Technology @ Hebron

To wrap-up the academic year here is a compilation video showing off the breadth and depth of technology integration projects completed this year using the iPads, MS MacBooks, the computers labs and the 3D printer. All the projects included in the video have been written about on this blog and you can browse the different Tech in the Classroom posts using this link.

During the last couple of weeks of school Biology students’ final project was to design and plant a garden in 3D. Students designed their garden as a means to learn about plant structure and function. They produced a SketchUp 3D garden, three detailed drawings of their plants (one from each growing season) using the annotation features in Notability, and a presentation to pull all of this information together. Students has to choose a minimum (at least) 3 plants that mature per growing season. 

Ms. Griggs, Biology Teacher

A selection of the finished gardens can be seen below:

Physics classes have recently designed and built water rockets out of 2 liter soda bottles. After studying pressure and the properties of an ideal gas, students started their water rocket design. They used an online drafting program and designed rocket nozzles to maximize the height reached by the rocket. The school’s 3D printer was used to print out the nozzle. The students also studied some basic aerodynamics before designing and building a nose cone and fins to improve bottle stability. Last week our efforts were rewarded when we launched our rockets high in the sky and took our measurements!

Mr. Jennings, Physics Teacher

Our Computer Science class recently completed work on a new robotics project. Joe Dunn and Marina Bernadez designed and constructed a Mini-Golf robot named Wilson that worked its way through a small course and shot a ball towards the hole. The robot was built using Lego Mindstorm components and controlled using a Raspberry Pi and BrickPi adapter. The robot was controlled over the wifi from a laptop.

The Raspberry Pi is a small and inexpensive computer that you can use to learn programming through fun and practical projects. We started using them after spring break while learning how to code in the Python language. The BrickPi is a board that connects to the Raspberry Pi that allows it to send commands to Lego motors and allowed us to use custom Python scripts rather than the built-in Lego software.

Mr. DeSorbo, Computer Science Teacher

Spanish 1 students recently completed a video project detailing ten of their likes and dislikes. They first recorded themselves, using the Camera app on the iPads, acting out and speaking in Spanish about each of the likes or dislikes.

They combined these ten clips by importing them into an iMovie project and then added Spanish title text to each. Finally they added an an opening image with more Spanish title text, ending credits and transitions.

A few examples of their work are embedded below:

A technology integration project that was recently completed in 8th grade Art was claymation stop motion videos. This is when you turn a succession of individual still images into a movie by stitching them together and playing them at high speed.

The students started off by looking at a variety of commercial stop motion projects, such as Kina Grannis’ music video, and then sketching out their own ideas on a storyboard. For this project their ideas had to be based around using clay models that could be moved a tiny bit at a time, as well as their own drawing skills and any other appropriate props such as cardboard and saran wrap for water.

We then discussed the workflow for creating these ideas into a finished movie, including setting up their workspace, using their MacBook cameras and Photo Booth to take the images and how much movement should be added with each new image (the focus here was getting the students to realize how many still images they would need to take even for just a 30-second film).

Once they had completed the filming we then looked at how to get the images into iMovie, how to remove the automatic Ken Burns effect that iMovie adds and changing the clip length for each image. They then added some basic editing options including titles, transitions and a background music track.

The final piece was then to present their finished movies to the entire Middle School during morning meeting, in the style of a film festival with an introduction from the makers and audience Q&A after the showing.

The completed films can all be seen below as well as a few shots of the class filming in the art studio:

The grade 6s have been creating Shape textbooks in their Math classes using Pages. Each student was give a selection of shapes to research and then their books were planned out using a standard structure of:

• Cover page
• Introduction
• Shape sections
• Conclusion

The main body of the books were the shape sections for which five shapes had to be described, including an overview of each shape, a technical drawing and pictures of the shape in real-life

As well as Pages, the students also used Google Drawings to create the shape’s technical drawings and the screenshot function within OS X to insert these into their books. They also used a few of the more advanced features within Pages: the drawing tool to outline their shapes on real life photographs; automatic page numbers and title headers; and borders, shapes and picture frames to enhance the layout of their content.

Here are a few screenshots of the books:

And embedded below are the finished books published online through ISSUU:

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: