Microcuentos and Premiere Pro

The 8th Grade National Spanish students wrote a 100 word story that followed the rules of a well known literary competition called Santiago en Cien. Once the students finished writing, they made audio recordings of their stories at home. At school, they imported the voice recording into Premiere Pro, and then they added images that illustrated their story.

Phases of the Moon and Flash

The Sixth Grade Science students used Flash to create a model showing the phases of the moon. This project took three class periods to complete.

The Greeks and Webquests

All the 6th Grade Social Studies students accessed a variety of webquests, which helped them explore different aspects of the ancient Greek civilization. The lessons took two class periods to complete.

Lightning and Flash

The 8th Grade Science students used Flash to create a model of how lightning works. They used a movie clip and a variety of scenes to demonstrate friction and induction. The lesson took three class periods to complete.

Surface Areas, Volumes and Excel

The 8th Grade Geometry students used Excel to create formulas for surface area and volume of different 3D figures. Then they compared the ratio of the surface area and the volume, and drew conclusions from the different measurements that they tried. This lesson took one class period to complete.

World Explorers and iMovie

All the 8th Grade Social Studies students worked in groups and wrote scripts about specific historical events related to their unit on World Explorers. These scripts were written in Google Docs. Later the students acted out the scripts and filmed the scenes. Their video was captured with iMovie and then edited according to the teacher's specifications. In each group, some students recorded separate audio tracks in Garage Band that were later imported into iMovie. This project took 8 classes to complete.

pH and Excel

All the 6th Grade Science students used Excel to create a pH lookup chart for 14 common substances. The lesson took two class periods to complete.

Storyboards, Illustrator and Indesign

All the 6th Grade National Spanish students used Illustrator to create a storyboard about a scene in the novel, El Valle de los Cocuyos. Once they finished their drawings and text, the students imported the Illustrator graphics into a booklet that they had created in Indesign. After formatting the booklet, they printed it out. This took six class periods to complete.

Persuasive Speeches and Garage Band

Some of the 7th Grade Language Arts students wrote a draft of a persuasive speech. Then they polished that draft and recorded it in Garage Band. Finally they exported their persuasive speech as a podcast and dropped the file in their teacher's drop box. This lesson took three class periods to complete.

Chemical Reactions and Flash

All the 8th Grade Science students used Flash to animate a decomposition reaction. After practicing with that reaction, the students had to compose their own reaction, and animate it. This lesson took five class days to complete.

Advisory Class and Photoshop

Some of the 6th Grade Advisory students used Photoshop to edit advertisements that entice young people to smoke or drink. The students changed the ads so that they showed what really happens to a person who smokes or drinks in excess. This lesson took about four class periods to complete.

Osmosis Lab, Word and Excel

The 7th Grade Science students used Word and Excel to write up a lab they did in class about osmosis. This lesson took two class periods to complete.

Microcuentos and Premiere Pro

All the 8th Grade National Spanish students wrote a microcuento that followed the rules of the literary contest, Santiago en Cien. Once finished with the writing, the students then recorded their stories at home and brought them to school. In the computer lab, the students imported their recordings to Premiere Pro projects and added text, graphics, transitions and effects to create a movie version of their microcuento. This project took five class periods to complete.

Geometric Shapes and Geometer's Sketchpad

The 6th Grade Math students used Geometer's Sketchpad to create a variety of geometric shapes. Once the shapes were created, the students measured angles and sides. Later, they manipulated the different figures and analyzed the relationships between angles and sides. This lesson took two class periods to complete.

Wiki and Spanish Vocabulary

The 8th Grade National Spanish students used the teacher's wiki to access a vocabulary assignment that she had posted. This lesson took one class period to complete.