Rock Types and Filemaker Pro

The 8th grade Science students created a database where they organized information about different rock samples that they had to identify. They created fields, value lists, and inserted pictures. The lesson took three days to complete.

The Scientific Method and Photoshop

Some of the 6th Grade Science students used Photoshop to create a poster which detailed some of the steps in the Scientific Method. Students used different layers, gradients and several of the selection tools. The students took three days to finish this assignment.

Points and Geometer's Sketchpad

The 8th grade Geometry students used Geometer's Sketchpad to study the behavior of points on a line. This was an introduction to the software and took one class period to complete.

Transformations and Geometer's Sketchpad

The 8th grade Geometry students used Geometer's Sketchpad to construct triangles and then rotate or translate them, according to a series of conditions. The students took one class period to complete this assignment.

Autobiographies and iMovie

The 7th Grade Language Arts students culminated their study of figurative language by creating an iMovie that described themselves with similes and metaphors. Some of the tech skills required were to place text over the video, and to put in their voice recordings and some music. When finished, the students had to export their movie to a compressed format and drop it into their teacher's drop box.

Algebraic Expressions and Excel

The 8th grade Algebra students used Excel to study the behavior of certain linear algebraic expressions. Once they had x and y values, the students were able to graph the expressions. This lesson took one class period to complete.

Server Orientation

Due to the server upgrade (10.5) made over the winter break, all the Middle School students visited the lab during the first week of the semester in order to familiarize themselves with the new login procedures and to change their passwords. Now students can log in to a much more secure environment, that includes all their preferences and bookmarks, as well as their documents folder. This lesson took one class period to complete.