Welcome to the St. Bernard School Technology & Media Center

It's Spring and time for new fun in the Media Center ...

Grades K-1: Our budding authors/illustrators have published their own creative work here at St. Bernard School! We've also spent time learning about how to respect the creative work of others online. Our friends at NetSmartzKids taught us that it's wrong to "steal like a pirate" online. We always respect the creative work of others here at St. Bernard School, both online and on our internal network. It's a part of being a good digital citizen. Spring classes in K&1 will include more creative work, enjoying literature and multimedia presentations, and lots of hands-on activities with the SmartBoard.

Grades 2-3: Our budding researchers have tuned up their research skills! Grade 2 has completed their research lessons and is taking some time to enjoy online activities to strengthen their faith now that they've celebrated their First Holy Communion. Grade 3 is building on their research lessons with some review and the addition of learning how to properly cite their sources.

Grade 4: It's time for 4th grade to explore the sSate of Connecticut! Our Media Center activities complement 4th grade's classroom learning. Each student is creating a PowerPoint slide about a specific topic in Connecticut.When the slides are combined, the class will have an awesome multimedia presentation as well as an ABC book about our state!

Grade 5: The USA is our for the exploring! Each student in grade 5 has chosen a state to explore. They've researched everything from the state's history to fun places to visit. That research is being incorporated into a PowerPoint presentation which each student will share with the class when we're done. 

Grade 6: Our kids are not only terrific students; they're great teachers too! Sixth grade has explored many activities on the ReadWriteThink.org website. Their analysis of the activities led to each student creating a lesson plan for one of our teachers that used the activity they liked best. We wouldn't be surprised to see many of those activities popping up in classrooms all over the building soon, making learning even more engaging and fun!

Grades 7-8: Our Junior High continues to enjoy a study hall in the Library Media Center once a week. Congratulations to the 8th grade on completing the school yearbook on May 1st. Despite having several days off since we began work on the yearbook in January, the class pulled together and produced a fabulous keepsake of their graduation year here at St. Bernard School!

Here in the media center we're ready for an exciting winter.  The next few months offer the opportunity for long-term projects, since we're not interrupted by week-long vacations.  Here are a few of the exciting things our students will be experiencing:

Grades K-1:  Our youngest students are learning how to tie their literature favorites to Internet activities.  January's featured author/illustrator is Jan Brett.  We're exploring Jan Brett's books, her illustrations and how she learned to draw, and her website activities (found at www.janbrett.com.)  The students will then try their own hand at becoming an author/illustrator using several tools - Microsoft Word, Microsoft Paint, and Kidspiration. 

Grades 2-4:  Research skills are important to a student's success, and our goal in the library media center is to teach, review, and fine-tune those skills.  Over the winter, grades 2 through 4 will participate in a 10-week research skills program.  Each class will read a 10-chapter mystery.  At the first class each week, we'll read a chapter and discover which research tool the main characters use to solve a clue to the mystery.  The next time the class visits us, we will have hands-on practice with that tool in both the library and the media center.  At the second grade level, the tools are introduced and students are walked through using them.  In third grade, the students review the tools and become more independent in navigating them.  By fourth grade, all students are proficient in using the tools and are working independently to fine-tune those skills.  This enables our students to enter the upper grades with a solid foundation for any research-based projects the teachers might expect of them.

Grade 5:  Our fifth grade detectives are finishing up "The Mystery of the Burned Bunny Books."  Half of the class has completed the program already, while the other half need more time and assistance to be successful.  Those who are done will get an early start on our next program -- Bricks in Space, sponsored by LEGO and NASA.  Students will learn some basics of LEGO engineering and will then talk (through video streaming) to astronauts on the International Space Station.  The astronauts and students will build the same LEGO engineering models here on earth and up in space.  They will then compare results and the astronauts will challenge our students to come up with solutions to adapt their models for successful use in microgravity.  Once completed, students will share what they've learned in a multimedia presentation.

Grade 6:  After sharing the videos created in their previous project, students will explore how they can use multimedia to enhance their classroom experience.  Ideas for projects, classroom presentations, and lesson-enhancement will give way to ideas for winter projects which the students will plan and carry out independently.

Last month we introduced online textbook resources to our students. We hope that you have found some of these sites helpful. As you know, there are a great deal of online educational resources on the Internet. It’s almost overwhelming at times! Therefore, we’ve chosen to connect our students with the sites provided by our textbook publishers, whose activities closely mirror the curriculum our students are exploring in school. Reinforcement of the classroom curriculum at home is, as you know, a big key to student success.

Another tool provided by our textbook publishers is the online textbook. Grades K through 6 currently have a license to view our Reading Street series online, as well as the leveled reader database that goes along with the reading program. Grades 7 and 8 can access their pre-algebra, algebra, and world geography books online. Access to the online textbooks from home can be helpful to students who miss a lesson due to sickness, need to re-read a lesson, or to lighten the load of textbooks going home each night in the upper grades for homework and studying. As new textbooks are added (according to the school’s textbook replacement plan) they will include the online textbook, so you will see more of these capabilities in the future.

Accessing the online textbooks is easy. Each student has been assigned a user name and password through Pearson SuccessNet. Parent letters from Pearson went home with the students over the past week and they explored their online textbooks during media center class. Once students log in to their accounts, the online textbooks available for their grade are shown. Simply click on the link to open the book and navigate using the arrows to turn pages. You will find enrichment activities, interactive tutors, self-check activities and more. If you have any questions after exploring the books, feel free to contact me at school or by e-mail at mlavoie@sbsenfield.org. We hope this is a useful addition to our school’s technology offerings!

Over the past few weeks, we've run a pilot program testing the online textbook resources available to our students. We chose the junior high to test these resources as they studied for mid-term exams to see if they found the activities helpful. Our conclusion - wow! The students used interactive chapter and unit reviews, games, study guides, vocabulary reviews, practice tests and even online video tutorials to reinforce their classroom learning. The general consensus is that the resources were not only helpful, but key for some students who needed an alternate delivery method of some material. We're pleased with the results of this pilot program and are encouraging our junior high students to continue to use their online resources regularly. For parent and student convenience, a copy of their web codes will be stored here in the Media Center's "Important Downloads" section.

This week we're releasing the web links for our online textbook resources for grades K-6. Parents are encouraged to go online with their students and explore the games and activities available to support their classroom curriculum. Since these links come directly from our textbook publishers, they match exactly with the students' curriculum. A copy of the K-6 web links will also be found in the Media Center's "Important Downloads" section.

As the last phase of this program, we will be introducing the students to their online textbooks over the next few weeks. These textbooks include not only the actual books the students use in the classroom, but links to additional resources and supplemental learning opportunities as well. The first online textbooks to be released will be Reading (K-6), Geography (7/8), Pre-Algebra (7/8), and Algebra (7/8.) Look for more online textbooks in the future, as we continue to vary the delivery of our curriculum here at St. Bernard School!