Lower School MiniLab Schedule 2012-13

Hi all,

Below, you will find the new LS MiniLab schedule.  If you would like to sign up for time in the lab beyond your tech classes, Catherine Miller will keep the schedule on the door, and you are welcome to sign up. 

Charlie Hennessy's Beginning of the Year Presentations

If you missed any of Charlie's presentations this morning, or would like to review any of the finer points of his wisdom, the links to the Prezis can be found below:

Changes at HTS:



Strategic Plan:



Discerning Meaningful Action:



News Updates:



Grades, Grading and Testing:



Rules, Reminders and Legal Restrictions



Schedules:



Technology at HTS:

Welcome Back to School!

A Few Notes for HTS Tools 101

Following is the outline Chris Clark will be working from on Tuesday afternoon.  We'll add more how-to notes if needed later in the week.

Overview of HTS website - www.htsdc.org

• frequently used links
• calendars
• student directory (has not been updated for 2012-2013 school year yet though)
• faculty page --> password:  stignatius
• schedules, class lists, how-to's, forms, etc. etc. can be found here, but is a little under construction at the moment

Network Drives

• H drive for personal stuff (only you and a few admins have access)
• N drive for NetDocs (all faculty/staff has access)
• shared documents
• report cards
• T drive for SAT files (all faculty/staff has access)
• documents regarding students with special needs
• generally NOT a good idea to share things on the C drive or "My Documents" folder

HTS Email

• webmail version
• sync with Microsoft office (requires an admin to set up for you)
• add to iOS (iPhone/iPad) or Android or home email program (Mail) like a regular Gmail account (willing to help if needed) 
• you may email a group of people:

allschool@htsdc.org

assistants@htsdc.org

classof2012@htsdc.org

classof2013@htsdc.org

classof2014@htsdc.org

classof2015@htsdc.org

early@htsdc.org

gavigan@htsdc.org

lower@htsdc.org

office@htsdc.org

technerds@htsdc.org

tutors@htsdc.org

upper@htsdc.org

Cornerstone - our online database/ online gradebook (used by upper school only)

• entering grades
• household viewable setting --> YES for everybody now, may change to NO for Lower School pending administrative approva
• printing class lists

Wordpress - for teacher webpages

• where students can find your page
• updating current page
• changing color of text
• making a link to a webpage
• uploading & making a link to a file
• weekly task of archiving****
• saving current week to new draft
• renaming the newly created copy
• going back to the current week's page and editing that page (should be page with just your name in the web address)
• linking newly created last week's page to HW archive page

SMART Notebook - 

• not too much detail here because of other workshops
• posting PDFs of SMART Notebook files to website

Google Calendar

• adding a test date, long-term project due date, special event
• can add more special events to "Grade Level Public Events" or "HTS Main" and it will automatically display on the HTS homepage
• excellent way to communicate to students, parents, colleagues, and principal

Use the technology!

• it's transparent (website, Cornerstone, Google calendar) - for your students and their parents
• more questions, confusion, and misunderstandings if you are not transparent
• less questions, confusion, and misunderstandings if you are transparent
• allows students and parents to know how well they are doing (Cornerstone)
• eliminates many (but not all) student errors of doing the wrong page, wrong problems, etc. (website)

• allows students to review material on their own time if needed (SMART Notebook, website)
• keeps a record in case you ever needed to look back (website, Cornerstone)
• communicates much easier than email
• more questions, confusion, and misunderstandings if you are not transparent
• less questions, confusion, and misunderstandings if you are transparent

technology blog maintained by Mary Beth Morell (http://htstechnologyblog.blogspot.com)

subscribe to get weekly updates

technology wiki maintained by Polly Sileo 

happy to install software you may wish to use…please just ask

generally only users with administrator privileges can install new software on computers

Christopher Clark

Charlie Hennessy

Mary Beth Morell

Polly Sileo

Notes for the Strategies for Searching, Researching and Citing Sources

Following are some notes and resources from Monday afternoon's session.

1. The Library is the place to start when guiding students to do research - and most resources can be accessed from home.

The library web page is under Academics on the home page.  Open the HTS Library page.  

The link can be found here.  

Information for students and parents is given as well as links to encyclopedias and databases from home.  Explore, learn and have fun!

We encourage you to take advantage of Britannica Encyclopedias, Grolier Suite of Encyclopedias, SIRS Discoverer® and NoodleBib Citation Maker from home.  The school subscribes so our students can find credible information without ads or popups.  Britannica and Groliers have dictionaries and atlases and give MLA citations.  All need to have cookies enabled.  To use or sign up go to the Holy Trinity Home Page – HTS Local – HTS Library Main Page and choose Library Resources from Home.  Follow the directions .

Britannica and Image Quest by Britannica

Click on the Britannica link. The username is:  holytrinityes and the password is Ktwelve.

Choose a Level to Explore, Search, and Learn:  Pre-K – 2 Learning Zone, Elementary, Middle or High School or all may be searched.

Image Quest: Access more than two million rights-cleared images from over 50 of the best collections in the world.

Grolier Online Encyclopedias

Click the link that takes you to the enrollment page.  Answer the four questions and submit.

Patrons 13 and younger may need to wait for parental notification but patrons 14 and older get a username and password delivered to their e-mail box immediately with further instructions and tips for access.

We subscribe to six:  Encyclopedia Americana, Grolier Multimedia, New Book of Knowledge, New Book of Popular Science, Lands and People, and America the Beautiful.  When Grolier opens you will be in what they call their Passport section.  Grolier Online for Kids, aimed at younger students, can also be accessed from here, but all encyclopedias can be accessed from both.  A dictionary, atlas and Associated Press Daily News Section written for kids are also included.

SIRS Discoverer® 

Click on the SIRS link.  The User Name is Titans123 and the Password is 20007.  (Think mascot and HTS Zip code.)

Searching for a specific topic is done in a search box or by clicking on buttons for general information.  Sources returned come from reference materials, periodicals, newspapers, web sites, Comptons Encyclopedia, World Almanac for Kids, American Heritage Dictionary, Roget’s II: New Thesaurus and photographs.  When using the citation information choose MLA format.

NoodleTools

Each of our Upper School students should have an account with NoodleTools, which is helps them organize and properly cite their sources.

NoodleTools has a number of online tutorials to help you understand how to best use this website.  Some of the tutorials were mentioned in a previous blog entry, which can be found here.

Off campus a user who enters NoodleBib remotely will be prompted to log in to the subscription when he/she clicks "Create a Personal ID" on the login screen.  Use the name and password below for access and then create your Personal ID as above or if you already have one choose login.

Username: citations

Password: titans1112

Or if you have Microsoft Office 2007 on the References Tab are options for inserting Citations, Endnotes, Footnotes and creating Bibliographic citations.

Holy Trinity uses MLA style for citations. 

A Few Notes on using Destiny to find books in the HTS Library:

Searching and Researching on the Web - A few go-to resources.

If you would like to brush up on your Internet Searching Skills as you embark on a research project with your somewhat tech-savvy students, some of the best resources come from the website Common Sense Media, and Google Education:

Common Sense Media

I particularly like the resource to help students figure out how to identify high quality sites:

(click here for link to the handout)

Google in Education

One way to practice your own search strategies is with a Google A Day Challenge:

Go ahead and try it!  It's a bit addicting :)

Google has a number of wonderful posters, with simple search tips:

And a few notes on Wikipedia.  I covered this topic in a previous blog entry, which can be found here:

Any other questions?  We are always here to help...

Some Great Web 2.0 Tools for HTS Teachers

Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers on Prezi

Polly and I have been brainstorming, and have come up with a huge list of Web 2.0 tools to introduce in our workshop next week.   I thought it might be helpful to post our resources in advance.  If you have a few minutes to review the resources, and have any questions about how they might best work in your classroom, let us know. A number of "how-to" videos have been embedded in the Prezi, so you always have the resource sat your fingertips :)

If you have a few minutes to explore this Prezi, be sure to select the "full screen" option above the "more" tab.

Enjoy!

Mary Beth and Polly