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Mansfield Public Schools
Summer Skills Online
Steve SokoloskiPK-4 Technology Coordinator
[email protected]: stevesoko
Google + and Facebook: Steve Sokoloski
Nancy HovorkaPK-4 Technology Instructional Assistant
Pre-CECA Day of DiscoveryLincoln Middle School
Meridan, CTOctober 22, 2011
Steve & Nancy
Housekeeping• This presentation can be found at Slide Share:
http://tinyurl.com/dodctsummerskills
• Summer Skills Online: http://tinyurl.com/summerskills
• Lets use: dodctsummerskills, #dodctsummerskills for tagging about this presentation
• I welcome back channel twitter conversations during the presentation.
Sometimes you just need to understand when you are being
told the right answer……
Summer Skills Online
• Summer Skills online is a six week program using online content to keep kids connected to schoolwork over the summer, in an effort to avoid any lag time in September.
• It is not a remedial, or credit recovery or special education oriented summer school.
• Participation was voluntary and free to anyone wanted to sign up.
Summer Skills Online Used…
• Discovery Education Assignment Builder
• Discover EducationQuiz Builder
• Wikispaces• Study Island• Spelling City• Imagechef.com• Google Maps• Blogspot
• YouTube• Google Forms• Google Docs• Flip Video Cameras• Camtasia• Format Factory• Flickr• Shelfari• Wikipedia• Tryscience.org
Pleasure Reading
We asked students to participate in one of the many summer reading programs sponsored by
the School and Public Libraries.
Math and Reading
• Weekly assignments from Study Island. • Study Island is a commercial, online program
that gives direct support to CMT objectives.• We use the program during the school year in
Grades 3 & 4 so all students are very familiar with the program.
• Program was set up to email weekly reports on student progress to parents.
Spanish
• We created word clouds using: Imagechef.com – Word Mosaics
• It reviewed vocabulary taught in Grade 3 & 4.
Spelling
• We used Spelling City, a commercial online line program to review spelling.
• Some of our teachers use this site during the year.
• We created special word lists for the summer.• We used the limited free version.
Science
• Discovery Education Assignment Builder was used to create weekly assignments.
• Assignments were generally a set of videos and a topical lab.
• Discovery Education Quiz Builder was used to create a quiz for each assignment.
• The Assignment and Quiz were set up under and open URL and we got an email when the assignments were complete.
Social Studies
• We created videos – Where in Mansfield is Mr. Sokoloski? (3rd grade) and Where in CT is Mr. Sokoloski? (4th grade).
• Videos were posted on the wiki (Flip video, converted to Flash by Format Factory).
• Answers were revealed the following week and a “push-pin” marker was added to a Google Map embedded on the wiki.
Get Outta’ Here!
• We presented ideas for fun outside.• Hiking, foxtail games, frisbee, jump rope, were
some of the activities.• We used a variety of links to YouTube as
extensions to the activities.
Stuck Inside
• What happens if it rains? A series of indoor activities for bad weather.
• How to play Flick Football, Yahtzee, Cup Stacking, Bocce with Socks and more.
• Again, additional links and YouTube videos supplemented the activities.
Family Fun
• Just cool links we found.• A potpourri of links and videos in Art, Music,
and Science such as tryscience.org and arkive.org
• Simple projects, museum sponsored explorations.
• Site that supported some of the other activities of the week.
Other Stuff
• We did get paid, at the rates used for the brick and mortar summer school staff.
• We found the picture of the chairs on Flickr, contacted the owner and got permission to use it as a logo with attribution.
• The blog was done on Google Blogspot, and we used free Shelfari account to create a widget to display books.
• We did find recommend two kid safe search engines – Ask Kids and Kidrex.org for Internet searching.
Statistics
• We had 65 out of a possible 320 eligible students sign up.
• We had a solid core of about 25 regulars who did every lesson every week.
• We had about 20 who signed up and we had little or no evidence that they participated.
• Everybody got a prize!
What Went Well?
• The overall design was appealing to kids and we had fun creating the material.
• We really tried to stay on top of any parent or technical issues around using the activities.
• Having everything online (sign-ups, extra handouts, tips, tutorials) made it easy to direct parents.
• The kids that were into it were really into it.
What Didn’t Go So Well?
• Perhaps it was “too busy”.• Some minor echnical issues around Study
Island and Discovery. Now we know, we can avoid in the future.
• Wiki based web pages were unfamiliar to parents and caused some confusion.
• Students and parents didn’t respond to the blog as much as we expected.
What Is Next?
• District decides if it has funding for next summer.
• We use the spring to do a better job of demonstrating blogs, and wikis to kids.
• Use Google Forms as a weekly check off rather than use a paper sheet.
• Use the paid version of Spelling City
