Outstanding Teacher of the Year

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

2013 VSTE Awards Winner

Each year, VSTE recognizes exemplary educators through several different awards. We are proud to announce this year’s recipients who will be recognized at the Annual Educational Technology Conference.
The 2013 VSTE Teacher of the Year is Wendy Phillips, a literacy specialist at Belview Elementary School (Montgomery County Schools) who also serves as an adjunct professor in literacy education at Radford University. Wendy has been the recipient of many grants, most recently securing the iRead grant from the Community Foundation of the New River Valley which awarded her iPads and iPods to integrate into her teaching and build on her strong understanding of technology and how this mobile technology could be leveraged to enhance learning in and out of the classroom. Check out her iRead with iPads blog at http://iread2learn.blogspot.com/! Congratulations, Wendy!

Augmented Reality Summaries

Students at Bleview Elementary are working on a new project to help them summarize!  Bring your idevice to the Literacy Cafe to see how we are utilizing the augmented reality app Aurasma to keep our students engaged and excited about reading!  Point your device at one of our book covers to see a live book summary!  

Aurasma is the world's leading augmented reality platform.  Available as a free app, Aurasma uses advanced image and pattern recognition to blend the real-world with rich interactive content such as videos and animations called "Auras".

Watch a tutorial of how Aurasma works!

Read Across America Day

Testing Mrs. Malarkey is a hilarious book which pokes fun at the commotion surrounding standardized testing!

Testing Miss Malarkey

View more PowerPoint from Blair E

Context Clues

Context Clues

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Plays

Understanding Plays

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Theme

Theme

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Setting

Setting

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Mood & Tone

Mood Tone

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Inference

Make an Inference

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Main Idea

Main Idea

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Fact & Opinion

Fact And Opinion

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Elements of Poetry

Elements of Poetry

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Drawing Conclusions

Drawing Conclusions Detective

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Chronological Order

Chronological Order

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Author's Purpose

Authors Purpose

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Cause & Effect

Cause and Effect

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Character Traits

Character Traits

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Innovative Educator of the Year Visits Belview

 Belview Elementary was honored to have Radford University Professor Dr. Matt Dunleavy visit and share his augmented reality research with our 5th graders.

Dr. Dunleavy was named as the Innovative Educator of the Year for 2011 by the

Virginia Society for Technology in Education.

To learn more about Dr. Dunleavy and his cutting edge research at Radford University visit the following links

http://gameslab.radford.edu/

http://gameslab.radford.edu/ROAR/

http://www.radford.edu/content/radfordcore/home/news/releases/2011/december-2011/dunleavy-innovative.html

Grade Cam

Quickly grade papers!

The Weather Song

Mrs. Bibb's Second graders perform the "Weather Song!"

Belview is a "Cool School"

Belview is Seussational

Brenda Blackburn, MCPS superintendent, read The Lorax to our school utilizing our 21st Century technology.

Second Graders Enjoy Dr. Seuss

 

Thanks to Donors Choose

for our Dr. Seuss grant

Join BES March 2nd for Read Across America Day

 

What is NEA's Read Across America?

NEA's Read Across America is an annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading on March 2, the birthday of beloved children's author Dr. Seuss.

The theme is green for a very special 2012 Read Across America celebration. NEA's Read Across America campaign will showcase the Lorax book as well as NBC/Universal's The Lorax. For a sneak peek, here's the latest trailer. The film opens nationwide March 2, 2012 and Universal, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, and Random House have joined NEA's Read Across America, creating new posters and classroom guides for the campaign. Read Across America will also develop new event ideas and materials to help you make this a Seussational celebration.

Click here for more details!

Partner Reading

Digital Learning Day

February 1, 2012

Join us as we create a national awareness campaign to celebrate innovative teachers and instructional strategies. Technology has changed the way we do everything from grocery shopping, to listening to music, and reading books. It’s time to take action to leverage this potential with more innovative uses of technology in our nation's schools to ensure every student experiences personalized learning with great teaching.

Digital learning is any instructional practice that is effectively using technology to strengthen the student learning experience. Digital learning encompasses a wide spectrum of tools and practice, including using online and formative assessment, increasing focus and quality of teaching resources and time, online content and courses, applications of technology in the classroom and school building, adaptive software for students with special needs, learning platforms, participating in professional communities of practice, providing access to high level and challenging content and instruction, and many other advancements technology provides to teaching and learning. In particular, blended learning is any time a student learns, at least in part, at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and, at least in part, through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace.

Watch the Digital Learning Day National Town Hall meeting on February 1, 2012 and participate virtually.

LAZ Leveled Libraries

1st Graders use the iPad to read books on their instructional reading level through the LAZ app.  Each Learning A–Z library contains ten books on that reading level, the free sample book for that level, and the free sample book for the next level to challenge readers to expand their reading skills. Developmentally appropriate sentence construction, vocabulary, and engaging illustrations make it easy for readers to feel confident about their skills.

Coin Math

Mrs. Bibb's 2nd graders enjoy one of the top rated math apps. This fun matching game involving money helps kids become familiar with U.S. coins and their values.

First Grade

Splashtop

With Splashtop Remote Desktop, you can fully access and control your computer in any way imaginable.  Enjoy all that your computer has to offer remotely from your mobile device.  Simply download the app to your device and then download the streamer software to your computer.  It is truly amazing!

Third Grade was able to access their Words Their Way interactive Smartboard sort through the Splashtop app today.

Thank You PTA

Thanks to the PTA for purchasing our new Bretfort cart!

This will allow us to keep our iPods synced and charged!



Good Night iPad

Click here to read online

Quick Voice for Fluency

Students use Quick Voice App to work on fluency

Word Study

Using GlowDoodle to spell words

Improving Literacy with iPods

Apple in Education Video

QR Codes

A QR Code (it stands for "Quick Response") is a mobile phone readable barcode that's been big in Japan forever, broke into Europe a while back, and is now getting traction in USA. In its simplest sense think "print based hypertext link" - simply encode a URL into the QR Code and then point a mobile phone (or other camera-enabled mobile) at it. If the device has had QR Code decoding software installed on it, it will fire up its browser and go straight to that URL. 

Click here to create your own code

http://www.qrstuff.com/

Second Grade

Mrs. Bibb's Second Grade enjoys a Math lesson with the iPods.

Free Books

 

FreeBuy Now

own it want it

Free Books - 23,469 classics to go.

Free Books!

23,469 classic books, package them up into one gorgeous interface, and make them available to download and read with our fully featured ereader.

Free Books unlocks a world of public domain content, allowing you to acquire the great books of human history. Letters of leaders, the collected works of geniuses, the finest Victorian novels, the plays of Shakespeare, the philosophy of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Carnegie. It's all here, along with tens of thousands of other books. And all, might we belabor the point, absolutely free.

To get these books it really is as simple as a tap- in seconds you'll be reading with our lightning fast, built-in ereader. Done reading? No worries- we'll save your place with automatic bookmarking, and return to your spot when you pull up the app again.

We could go on- personalized recommendations, beautiful high resolution covers, handpicked collections, author pages, Email to Computer, Night Mode reading- but that would just get away from the point.

23,469 of the greatest books in human history, accessible with the tap of your finger. Free.

If you have any questions or suggestions don't hesitate to drop us a line at hello@freebooksapp.com- that's what we're here for!

* Free Books requires internet access to download books, but after you download them you can read anywhere, even when you're not online.

What's new

Note: This is an iOS 5 update, so be sure to update your iPad! iOS 5 supports both iPad 1 and iPad 2, you just have to upgrade via iTunes, free.

It's finally here! We've added text selection with highlights, note taking, and dictionary support. Try it out - you'll love it. We think this is the slickest, fastest, and easiest to use note-taking experience on the planet.

We've also built a completely new Audiobook Now Playing screen- it's beautiful! And comes with a redone, revamped download manager, vastly improving the downloading experience.

The play by play:

- Text selection with highlights, notes, and dictionary support
- A beautiful new Audiobook Now Playing screen
- Twitter and Facebook sharing

Screenshots

	Screenshot 1 of 5

Classroom Training Begins

 Julie Craft gives 5th graders their first iPod training lesson

Mrs. Amy is enjoying learning to use her new iPod

iPod Check-out Schedule

If your class is interested in checking out the class set of iPods after the demonstration session, please sign up for a day and time that works with your schedule as well.  After clicking the link, there are three weeks worth of times and days to sign up for.  Click on the sheet tabs at the bottom to see each week in October.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArU-GXSUw92NdFdMd3R1bk1VNTRBdTNKVlNXZDRnT2c&hl=en_US

Classroom Demonstration Sign-Up

For the class demonstration, click on this link to sign up for a time for your class to have Julie or I come in for a brief introductory session which will last about 15 minutes. 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArU-GXSUw92NdC1aUmdubHBsRVJoTU9sUWpURkdSckE&hl=en_US

Please complete the following survey if you are interested in checking out the iPods to use in your classroom.

Technology Survey for BES

iPod Check-out Times

iPods have arrived at BES

Thanks to the generosity of Matt Dunleavy and Radford University's Games Lab, Belview Elementary now has a classroom set of 25 ipods.  Over the coming weeks I will be working to obtain an iPad/iPod cart to sync and charge all of the devices at one time.  I will also be working in conjunction with Julie Craft to help train the BES staff on the implementation of these technologies to enhance learning at BES.  Please visit the following link to see how the iLearn grant at Radford University is exploring the possibilities of mobile learning in southwestern Virginia.  http://gameslab.radford.edu/iLearn/

Correspondence Requirement

Montgomery County Public Schools does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age in its programs and activities.  The following persons have been designated to handle inquiries regarding non-discrimination policies:

Director of Elementary Education and Director of Secondary Education

200 Junkin Street, Christiansburg, VA, 24073

540-382-5100

Apps for Storytelling

Apps for Storytelling in the Classroom

 

Storyrobe:

This is an app that allows you to share your story with other Storyrobe users. You can add to existing stories to create longer tales of travel, events or history or you can create your own. This app can be used for work, school or just to share stories with each other.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/storyrobe/id337670615?mt=8#

StoryPatch:

Storypatch is a storytelling app designed for children to create their own picture books. It has hundreds of images in it’s library as well as the ability to import photos. Students will love this app because they will be creating fun and engaging stories almost immediately.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/story-patch/id388613157?mt=8#

ComicStrip:

Create your very own comic book page using photos from your camera roll or takes new ones in-app. With this fun and unique layouts and caption bubbles, anyone can create the story they have always wanted to tell. Email your stories, your creations from your photo album.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/comicstrip-cs/id392197108?mt=8

PuppetPals:

Create your own animated stories. Simply pick out the characters, drag them onstage and tap record. Movements and audio is recorded for your performance. If you get the Directors Pass you can act out a story of Pirates on the high seas, fight scary monsters or play the part of a wild west bandit.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/puppet-pals-hd/id342076546?mt=8

Reel Director:

This is a powerful video app that allows you to create, edit and share movie clips on your iPad. Smooth or blend transition between scene changes are its biggest feature but it also does Ken Burns, text overlays, music imports and voice over capabilities. A great storytelling app.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reeldirector/id334366844?mt=8

Strip Designer:

This is a comic strip creation with included page templates. Add photos and a couple of speech bubbles and additional effect stickers and you have a professional looking comic or graphic novel. You can even paint on the photos or draw sketches from scratch.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/strip-designer/id314780738?mt=8#

Sonic Pics:

This app is like a narrated slideshow of your images. You can add images from your library or take new ones in app. The images can be arranged any way you like and then you records a voiceover that narrates your story as you swipe through your images.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/sonicpics/id345295488?mt=8#

Toontastic:

Making cartoons is as easy as putting on a puppet show - simple press the button, move your characters onscreen, and tell your stories through play. Once you are done, Toontastic will playback your animation and voice asa cartoon for you to share with firends and classmates.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toontastic/id404693282?mt=8&ls=1#

StoryKit:

Create an electronic storybook. Write some text, illustrate by drawing on the screen, tag a photograph or drawing on paper and then photograph the image. Sounds can be recorded for narration or effects and the layout elements of your story can be dragged, pinch and altered with ease.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/storykit/id329374595?mt=8#

Cartoon Studio:

Create multi-celled cartoons straight from your iPad. Some characters and backgrounds are included all you need to do is select the ones you want and drag them in to place. Add your speech bubbles and you can make any situation both entertaining and informative.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/cartoon-studio-free/id362033057?mt=8#

Comic Creator:

Turn your own photos into a dynamic comic book. Insert images into customisable templates that allow pan, zoom in and zoom out. Add you speech bubbles from the selection and then use the app to share with other or social networks.

http://itunes.apple.com/app/comics-creator/id430194989?mt=8

PhotoComic:

Photocomic is easy to use and discover. Start by selecting a layout, ad photos to each frame and then select one of the various bubbles to add text. Interaction with each object by double tapping. Capture the right moments and re present your story creatively.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photocomic/id409694813?mt=8#