SWMS Learning Commons

SWMS Limo Ride

2011-12-09T12:00:00.002-06:00

The students were great fundraisers for our school. These students won a limo ride for all their hard work!

2011-03-18T15:15:00.002-05:00

Making QR Codes is a BLAST! (I'm putting them on Everything)

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

2011-03-18T15:01:00.005-05:00

Get Comfortable & Make an iMovie with a Friend!

Students in this class spread out all over our Media Center to create their iMovies in various nooks and crannies. They were so intense while having so much fun!

2011-02-04T11:03:00.005-06:00

Having FUN with GREENSCREENS and iMOVIE!!!

We have a new movie studio in the SWMS Media Center complete with a 9' x 6' chromakey greenscreen. We keep a really nifty Sony movie camera and plenty of Mino flip cameras with cute little bend-able tripods available for our users there, too. Here are some very short examples from movies made by 6th graders. They can add background music, photos, and video behind their main video for special effect. We are learning a lot about greenscreens and iMovies and having lots of FUN!

2010-12-06T20:27:00.002-06:00

VIVALDI in the LIBRARY!

Mr. Altamirano's cellists practice playing before an audience in the Library to get ready for their upcoming concert! What a treat!

2010-11-19T14:02:00.001-06:00

A NEW KIND OF BOOK!!

2010-11-19T13:35:00.005-06:00

EVERY LIBRARIAN HAS DAYS LIKE THIS....

I am a custodian of wires and cables. Someday the whole world will be wireless, but I fear it will be long after I have been devoured by these electronic snakes!

2010-11-18T07:18:00.019-06:00

THE FUN & EXCITEMENT OF DISCOVERY!

Students in our early morning program are allowed lots of free time to discover Macbooks, iPods, iPads, and Wiis. You can see from the following videoclips that some prefer a social atmosphere and some like a solitary time to enjoy our technology. Some sit in groups and some plug in earbuds and sit alone. As I eavesdrop on the groups, I overhear conversations that exhibit not only FUN, but DISCOVERY! They love to share what they are learning. I assume from the serious intense expressions of the solitary students that they are enjoying their own discoveries as well.

2010-11-07T13:16:00.003-06:00

ELL STUDENTS CAN CREATE GREAT IMOVIES IN ENGLISH!

Last week Christa Wolfe brought her ELL students to the library to create iMovies about famous Spanish explorers of the Americas during the Renaissance. All of her students are new to the U.S. and to the study of English, but technology is one of the great levellers and it didn't take them long to create short effective movies in English.

They wrote their storyboards, found their photos, and practiced their English over and over. It was quite a challenge for them but the fun of working with the computers overcame the frustrations. They showed the same quick aptitude for buttons as every other student of their generation.

The great majority of these students are from Mexico and El Salvador. Their culture is one of natural sharing, so the students do not hesitate to help one another and share what they know. As soon as one student discovered something neat in the iMovie program, it wasn't long before everyone knew about it.

2010-11-07T09:14:00.027-06:00

IT'S 7:00 A.M. --- WHERE ARE YOUR CHILDREN?

Gaming in the Library! It's a great way to start the day on a fun, positive note! Here are some photos captured from my iPhone video as our sixth graders take on the world of cyberspace.

2010-11-05T12:05:00.006-05:00

MORNING in the LIBRARY!

We provide gaming in the library before school every day. It starts at 7 am and lasts until the bell rings at 8:23 am. So many students loved to come that we were unsafely overcrowded. We solved this problem by assigning different grade levels to different days. Sixth graders come Monday-Wednesday-Friday. 7th & 8th graders come Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday. Fewer older students come, so it works to combine those grades. Also, Wednesday we close early for a faculty meeting, so there's not enough time to get too crowded even though all grades are present.

Besides a few older Dell desktops, we have seven N-Computing monitors, 18 Macbooks, 2 iMacs, 16 iPods, 5 iPads, and a Wii. We just received another Wii which will be in a different area and reserved for girls only, since our boys tend to "take over" a lot of the equipment.

2010-11-04T14:40:00.017-05:00

FACT and FICTION

Dr. Barry Bishop has such a great vision of the future of libraries and education and has imparted that vision so well, moving our libraries in SBISD forward with the creative and exciting use of technology. Ima Pájaro (my assistant) and I were discussing the fact that he’s such a fine leader, so knowledgeable, caring, and wise. Ima raised the possibility that he might be from the future when humankind will be a bit smarter and more civilized. I told her that time travel has not been invented yet. She pointed out that in the future it will be. That was a thought, so we decided to do a little investigating.

Lo and behold, we found out that Dr. B has been in trouble with the law! Starfleet law, that is. He is not only from the future, the commander of the Starship Exemplar, but was also nearly demoted for breaking the Prime Directive, Starfleet General Order #1. I won’t quote it all, but the part in question is:

“...no primitive culture can be given or exposed to any information regarding advanced technology...lest this exposure alter the natural development of the civilization.”

All this time we thought bond money had paid for our amazing new technology when it was actually secreted from a starship that at this moment is orbiting our planet, hidden by a cloaking device taken in his last battle with Klingons!!

We also found out that his only defense to Starfleet for breaking the Prime Directive and giving us such cool stuff is this quote: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.” Apparently, it won them over and they allowed him to remain in his position.

Ima decided it would be great to celebrate all of his heroic deeds by creating Trading Cards, so here they are for everyone to add to their collection.

2010-11-03T07:01:00.009-05:00

WWBBD?
I love my new wear-it-every-day bracelet! Thanks, Energizer Bunny, for making them for us. They are such an inspiration. Mine spoke to me and said, "Restart your blog." When a green elastic bracelet on my wrist starts whispering to me, I listen.