ThinkQuest
“ThinkQuest New York City (TQNYC) creatively brings together learning and technology for students and educators.” P.S. 62 is currently participating in the annual ThinkQuest Challenge, a contest for students to create educational websites.
Joyce Holahan, Kim Olino and Shatel Shah are guiding 24 students of fourth and fifth graders in an afterschool program to learn web development tools such as Macromedia dreamweaver8, FireWorks and Flash.
“The TQNYC project-based, collaborative learning experience addresses 21st century learning by providing an opportunity for students to develop higher order thinking skills, problem solving in a real world context, and student as knowledge producer. In addition to developing advanced technology skills, ThinkQuest NYC participants gain content knowledge in specific academic areas, interpersonal and teamwork skills, and a sense of connection with the world beyond their own communities.”
Go to the following links to check our student’s websites:
1. Early New Yorkers
http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC074590/
2. Immigration Hardships
http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC074565/
3. Historical American Songs
http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC074437/
4. Child Labor Then and Now
http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC074372/
Digital Pen Pals
Have you heard the buzz about the latest technology application for instruction? It’s called a blog! Short for web log, a blog is actually a web page which allows visitors to read and reply to content on varied topics, most often successful because of the way it attracts people from different geographical locations to one online address.
Imagine one place both classes can come to post and respond to one another without needing to email or pay for postage. And because your blog will be accessible to everyone involved in it, monitoring student activity and facilitating discussion is accomplished with fewer steps and greater confidence.
Two classes here at P.S. 62 are participating this year in online blogging with schools in other countries.
Gayle Horowitz’s fifth grade class is communicating via a web log with schools in Australia, Maldon and Winters Flat Primary schools to share thoughts, work, photos, videos and responses. When asked about his experience with blogging, Damien Singh from class 5-209 replied, “I think it’s a lot of fun to have a pen pal in Australia. Doing it on the computer makes it a lot easier than writing and mailing a letter”
Kim Olino’s fourth grade class is beginning to pen pal with a school in Dublin Ireland, St. Audoens, on a weblog. The students in her class are very excited about meeting children from another country.
There are many free blog hosting services online which will cost you no money. Consider Blogger.com one of the early entrants into online blog hosting. Blogger provides server space, a naming convention, and click-and-pick templates which make setting up a blog a matter of minutes. Users can create a free account so that Blogger can manage users effectively, but once you have a name and password you are free to set up your own blog or blogs.
HP Grant
In 2007, HP awarded approximately $10 million in cash and equipment to schools in the U.S. and Puerto Rico through the HP Technology for Teaching Program. We would like to congratulate our fifth grade teachers who wrote a proposal in an online application process and was awarded the HP Grant.
Each of the five teachers on the teams, will receive an HP Compaq Tablet, a multimedia projector, an HP digital camera, an HP PSC Printer, scanner and copier, a $500 stipend and customized online professional development.
This is an amazing opportunity for teachers to use a collaborative, team based approach to implement technology integration projects. It will be a plan to use technology to teach, rather than on teaching students to use technology.
Our goal at P.S. 62 is to get all teachers involved in a technology integration project that unifies the efforts of the teachers and the classrooms involved with common goals and outcomes.