Stop Motion Science

8Science students collaborated in the creation of a LEGO Stop Motion Video to demonstrate their understanding of substances and different types of Elements. They created a story line that included MONATOMIC ELEMENTS, DIATOMIC COMPOUND and TRIATOMIC COMPOUNDS!

New Blakers!

Welcome Dash and Dot! AfterSchool Coding Club members are test-driving the new robots which will soon be integrated into the Science curriculum.

Digital Learning Day 6th Discussion Panel

Medfield School District held its 3rd annual Digital Learning Day Conference filled with over 60 workshops for K-12 teachers in district and from schools out-of-district. Wellesley 6th Grade teachers joined Blake's 6th teachers and students for a discussion on their initial year of having 1:1 iPads in the classroom.

A Shout Out to Medfield HS/MS Student Volunteers

Our Digital Learning Day Conference wouldn't have been possible without the support of our wonderful Medfield HS Students and Blake MS students. This photo was taken at the beginning of the day, during a briefing with Neal Sonnenbergy (HS Tech Integration Specialist)

Look out for these future App Developers

This group of Blake MS girls are entered into the Global Competition, Technovation to design a mobile app that solves a community/social issue. Wish them Luck! The final pitch is on May 1st @ Microsoft NERD Center!

Took the Show on the Road

Blake MS Principal Nat Vaughn and 8Science Teacher Jason Heim presented about the Blake iPad Initiative at the LearnLaunch Conference, Harvard Business School.

Green Screen App Smashing

At our final EdTechTeacher Workshop, 6th/7th Grade Teachers explored their creative side by layering green screen videos over images for engaging instructional videos. It was total fun!

Convert Smells to Energy = Smellergy!

Nicolina is changing the world one nose at a time! Her entry was clearly on track with dreaming, designing, and delivering an energy-saving idea into the Blake Energy Invention Contest!

Sometimes the Ideas start here

Planning and drawing out a story board before the creation of an Explain Everything project is an essential step in the process!

6.09.2015

Overview of Blake's Digital Citizenry Pilot

With our Middle School going entirely 1:1 iPad this past year, a big focus was to pair it with a strong implementation of a Digital Citizenship curriculum. Last summer, the planning process began by building a core lead DigCit Team of a grade level representative from 6th grade (Marjorie Heim), 7th grade (Sara Donovan), 8th grade (Seth Hellerstein), our principal (Nat Vaughn), Library Media Specialist (Jon Haycock) and myself, the Technology Integration Specialist with the task to begin developing a model/implementation structure and DigCit curriculum from the Common Sense Media organization

Our structure took advantage of the Cluster Model using Advisory times during a selected week to deliver a direct lesson facilitated by the GL representative, an extension activity and a student discussion panel by cluster. Our two main topics involved lessons: Cyberbully-Be UPstanding and Understanding your Digital Footprint- The Trillion Dollar Footprint.

However, beyond the lessons, students learned best when they heard directly from their peers. The Common Sense Media curriculum promotes the Student Discussion Panel venue to give students this opportunity. At the conclusion of the Digit Cit week, each cluster would select 4-5 students to be on a panel, also joined by a teacher and the principal to answer questions and to further discuss the topic. The power in listening & sharing their own experiences, thoughts, and giving advice to each other was quite evident. We plan to continue and expand this with real-time topics.


Digital Footprint - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

And then below, you'll find the Google Slideshow which was presented at a Parent Workshop last week to provide an overview of the who, how, and what content was covered throughout the year as well as plans to push towards a fuller integration into the classrooms and opportunities for parents and the community to learn too.


   

Parents should bookmark the CommonSense Media website as a tremendous resource with parent tips sheets that are paired with each lesson, app reviews, a Connecting Families Program and much more.

Overall, we leave this school year on a good DigCit note and a good direction and vision for where we would like to be as a school next year! Please feel free to give Nat or any members of the DigCit Team feedback.

6.05.2015

How to's: Options for taking your Google Acct with you!


It's that time of year when several students and staff are transitioning to life beyond Medfield.. Whether it's going onto a new school, college, moving, retirement, new job, etc. The common question is how can I take all of my files and work from my school Google Account with me?

Thanks to the Tech Sherpa's from Nokomis Regional High in Central Maine for sharing a couple of options. I'll briefly go through each one demonstrated in the video below to help you choose the best one.

1. Migrationapp.com
Transfer from One Google Account to another Google Account (with different domains).
With our GAFE accounts, the administrator must enabled or approve this site to have access to your account to make the transfer.  At the present moment, this option is not available to Medfield students and staff.

2. Google TakeOut
Google added a separate site called Google Takeout specifically for data liberation and downloading your data and files from your choice of Google products (gmail, contacts, blogger, photos, etc.). You are also able to select the format (Word, PDF, png, etc.) to download as.. just know, it will no longer be in a Google format (doc, slides,...). It will also download as one huge compressed file (.zip) that can either be saved to a flash drive, uploaded to a cloud storage account or emailed to yourself. *This option is best for those who do not have a different google account.

3. GAPPSTIPS.COM
This third party website may be the easiest option for those with another personal google account. You'll start by creating one folder with everything you want to transfer and share it with your other google account. Next, log into your other google account and add the folder to MY DRIVE. Next, go to tools.gappstips.com/drive/copy-folder to make a copy of it in order to become the "owner". All your docs, slides, etc. will have the prefix "copy of" in front of it..well, there's a tool to edit those file names too! Go to gappstips.com/drive/filenames-edit to remove the prefix in one step!  Watch the videos for a fantastic demonstration by this Tech Sherpa student!



Please do not hestitate to ask for assistance from Ellen, Wendy or myself.