Spring has Sprung and the Screen is Green.

Green screen fever is really contagious.
Shout out to Hanna Brenner, Kim Honey and Lauren Osepchuk for choosing to create videos using the green screen for projects that they had done differently last year.  Hanna's Spanish students will be creating videos about natural disasters, Kim's class completed their projects and they reported on current events in Africa, and Lauren's AP students will be describing French art and architecture.  As promised from my last blog post here is a link to a couple of the finished green screen video projects.  Below is a video of a weather forecast  by one of Aimee Selby and Lorrie Zanini's chemistry students.  Here is a link to a news report from World War II from one of Steve Godbout and Felicia Rutigliano's history students.

In other video news the students from Katie Salt's Women in U.S. class will be making Imovie trailers to show how women in advertising has changed over the years.  I am working on a video project with my S.W.A.T.(Students Working to Advance Technology) team for educational consulting company called the Northeast Comprehensive Center.  NCC was asked by the DESE to create a guide for other schools who are interested in starting a student tech support team.  There are a few schools in Massachusetts who will be submitting videos to help NCC complete this request.   Jen Trombino and some of her students from Melican Middle School will also contribute to this project.  Here at Algonquin junior Henry Liu and sophomore Michelle Tremblay have done an incredible job as the first and founding members of the Algonquin S.W.A. T. team.  They are available to help you with technology integration during periods 3 and 4, and are also creating online tutorials on various topics for you to reference at any time.  Below is a picture of Michelle Tremblay interviewing Mr. Mead using the green screen and a newsroom background for the NCC video project.

          


Happy to report that Skyping in the classroom is also catching on.  We were very lucky to have World War II documentary film creator Tim Gray Skype with Steve Godbout and Felicia Rutigliano's history class (see video below).  As one of the students stated it in a thank you note to Mr. Gray, "the stories and information you shared with us were priceless", and a quote from another student... "Thank you for taking the time out of your day to help teach us information we could never learn from a textbook".

 It is really important that we try to give our students experiences like this and technology can help make that happen.  In May poet Kim Addonnizio will be Skyping with Jen Zuba's creative writing class.  Jen Sousa classes will be Skyping with students from Spanish speaking countries later this month, and Kim Honey's students continue to make connections and discuss current events with students from Norway using Skype.

And last but not least I am pleased to see more and more people using Explain Everything.  Jeannette Araya's Spanish 1 students just finished a project where they used their newly acquired Spanish vocabulary and conversational skills to describe members of their family.  The Computer Essentials teachers continue to teach our freshman class how to use the Explain Everything app so think about giving it a try.  It can be used in any class to have students basically explain anything.

I hope you all have a restful and enjoyable April vacation.  It will be a good time for you to relax and think about how you can finish off the year with a bang!  The use of technology could be very helpful as you plan year end review activities.  As always let me know how I can help.