany is in her 7th year teaching and is currently teaching 3-5th grade at Lonnie B. Nelson Elementary. She recently was named National Board certified.

-Submitted by Dawnn Turner

Technology Spotlight, Karen Brown, L W Conder Elementary School

Karen Brown has made teaching child development students her career for very good reasons - she understands 4-year olds and how to provide engaging and meaningful experiences for them! Karen has taught in the Clemson Road Child Development program for 10 years both on the Clemson Road campus and currently at L W Conder Elementary. Her love of nature led her to the Congaree National Forest where she was a teacher ranger for two summers and she continues to bring her students to the outdoors through grant funded projects and many recycled materials.

The name of Karen's classroom is the Terrific Turtles and her class has already learned a lot about sea turtles in particular, one of her favorite animals. In order to provide her students with the opportunity to meet a turtle expert and to learn more about their class mascot, Karen arranged a Skype session with a west coast authority on turtles. He presented lots of pictures and stories and the Terrific Turtles answered questions and shared their turtle school family song with him. The two-way exchange made possible by Skype was very helpful in keeping student engagement high!

Skype, Google Hangouts, Facetime and other video chat applications are a great way to bring experts to your classroom. How have you used applications like this in your classroom? 

Thank you to Debbie Brady for nominating Karen Brown. If you have a teacher or project on technology you want to showcase at your school in Richland School District Two, fill out the Spotlight Form .

Technology Spotlight, Keighley Wingard, Bridge Creek Elementary

Keighley Wingard is in her 9th year with Richland School District Two and currently serving as the Technology and Learning Coach at Bridge Creek Elementary. This year, Keighley working with her school has started a video newsletter to share Bridge Creek news with parents, the community, and the world! 

After being inspired by George Couros to "take the digital leap," Bridge Creek Elementary school is now communicating with parents through a video newsletter called The Cougar Roar. Students are given leadership opportunities each week by having speaking roles on camera. All of the newsletter footage is captured on a flip cam, and then imported into WeVideo. From here, chroma key effects are added and the video is published. The published link is posted to Twitter @BCETeam121 and it is also embedded on the school's homepage. The September 5th edition, has now been viewed over 2,000 times!  

What a great way to involve everyone with what is going on in your school! Share the positive #RichlandTwo



If you have a teacher or project on technology you want to showcase at your school in Richland School District Two, fill out the Spotlight Form .

Blogging and Skyping Through the Middle Ages: Learning Takes on New Meaning Using 1TWO1 Computing

Guest bloggers: Mr. Atkins, Muller Road Middle and Mr. Abernathy, Blythewood Middle

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Students in Mr. Atkins’s third period Honors Language Arts class at Muller Road Middle School (MRMS) and Mr. Abernathy’s Honors Social Studies classes from Blythewood Middle School (BMS) collaborated together as students researched and wrote about the Middle Ages.  Titled Blogging Through the Middle Ages, students in both classes researched topics and concepts about the Middle Ages based on Common Core Standards.  Students from both schools researched and wrote blogs constructing topics, event, and concepts about the Middle Ages. Students from each school read and responded to students’ blogs from the other school.

The culminating activity was a Skype Meeting between the sixth grade classes.  Mrs. Brandon, the Media Specialist from Muller Road and Mrs. Swetnam, the Media Specialist from BMS set up the Skype event.  Students collaborated using Socratic Seminar methods--students from each school were given ten minutes to discuss assigned topics they wrote about and the other school had five minutes to summarize what students from the other school discussed.  

Student examples: Blog 1; Blog 2; Blog 3

During the last five minutes, students reflected on the experience.  All of them responded to the experience.  Comments included the following:  

"It was nice to learn from students rather than teachers."  

"I enjoyed working with students from another school."  

"I enjoyed getting criticism from other students.  It made me a better writer."  

"Learned a lot from reading the other blogs."

Three or four years ago, students would have read about the Middle Ages and completed a project.  One-to-one computing has enabled them to become researchers, writers, reporters, and collaborators with students at other schools.   

Technology Spotlight - Elizabeth Catoe, Blythewood Middle School

Mrs. Catoe has been using VoiceThread in her French classes to help give students real feedback on conversations. Students in the class use VoiceThread to record conversations with each other. Students are not given much time to prepare and they are not allowed to make a script.

For their most recent assessment using VoiceThread, students imagined that they were shopping for new clothing from a real French store. All students were given was a copy of an ad for the store.  

VoiceThread allows Mrs. Catoe to keep a record of conversations that the students are having in class. Because of this, she is able to give students meaningful feedback on their conversations. Not only Mrs. Catoe able to listen to the conversation many times, her students are able to listen to their conversations again after receiving feedback.

Mrs. Catoe is the French teacher at Blythewood Middle School.

Technology Spotlight - Kailey Shin, Richland Northeast High School

Ms. Shin attended a professional development conducted by Sharon Owens, the Technology and Learning Coach for Richland Northeast High School on using Kahoot! as a means of engaging students and formative assessment. She was excited to try this with her Algebra 1 Part 2 students. The Kahoot! lesson was on transformations in the coordinate plane. It was a pre-assessment to her student's knowledge of the topic as her class is working on HSAP review. 100% of her students participated. The students who answered correctly high-fived other students. It was exciting to see their interaction with others and listen to the comments the students made as they saw which students moved up in the scoreboard.

Kailey Shin was born in Canada and moved to Michigan when she was 5 years old. She received her degree from Michigan State University with a Major in Math, a Minor in Physics, and also completed her teaching certification through their Teacher Ed program. She moved to North Carolina after she graduated. She taught for 4 years in North Carolina and moved to South Carolina this past summer. This is her first year teaching at Richland Northeast High School.

Technology Spotlight - Wendell Tate and Cheryl Cheatham, Dent Middle School

Dent Middle School Latin teachers, Mr. Wendell Tate and Mrs. Cheryl Cheatham, have adopted Operation Lapis for their 7th grade Latin classes. Lapis is a role-playing game that requires students to complete missions and uncover clues. Set in Pompeii in 79AD, students must learn to read and translate Latin words and phrases in order to successfully complete their missions.

"Operation LAPIS is a two-year game-based (practomimetic) introductory course in the Latin language and in Roman culture. It may be employed on its own, or as a supplement to other materials; programs and teachers may experiment with it as a supplement and then easily transition to using Operation LAPIS in place of a traditional textbook." - Operation Lapis

Mr. Tate says "... I have seen wonderful student engagement with the LAPIS environment. Students are using the language in a much more natural way than in previous years. In past years they were using the new grammar and vocabulary to read stories and write in the target language. We still have new grammar and vocabulary for each mission. But the way in which they use it is very different way. Now they are having to use the language to bribe guards, trick evil doers, and work their characters out of tricky situations. It is truly exciting to watch the energy and teamwork in my classes."

Mrs. Cheatham shares her experience with Operation Lapis, "I tried Lapis with one sixth grade class a couple of years ago, when it was brand new. I wasn't sure what to think, and I didn't have any experience with NOT using a book. This year, I went all in on Lapis. It has been really freeing, not having to make sure that I cover every single thing in a textbook. I still use the textbook, Cambridge Latin Course, as an extra resource, but it is not the primary center of my class. The majority of the students have really responded well to Lapis. It really gives them a chance to use the language, instead of just memorizing endings and definitions. They are getting to learn the language in a more natural way."

What are the students saying about Lapis?"Learning Latin is much easier. It is also sort of an incentive, because the more Latin you use in your post, the higher your character "levels up" by learning more Latin words and getting more things for your character." - Tyler M.

"Since you get to apply your knowledge into missions, you get to fully understand the Latin. Operation Lapis is a creative way of incorporating Latin material into missions, which helps me learn Latin." - Aliece H.

"This program impacts learning in several ways. One in particular is that it is a "free" way of learning, and there are many different ways that a "Mission" could go. Because of this, students are offered a chance to explore the Roman times in more depth than other classrooms may provide." - Sarah S.

Cheryl Cheatham has been teaching Latin for fourteen years, all in Richland School District Two. She started her career at Ridge View High, but moved to Dent after four years. She added mythology to her repertoire when she began teaching at Dent.


Wendell Tate been teaching in Richland School District Two at Dent Middle School for 10 years. During this time he has taught both Latin and Greek Mythology.

Hour of Code at Westwood High School

On Monday, December 9, the hallways at Westwood High School were filled with students coding for the Hour of Code. The Hour of Code campaign, part of Computer Science Education Week, is an effort to introduce ten million students to computer science. Several schools in Richland Two participated in the week long event.

Information Technology Instructor, Tracy Wilbur, worked with her team to plan the schoolwide event at Westwood. Students watched a short Hour of Code video to introduce them to the topic and then all students went into the hallways to code. Many of the students used a beginner tutorial from http://csedweek.org/learn to get started with coding. Students enrolled in computer science classes at Westwood circulated throughout the hallways to assist students with coding questions.

Some of the students were unsure about coding but said that it was much more fun than they had imagined. One student stated that coding allows him to be creative and make his own decisions about how a program will work. During the event, teachers talked about their experiences with coding and were excited to see all students so willing to learn a new skill. Students were excouraged to sign up for computer programming classes to become more proficient at coding.

Go to http://goo.gl/1n2Swg to see more photos from Westwood High School. View the WACHFOX news report here: http://goo.gl/Qj23lI.

Technology Spotlight - Mary Allen, Summit Parkway Middle School

Recently, Kahoot! has spread across the district as a great formative assessment tool. Kahoot! is a game-based student response system. Mary Allen at Summit Parkway Middle School started using Kahoot! after it was shared but the school-level Technology and Learning Coach, Sally Wilson. 

Ms. Allen's began using the web site with her students and after posting her quiz, Cartoon Science. The co-founder of Kahoot!, Jamie Brooker emailed her letting her know the quiz was added to the feature quiz list on the site.  The quiz was used to introduce Kahoot to her classes. She wanted something fun, yet science related, to get them interested and excited about this new tool. 

Since the introduction, students have used Kahoot! to create their own quizzes about animals. They have played these quizzes as a whole group during each class period. Students get very competitive and all are actively learning and participating. Ms. Allen's newest assignment with Kahoot! is for students to give a presentation about animal adaptations. At the end of presentation, they must give the class a Kahoot! quiz.  This will ensure that all students are paying attention to the information given by their classmates.

What are students saying about Kahoot!?

Jamal says, "I like Kahoot because it is fun and challenging."
Maryah was asked why she likes using Kahoot and she said, "I like Kahoot because it is competitive and you can ask the person with the high score questions about the subject."
Zion  states, "I think Kahoot makes your reflexes faster."
"It's a fun way to take a quiz and it challenges you," says Ethan.
David says, "I like using Kahoot because it is fun and it tests your skills and checks to see if you know the information."

Every time Ms. Allen introduces new technology resources into the classroom, students get excited.  "It's fun to watch students explore with these tools and apply them to gaining science knowledge.  Kahoot allows students to demonstrate their knowledge of information in a non-threatening, risk free environment.  It's both fun and informational and a great way to informally assess student understanding."

Rice Creek Elementary- Bloggers

These third grade Rice Creek dolphins in Mrs. Gaines class could not be more PROUD about their blog! Mrs. Gaines recently introduced Google Blogger to her class. Each student has their own blog and currently is using it to reflect about their learning experiences.

"My mom gets to read it and I can't wait until she leaves me a comment. I've always wanted to have my own blog and now I do!" ~Ivory-She was full of smiles as she expressed why she thought her blog was awesome! 

"I enjoy blogging because it helps me improve my keyboarding skills. 

I like when my friends read my blog posts!" ~Keon

Blogging can be a powerful tool inside and outside of the classroom:

• Encourages student voice
• Strengthens literacy skills
• Motivates open reflection of learning and interests
• Tracks growth over time (ePortfolio) 
• Excitement for writing 
• Experience writing for an authentic audience 
• Practice for giving proper and effective feedback

Blogger Help

Technology Spotlight's Needed

Richland TWO it's that time again! Do you have a teacher, administrator, or staff person to spotlight for doing great things with technology? 

Who should submit a Technology Spotlight? 
Administrators, the School Level Instructional Technology Specialist, or District Staff

Who can be featured in a Technology Spotlight?
Teachers, Staff persons, ITS, Administrators, District support staff - ANY Richland TWO employee dong great things with technology!

Fill out the Spotlight Form  and send MaryAnn Sansonetti-Wood a few photos or video link.

Technology Spotlight - Mary Ellen Bequette, Lake Carolina Elementary

Chromebooks and Google Drive are a norm in 4th and 5th grade classes at Lake Carolina. Mary Ellen Bequette's fourth grade classroom is an example of how well 1TWO1 is being implemented at the school. From individualized assignments to collaborative partner and group projects, Mrs. Bequette uses Google Apps for Education as a regular part of her classroom instruction since implementing 1TWO1 with Chromebooks this school year.

Students have a variety of experiences with technology. Examples from this school year include differentiated workshop assignments in reading, collaborating on group projects with Google presentation, working as partners to write a fairy tale in a shared Google Doc, individual expository writing in Google Docs with teacher feedback and comments, adding data collected in a Google spreadsheet, using web 2.0 resources like Edmodo, Quizlet, and Socrative, and web sites such as studyjams.com for math and science concepts.

The latest assignment in Mrs. Bequette’s class is “Teach for10” which has each student choose something they want to teach their classmates within 10 minutes. They can choose the format or a combination of formats they prefer for teaching such as creating a video, Google presentation, Prezi, or Powerpoint. They can use online sources/video or make everything themselves. Each student works on planning their presentation, researching content and resources to include, and creating the final presentation. One student has video taped themselves teaching how to draw a self-portrait with images of his work in the steps as he is teaching.

The use of technology and 1TWO1 has truly made a positive change in the teaching and learning in Mrs. Bequette's classroom!

Technology Spotlight - Janice Rice-Kafafy, Ridge View High School

Technology has always had a special place in Ridge View High Teacher of the Year, Janice Rice-Kafafy’s heart. That love grew two years ago when her then boyfriend now husband proposed to her via a surprise Skype call (from Egypt) during class one day.

Today, she makes technology an integral part of her self-contained special education classroom. Mrs. Rice-Kafafy was frustrated by the fact that her students Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings often consisted of parents and teachers discussing a student’s needs while the student sat mute and unable to express concerns. Last March, when she received a class set of Chromebooks she decided to use these new tools to help improve the IEP process. Now students use computer time each week to plan their own IEPs. Mrs. Rice-Kafafy believes that students must have the ability to advocate for themselves. The technology available at Ridge View High School allows the students to communicate, research future careers, create presentations about themselves, and learn about their strengths. Mrs. Rice-Kafafy hopes that by next year students will be able to lead their own IEP conference, and therefore, become a more active participant in their education. “I have seen the students. . . flourish; not only verbally, but in the knowledge of what their disability is and how they can advocate for themselves and how they can use technology to advocate for themselves.”

Technology Spotlight - Lorena Swetnam, Blythewood Middle School

Lorena Swetnam is the media specialist at Blythewood Middle School. This is her fourth year as a media specialist and at BMS. She loves coming to work everyday because everyday is different. "I have the best job in the building. I get to promote reading, research and technology to students and teachers every day."

Mrs. Swetnam works collaboratively with classroom teachers and Mrs. Shelley, the school's ITS, to design engaging lessons and activities that incorporate literacy, technology and research. "A couple of years ago I learned about a term called 'transliteracy' and it resonated with me because it describes what we do in the library everyday.' Transliteracy (http://librariesandtransliteracy.wordpress.com/what-is-transliteracy/) is defined as "the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks."

Examples of Technology & Learning:
Mrs. Swetnam works with classroom teachers to embed digital literacy skills at the point of need. She teaches students how to use the resources in DISCUS (scdiscus.org) for research projects, how to cite sources using citation tools like Noodletools and teaches students how to evaluate resources for authenticity.

The media center program received a class set of iPod touches through the iPac program The iPod touches have been used in lessons designed by Mrs. Swetnam and the classroom teacher. Students in Language Arts and Science classes have used the Storyrobe app to create digital stories where students share their learning through images and audio. Often times, the final product is featured on the morning news show which Mrs. Swetnam also helps facilitate.

Mrs. Swetnam has been working to promote e-reading at BMS. This year Mrs. Swetnam visited each Language Arts class to teach students how to access ebooks in Overdrive and Follettshelf. The BMS media center is also circulating five Nook e-readers, loaded with up to 20 title, to students.

Mrs. Swetnam facilitates the school's student produced news show program. The news show team accesses the announcements each morning on Google Docs and adds current news events to be featured each morning. Students use cameras, sound equipment and a Tricaster to showcase videos, music and BMS happenings to the school each morning.

Mrs. Swetnam has been working with Language Arts teachers this year to design literacy cafes where students come to the media center to read and view materials that provide background information on a novel students are reading in class. In this activity, students read nonfiction informational text and view videos that help deepen the learning in the classroom. "This has been my favorite activity this year because I work with the Language Arts teacher to determine what skills and information the students need to learn more about and I research and gather the needed material. During a literacy cafe, I may select any or all of the following for the literacy cafe: picture books, poetry books, videos from Discovery Education, news articles from DISCUS or nonfiction texts from our school collection. The teacher and media specialist also collaborate to determine whether students will write reflections in their online journals, create videos or digital posters of their learning during the literacy cafe.

Technology Spotlight - Mary Kathryn Burbank, Bridge Creek Elementary

Mary Kathryn Burbank is the music teacher at Bridge Creek Elementary School. She has been teaching for fourteen years, and this is her third in Richland School District Two.  Students in her classroom learn music through the Orff Schulwerk approach, which is based on things children naturally do: sing, chant rhymes, move, and play.  The students hear and experience the music first, and learn to read and write it later.

Mary Kathryn wanted to find a way to incorporate reading and writing music with technology.  After becoming acquainted with a site called Noteflight at a music inservice, she realized it was the tool she needed. Fourth and fifth grade students in her classroom practiced improvising melodies on barred percussion instruments, including xylophones and glockenspiels.  They brought their Chromebooks to the music room for many weeks, collaborating to create patterns that worked well together and plotting those notes on the music staff in the Noteflight site.

One recent composition sounded mysterious and eerie to a particular 5th grade class, so they entitled it "Zombie Turkey."  They added an accompaniment pattern and the school's steel band transferred it to their instruments.  The steel band students created a middle section for improvised solos and performed it at the recent spring concert, allowing the technology used to travel full-circle.

Zombie Turkey was enjoyed by all who were involved in its creation, and it exists because of technology and 1TWO1 computing.

*If you would like to nominate someone for a technology spotlight, please contact your Instructional Technology Specialist.

Technology Spotlight - Rebecca Velasquez

Rebecca Velasquez is a ELA/English 1 Instructor at the Center for Accelerated Preparation. 
Rebecca has been teaching for nine years in smaller learning communities. She loves the 1TWO1 classroom. "It helps students organize their work, and being able to send reminders is a plus."  

According to Teresa Counts-Davis, in Ms. Velasquez's class, the "CAP Scholars use Google docs for peer review and collaboration, along with Google presentations and Prezi. CAP Scholars prefer working with the Chromebooks, than with printed materials. They especially utilize the research that is at their fingertips. CAP Scholars are more confident that the assignments completed meet the academic requirements."

Example of Student work:
Students created a virtual exhibit on the Harlem Renaissance for Black History Month. They used books and internet resources to research prominent artists of the time and created a presentation to showcase their work.

Technology Spotlight - Sheena Ryant, North Springs Elementary

Ms. Sheena Ryant has been teaching 4th grade at North Springs since 2005. She had 5 years of experience in an ITEC classroom, prior to the 1:1 roll out this year. She became Nationally Board Certified in 2010 and has been a part of the STEMS program for 2 years. She believes that if technology is used effectively, it can be vital learning tool in any classroom.

From one of her students:

"Some types of technology we been working on with technology are Tagxedos, Windows Movie Maker, Flip cameras, and Chromebooks. Tagxedos is a website where you can type different words and turn it into a shape with any kind of color and font. We made a Tagxedo with our 2013 goals. With Windows Movie Maker you can make movies with sound and pictures. You can add different effects for the pictures and make the pictures have color. We made a Windows Movie about an explorer and the French and Indian War. Flip camera is a small camera where you can take pictures and videos. We used the Flip cameras to make a 13 Colonies Regional video and a French and Indian War video. A Chromebook is a laptop with Google Chrome. We use the Chromebooks almost every day. We use it for typing assignments. Our whole class works with all kinds of technology everyday and it’s fun!"

The School ITS, Nikki Allman also adds the years Ms. Ryant spent in an ITEC classroom has prepared her for the 1TWO1 roll out. She is not afraid to embrace the new technology options out there. Her students are challenged to create unique presentations for the content they learn in Language Arts/Social Studies. This allows students to have an opportunity to show what they know, instead of relying on just assessments. Within the first month of getting the Chromebooks this year, her students were creating documents, sharing, and organizing with the peers and teachers. She has jumped right into other Google Apps for Education. Ms. Ryant's first project using the Chromebooks this year was with Google Drawing. She never worked with the program, but envisioned her students using the Chromebook to publish their imaginary country and her students successfully created detailed countries. Chromebooks are not the only piece of technology utilized in the classroom. Her students have created various types of movies, from Paper Slide movies to documentaries using Windows Movie Maker Live. Her students continue to benefit from engaging, collaborative, and creative activities.  

Technology Spotlight - Staci Weeks, Ridge View High School

Flipping Calculus 

Ridge View High School teacher, Staci Weeks did not want her students to skip a beat when she was out for maternity leave. Since cloning was out, she decided to go with the next best option--flipping. (Flipping is a form of teaching in which a teacher uses technology to teach content outside of class so that students have more time to practice what they have learned in the class. This allows a teacher time for small group and individual instruction.) Mrs. Weeks used a combination of Tech Smith’s Snagit software, a Smart Slate, and Edmodo to teach her lessons. She uploaded the videos to Screencast.com and to Edmodo so that students would have access to the videos both on and off campus. Students watched the videos for homework and then came to class the following day to practice what they had learned for homework. Students helped one another in class and asked questions on Edmodo. 

How did the students feel about the flip? Many would like this method to continue. One student said, “. . .The method of her teaching was rather enjoyable. While learning lessons at home, it was much easier to understand because I could rewind a lecture whenever I did not understand something and replay as many times as I wanted. Doing homework in the classroom allowed me to look to other students for guidance if I was ever stuck on a problem.”

Mrs. Weeks gives the following advice to teachers thinking of trying to flip: “If you're planning on flipping, know that it will be time intensive at first, but it will save you time in the long run.  There is a learning curve to making the videos, but once you get the hang of it, you can make a video in less than 15 minutes, and it saves you SO MUCH classroom time.  I didn't realize how much time I lost in a lecture due to small interruptions like administration calling for a student, small discipline issues that need to be addressed, waiting for a slower student to copy notes, or PA announcements until I actually started fitting 45-minute lectures into a 15-minute video.” Here is a sample of Mrs. Weeks Flipped Lesson.

Student Approved:
“This way of learning was better than I thought it would be. If Mrs. Weeks wasn't out, it would provide a way to learn the lesson at home, and then ask questions in class if we needed further assistance. Virtual lessons also allowed me to pause the video if i needed to and rewind if i she was moving too fast or if i didn't fully grasp the concept. I am able to learn the material at my own pace. In the end, I think I would much rather learn through the virtual lesson, compared to the in class lessons we have now. I am glad I had the opportunity to experience something like this, because it might be a method of learning I would need to use in college” C'Asia .

“During the time that she was out on maternity leave, we had a "reverse classroom" meaning she would teach the lessons online, which we would learn at home, then we were to complete the assignment in the classroom. Personally, I had mixed feelings towards this. Learning the lesson at my home was nice. I was able to stop the lesson and rewind it whenever I didn't completely understand anything which was helpful. However, I didn't like the lack of a teacher who knew the subject in the classroom. If I had a question about a problem, I would have to ask a fellow student or email Mrs. Weeks and wait for a response. I prefer a more hands on or personal experience. Although, if we were to continue this sort of teaching with the actual teacher present, I would probably prefer it over the traditional classroom standard of teaching” Haley.

“ I would first like to say learning from videos was a different experience and took some getting use to.

Learning from the videos was sort of the same as if learning in class.  An advantage was being able to pause the video to write down the slides and then listen to the teacher.  It was also helpful to watch the videos as homework and practice problems together in class with my fellow students.  The only difficult part was adjusting to the videos & any technical problems and being able to ask questions and have answers right away.  Overall I believe it was a nice experience and was a nice way to learn from the classroom atmosphere” Kiana.

“The virtual experience with Mrs. Weeks was remarkable. The pros of virtual AP Calculus are : Even though our teacher was not at school, we could stay in touch with her in terms of lesson plan.

We could replay the video. Thus if we miss something, we could replay and watch it. We did not have to worry about taking notes, instead we could focus on the material”  Shadman.

Staci Weeks has been a math teacher at Ridge View High School since 2007.  She loved math as a student and earned her diploma from the South Carolina Governor's School for Science and Mathematics.  After a part-time tutoring job in college, she decided to pursue a career in public education.  She married while attending USC for a BS in Mathematics.  She has since earned a Masters in Teaching, also from USC, and currently lives with her husband and two children in Lugoff, SC.  The newest addition to her family, her son Jack, was born on November 1, 2012.  

Technology Spotlight - Jennifer Johnson, Bridge Creek Elementary

Welcome to a new portion of the i3 blog. We are spotlighting teachers, administrators, and staff who are using technology in creative or effective ways in your school. Our first spotlight is for Mrs. Jennifer Johnson is a third grade teacher at Bridge Creek Elementary.

Mrs. Johnson motivates her students by involving them in innovative projects using Google Apps. Recently she used the Google Drawing with her Social Studies Unit of study on The Revolutionary War. Students researched important battles, and heroes and heroines of the Revolutionary War. They used the Drawing to insert a picture of their battle or hero. The students then inserted text describing the importance of the event or person along with an interesting fact. Students learned how to search Google for images, save the image and insert it into Drawing. They also learned how to insert shapes, text boxes and change fonts and colors. Mrs. Johnson will present her project at an upcoming faculty meeting to inspire others to use Google Apps. Here is an example of student work.

If you have someone you would like to spotlight please contact your school level ITS.

*Google Drawing is located inside of your Google Drive. If you click 'create' you will see it as an option. Want to learn more about Google Drawing? See the Google Support page