Hinduism, Buddhism and Photshop CS3

Some 6th grade Social Studies students used Photoshop to create a poster that compared the beliefs of these two religions. The students used special effects on the background and the graphics layers. They also created text layers for the title and the information about Hinduism and Buddhism.

Book Jacket and Word

Some 6th grade students used Word 2008 to create a book jacket for a novel that they read over the summer. Students took advantage of column breaks to organize their pictures and information so that everything would fit the format of a book jacket. The students learned how to set the wrapping to "over text" in order to keep the pictures from interfering with the layout. Once their project was finished, they dropped their document into a teacher's drop box so that the book jackets could be printed in color.

Earthquakes, Word, Excel and Filemaker

The 7th grade Science students used different websites to research about earthquakes from all around the world. To understand the assignment, they opened a Word document with all the instructions and an empty data table.



Then they filled this table with approximately 40 different earthquakes that they found, according to the teachers' specifications. Next, the students copied and pasted the data into Excel. They saved this file with the csv format so that it could be imported directly into a Filemaker database without having to retype the data.



Next they created a Filemaker Pro database and imported all of the records from the Excel CSV file. After importing the data, the students searched the internet for appropriate graphics for some of the records.



Finally they exported their Filemaker database file with their 40 earthquake samples for their classmates, and then they imported the rest of the class's exported database files, so that each student could analyze a large sample.

Rates, Temperature and Excel

The 6th grade Math students used Excel 2008 to understand the relationship between distance, time and velocity, as well as the relationship between Celsius and Fahrenheit degrees. They created simple calculation formulas and used the fill down tool, to see patterns as one of the factors changed. This lesson took one class period.

Ancient Indian History and Photoshop CS3

Some of the 6th grade Social Studies students used Photoshop to create a poster which displayed information about four different topics in ancient Indian history. The students took two class periods to add graphics, text, a title and a background layer to complete the assignment.

Evil Deceiver and the New Powerpoint

The 8th grade students used Microsoft's new Powerpoint 2008 to continue their presentation about René Descartes and the Evil Deceiver. The students became acquainted with the new interface, especially the Smart Art Graphics, which they used to analyze some of Descartes' main ideas. They also received instruction in the difference between the file formats: ppt and pptx.

The Iron Ring and Photoshop

Some of the 6th grade students used Photoshop CS3 to create a poster about Lloyd Alexander's novel, "The Iron Ring", for their Language Arts class. The students used a gradient with a texture for a background and varied the opacity of one level to create the effect of the floating ring. This lesson took approximately one and a half class periods to complete.

Ancient India Webquest

Some of the 6th grade students completed a webquest that covered ancient Indian history. They accessed a document in their teacher's public folder and saved a copy into their own home directories. From there, the students followed the instructions and typed the answers to the webquest. Once finished, they dropped a copy of their document into their teacher's drop box.

8th Grade Science Wiki Semester Two

The 8th grade Science students came to the lab to refresh their memories on the procedures for posting information on their class wiki Nido Grade 8 Science 2008/9 . Once the instructions were given, the students began to complete their first assignment for this semester's chemistry unit. The 8th grade Science classes use the wiki to share questions and information that come up during each new unit of study. As the class draws closer to their testing dates, the wiki is also used as a study guide to prepare for those assessments.

Similar Triangles and Geometer's Sketchpad

The 8th grade Geometry students used Geometer's Sketchpad to explore the different properties of similar triangles. They followed instructions for the construction of the different figures and then stopped to answer questions and make conjectures about the relationships of the different angles and sides.

Poetry Webquests

The 7th grade students did a webquest about poetry and different poets. They had to pick one of the poets and research about his or her life and principal works. Later the students needed to choose a poem to analyze and present in class. The students spent three class periods completing the webquest.

Golden Ratios and Geometer's Sketchpad

The 8th grade Geometry students used Geometer's Sketchpad to analyze how to build the "Golden Ratio" with different geometric shapes. Students needed to used points, rays, circles, midpoints and perpendicular lines to set up the ratios.