Technology @ Hebron

Repeating last year’s Freshman project, students once again had to work together in groups to produce a Greek newspaper – complete with professional design and a range of article content. As before each group was responsible for one section of the newspaper, from World News to Sports and Opinions, and had to stick to the following design rules:

• Use color only in pictures (can use greyscale shapes)
• Limit font use in your section (can use bold/italic)
• Maximum of four columns per page
• Need to include your section heading on first page
• World News section needs to include the masthead (name, date, price) and index information
• Each article needs a headline, lede and byline
• All photos must have a caption
• Can use appropriate newspaper-style graphics, e.g. barcode, weather icon

However, several changes to the project were made. The biggest being the change from using Google Drawings for the design and layout of each page. With the introduction of the iPads this year we used the iOS version of Pages, which has a range of formatting options and tools.

The other change was the removal of rigid roles within the group, meaning that each student had to write and layout their own articles. Each group had to design a page layout together and then each students had to create and use this layout for their own writing. This made the project run a lot smoother and made sure that each student learned the hands-on design skills on the iPad.

Here are a few shots of the students working on their iPads:

And the finished newspaper, with all the sections stitched together to create one complete document, is published below:

Grade 7 Math students spent the past two weeks working on a survey project, with each student picking a topic of interest, creating a survey based around this topic, collecting data from the school community and then analyzing and reporting their results.

They worked through the following steps, using a range of different apps in the process:

1. Define research question (Google Docs)
2. Create survey (Google Forms)
3. Distribute survey (Gmail)
4. Data collection (Google Sheets)
5. Data manipulation (Excel)
6. Data analysis (Excel)
7. Report findings (Pages, Preview)

Creating Google Forms and working with data in a spreadsheet were brand new skills for most of the students, which we took even further by creating custom templates when designing the surveys and manipulating the data using calculations and formula, as well as creating several different types of charts.

Here are some screenshots of their surveys:

And a selection of their finished reports are embedded below:

French II students have been reading, and learning vocabulary from, the Puss in Boots story and this year were set the task to turn the story into a stop motion animation, using a combination of Stop Motion Studio and iMovie on their iPads.

Working from a storyboard they used hand-drawn backgrounds and paper stick puppets to film the different scenes frame by frame. They then exported this into iMovie to add their own voice-overs recorded in French, and titles and transitions.

Here are a few shots of the students filming, with one person taking the multiple still images on the iPad and the others moving the paper characters as per each scene:

And the complete movie is embedded below:

Grade 6 students have recently been working on a distance and mapping project – they planned out a ski trip around the lesser known ski hills of Maine, the first stage being researching locations, costs and distance. To help plan out their trips and see where the different ski hills are located in relation to each they used Scribble Maps to create an annotated layout of the different locations.

Students had to locate each ski hill, draw a polygon shape across where the ski trails were located (this made sure they were in the correct location), and add a push pin and a text label (which can be seen at all levels of maps zoom).

Here is what an individual ski location ended up looking like:

And here is a completed ski map zoomed out to see all the different location points:

Once students had completely planned out their route, including distances and resort prices they used Google Maps to determine an exact driving route. We then used all this data to create a final Google My Maps map with the route for each day from resort to resort and a marker for each stop displaying the name of the resort, an image of the ski area and short description.

Here are a few shots of the students working to create their maps:

And the final route maps are embedded below:

The assignment was simple: tell an illustrated story in ten pages using the Comic Life app on the iPad. The difficulty lay in the mixture of specifics (length) and open-endedness (no further instruction on content). We wanted the students to be able to tell a fictional or non-fiction story and work within any genre they prefer, as well as being able to choose if they would draw or photograph their own pictures or use stock images. The results were compelling.

A selection of the finished comic books are embedded below.

Mr. Covey, Director of Library & Information Services

Grade 6/7 Latin students have recently been learning about Roman building structures and were tasked with designing either a traditional roman villa or bath house.

They started off by designing the floor plan of the building and used Google Drawing to layout the 2D structure of the different rooms.

They then used the SketchUp app on their MacBooks to create a 3D model of their building, based on their floor plans and previous building research. They created the model step-by-step:

1. The general structure of the building including the base
2. A cut out section of wall and/or ceiling so that the original structure is maintained but you can see inside one or two rooms
3. Detailing such as windows, door arches, and flooring
4. Colors and textures
5. Inserting appropriate pre-built objects, e.g. trees, wooden furniture, etc.
6. Text labels

Finally, they used QuickTime’s screen recording tool to record a virtual tour of their model, showing off different angles and close ups of their building. They then imported this video into iMovie and added a voice over to match, explaining the different sections and rooms.

A YouTube playlist of the finished virtual tours is embedded below: