Technology for Learning Lab!

It reads like a "blog," a "web log," with the most recent news at the top.

Last Revised August 18, 2005

Teachers: visit the Teacher Input Form to get help integrating lab activities into your classroom's curriculum!

Currently:

The Lower School Technology for Learning Lab's new site

resides at blogspot.com now. Visit it at

http://usnlstech.blogspot.com just as soon as you can.

Bookmark it and return often!!!

Cheers,

Scott

Welcome to USN Lower School, ya'll!!!

This page will continue on during the 2005-6 academic school year as the place for checking in to see what's up with the 352 hard-working learners at the University School of Nashville Lower School. Check back often for updates as the school year progresses and our students exercise their learning using powerful tools of technology.

The first week our Kindergarteners and our 1st graders will be attending only half-day. I won't see the 1st graders at all that week, but I will be hosting the Kindergarteners for a brief walk-through, parade-style, of their computer lab.

Next week, all Lower School students will be treated to more talking their first class than they'll see for any other class the rest of the year. We'll go over the basics of how classes will go, we'll do a varyingly detailed overview of the school's Acceptable Use Policy, and we'll look at the new website and learn how to find the Lower School Webliographer on it (a completely new path). If you haven't yet seen the new site, a work in progress, do so. It's really really going to be a fine resource for all of us: students, parents, faculty and staff. Visit it today!

Recently:

K and 1st students are creating illustrations of "The 2 things I liked best about Kindergarten" and "...1st Grade"

3rd nd 4th Graders are taking "Course Exit Timings" in Keyboarding for Kids to show how much progress they've made in their typing skills this year

I'm back at school after 2 weeks at home tending to my broken hand!

3rd graders engage in Internet fact-finding missions toward understanding their Asian countries

4th Graders continue typing skillbuiding with Keyboarding for Kids

Kindergarteners visit BBC's Little Animals Activity Centre

1st graders Make change at Funbrain's Change Maker

2nd graders create fantastic slideshows about themselves with Microsoft PowerPoint

Kindergarteners learn the trick of drawing 3d cubes and do so using "Drawing for Children"

1st graders explore fairy tales and fairy tale resources on the Webliographer

2nd graders create business cards with Microsoft Word and make or break their fortunes playing "My Lemonade Stand"

3rd graders continue with Keyboarding for Kids and begin exploring Webliographer resources for learning about Asia

4th graders visit Ellis Island virtually through Webliographer resources, viewing video and utilizing interactive tools

Kindergarteners visit Boowa and Kwala and show that they know

how to change the computer volume control while

listening to songs

1st and 2nd graders visit LearningPlanet.com to compete

for high scores in Math Mayhem!!!

3rd graders finish up Artist Reports and print them,

then revisit Keyboarding for Kids

4th graders discover new graphing formats and display properties

with their "Sports We Like" graphs in Microsoft Excel 2003

Kindergarteners visited Otty the Otter at DigitalZone to match undersea shapes to their

shadows, continuing to learn how the mouse cursor's appearance

lets us know if clicking on an object on a Web page will cause anything to happen!

1st and 2nd graders explored "Spacey Math" from LearningPlanet.com, in an online

skill drill to help them acquire math "Fact Power!"

Fourth Graders begin a little project with Microsoft Excel 2003, geared toward refreshing

the spreadsheet and graphmaking skills last year's Plant Growth graphs introduced.

Third graders spent the week printing cover pages and Internet-captured pictures

of paintings for their Master Artist reports due next week.

See our 1st graders' "Weather Art" we sent off to NewsChannel5 the 1st week in February!

Kindergarteners discovered "Tangram," a freeware geometrical shapes program

       

4th graders are in "discovery phase," meeting Microsoft PowerPoint for the first time. We'll use Ppt to

post results of our Aztec research later on in the spring.

3rd graders are beginning to work on Keyboarding for Kids from home. YAY! Results from the past couple of

months' 4th graders effort are highly encouraging!

1st graders are working on personal weather illustrations for submission to NewsChannelFive's

Kids Weather Art program. Maybe we'll see some of them on TV soon!

2nd graders are beginning work with TypeToLearn3! We've never begun keyboarding so early but

the K4K program is working so well, generally, that the 2nd grade teachers and I

just thought it was the right thing to do!

Earlier in the year Kindergarteners met "Boowa and Kwala!"

3rd graders discovered "Drawing for Children"

4th graders began their keyboarding work "Typed to Learn" then graduated to Keyboarding for Kids, which

they can do from home, not just one day a week in the lab!

Thanks to all the parents who have so many kind things to say about the year's start. We certainly have been working hard to get off to a good one and it's great to know it's appreciated. Please check out our Webliographer, especially if you are new to the school. It's chocked full of resources for literally everything we do in Lower School.

If you want to chat with me right now, visit my Chatango page to see if I'm online (text chat only). If I don't reply immediately (I may be "online" but away from my computer) and you want me to get in touch with you please be sure to leave an email address in your message!

August 13, 2004:

I've been in and out of the lab this week setting up the computers with their new WindowsXP Professional desktops and programs. 3rd and 4th grade students will be starting an online accessible keyboarding program (yep, that means keyboard instruction homework, ya'll) sometime in mid-September, with typing homework starting in October. The Dreamwriters will be available for classroom use sometime in February, too!

For anyone who may be interested in desktop videoconferencing (keep in touch with friends and family using your computer and free or nearly free software and hardware), I have published a wealth of information on the topic at my NECC weblog, mostly as ongoing reference resource for the attendees of that presentation.

Happy Summer, Everybody!!!

May 26, 2004--It's the last half-day of classes and I am sitting at my desk multi-tasking. Every once in a while a child will peek into my door with a marvelous little token, an "end of the year" present. As an enrichment teacher, these presents are, suitably, fewer and farther between than those a classroom teacher receives each year. Though I'm always grateful for these, I certainly don't expect them, and the "special donation to the Library Fund" certificate is every bit as pleasing and as surprising as the hand-drawn card or the gift-certificate to Amazon or to the local bookstore or restaurant. This morning, though, one lovely 4th grader popped in with a brown stuffed doggie sporting a hand beaded necklace with "Mr. Merrick" around its girth in silver cubed beads and the child's name likewise dangling from it like a little tie. She said, "Since I'm leaving 4th grade and going into Middle School I wrote you a letter." Here it is: This is why we work as hard as we do, folks...

I'm preparing to go to New Orleans in June for NECC2004, where I'll be presenting a workshop called

Limited $$$? You Can Still Videoconference! Alternative Tools for the Modest Budget

It's official! Starting in September 2004 our Lower (grades 3 and 4) and Middle School students will be able to practice typing at home using the fantastic Ellsworth Publishing "Keyboarding for Kids" program. The school will purchase a site license that will allow keyboarding work at school and at home! Watch for it on your homework sheets!

We love it when we can guide students to work together in the computer lab. See pictures of third graders working collaboratively on an Internet Scavenger Hunt, finding information at infoplease.com. In the course of their work, they also received ample practice in the skill of closing popup ads! Read my contribution to the Lower School Spring Enrichment Newsletter, which expands on this notion of collaborational work.

Kindergarteners work with Geometry using "Tangram," free-download software!

Kindergarteners learn to stamp their names using KidPix Studio Deluxe.

See pictures of Middle School students in a dialogue with the Nashville Opera Association's Artistic Director and professional actors!

In Process Writing, some classes of 4th graders began last week working in teams of three to produce paragraphs describing the properties of Rocks and Minerals. Take a look at some pictures of the students hard at work here.

Keyboarding instruction has begun in the lab! 2nd graders are getting a gentle introduction with TypeToLearn, Jr., 3rd graders have ploughed into TypeToLearn3, and 4th graders are revisiting TTL3 as veterans. Some 4th graders are choosing to use the lab's "Keyboard Pajamas" to help themselves learn to type without looking at their hands. See pictures here.

Last year: View sets of pictures snapped last school year whilst 4th graders worked in pairs to find solutions to problems in Broderbund's "Mighty Math Calculating Crew" math skills program. Fun!

In Room 211w, our Little Fingers Keyboards are up and running!!!

To find out more about these wonderful devices (ours are the LF2000 model), visit www.datasketch.com . Or just ask your child!

I have had queries from some parents about what keyboarding (typing) program they might purchase for their Lower Schooler to use to improve typing skills at home, and I now consistently steer them to Sunburst's "Type for Fun!" program. While similar to Type To Learn 3, our instructional program at school, "TforF" is a set of 4 games that seek to accomplish the same objectives--accuracy and speed--but with yet more playful means. To check it out for your family, visit Sunburst's Store . Note: I provide this as a convenience to those parents whose children really really want to work on keyboarding at home. It is by no means a suggestion that every household needs to have a copy of "Type for Fun!": I have no stock in Sunburst!

For a printable version of the Lower School Technology for Learning Lab schedule, see
this page.

For current information about what goes on in the LS TfL Lab, visit our Lab Internet Start Page,
the University School of Nashville Lower School Webliographer .

For currently available information about my teaching philosophies and background,
surf over to my Online Teaching Portfolio .

To learn more about my work with Vanderbilt University's Center for Science Outreach, check out

our website!

Check out the "virtual tours" I created for the website at

Vanderbilt University's Dyer Observatory!

Read three articles about USN videoconferencing at techlearning.com.

Check out my Last Frontier Band CD at

  cdbaby.com

now also available at

Tower Records online!

2002-2003 1st graders get 15 answers correct
out of 15 questions at
the "Play Addition" math drill Web site!

"Thanks for visiting: Check back often for updates."

"What happened to your hand, Mr. Merrick?'

Comments or questions? Email Mr. Merrick