Back to School Night 08

Mrs. Hartman is in Chicago at Google learning about new google tools for the classroom and showcasing work from Sparta Middle School students and teachers in a presentation on Google Docs.
Below, is her back to school night presentation.

Google Docs Rocks

This week in Connections, with Mrs.Hartman's we went to the computer lab. We learned how to sign onto Google docs. We also signed
onto Hartman http://www.hartmanhoopla.blogspot.com. Google docs can be accessed from home!| How cool is that! Then Miss.Blanos, our Language Arts teacher, said that we can save the work that we do in her class (that's on the computer) can be saved to Google docs also! On google docs we took a journal survey, too. The journal survey was to make sure that everyone completed all six of their journal entries. It was also to make sure that everybody had the right dates and the right prompts. Their are so many other things to do on google docs. You can share documents with your other friends! Fifteen people can work on the same document at the same time! That's the coolest of them all! But then why just send your documents to read, send them for people to correct mistakes! Now that's really really cool! This week was pretty exciting in Connections!
by LL

GOOGLEY EYES

Go to my homepage on www.sparta.org and check my animoto video. You may need headphones to hear the sound.
Click on this link to create your own animoto account.
Use images from google images to create your own animoto on what the American Dream means to you.
Go to the this Hartman Hoopla post, using your notebook journal, take the survey. The magic number of entries is 7. Assess yourself and submit the survey only once.
Also, check out voicethread and sliderocket for other presentation ideas.
On welcome.hartmanstudents.com, click on "More" then "Even More" and explore Books, News, and Maps. Think about some ways in which we could use these tools in Connections.
Create a new Google document in your google docs called, "The American Dream."
Write about what the American Dream means to you.

Google Apps Day 2

On Day 1 of Google Apps for Education, we learned how to log in to the computers at the middle school and how to access our Google Apps Account at http://welcome.hartmanstudents.com
We watched a video by Common Craft about Google Docs and started typing up our first RAFT - a letter to Mrs. Hartman from the point of view of a 5th grade teacher about us (the student).
On Day 2 we are going to set up folders in Google Docs to keep organized and learn how to collaborate and share with Mrs. Hartman and our friends. We are also going to learn how to insert comments and give feedback on writing.
We are going to view a Google Docs tutorial
and create a spreadsheet in google docs.
We are also going to practice our typing skills or here
and submit our wish for the future at http://www.millionfutures.org.uk/

Journal Checklist

Students in Mrs. Hartman's connections classes. Please take the survey only once before Monday, September 22.

First Two Weeks of School

The first 2 weeks of school were exciting. We figured out what Connections is all about by watching short videos and reading a short story by Avi, called "How I Got My English A." It was about a student who was a horrible speller and grammarian, but had great story ideas. ("Not that good spelling and grammar aren't important, but ideas and content are equally important," said Mrs Hartman).
We talked about the possible educational uses of cellphones (good and bad) and met Cha Cha.
Next we created trading cards of ourselves and filled in Who I Am graphic organizers so we could get to know each other better. Finally, we created comics about school and learned about a comic creator website, MakeBeliefsComix.com.
We have been sharing our ideas and comics with the FruitPicker. It spins our names and the name that the machine stops on is the person who is shares.
Videos we discussed:

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