Ms. Scully is helping her students with math by giving them “on demand” access to math tutorial videos that they can access whenever they want by going to the TAG website. The students in the picture are watching a tutorial on dividing decimals.
Our 4th graders are studying weather in science. Here, Ms. Strmiska’s and Ms. Rodriguez’s students are going on a weather webquest, where they have to find out what are the ingredients of weather, what the main process is behind cloud formation, and more
Pictured here are some the clouds that Ms. Barrett’s students are researching before they go outside and try identify them.
Our first graders are already back in the computer lab picking up where they left off last year working on their keyboarding skills!
Fern Bluff’s K-2 students have access to Raz-Kids, an online leveled reading library. It is an interactive site where they can improve their reading skills by: listening to books; reading books and clicking on works that don’t know or can’t pronounce for help; or reading independently. They can also check their comprehension through accompanying quizzes. Pictured is a student from Mr. Tidwell’s 2nd Grade class.
Our 3rd grade students spent this afternoon reviewing for tomorrow’s math TAKS test, but not by taking practice tests on paper. Instead, they were utilizing a program that came with their textbooks called “QuizShow” in conjunction with Smartboards to test their knowledge. This great idea by their teachers proved to be a fun and effective way to prepare for their exam…you could hear students cheering for their teammates down the hallway!
In addition to helping our students find books in the library, our librarian Ms. Dalton instructs classes on how to access an array of online resources for reseach. In the picture, you can see Ms. Dalton utilizling an interactive whiteboard (a.k.a. Smartboard) to test some kindergartners knowledge of animals that they recently researched.
Graphing is a critical skill that students start learning in Kindergarten, and continue to work on throughout their education. Our first grade students now only have the opportunity create their own polling questions to create their own custom graphs, but also learn how spreadsheet programs like Microsoft Excel can help them automatically generate graphs with their results. This student from Ms. Shepherd’s first grade class surveyed the students in his class to find out which bear was their favorite.
Digital imaging systems are very useful when you want to display something on a screen for a large audience. Document cameras are starting to replace overhead projectors in schools, as they can show any item on a projector or TV without the need to make that item into a transparency. Digital microscopes, like the one pictured, are capable of displaying microscopic images onto screens for all to see, so that every student doesn’t need to have their own microscope or take turns looking into one device. These fourth grade students have invited an expert in to talk to them about photosynthesis. 
Before the Internet was invented we used to have rely on books and other printed materials to find information. But what do must of us do now when we want to find something out quickly? We Google it! In order for today’s students to hone their own skills using the Internet, they need exposure to online research (in a safe-search environment) and instruction and practice on how to effectively sift through all of the sites that are in cyberspace to find what they are looking for. Webquests are a great way to create a lesson that gives them that exposure. “A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web.” These 4th grade students from Ms. Gray’s and Ms. Barrett’s classes are participating in a webquest to find out about metamorphosis.
