Powerpoint Animation Tutorial

A tutorial teaching custom animation and slide transitions in Powerpoint.

Using Digital Tools in the Arts

Mr. Galle uses a variety of digital tools in his art curriculum. Check out some of his student projects.

Email Conversion Procedures at SACS

St. Albans City School is in the process of converting to a new email system effective January 8, 2008. Our new email addresses will be the same as the old ones for the first part; while the second part is changed from stalbanscityschool.org to sacsvt.org. If your old email address was doej@stalbanscityschool.org your new address will be doej@sacsvt.org.

You old email system will be disabled on January 31, 2008. Both the new email system and the old system will be available for the month of January.

To easily convert over we suggest the following steps with more specific directions and tutorials at SACS-ONLINE.

1. Log into the new system using the Email link on our home page. Change your passwords.

2. Change your old email to automatically forward to the new email. You will receive anything anyone sends to your OLD account to your NEW account.

3. Set your old email in "vacation" mode. (Anyone who writes to it will get a message that our email address has changed and that your new email address is .....

4. Only access the NEW email from now on.

5. You will notice the new email starts with a new ADDRESS book. We have created a simple IMPORT addresses for anyone who wants to add our staff to their address book. (The directions and tutorials are at SACS ONLINE.

Tech Savvy Parents Learn About Keyboarding Skills

The 2nd in a series of workshops for Parents was offered tonight to parents interested in helping their children master an important 21st century skill - keyboarding skills. As the use of computers continues to increase in living and learning, individuals who can't keyboard quickly and efficiently will have a harder time keeping up. Whether it be completing class assignments, homework, or keeping up at work, keyboarding is a key to success. Tonight's parents learned some tips and techniques to help their children acquire this important skill. CD's full of free and demo software were also distrubuted.

I have uploaded some resources for you to use at home with your students at this location.
http://learntotype.wikispaces.com/studentsites

Tech Savvy Student Leadership Winter Update

The Tech Savvy Students Leadership Teams format will be slightly different this winter. The changes are a result of scheduling conflict that made it hard to meet this Fall. The new format kicks off with a Holiday Meeting on December 21 from 3:30 - 5:00, then resume with an 8 week Open Doors Session on Thursday starting in January. There will also be a Tech Savvy Girls Sessions offered on Wednesday nights. Click here for more information.

Acceptable Use Policies Revised

Revised Acceptable Use Forms were sent home this week with an introductory letter from our Principal Ms. Riggs. The slight changes to these forms reflect some of the increased use of technology to support learning in our school. Please return these signed forms to your classroom teachers. Click here for a copy of these forms.

Tech Workshops for Parents

St. Albans City School is offering a series of workshops for parents this Winter.
The workshops will be held on Thursday nights 6:00 - 7:00 in the Computer lab.
For more information about these workshops Click Here.

The Topics include
Dec 14 Holiday Gifts and Crafts
Jan 4 Learning to Type (for me or my child)
Jan 11 Supporting Gr K-3 Students with Tech
Jan 18 Supporting Gr 4 - 6 students with Tech
Jan 25 Keeping your Child Safe in the Digital Age
Feb 1 Supporting Grades 7 - 8 Students with Tech
Feb 8 Keeping your Computer Healthy and Safe
Feb 15 Student Technology Showcase

Pondering the Future of Voting

St. Albans City School Middle School students ponder the future of voting

Below are the 7th grade results. For Total results including results by grade, click here.

“By the time you vote, there is a strong possibility that you will be casting your vote electronically” predicted Mr. Steve Moore, Social Studies Teacher at St. Albans City School as the students used electronic remotes to cast their votes in Tuesday’s Mock Election conducted throughout the Middle School classes. This year’s election day tradition of conducting a mock election brought about a new twist, as Technology Integration Specialist, Lucie deLaBruere introduced teachers to electronic audience polling technology.

Following tradition, each middle school class cast their paper ballot, but votes were also collected using polling devices similar to the ones seem on many popular game show. As each class cast their votes, the results were immediately projected on a large screen to the class. Pleasant surprises, disappointments, or disbelief was heard throughout the classroom as students viewed the immediate results. They were eager to learn how their class votes compared with the rest of the school.

Not only did students listen attentively, as social studies teachers reviewed the candidates running for office of Senate, House of Representative, and Governor with the students, they also discussed the pros and cons of paper versus electronic voting procedures. Eight grade students also filled out voter registration forms and their teacher, Mr. Moore, introduced both the procedures and responsibility associated with casting your vote as a U.S. Citizen.

By the end of the day, paper ballots were tallied and compared to the electronic results. Electronic results were quickly available for the whole middle school, as well as for each grade level through the school web site under the “What’s Happening in Tech News” www.StAlbansCitySchool.org Veteran Social Studies Teacher, Bill Gorman, shared the fact that the 7^th and 8^th grade mock election results had traditionally proved to be very accurate predictions of the official election results from their community. This year’s students successfully predicted the winners of the both the Governor and Senate race, but failed the predict Mr. Welsh’s victory over Martha Rainville for House of Representative.

Tech Savvy Kids Receive Exxon Mobil Incentive Grant

Lisa Blouin, from Switchyard Mobil, is seen presenting Lucie deLaBruere and some of her Tech Savvy students the Exxon Mobil Incentive Grant. Ms. deLaBruere is a technology integration specialist at City School, who is working with the students to provide them with skills that they will need in the workplace. The grant will be used to purchase equipment that will allow more students to have access to technology as a learning tool in their classroom.

Music in your presentations

Finding music that you can use in your presentation can be challenging, especially when you practice computer ethics and do not use copyrighted music. One place to look for music is the Creative Commons Web Site which links to many sites that hold Creative Commons Licenses. Another source is RoyaltyFreeMusic. Royalty Free Music is providing us with permission to use music for this web site for school presentation. Another place where you can download a rotating array of free music is this pay on Royalty Free Music. The music on this pages changes occationally.

http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/free-music-resources.html