Kevin Honeycutt Presentation

We were fortunate to have Kevin Honeycutt present to our district for our School Improvement Day October 10th.  Kevin is a dynamic, innovative teacher and presenter who motivates you by his passion for learning and technology.  We were excited to get to try out Google Glass!  Mrs. Funk & Mr. Graverson rocked out with Kevin by using the iPad and Garage Band.  Make sure you visit Kevin's incredible site of resources, especially his toolbox of free tech tools!

Kevin Honeycutt's Webpage

Ms. Bisoni-Lais's 3rd Grade Boom Writer

Students in Ms. Bisoni-Lais's 3rd grade class are using Boomwriter.com to create stories including targeted vocabulary words given by the teacher's word bank.  The students love to write and because they must include certain vocabulary words it teaches them to write more creatively and with more expression.

HMS Advanced Tech Coding

7th and 8th grade students in Mrs. Yoder and I's class continue to code using such programs as Alice 3 & Scratch.  Students are LOVING coding and are creating some pretty interesting projects! They are learning just how much code it takes to write an entire animated movie!

Mr. Schrag's 4th Grade Google Docs Fairy Tales

4th Grade students in Mr. Schrag's room worked on 

writing fairy tales this week using Google Drive.  The students loved learning how to format 

their text as well as the ease of auto-saving and sharing with their teacher.  

Students then had the option to print their published books and add artistic drawings.  

We love Google Drive!

HMS FaceBook Page

In an effort to increase communication with parents and students, 

Hesston Middle School is now on FaceBook! 

Visit this link to add HMS to your newsfeed to see events and what is taking place at HMS. 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hesston-Middle-School/932124500148887

Mrs. Robertson's 8th Grade LA's Google Hangout with Lois Lowry

Mrs. Robertson's 8th Grade Language Art's class had a "Google Hangout" using Google Classrooms with Lois Lowry, the author of "The Giver"(they are currently reading it) and other classes, including one from Canada.  Lois answered questions including what inspired her to be a writer as well as questions about her books.  Students were inspired by Lois and some chose to record her "hangout" with the class using an iPad!

Mr. Richardson's 8th Grade Numbers Labs

8th Grade students in Mr. Richardson's room use Numbers on their iPads for their lab reports including a spreadsheet, graph, and pictures of their lab progress on voltage.  Creating their lab reports digitally allows them to include progress throughout their lab with pictures for you to track and understand spreadsheets and how to create them electronically, plus the kids are more engaged because they love creating them on the iPads!

Mrs. McGuire's MS Lego Robotics

Mrs. McGuire's 5th Grade students are using Lego Robotics.  Through use of programming on the computer they are able to make their robot complete commands such as walking and talking!

M

MS Foreign Language Program-Rosetta Stone

HMS has started an online foreign language program through Rosetta Stone.  Students can choose the language they want to learn from more than 30 languages!  Students use headsets to speak the word and receive instant feedback from the program as well as hear an automated voice.  Students are also downloading the app at home to practice as well as practicing online.  We are excited to see the fluency benefits of starting a foreign language in 5th grade.  Students love how interactive and engaging the program is!

4th Grade 3 About Me Keynotes

4th Graders are currently working on finishing up their 3 About Me Keynotes.  Students created Keynotes using pictures of 3 objects and writing about themselves.  Students used Google Drive to upload their photos and share out from an iPad to their computer.

Miss Dryton's HS Social Studies Powtoons

Powtoon is a simple and easy to use presentation tool that creates professionally looking presentations very quickly! Students love it because of the cartoon like video features.

Miss Dryton's HS Social Studies classes worked in groups.  The students were assigned a chapter from Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" and were given a set of questions to answer.  They then had to answer those questions and use Powtoon to convey the answers to the class. 

"So in essence the students taught their classmates about the chapter they read and the main ideas through the Powtoon."  said Miss Dryton.   I love the idea of students being teachers and learning from one another!!!

http://www.powtoon.com/show/f0BCXkUGAl6/thomas-paine-questions-pt-ii-5-9/

MS Advanced Tech Student Projects-Coding, Stop Animation

7th and 8th grade Advanced Technology students have completed their first two rotations of modules.  Students have already created some incredible projects including coding animations using Alice3 and Scratch and Hour of Code, "Look & See" books using the iPads, and stop animation projects.  Several students created their own versions of "Flappy Birds" as well as "Pong".  Please continue to visit our "Student Project" page on our website as Mrs. Yoder and I continue to update it with new projects!

http://hmsadvtech.blogspot.com/p/student-projects.html

Google Classroom

Several high school teachers, including Mrs. Goevert, Miss Gaston, and Mr. Sebits are using the new Google Classroom to manage their student work.  Teachers create virtual classrooms to deliver and retrieve assignments to and from their students.  Assignments can easily be opened in other apps such as Notability for grading.  If you would like to set your classroom up with Google classroom, go to classroom.google.com or let me know and I would love to come help!  Here is a good article on what Google Classroom is and its features! Below is some helpful information from Edudemic on the use of iPads and Google Classroom together.

Mr. Pauls' & Mr. Rider's HS Health Flow Chart App

Mr. Pauls & Mr. Rider presented at the High School School Improvement day on their use of the free, flowchart app called PureFlow in their health class.  They explained how user friendly the app was to use as well as how much the students enjoyed using it on their iPads.  Student were able to move their ideas around with ease as well as make their presentations visually appealing. 

High School School Improvement Tech Time

HHS teachers spent most of the September School Improvement Day attending break-out tech sessions.  Teachers selected several sessions including Google Classroom, Notability, iPad Basics, Keynote, Pages, iBooks, Skype in the Classroom, SharpSchool Website training, and a look at new features in iOS8.  Mrs. Goevert (HS Business) shared how she has modified her work journal process for her On The Job training program to now be completely digital.  Thank you to the teachers who helped present including Mrs. Goevert, Mrs. Simpson, Mrs. Yoder, Mr. Pauls, Mr. Rider, Mr. Rempel, Mr. Unruh, Mr. Rhodes, and Miss Gaston!