Winning t-shirt design from Smiley Face Graphics
Remember this post about 4th graders traveling to the state department of education to model 21st century learning? A part of this lesson was students designing a new t-shirt for our school. This year, the designs were voted on and every student and teacher in the school received their very own shirt. Today, we all wore them for a special event, the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education Bus Tour Across Georgia. This trip brings together influential people from around the state and tours them through multiple Georgia schools across Georgia. This year the theme was “Georgia’s Public Schools: Using Technology, Creating Pathways for Student Success.” Our school was selected as a stop on the tour based on the innovative work that occurs in our library and classrooms.
Over 100 guests arrived at our school and were split into 14 groups. These groups were escorted by student tour guides to 5 different stops in our school. Bus riders saw incredible instruction and technology use in multiple classrooms. They also stopped by our library where select students from K-5 were showcasing projects that had already been completed.
For example:
- Kindergarten students showed their digital alphabet books and photo stories
- 1st graders showed how to use PebbleGo.
- 2nd graders showed their Regions of Georgia commercials on Youtube.
- 3rd graders showed digital inquiry projects about rocks as well as a rock pathfinder
- 4th graders showed how we used a gadget in a Google form to collect data about locations of various Native American locations
- 5th graders showed digital inquiry projects using Animoto, Glogster, Prezi, Simplebooklet, and Power Point.
It was truly amazing to step back and watch students from every grade talk about what they had learned from their technology projects. They taught many of our guests about tools that they had never heard of, and many of the educators within the group plan to go back to their school to begin using some of the Web 2.0 tools featured today.
I was once again reminded of the expertise that hides within our buildings and how we need to give students the space to play, explore, create, and share their knowledge both about content and technology.
Expect the Miraculous 