Medusa and her shadow with Aphrodite before the performance

3^rd grade students from Miss Voges’ and Miss DeRosa’s classes participated in the Myths & Legends videoconference in April. Before meeting via videoconference the classes wrote an original legend or myth and shared it with a partner class. During the videoconference the classes performed their interpretation of the story written by their partner class and shared comments and questions about the productions. Our students enjoyed seeing their words come alive and discussing their ideas and choices with their partner classes at Tobias and Negley. Thank you to all the teachers and students for their hard work!

Apollo and Zeus saved the day!

Mrs. Everette's class did a wonderful job of performing our story about tsunamis.

The spider from the legend written by Mrs. Everette's class

Our hero and the spider lillies

There were no boundaries for students in Mrs. Swindle’s class on December 15th. Utilizing new technology at Region 13 Educational Service Center and the Video Conferencing equipment at KES, Mrs. Swindle’s class participated in a cultural exchange with secondary school students in Mosbach-Neckarelz Germany. Mrs Lombardo, our Librarian had visited the school and became friends with the teacher of the German students, Corinna Hack. Mrs. Lombardo thought it would be a great experience for the students in the two schools to meet face to face and planned the experience with Ms. Hack. The video conference started out with classes identifying the physical distance between them using Google Earth. Mrs. Swindle’s students then shared information about our culture; money, sports, hispanic cultural influence and holiday traditions. The German students  shared similar information which was followed by a question/answer session. The German students had only been learning English for a couple of years but our students thought they did a great job of communicating. This was a wonderful experience for classes on both sides of the Atlantic and we would like to pursue further communication opportunities with this class.

Students share Texas cultural information with German students.

All DMS students review the HCISD Computer Acceptable Use Policy at the beginning of each school year.  At the same time, we set up user accounts for each student and help to get them electronically organized for the year by setting up electronic folders for each of their subjects.

Newscast anchors from SHSN news.

4th graders from Ms. Mayer and Mrs. Spoon’s classes participated in an exciting videoconference that tested their knowledge of the regions of Texas. The students researched and presented clues about the Coastal Plains Region. The students choose to share their clues using a newscast format; complete with weather, sports, and breaking news. The students then watched presentations from Buda Elementary and a 4th grade class from Killeen, Texas. After some time to discuss the clues and a round of clarifying questions the classes revealed their guesses and mystery regions. All participants were able to correctly guess the regions presented by the classes due to the wonderful presentations. A big thank you goes to Christie Rickert, Distance Learning Specialist for Hays CISD, for creating and moderating the conference. Texas Rocks!

The SHSN reporting team.

A 4th grade "teacher" with the Interactive Quilt

4th grade students at Science Hall created a Texas Museum for the rest of the school to enjoy. The 4th graders were museum docents, sharing information about Native Americans, plants & animals, early explorers, the Civil War, and the Alamo. All grade levels were able to travel from room to room and ask questions and watch presentations on the different areas. The students enjoyed all the authentic artifacts, dress, and even food provided at the exhibits. In Mrs. Evans’ room the students created an Interactive Quilt to use on the Smart Board. One side of the quilt square had a picture and the other had information about the person. It was great to see students using the Smart Board and learning about the Civil War.