5th grade Rocketry Books

This post is a work in progress as students finish & tweak their animated books

The following items are animated books created using Google Slides with Ms. Boyer's class.

From start to finish our Rocketry unit spanned eight weeks.  The children read, researched, watched, learned, documented, designed, created, evaluated and analyzed throughout the entire project.  These books represent their learning, not only of rocketry, but of non-fiction narrative writing, the writing process, design thinking and Google presentations.  The rubric that accompanies their projects is one that the students created to help them revise, edit and evaluate their own work.  Enjoy! - @5Boyer

HeathcoteTech's nameplate

The lab @HeathcoteTech has a new name...

Before I explain I would love to hear guesses as to the meaning.

Everything on the sign was done very specifically and intentionally and references both what happens in the lab and with technology throughout Heathcote. There is even a nod to a genre students are very familiar with...

As the guesses come in I'll give more clues.

Thanks!

Updates to HeathcoteTech!

As you can see HeathcoteTech has been updated!

• The page color scheme has changed to better align with the school colors (big thanks to Mrs. Mangan and the Heathcote Herald for visual inspiration)
• HeathcoteTech is now on Google Plus! The content on the Google+ page will mirror this blog, but since some people prefer Google+ as their news and information source, you can now access HeathcoteTech on both platforms
• HeathcoteTech has a YouTube channel! Resource and tutorial vidos will be corss posted here and on the YouTube channel

I hope these updates will help make HeathcoteTech more useful and user-friendly.

Thanks!

Twitter @Heathcote - Embracing social media & addressing concerns

I've written a few posts over the last week about how we will be using Twitter here at Heathcote.

• A primer
• Our hashtag

I also wanted to put up a post addressing the two most obvious sides of the same coin, the benefits and concerns.

The only 2 things on the internet

I have long told my students "there are only 2 things on the internet."

Two.

Nothing more, nothing less.

I use this, especially with elementary school students, as a way to explain, simply, the tenets of safe web use.

The only two things on the internet are

Twitter @HeathcoteSchool - Our Hashtag!

In the previous post, Twitter @HeathcoteSchool, I wrote about Twitter as a platform and offered a solution for following Twitter users without actually have a Twitter account, or even a smartphone.

The previous post also listed all the teaches with Twitter accounts at Heathcote.

This post is more geared toward people with a Twitter account looking to get a more streamlined Heathcote experience out of the Twitter platform...

Twitter @HeathcoteSchool - a primer

Twitter is a great resource. It is no longer just Ashton Kutcher talking about what he ate for breakfast (although, I'm sure there is probably still a lot of that going on).

These days teachers are using Twitter as another method of communicating with parents. There is a Heathcote School Twitter account that posts school announcements, shares classroom work, and in general acts as another way to connect the school with the community. A lot of parents have signed up for Twitter (its free) just to follow their child's classroom feed or the Heathcote School feed. There are many teachers who speak highly of the home-school connecting Twitter fosters and the instructional engagement it supports.