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Spotlight School is taking a Summer Vacation!

MSC ETC hopes you enjoy YOUR time off. Have a safe, relaxing break.

April 2008 Spotlight School

Crawford County Middle School
Roberta, GA 31078
478-836-3181

Congratulations to Stephen Johnson and CCMS! They have been selected as our Spotlight School for April 2008. Stephen is an 8th Grade math teacher at CCMS. Principal Anthony English and Stephen are shown accepting the Spotlight Award from Jerry Bunch, the Macon State College ETC Spotlight School Coordinator.

Here's how Stephen describes the changes technology has made in his classroom, his students, and the way he teaches:

"Students use wireless laptops to create lessons related to their vocabulary words and then present their work to the class on the interactive whiteboard, calling on their classmates to complete the problems. Each student presents to the whole group, so the students are able to hear multiple explanations of a single concept.

"Students create full color posters that demonstrate assigned concept. These posters are laminated and displayed in the room. They are a wonderful way to display student work around the room, and they are great educational materials for the students to use throughout the year. Students consistently look for the needed poster when they are faced with a problem that incorporates the given concept.

"Students access the website Study Island to practice their mathematical skills related to the 8th grade Math GPS. The lessons are individualized for each student, giving them remediation for weaknesses they may have. Students also access their Study Island account at home.

"We also use the student response system on more traditional assessments. The student receives immediate feedback so they can see which problems they miss the moment they respond. By using the report function, I am able to analyze their responses and alter my instruction in order to focus on their weak areas. Students are made aware of the class performance on individual standards after each assessment. This lets them see which standards to pay more attention to in their studying.

"Students use the interactive board and slate to complete problems in front of the other students. Students sign their work save it as an electronic artifact. If a student has trouble completing a problem, it is the responsibility of the other students to help point out the mistake in order to successfully complete the problem.

"The technology has created a classroom of engaged students that are not becoming bogged down in one particular task. These small groups transformed me from the purveyor of knowledge to a facilitator of learning."

Watch the presentation

Visit the CCMS webpage

March 2008 Spotlight School
Wilkinson County High School
Wilkinson County
11481 Hwy 57, Irwinton, GA 31042
478-946-2441

Congratulations to Eleanor Angles and WCHS! They have been selected as our Spotlight School for March 2008. Jerry Bunch, MSC ETC's Spotlight School Coordinator, is shown presenting the award to Eleanor and Dr. Harold Johnson in her classroom.

Eleanor teaches math, and is obviously excited about how technology enhances and, in many cases, enables her instruction.

"Having technology tools readily available for planning and delivering instruction has proven to be many hours of extra work for the teachers at WCHS. However, this work is more interesting and efficient than ever before. Teachers have become more motivated and excited to have all these new instructional "toys" to use, better tools to accomplish the overall goal of educating our youth of today.

"...interactive white boards are used for hands-free instruction. Interactive lessons are created for the students. By collaborating and sharing, our teachers benefit from having a pool of ideas to build upon. The interactive polling devices provide students and teachers with almost instant feedback.

"The capabilities of the wireless laptop computers and the powerful applications motivate students to investigate and discover mathematics in whole-groups, small group, or individual instruction. The 3-D software enhances their understanding of the intersection of planes, skew lines, or parallel planes. When students are allowed to create a model that tilts and rotates on demand, they tend to visualize what you can only otherwise describe. We might be determining what movements certain coefficients cause in certain polynomials, or maybe the steepness or flatness of a curve.

"Students were engaged, interested, learning. Wow, what a difference technology makes in education for these young people born to a fast-paced multitasking society."

Eleanor continues, "I am not an expert, but I am learning. Even with the unavoidable frustrations, I am having a blast!"

Kudos to Eleanor Angles and ALL the teachers at Wilkinson County High School, working hard to reach and teach our children!

Visit the WCHS website.

2007-2008
Capitol Tech School
Rutland Middle School
Bibb County
6260 Skipper Road
Macon, Georgia 31216

Rutland Middle School was selected from our Spotlight on Technology Innovative School Award recipients to be our Capitol Tech School. MSC ETC Capitol Tech program coordinator Jerry Bunch is shown presenting the award to RMS teacher Wendy Joiner and her students Josh Arnett, Hanin Menchew (kneeling), Amber Statham, and Michael Hill at the Capitol Dome on Wednesday, February 6.

We always enjoy visiting RMS because they make such innovative use of technology in the classroom. Wendy Joiner's class conducted an experiment demonstrating how species adapt to their surroundings. Wendy explains, "Natural selection and adaptation are complex and difficult concepts to process as a middle school science student. In this lesson, students first learned about the peppered moths of England and used a computer simulation game to reinforce what was learned in class discussion. Next, students cut out over 250 paper butterflies and hid them in the classroom. Students invited predators (faculty and staff) to come hunt for the prey (butterflies) for one minute. Students videotaped the predators hunting and created a movie about natural selection and adaptation to use the following year for instructional purposes.

"This lesson is one that my students look forward to each year. Students are able to not only understand adaptation and natural selection, but they are able to explain it and teach it to each other. Adding technology to this lesson allowed the students to track the changes in the butterfly population. Data analysis, trends, and information were gathered with ease and students were able to extrapolate information on their own."

Watch a video of the experiment as participants try to find the camouflaged butterflies.

Wendy Joiner and some of her students will be traveling the Atlanta Wednesday, February 6th to participate in Capitol Tech at the State Capitol.

Congratulations, Rutland Middle School!

Visit the Rutland Middle School Web Site

December 2007 Spotlight School
Parkwood Elementary School
Houston County
503 Parkwood Dr.
Warner Robins, GA 31093

Parkwood Elementary School Principal Lisa Casilli is shown accepting the
Macon State College ETC December Spotlight School Certificate from
ETC program coordinator Jerry Bunch. Accepting the award with Mrs. Casilli are
Stacy Daly, Instructional Technology Coordinator and Nancy Wilson, Media Specialist .

We are pleased to announce Parkwood Elementary School as our selection for the December 2007 Spotlight School. In a recent article in the Macon Telegraph, writer Jake Jacobs highlighted some of the exciting and innovative uses of technology at Parkwood:

Students at Parkwood Elementary are getting more tech-savvy these days, expanding their computer skills and helping teach other students.

School media specialist Nancy Wilson and Stacy Daly, instructional technology coordinator, have been guiding students from second through fifth grade as they create PowerPoint presentations of class lessons.

The fifth grade is wrapping up biographies of early African American jazz musicians for social studies class, and their presentations involve pictures, text, music and the student's own voice-over narration. The students use PowerPoint and Windows Movie Maker programs for the project.

Daly and Wilson have been working together for three years incorporating student computer work with classroom lessons in subjects such as science, math and social studies.

"Our ultimate goal is to support the Georgia Performance Standards and incorporate teaching across the curriculum - reading, writing, art and music," Daly said. "It's an authentic engagement of the learning environment, where the students are engaged in real activities that are meaningful to them."

For the jazz project, the 12 students each picked a performer using the PBS Web site "Jazz for Kids," Daly said. They researched the person they selected on the Web and wrote the narration from the materials they found.

Song clips were made available, and in a nod to old-school learning the students drew a picture of their performer to go along with the presentation.

Michelle Bautista, 11, daughter of Jose and Lidia Bautista of Warner Robins, chose legendary jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald.

"She looked like an interesting woman," Michelle said of Fitzgerald. "I was curious why she became a singer. She was only 17 when she first sang at the Apollo Theatre. She was brave, too. She was very shy but stayed on the stage and sang."

Michelle said she found a lot of material on Fitzgerald but picked out what she felt were the most important things about the singer.

What impressed her was Fitzgerald having "the courage to sing even though she was shy," said Michelle, who admitted she is a little shy herself.

She's proud of her work, and said her parents are too. Michelle said she feels she'll be using the computer more and more in the future for other projects in other classes.

The teachers said their work gets students excited about learning because they're using something that they're used to.

"We record their voices for the presentation, and you should see their faces light up when they hear their own voices on the playback," Daly said. "And there's peer instruction here, too, as those who are proficient with recording show others or help others record their voices."
Excerpted from a Jake Jacobs Macon Telegraph article. Used by permission.

Click to see Michele's presentation, along with some of her friends'.

Click to see another student presentation from the Parkwood students, based on There's a Nightmare in My Closet.

Visit the Parkwood Elementary School website.

November 2007 Spotlight School
Rutland Middle School
Bibb County
6260 Skipper Road
Macon, Georgia 31216

Rutland Middle School Principal Dr. Jerri Hall is shown accepting the
Macon State College ETC November Spotlight School Certificate from
ETC program coordinator Jerry Bunch. With Dr. Hall (L-R) are
Leah Price, Media Specialist, Pam Thurmond, Technology Specialist,
and Wendy Joiner, whose class is featured.

We are proud to announce that Rutland Middle School of Bibb County Schools has been selected as our Spotlight School for November. We think you'll agree that Wendy Joiner, gifted teacher at RMS, says it best as she describes the exciting things happening in her class and the changes that technology has made in her instruction and the students' learning:

"Technology has transformed my classroom and has helped me to become a more effective, engaged teacher.

"With their laptops, students follow lab instructions and create charts and graphs to interpret lab data, make movies to demonstrate understanding, create presentations to teach others, and use Word and Inspiration to organize their thoughts. We use our interactive board and slates to make instruction truly interactive and student polling devices allow us to check for understanding immediately on quizzes and instructional questions.

"Our class science average has increased from an 88% in 2005-2006, to a 92% in 2006-2007! Our CRCT scores have increased from 96% Meets/Exceeds in 7th grade to 100% Meets/Exceeds and has remained at 100% meet/exceeds in 8th grade.

"I have loved watching my students change and become self-motivated, active learners. Classroom behavior and engagement has improved exponentially! I'm facilitating learning, hopping from student to student answering questions and troubleshooting. Having this immediate connection with students is invaluable, since I am able to prevent misunderstandings before students internalize them. I am able to adapt to my students abilities and individual interests."

Click to see a student presentation from Wendy Joiner's class.

Visit the Rutland Middle School Web Site