Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Tech Tips for February

Gala, Our Trusty, Hard-Working Server
The server that syncs and backs up all school faculty and student data is at 84% of its maximum. Everyone can help reduce this number by deleting old files that are no longer needed or used.

To make sure you don't repopulate your home directory with deleted files, you must:
1. Empty your trash after you delete your files.
2. Make sure your sync your computer right after you have deleted your files while you are still on campus.

Remember a file includes any document, photo, video, or graphic.

If you have any trouble deleting or syncing files, please let me know.


Future Note: Faculty Computer Replacement
Next year, all staff that currently has a computer will get a new computer. Between now and then, it would be a good idea to begin to delete redundant files. You will also need to put any personal and school photos and videos on an external storage device such as a flash drive or an external hard drive before you turn in your old computer.


Deleting and Adding Printers and Applications
Your computers are no longer set up to add printers or applications. If you want to add a school printer or an application to your computer, you will add it through Managed Software Updates. The Software Update under the Black Apple menu in the upper left hand corner of your screen no longer works. Let Dave know if you want to add a school printer or an application and he will configure it so that it can be accessed through Managed Software Updates which is stored under Applications or Utilities. By managing printers and software this way, we can make sure that defunct printers don't show up in your choices and that all pieces of a software application get installed properly which will minimize your issues with using the application.


Looking for photos appropriate for student use in the Public Domain.

When your students are looking for photos that are copyright friendly and child friendly, one great resource is Pics4Learning. It isn't as robust as Google Images but you won't run into undesirable images either. The photos have been contributed mostly by teachers. Be sure to preview the pictures in a category first as they may not be catalogued correctly. For example, I searched for images of Nevada and found pictures of Yosemite included.

pics4learning.com


As always, if you have any questions, please send your questions to ACS Help Desk.

Thanks, Mary Beth and Dave


February Blog




Thanks to everyone for a successful Enrollment Open House in January. Applications for the first round of decisions closed on February 7 with 75 applications to process before the Admissions Committee meets in early March. During the family interviews one of the most frequent comments we get is how welcoming and friendly our students are to shadows. I know you help our students learn those skills and want you to know what a positive impression they make on prospective families. We will continue to hold weekday open houses once a month for preschool and kindergarten prospects as long as we have capacity. Janet


Patriotic Assembly

Just a reminder that the Patriotic Assembly is coming up the week after our Presidents’ Week break. The title is Go USA and the theme is Healthy Individuals.

The assembly is on Thursday morning. There will be practice times on Tuesday and Wednesdaywhen you will be able to get into the auditorium and work with your class on stage. I will send an email out this week about this, and will have the sign up sheet in the faculty room.


New Drapes

Hopefully, you have noticed the new drapes hanging in the Apple Orchard, Elizabeth Pombo’s room, and the Elementary Science room. Many thanks to Veronica for making this happen.

Elementary teachers, please take a look at the drapes in the Science room and think about whether you would like something like that for your room.


Emergency Cards

A big “thank you” to Helen Herr for creating our first set of emergency cards. These are cards with each student’s medical and emergency information as well as pick up permissions. She has put them in plastic holders that hang on students’ necks. These are kept in the emergency shed and will be invaluable in an emergency. We will use them as a way to check attendance, to be sure of who we can release them to, and to have medical information at hand.

These cards are also being created for faculty and staff as well. To make them viable, we will need to get more detailed emergency information from many of you, such as your provider, conditions, and emergency contacts. We will request that at some point this spring.


Tuesday, January 7, 2014

January Faculty Blog

Dear Faculty,

The next Enrollment Open House will take place on Saturday, January 18 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
. January is usually our biggest open house. We look forward to welcoming potential families that day. These families really appreciate the opportunity to meet teachers and learn more about the classroom experience at ACS. Thanks in advance for the time and effort it takes to make your room inviting. 

ACS is moving to automatic re-enrollment this year. Families will receive information later this week about the mechanics of the new program. I will send the timeline document to everyone on the faculty and staff so you will have what the parents see. This week families on financial assistance will receive a memo from Steve regarding the new third party financial aid evaluation tool called FAST. It is accessed from the website and provides the financial aid committee with consistent financial aid information based on families' incomes and assets. Also this week, the families of current begindergarten students will receive their placement for next year (JK or K). 

Over the break ACS continued to receive donations to the Annual Giving Campaign. Thanks to the generosity of  faculty/staff, parents, board members and alumni, the AGC has topped previous records and tops $323,000 in gifts and pledges. Parent participation stands at 63%. 

Janet





Patriotic Assembly - Thursday, February 27th at 9:00 am
Please notice the date change. The Patriotic Assembly was moved to the 27th to accommodate the First grade play.

Practice days will be Tuesday and Wednesday, the 25th and 26th.

In conjunction with the Sochii Olympics, the assembly will focus on the Healthy Individual ESLR and will have the title of Go USA! (Actually, we are open for a better title.)


PLP Reminders
Here are the due dates for PLPs:
·      enrichment/elective teachers - comments due to homeroom teachers on Tuesday, January 21 by midnight.
·      homeroom teachers - final copies (including enrichments) to Gary/Cecilia on Thursday, January 23, by midnight.

Clearly, early finishers will be appreciated.
__________________

So you know, you will have dedicated time to work on PLPs on:
Tuesday, Jan. 14 - after-school meeting dedicated to PLPs
Tuesday, Jan. 21 - 10:00 - 12:00 (inservice day)
__________________

Homeroom teachers should have gotten an updated PLP template for this year by email from Gary. Please contact him if you did not or have questions.


Fire Drill, January 28th
This fire drill will be unannounced to students and will be sometime in the afternoon.

App Fair
The first annual ACS App Fair will be a chance for students and parents to share and present apps, programs, and coding projects they have created. This will be after school on April 9th and open to grades 3-8. Students in K-2nd  grades who are interested can speak with Mrs. Gay or Mr. DeMoss about taking part in the fair. There will be more information coming out to parents and students about how they can take part and times students can work on their own projects at school. Mary Beth and Gary are organizing this showcase of our students’ talents with computers and programming. More information and details soon.


Gary





Monday, January 6, 2014


Did you know you could do a Google search by reading level?
Read on to find out how simple it is!






How to Search a Topic by Reading Level



Go to Google and type in the topic you want to research.


Click on Search Tools


Click on All results and you will see other choices in the drop down menu. Select Reading Level.

At the top of the list of resource list, you will see a graph that shows you how many of the following resources are at each of three reading levels.


Then as you scroll through the list, under each resource heading, the reading level is noted.


 Hopefully, this will help you and your students to focus on resources that are at an appropriate reading level for them.





Wednesday, December 4, 2013

A Stressed out brain is a brain that cannot learn!

A Stressed out brain is a brain that cannot learn!


Research shows how much stress affects a student's brain in the learning process.

Bad stress can affect a brain, negatively, long after it is initially felt. Sustained stress can damage the hippocampus, the part of the brain we use for learning and memory.

Good stress promotes learning by increasing the ability of the brain to absorb new information so challenges and deadlines excite neurotransmitters in the brain to create new memories, it also activates and strengthens the immune system.

Classroom practice can minimize stress and reduce the production of cortisol in the brain. One way is a practice of focused learning interrupted by 2-5 minute breaks to process the learning.  For young children, the focused activity should last no more than 10 minutes, for older students no more than 15 minutes and adults no more than 20-25 minutes. Processing the learning can include small group sharing of what students remember from the focused learning activity, or a small group using markers and paper to chart only images or pictures of what the students understand about the learning. Another way a teacher can reduce bad stress is by connecting new learning to what a student already knows.

Here is the link to the whole article:

How to reach every student brain?

Monday, December 2, 2013

December Faculty Blog

The Computer Lab belongs to everyone! 
Please remind students that if they bring something into the lab, such as notes, and pencils, these items need to be taken out when they leave. At the end of each day, I find these items as well as rulers, markers, headbands, and ponytail holders. Often notepaper or pencils are on the floor under the desks. Occasionally, a sweater or sweatshirt is left. If students pick up after themselves, then the lab will be usable for the next group of students that come into the lab. 

With the laptop carts in the lab permanently for the near future, it is more important that we all help keep the room clean since there are so many more people in and out of the lab each day. 

Thanks, 
Mary Beth

 Open House
Weekday Open House, Wednesday, December 4 from 10 a.m. to Noon. Parent led tours will come through the classrooms to see ACS in action. Please ask one or two students to serve as ambassadors to welcome tours as they arrive and describe briefly what the class is currently doing. "Hi, my name is Vivek. Welcome to Mrs. Smith's 2nd grade class. We are working on math centers. My center is using an iPad application. Do you have any questions?" 


Janet


From Gary and Cecilia


Report cards are due Wednesday, Dec. 11. Please be sure to check for typos and comment on all aspects of "competent" students. Thank you for letting us know if you finish early so we can begin reading.

Gift exchanges: We do not have students participate in gift exchanges for the holidays.  It gets expensive for families with multiple children.  We can certainly express our friendship without store-bought gifts.

Holiday free dress: We will have our traditional holiday free dress for the students on Thursday, Dec. 19.  Please tell your students so everyone knows.

PLPs are coming up.  They will be due towards the end of January (the 20th). More detail to follow.





Monday, November 25, 2013

Try a Word Cloud to:

Introduce a literacy lesson

Introduce vocabulary in a story


Introduce or review word types


Introduce or review contractions with missing apostrophes


Introduce or review time-connective words


Introduce or review alternatives for the word "said"


Here's how to create a word cloud:

Open Safari > 

Go to >  http://www.wordle.net/create

Don't use Chrome because Wordle requires Java. Chrome does not support Java 7 on Mac OS X. Java 7 runs only on 64-bit browsers and Chrome is a 32-bit browser.

Enter all the words you want to include in any order. The more times you enter a word, the bigger the word will appear in the Wordle or word cloud. You can also copy and paste text into the Wordle window. 

For example: 

This is text from the first chapter of Peter Pan:
The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been
boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her,
and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who
took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her,
except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and
in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could
have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a
passion, slamming the door.

Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him
but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks
and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know,
and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that
would have made any woman respect him.

Mrs. Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books
perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a
Brussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped
out, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without faces.
She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs.
Darling's guesses.

Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.

For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would
be able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr. Darling was
frightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable, and he sat on the
edge of Mrs. Darling's bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses,
while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, come what
might, but that was not his way; his way was with a pencil and a piece
of paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at
the beginning again.

"Now don't interrupt," he would beg of her.

"I have one pound seventeen here, and two and six at the office; I can
cut off my coffee at the office, say ten shillings, making two nine
and six, with your eighteen and three makes three nine seven, with five
naught naught in my cheque-book makes eight nine seven--who is that
moving?--eight nine seven, dot and carry seven--don't speak, my own--and
the pound you lent to that man who came to the door--quiet, child--dot
and carry child--there, you've done it!--did I say nine nine seven? yes,
I said nine nine seven; the question is, can we try it for a year on
nine nine seven?"

"Of course we can, George," she cried. But she was prejudiced in Wendy's
favour, and he was really the grander character of the two.

"Remember mumps," he warned her almost threateningly, and off he went
again. "Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I daresay
it will be more like thirty shillings--don't speak--measles one five,
German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six--don't waggle your
finger--whooping-cough, say fifteen shillings"--and so on it went, and
it added up differently each time; but at last Wendy just got through,
with mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated
as one.

Now in Wordle form:

Vocabulary for plate tectonics:
Geology
Crust
Sedimentary rock
Strike-slip fault
Longitude
Latitude
Transform boundary
Mantle
Magma
Lava
Viscosity
Shield volcanoes
strato volcano
convergent boundary
pyrocastic
subduction
strata
erosion
diverging
polarity
continental drift
stratigraphy

Now in Wordle form:



Variations of the word "said"
  • Accepted, Accused, Acknowledged, Admitted, Advertised, Affirm, Agonized, Agreed, Alleged, Announced, Answered, Appealed, Apply for, Arranged, Articulated, Asked, Asserted, Asseverate, Assumed, Assured, Attract, Aver, Avow,
  • Barked, Bawl, Bawled, Beamed, Beckoned, Begged, Bellowed, Beseeched, Blubbered, Blurted, Bossed, Breathed, Broadcast,
  • Cajole, Called, Carped, Cautioned, Censured, Chimed in, Choked, Chortled, Chuckled, Circulate, Claim, Comforted, Conceded, Concurred, Condemned, Confer, Confessed, Confided, Confirm, Consoled, Contend, Continued, Crave, Cried out, Criticized, Croaked, Crooned, Crowed,
  • Declared, Defend, Demanded, Denote, Dictated, Disclosed, Disposed, Disseminate, Distribute, Divulged, Drawled,
  • Emitted, Empathized, Encourage, Encouraged, Entreated, Exact, Exclaimed, Explained, Exposed,
  • Faltered, Finished, Fumed,
  • Gawped, Get out, Giggled, Given, Glowered, Grieved, Grinned, Groan, Groaned, Growled, Grumbled,
  • Handed on, Held, Hesitated, Hinted, Hissed, Hollered, Howled,
  • Impart, Implied, Implored, Importune, Inclined, Indicate, Informed, Inquired, Insisted, Interjected, Invited,
  • Jabbered, Joked, Justified,
  • Keened,
  • Lamented, Laughed, Leered, Lilted,
  • Maintained, Make known, Make public, Marked, Mewled, Mimicked, Moaned, Mocked, Mourned, Murmured, Mused
  • Necessitated, Needed, Noted,
  • Observed, Offered, Ordered,
  • Panted, Passed on, Pleaded, Postulated, Preached, Premised, Presented, Presupposed, Proclaimed, Prodded, Professed, Proffered, Promised, Promulgated, Proposed, Protested, Provoked, Publicized, Published, Puled, Put forth, Put out,
  • Quaked, Queried, Quipped, Quivered, Quizzed, Quoted,
  • Reassured, Raged, Ranted, Reckoned that, Rejoiced, Rejoined, Released, Remarked, Remonstrated, Repeated, Replied, Reprimanded, Requested, Required, Requisition, Retorted, Revealed, Roared,
  • Said, Sang, Scoffed, Scolded, Seethed, Sent on, Settled, Shared, Shed tears, Shouted, Shrieked, Shrugged, Shuddered, Snarled, Snivelled, Sobbed, Solicited, Sought, Specified, Spluttered, Spread, Stammered, Stated, Stuttered, Stressed, Suggested, Supposed, Swore,
  • Taunted, Teased, Testified, Thundered, Ticked off, Told, Told off, Tore a strip off, Touted, Trailed off, Transferred, Transmitted, Trembled, Trumpeted,
  • Understood, Undertook, Upbraided, Uttered,
  • Verified, Vociferated, Voiced, Vouched for, Vouchsafe,
  • Wailed, Wanted, Warned, Weep, Went on. Wept, Wheedle, Whimpered, Whined, Whispered,
  • Yawped, Yelled, Yelped,Yowled
Now in a Wordle:

You can change the font style, the color, the layout. 

Once you enter the text, select GO. Java will open and you will be asked if you want to allow it to run. Click on Run. 

Take a screen shot of it and use it in a presentation to project. 

Remember to take a screen shot: hold down the Command key, and the shift key, then press the number 4 key. A cross hairs icon will appear. Drag the Crosshairs over the area you want to shoot. Then let go of the of the Crosshairs. 

Click on image and select the screen shot from your desk top to insert in slide or doc. 

Any questions, please ask!