School Technology Fair

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Wylie on February 22, 2010 at 7:01pm

Hmmm, not done this before, but would be interested in what you come up with. I recently have had a Smart Board installed in my room and was wanting to get the students to show it to their parents at conferences next month.Not sure what I will get them to do yet, but I hope to come up with something soon.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Tue on February 23, 2010 at 2:18am

We have not had a technology fair but we have a Fine Arts Night every year. The art teacher has the students pick out 3 pieces they are proud of. They mount them on construction paper and these are displayed throughout the hallways like an art gallery. The music teacher has each grade perform 2 or 3 songs to show off their singing. I (technology) have the student look through the projects they have saved and pick out one they really enjoyed doing and display them in the hallways with the art work. What you might think about is opening up the lab and allowing students to teach their parents some of what they have learned. That's as close to a technology fair as we have. I'll be watching this post to see what others have done.

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Permalink Reply by Darcie Priester on February 23, 2010 at 5:01am

Thanks so much! Opening up a lab and having students teach a project was something I had not thought about. We have Qwizdom student response systems and had thought about taking our end of the year SOL tests and creating a game where parents competed against students to see who knew more about the subject. I would also like to do something where we show parents what lessons have been created using our smartboards.

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Permalink Reply by Lauriene Tschang on February 23, 2010 at 12:28pm

We have done a Technology Day where we open the school for interested parents to come in to their child(ren) class and see how technology is used. Since there are several tech tools that we use these days, we've come up with a schedule for the day so parents can also plan ahead. Of course, we got oppositions saying "Why not have it at night". But the purpose is to actually see the kids (and teachers) in action during the day integrate technology in their learning.

For example:
The use of SmartBoard for PreK-2nd grade unit maybe during the 1st to2nd period. We only have one SmartBoard in the elementary wing so it's used has to be scheduled.

The use of VoiceThread. A teacher shows class past project while maybe another teacher shows and actually does a project using VoiceThread while the parents are in the classrooms watching everything from recording to playback --- possibly during the 3th-5th period.

The use of more interactive WhiteBoards and other possibly Google Earth during Geography lesson that ties in with Social Studies - parents watch in action as the teacher gets the kids up from their seats and actually touch and interact with what's on the interactive WhiteBoard --- maybe during the 5th to 6th period.

The use of Video Conferencing to talk to experts in the field - e.g. experts from museum to talk about for example Dynamic Earth to tie in with what they are learning in their science curriculum - parents are invited to be in the Distance Learning Room and see how their kids ask questions and talk in real-time to experts in the field.

And then in the computer lab level: the lab showcases the projects done maybe in PhotoStory or Movie Maker etc. projected on a wider screen.


These are just a few of the many tech tools that we "show-off". Hope this helps!

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Permalink Reply by Darcie Priester on April 26, 2010 at 8:40am

Just an update, we had our technology night last week and we got more parents than expected. We kept it pretty low key, making it feel similar to a science fair. We used our forum which is pretty large, and had one side set up with tables or "booths". Our technology committee asked teachers who had created projects to pick 3 or 4 of the best ones and to have students present to either talk about the project or show how they created the project. We also asked them to fill out a poster form to help parents understand the objectives of the project. Teachers could choose how to present this information at their actual booth. Some chose to create a simple poster, another teacher created a tri-fold board with their project information, and other information from their grade level team, and another teacher created a glog using glogster and then printed it out (this corresponded with their glogster projects).

Most booths had a 2 laptops available. One laptop was used to show off the projects and the other was available to let visitors play with the software and try the project themselves. Some booths needed more laptops depending on the project. For example, one teacher who did persuasion movies, chose to have each group from her class represented as their own booth. Many of the projects we have done this year I have created a website for, so it was easy to see many of the projects at once.

We also had two other booths open, one for Study Island and another for Explorelearning.com's gizmos, which are programs we use in our building so parents could try it out.

On the other side of our forum, we had a Qwizdom challenge, we named, "Are You Smarter Than Your Middle Schooler?" and parents played against students using our end of the year tests. We also had a teacher demonstrating the smart board lessons she uses in her math class.

I'm very happy with the results! Here's my blog post with pictures of the night and an animoto video I tried out for the first time.

I've also uploaded the poster form, student permission form and flyers I made.

Attachments:

• Technology Night poster form.doc, 25 KB
• technology night permission form.doc, 29 KB
• Technology Night.doc, 267 KB

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Permalink Reply by Darcie Priester on April 26, 2010 at 8:42am

Lauriene,
I like this idea! We are having some contract issues in our district and some people have said we might not have events at night. This would be a good alternative to try. Thanks for sharing!

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