1. Secure use of Personal Laptops at school is now possible! We piloted this last year with great success. All that you need to do is fill out this form and bring it and your device to a Tuesday Tech Talk once they start in October(watch Principal's Bulletin for schedule), and you will be set-up with wireless access.
2. Every student 7-12 now has a Mohonasen email address in the mohonasen.net domain (example j_smith@mohonasen.net)! Each teacher also has a mohonasen.net in case you want to keep your email to and from students separate from your mohonasen.org account. It is OK to separate them or to use one email address for all of your professional communication- That's totally a personal preference.
One really nice feature of this is that all of the traffic is monitored and logged so you can be assured that you are communicating with your students in an offical, school sacntioned capacity.
Another great thing about this is that mohonasen.net is not just an email account- It also includes a Google Docs account, a calendar, and a contacts list. This means that every student can share, collaborate, discuss, write, edit documents within the class. You can share out assignments and papers, comment on work that students share with you, etc... it could be a really powerful tool. There are tons of ways to learn more about Google Docs. We will have some classes after school very soon. Model Schools has classes. There are many online tutorials. Please consider using this powerful resource.
At this time, we are planning to notify high school students of their gmail/google docs accounts in the class meetings with Mr. Collins. Middle school accounts will be set up as teachers request them from Jamie or myself.
3. We have subscribed to a really interesting 7-12 Curriculum Resource called SAS Curriculum Pathways. It is filled with a variety of technology enriched lessons (all tied to the Common Core and NYS Standards, btw) that you can use in class or assign to your students to complete on their own. It covers a wide variety of topics in Science, Math, English, Social Studies, and Spanish. There are 4 basic types of lessons:
INTERACTIVE TOOLS: An Interactive Tool provides instruction and encourages insights in ways a textbook cannot. These tools enable students to clarify concepts and build skills.
INQUIRIES: An Inquiry is a guided, self-paced investigation, organized around a Focus Question. Students answer the question in a three-step process: read, research, and respond. Kind of like a web-quest.
AUDIO TUTORIAL: An Audio Tutorial is a short lesson addressing core content. Audio and visuals help to solidify student understanding, which is assessed via an online quiz.
WEB LESSONS: Lessons are complete learning activities on a broad range of concepts and skills, designed for classroom use or independent study.
Check them out- I think you will be surprised. This is a free resource but you need an account to access these lessons. Kids do NOT need an account, just the district password. Follow this link and select Mohonasen Central School District to sign up for an account! Click Here. [NOTE: Make sure you choose MOHONASEN HIGH SCHOOL with "Patrick McGrath" as the Primary contact. Don't choose the other ROTTERDAM-MOHONASEN that has "Ellen Sullivan" listed- we are trying to get that removed.]
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