Keyboard Challenge Grand Prix

Many students works hard to beat my keyboard challenge - "Race into Technology".  Those students who beat my challenge of 25 levels earned the Grand Prix event.  First grade student, Dalton H's grandparents own The Pit Stop" and offered to share their model race cars and set up a course.  Many of the students had never operated model cars like these and had an enjoyable time.  Good job to all my students in working hard to learn how to use the computer keyboard.

Flowers for the Teacher!

It is Teacher Appreciation Week and today students are bringing in flowers for all their teachers.  It is amazing how special you feel when all the sweet children you teach bring you a flower.  Some of the flowers are from their own gardens.  I want to thank all my students for being so wonderful.

Finishing our Photo Booth Project

We finished our Photo Booth project today and it was quite a success.  I learned that I have a lot of outgoing, photogenic students in my Advanced Tech Ed class.  That made is so much fun.  I learned about the history of the photobooth also.

Photo Booth in Advanced Tech Ed

Do you remember the Photo Booth?  This week in Advanced 5/6th Tech Ed we recreated a photo booth.  Students grouped together and took turns being the camera.  After creating a one-page MLA report on the history of the photo booth, they were able to upload their photos and create their own b/w, vintage style strips.  I couldn't resist photo-bombing one of the groups.

Robotics - Running our Program together!

Students in Robotics' Class built a 5-minute bot and programmed to run it forward, backward and two different kinds of turns.  Here we ran our robots together.

R2-D2 makes an appearance to the Pre-K Computer Class!

Pre-K students enjoyed watching R2-D2 patrol around the classroom.  With his sensors, he was able to know when to turn and not crash into any students.  But some students were a bit worried when he got too close.

 Jameson was preparing for a crash as R2 came quite close to him.

Robotics Has Begun!

7/8th Advanced Tech Ed has begun with my Robotics Class.  What a great group of kids.  We are going to have so much fun.  We just finished our first project which was a spinning top.  This easy project allowed students to get their hands on all the parts, create a simple program, download to their NXT brick and have a little competition.  Audrey and Josh's top spun the longest.  It was fun to see them all spin.  The best part was to see the thinking and brainstorming that had to occur.  Thinking and working together are two of the most important outcomes from participating in a robotics class.  Good job teams!!!

Advanced Tech Ed Students are Blogging!

Students in both 5/6th and 7/8th Advanced Tech Ed classes created, formatted their own blogs this week.  7/8th graders will be using their blogs as their technical journals for their Robotics class.  5/6th will be using theirs to keep a digital journal of their Advanced Tech Ed Class.

Stop by their blogs and learn more about them.

5/6th blogs . . .

7/8th blogs . . .

Tech Town Ended Course with Bloopers!!!

Students in 3rd Quarter Tech Town ended the course with their commercial project.  They filmed videos to put in their commercials.  I enjoyed their bloopers so much that I created a little film to share with my students on their last day of class.