Grant+News

Well, our budget has been approved by the state--now comes the purchases.
==We will be ordering several classroom sets of netbooks, a set of ipads, ipod touch, cameras, document cameras, printers, etc. We are excited about the opportunities for project-based learning that that technology will offer the students.==

ETECH PROPOSAL SUBMITTED
==﻿As part of the grant, the team is responsible for submitting and presenting a presentation at the 2011 etech conference in Columbus. The proposal will be entitled "The Pioneer Spirit is Alive at Mt. Healthy." Our proposal is as follows:==

The pioneer spirit is alive at Mt. Healthy Junior High thanks to the ARRA grant for 2010. In August after several months of professional development, preparation and planning, the team developed their action plans and headed back into the classroom full of high hopes and renewed spirit. This presentation will share with the audience their adventures as they transformed not only their students' experiences in the classrooms, but their own beliefs and attitudes about educating today's "powered up" youth. This year's theme of "learning through innovation" can be seen in this presentation on two levels--first, the learning of teachers as they collaborated closely with each other to innovate and create more authentic technology-rich experiences to enhance student understanding and performance--and secondly, the learning of students as they became more actively engaged and connected their learning with their life experiences using a variety of new technology tools. As a result of this presentation, audience members will have examples of and implementation ideas for math and language arts project-based learning experiences that promote 21st century skills and digital literacy. Student work examples will be shown and "lessons learned" will be shared including ideas for differentiation and project evaluation. Specific Web 2.0 tools used will be presented and evaluated for ease of use, customization for purpose, and student account management. Issues of dealing with resistant students who are not self-reliant learners and/or fearful of change and challenge will be addressed. The presentation will include projection of online examples to show and demonstrate the wide variety of technology tools used by the team. All team members will be available for question and answer during and following the session. Copies of rubrics, project notes, activity sheets, etc. will be made available to participants online.

= ﻿The equipment is beginning to roll in!!! = == ﻿It is exciting to see the new equipment come in. Our netbook carts have arrived (the netbooks are still being imaged), flip videos, GPS, document cameras. We also now have VOICETHREAD and QUIA available to us. The students see this stuff come in and are getting excited. ==