Thursday, October 26, 2006

Fifth graders from Heritage North explore wetlands with Old Women Creek

Mrs. Meikle’s fifth grade science classes connected to the NOECA Intercom group for a presentation from Old Women Creek. The students identified the characteristics of wetlands and the animals that live in a wetland environment. The students were placed in groups of four with cards of mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, plants and insects. Once broken into groups the students placed them into food chains for them to share with the presenter and their classmates.

After placing the items into their chains the students had to identify what would happen if that part of the food chain was missing and its effect to other parts of the wetlands. This lesson was a great reinforcement to our science curriculum.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Technology Toolbox – Yawn… Oh your PowerPoint is finished


Avon Middle School played host to schools from across the state of Ohio in a closer look at Microsoft PowerPoint. The Lorain County Distance Learning Consortium is offering professional development sessions to member schools and others on technology topics. The sessions are offered at 2:30 and 4:00pm to allow teachers at different ending times the opportunity to participate.

The PowerPoint sessions focused on making PowerPoint an interactive tool to enhance student learning. The teachers received several PowerPoint templates of games and activities that they could edit and use for remediation, review or assessment. As a finale a demonstration of MS Producer was provided to the teaches with a standard webcam.

To learn more about Technology Toolbox check out the offerings on the web at www.lcdlc.org/TechnologyToolbox.htm

Decision 2006 – The race for Governor makes a stop to Mr. Rowe’s class by videoconference.

Lee Fisher Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor made a scheduled stop at Orange High School to connect to over 15 schools via videoconference to discuss the race for governor. Students from across the state were able to ask live questions about the campaign and the role of Lieutenant Governor in Ohio’s government. Mr. Fisher meet with the students for over an hour discussing the state economy, education and many of the other hot topics in our state.

We wish more of our candidates were willing to meet with our students over videoconferencing. They do not realize that our students have a direct line to their voting parents. The schools that were able to take part in the videoconference well represented the states regional geography and the questions asked by the students represented their districts with pride.

The Avon Schools would like to thanks the Orange City Schools for hosting Mr. Fisher and Melissa Higgs-Horwell from the SCOCA consortium for organizing the event. We wish Mr. Fisher luck at the polls and hope to see him online again in the future.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Technology Toolbox – Yawn… Oh your PowerPoint is finished


Avon Middle School played host to schools from across the state of Ohio in a closer look at Microsoft PowerPoint. The Lorain County Distance Learning Consortium is offering professional development sessions to member schools and others on technology topics. The sessions are offered at 2:30 and 4:00pm to allow teachers at different ending times the opportunity to participate.

The PowerPoint sessions focused on making PowerPoint an interactive tool to enhance student learning. The teachers received several PowerPoint templates of games and activities that they could edit and use for remediation, review or assessment. As a finale a demonstration of MS Producer was provided to teaches with a standard webcam.

To learn more about Technology Toolbox check out the offerings on the web at www.lcdlc.org/TechnologyToolbox.htm