Batavia schools showcase wikis, blogs and all that techie jazz

All five Batavia City schools are taking learning to a new level using the "bells and whistles" of the modern classroom.

Last night, elementary, middle and high school students got to show their parents -- and others -- what kind of work they've been doing at the district's "Technology Exposition" at Jackson Elementary School:

Joe Rebisz' fifth-grade class at Jackson has been discussing Gary Paulsen's book "Hatchet" using Moodle, an online discussion tool. Each student takes a turn asking a question, and then the class tries to answer it based on the details of the story.

Four students from Andy Reagan's fifth-grade class at John Kennedy man the computers in the Jackson Media Center, each talking about a different internet-based program/resource that all John Kennedy fifth-graders are using.

Examples include:

• "Class Blogmeister"-- Every fifth-grader has a personal blog -- linked to the classroom blog -- where they can keep journals, complete writing assignments and interact with their teachers and classmates (by commenting on postings, etc). All postings are reviewed and approved by the teachers before being published. 
• "Famous Americans Wiki"-- Each student chooses a famous American to research for the fifth-grade Exit Project. They set up their own wiki pages and add pictures, written information, links to other resources and, last but not least, audio interviews in which one student asks questions and another plays the role of the famous person being interviewed.
• "Fish4Info"-- The kids use this interactive site to look for books, review books they've already read, and to see which books their classmates are recommending.

For more information on what the John Kennedy students are up to technology-wise, have a look at this brief article.

Alicia Scroger and Anand Patel are both in Jen Sloan's fourth-grade class at Robert Morris. Sloan's class has been working closely with Sean Krauss' (pictured below, left) 11th-graders at Batavia High on learning to communicate through technology.

Sloan's students submit written work to Krauss' students via an online blog, and then the high-schoolers proofread and offer editorial suggestions.

The following video shows the "Math Review Games on the Promethean" and "Programming and Designing with Technology" exhibits, representing Batavia Middle School and Batavia High, respectively (Bob Mullen was the BHS faculty advisor).

Vist the Batavia City School District website for more info.