KatePuschak_TiaBrown_Project



__**ALL ABOUT US**__
Montrose Elementary School is a Title I school located in the east end of Henrico County in Richmond, Virginia. The demographics of the school are 75.6% Black, 16.8% are white, and 3.1% are Hispanic. The economic deprivation level at Montrose Elementary continues to grow. It has gone up over ten percent over the last three years. Currently, 71.5% of Montrose Elementary’s population is considered economically disadvantaged, which is determined by the number of students receiving free or reduced lunch. The student population sits just around 500. Montrose Elementary houses grade Pre-K through 5th grade. There are 23 regular education teachers with 3 special education teachers.

There are 5 Promethean Boards in our school. Each classroom has 5 laptops available for use. Montrose Elementary also has two COWs (Computers on Wheels) that can be checked out by teachers. Most of the teachers at Montrose are willing to TRY to use technology in their classrooms, however they crave constant support with it. Our ITRT is at our school once a week, and only a select group of teachers actually sign up to use him to support/model technology lessons in classrooms.

[|School Website]

__**AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT **__
Reading continues to be an area for improvement, specifically at the 3rd grade level. When looking specifically at the reading data, it shows that approximately 20% of third graders at Montrose Elementary are not passing the Reading SOL. This data comes from the last three years. Twenty percent is a large portion of the grade level. There needs to be a focus on finding a way to create more consistent results in both the areas of Word Analysis strategies and Comprehension. These two skills go hand-in-hand, so the action plan needs to address the reading instruction.

When looking at the Math data, there continues to be a need for improvement across grade levels. Computation and estimation continue to be ares of weakness. The other area in the Math SOL/HAT data that stands out is Number Sense.

**__Instructional Uses/Professional Development:__** This is our time line for implementation of technology at Montrose Elementary for 2010-2011 school year.  The following Power Point will be used to welcome back the teachers and get their brains thinking about technology in the classroom.  Professional Development Topics: These are topics which will be presented at faculty meetings. Teachers will then take these ideas back to their PLC teams (grade level teams) and decide how they will use these to yield the best results for reading and math improvement.

__Wikis:__ Students will use these to respond to their reading, K-2 will do group responses as a class and 3-5 will make the transition into individual responses. Wiki Tutorial __Wordle__: This tool can be used to practice with sight words and vocabulary words. The Wordles that are created can either be placed in individual student folders or on a word wall in the classroom. This program can also be used for classifying different parts of speech. Learn More about Wordle <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Tutorial created by Kelly Jessup <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__Voice Thread:__ This tool can be used to support both the Math and Reading goals of the school. For Math, teachers can post problems on Voice Thread and the students can choose how they want to explain their answers. (text, video, voice recording, or a phone call) This will allow for students to see/hear multiple ways to answer the same question. This will be highly beneficial for word problems. VoiceThread Tutorial created by Kate Puschak <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__Garageband:__ This tool can be used to record students working on their fluency development. Students can read their weekly poems and sight words and listen to themselves after recording it. <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">YouTube tutorial on Garageband <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__PhotoBooth:__ PhotoBooth can be used to record students reading aloud. Students could record stories and share them with other grade levels. (this would be excellent for the upper grades to read stories for the lower grades and model good reading habits) Students can also use this to record reader's theater. This program can also be used to discuss a particular Math strategy or show how to complete a problem. <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__ActiveInspire:__ The opportunities to use ActiveInspire in the classroom to assist with the reading and math goals are endless. Students can record themselves doing just about anything using this program. There are many review games available and teacher-created games. Students can use this program on the Promethean Board or on the classroom or COW computers. Attached is an example of how students can use the fluency flipchart. This particular chart has many sight word lists on it. The students can time themselves and record themselves. They can then save their work and come back to in another time. It is a great station to use during the reading block. <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__BrainPop__: This site should be used to support instruction. There are so many resources and review activities available on this site for students to use. <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">How to make a movie on BrainPop <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__Compass Learning Odessey__: This website/program is excellent. It allows the teacher to differentiate the assignments based on student's reading level or skill they need extra help on. Each student has their own account and the teacher is able to check the progress on all assignments. The students find the tutorials and activities very engaging. <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Check out their website <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__Flip Camera__: This tool can be used for many different activities. The Flip camera is very user friendsly and could be used at all levels. The Flip camera can be sued to record a reader's theater in small groups. It can be used to create a story with each student having to add a part to the story. Students can interview 'authors' about their books. Students can also use it to record themselves reading so they can not only hear, but watch themselves in action. Flip Camera tutorial created by Garry Marshall <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__Survey Monkey__: This tool would be a huge support to math and the graphing aspect. You could allow students to generate the questions in order to gain information for their graphs. <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__Skype__: Can be used by students to conference and speak to students in other classrooms. Can be used for sharing summaries of stories they have read, or to complete a read aloud with another student. It also can be used for students to help each other with Math skills. They can play games and challenge each other while using this tool. Click here for a brief overview of Skype completed by Andrew Stevens

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Sample Video Tutorial of a technology example for Math. <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">media type="youtube" key="pCAgLtOQZqg" height="385" width="480"

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**__Student Access:__**

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Students access for school is limited to school time at the elementary age. Students however do have access to the internet through home computers with NO filters. This is why we feel and internet safety course for both parents and students should be conducted each year.
 * <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">In order to use school computers they have to sign the Internet Safety form and the code of conduct along with parent signatures.
 * <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Parents must complete and internet safety course and students must complete the initial media center course and the four additional teacher lessons. Along with a lesson at the beginning of each tool presentation.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**__Internet Safety:__**

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The students would complete an Internet Safety course through the media center. Teachers will also teach 4 other lessons throughout the year on. These lessons have been created by Henrico County Public Schools. Below are the classroom lessons that will be completed by the teachers. Below are a few examples of some lessons that are provided by Henrico County for Internet Safety. <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Teachers will also talk about safety at the beginning of each presentation of a new tool.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Parents will also be required to attend a mandatory Technology Safety meeting at the beginning of the school year. The following link will provide a link to an informative Power Point that will be shared with parents at the meeting. It covers everything everything from the programs their child is using to ways to protect their child against negative technology use. The Power Point provides many stories and examples of technology use gone bad. It also provides 10 tips for parents when dealing with a child using technology at home and in the classroom. <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The GarageBand link is an overview of how we would address Internet Safety with our parents. The link below it is the Power Point that our SRO would present to the parents.

media type="file" key="Parent Internet Safety Program.m4a" width="300" height="50" <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Criminal Justice Services Website on Internet Safety

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We feel for elementary aged students using the filtering that allows for teachers to input certain websites to be used and add to the list rather than excluding those they should not be at is a better approach. That way students will never have a way to get to inappropriate sites or see inappropriate info. All sites will go through teachers and the proper administrator before being added.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__Funding__ <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Title I funding
 * <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Compass Learning Odyssey account for the school to use . Click here for a quick tour of Compass Learning
 * <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SOL Pass School Subscription ($200) SOL pass

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Additional Programs utilized by Montrose Elementary that need funding
 * <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">BrainPop School Subscription (about $900) BrainPop
 * <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Quia accounts for teachers who request them (Henrico County licensed)
 * <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">United Streaming Accounts (Henrico County licensed)

__<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">21st Century grants __ <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We would utilize the services of Henrico County to assist Montrose in finding the grants that are right for our school. __<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Henrico County Grant resource __ <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">21st Century Grant for Media Centers <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Promethean Board grants

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We also plan to use Donors Choose to help us get some funding for technology to be used in individual classrooms.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We will also go out into our community to ask for funding help. We will utilize technology to make a video when the students return to school. The video will be delivered by our prinicpal or member of the leadership team to local businesses and churches. We will share with them our mission statement and explain to them why we would need the funding. The leadership team members would use this time to also invite people from the community to come to our school to support our use of technology and our learning in general!

__<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">All links in one area/Bibliographical Information __ __<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">BrainPop Movie Making Tutorial __ __<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Compass Learning Odyssey __ __<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Criminal Justice of New York Parent Presentation __ __<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Flip Camera Tutorial by Garry Marshall __ GarageBand Tutorial (You Tube) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program Grant Montrose Elementary Skype Tutorial by Andrew Stevens SOL pass VoiceThread Tutorial by Kate Puschak Wiki Tutorial Wordle Wordle Tutorial by Kelly Jessup