Superior host Tech Night
Photo by Nick Ianniello Superior student River Sides shows off the school's Van de Graaff Generator and his new electrifying hairdo. The Van de Graaff Generator sends a current of electricity through the user's arm.
Parents and students got a taste of the technology Superior students are using in the classroom Thursday night at the annual Tech Night event.
Spectators wandered the halls of Superior High School looking at projects and classroom tools ranging from student made videos to clay projects made by the students.
Josh Goins used the evening to show off his homemade soda dispensing device that resembles a homemade version of the board game “Mouse Trap.” Goins uses a fake mouse to set off a mouse trap, which in turn moves a wheel that frees a device to slide down a cord, pushing a tiny race car off a ramp and into a complex line of books set up like dominoes that finally knock over a bottle on a hinge that pours soda into a well placed cup.
Goins’ parents, Sherry and Rodney, where there to help him set up his machine for several demonstrations. Sherry Goins said he spent four months on the project getting it just right.
“I think it’s awesome because he’s using his imagination and that’s something kids don’t do a lot anymore,” Sherry Goins said.
Rodney Goins said that Josh went through several different models of the project that included marbles and even a Mentos mint, but his final product seemed to work the best.
Students could also check out Superior High School’s Van de Graaff Generator, a machine with a large metal ball on top that generates electricity. Participants could put their hand on the device and feel the electricity move through their arm and make their hair stand on end.
Parents also got to take a closer look at the technology some students get to use on an everyday basis. Trish Donovan set up a table to show off her fourth grade class’ Palm Pilots. The class has a set of 18 Palm Pilots that they use to can use in almost any subject.
Donovan said she acquired the Palm Pilots on a grant three years ago and while her class is the only one in the elementary school that has the technology, she has shown it to other teachers and classes so they can borrow them for their school work.
Donovan showed parents how students used the Palm Pilots to make their own wiki page about their favorite summer activities.
“A wiki is a sort of online web tool where Internet users can contribute to an already established Web site,” Donovan said.
The student’s wiki is not online and is only available to look at in the Superior School buildings.
“We didn’t want it to be available to everybody; we were a little worried about what other people could get on there and add, but the children could get there and add their own thoughts to these entries,” Donovan said.
Students used a collapsible keyboard that hooks into the Palm Pilot to type up a paragraph on their favorite summer activities. They then used infrared technology in the Palm Pilot to beam their work to a printer so they could edit a hard copy of their writing. Afterwards, the students went back to the Palm Pilots and made corrections to their work. When it was ready for publication, the students beamed their work to Donovan’s Palm Pilot who then beamed all of her stories to a laptop where she created the student’s wiki page.
“It’s really kind of cool because it’s a collaborative collection of their descriptions,” Donovan said.
The students also use programs on their Palm Pilots to work on math skills. Donovan showed parents a program that helped students calculate their ecological footprint by asking them questions about their use of food, gas and electricity and providing students with information about their consumption. The program told students how many football fields of food would be needed to feed them for a period of time and how that related to the consumption of other people in the world.
Donovan said that students in her class really enjoy using the Palm Pilots and used their extra time in class to work on math programs with the technology.
Donovan also showed parents the students’ blog where she posts their weekly spelling words and pictures of the class. She said that the blog is useful so if students forget their spelling words at school they can simply get online and find out what they are. Donovan said she also uses the blog to communicate with parents about things the whole class needs to work on.
“This technology is great; the kids really like this stuff,” Donovan said.
To see Donovan’s class blog, visit www.donovansclass.blogspot.com.