Superior hosts open house
Nick Ianniello/Mineral Independent Superior second-grader, McKenzie Stortz, hangs out in her classroom during an open house at Superior Elementary School Tuesday night. Stortz and other students showed their families around the school and their classrooms.
Parents and students visited Superior Elementary School last Tuesday evening for an opportunity to check out what is going on in the school’s classrooms.
“It’s a lot of fun to have parents in the building so they can ask questions and see what’s going on,” said Superior Elementary Principal Scott Kinney.
The evening started off with a barbecue open to the public.
Duane Bauer, one of the event’s organizers, said that there were more than 200 people lined up for food in the elementary school’s cafeteria.
After the barbecue, parents could walk through the school halls to their childrens’ classrooms and check out projects they have been working on in class.
Many teachers had projects that the students have been working on this school year out on display for parents to check through.
Those in Angie Hopwood’s second grade class showed their parents projects on Egyptian pharaohs and places that they have been working on.
“It’s always great when we have parents get the opportunity to come check out the school and see what their kids are up to and look at the tools the teachers get to use working with the kids,” Kinney said.
Most classes are now equipped with smart boards, electronic projection boards on which teachers and students can interact.
Teachers can prepare lessons on the smart boards on just about any subject so that students actually manipulate objects on the board.
Kindergarten teacher Kim Rebich uses the board to take attendance, keep the class’ calendar and teach kids how to read among other things. Rebich showed a group of parents a program that generates nonsense words that children use to start learning how to spell out words.
“It’s good for them to be able to see those sounds, hear those sounds and put them together,” Rebich said. “It’s really exciting.”
The smart boards also can create jeopardy boards, allow teachers and students to write on the boards with special pens and are responsive to touch.
Technology coordinator Diane Woodard said that the boards are really helpful to teachers.
“More importantly, they’re helpful to the kids. From the teacher’s side it’s not much more than a glorified whiteboard, but from the students’ side, it allows them to interact,” Woodard said.
Teachers can also record their classroom lessons using a microphone and a tool that allows them to playback everything that happened on the smart board on a digital video so that students who are absent can still see and hear the lesson.
Woodard said that through Moodle, an online program that allows teachers and students to post things online, children can turn in homework, catch up on missed classes and stay in touch with their teacher.
Woodard said that the school is in the process of acquiring five more smartboards for classrooms and after that all but two of Superior’s K – 12 regular classrooms will be equipped with smart boards.
The boards are bought with funding from a technology levy that brings in money to the school specifically for technology every year.
Woodard said that eventually she hopes all of the school’s teachers will be able to use the smart board technology along with other tools that the school will purchase with money from the levy.
“We’re really close to having these in every room,” Woodard said.