Day Five - The Future...

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We hope you have had fun celebrating DIGITAL LEARNING WEEK with us!
Take a look at this video and tell us what you think.

What do you think technology will look like in the future?

What do you think school will look like because of technology?

When you are in high school or college, will school look different than it does today?

Day Four - Techie Tools!

By Christina, Sydney, Sophie

Today we wanted to share with you our favorite techie tools, and we want to hear your favorites, too.  These are tools but also web sites, but when we say tools, we mean programs that you can use to create stuff online.

Check out our list of techie tools on our site by clicking here!

Our first must be Weebly!  It is a super easy online tool that lets you make your own web sites.  You can add pictures and all kinds of fun stuff.

We love Skype!  Who doesn't love Skype!  You get to talk to loved ones near and far.  On Digital Learning Day, some of our classes Skyped with a real author!  It was so cool!

Another techie tool is SnagIt by TechSmith!  You can take screen shots and then add words, word clouds, etc.!  You can be really creative!

Want to make a word cloud?  Wordle is super fun and easy!  Try it out!

Prezi makes your presentations POP!  We love it because it's so much more fun than PowerPoint.  Sometimes, you can even make your presentation look kind-of like a movie!

Tagxedo, we think, is more fun than Wordle, even though we like them both!  With Tagxedo, you get more options and more ways to build your word clouds.

Wallwisher is fun!  It looks like post-it notes, but they're online.

Thinglink is another tool that lets you be super creative!  You can post links onto a picture.  It's kind-of like an online scavenger hunt!  Check it out.

Want to make a video super fast and super easy?  You must try POWTOON!  We love it!



Incredibox is a total blast!  If you like music, you are going to love Incredibox!  We're not going to give away the details on that one, because we want you to try it out yourself.

What are you waiting for?  Start exploring!

Now, it's your turn.  
Do you have a favorite techie tool?  Share your favorites below.

Day Three - Favorite Sites!

By Matthew, Shoel, and Tanner

There are many cool educational websites that we use everyday in school.  Below is a list of cool websites with a small description.

Here are some of our favorite educational web sites.  We hope you give them a try!

• Hooda Math helps students with their Math skills while playing games. 

• Study Island is another cool website but it works with more subjects,  ELA, Math, Science, Social Studies, ELA Common Core, and Math Common Core.

• If you need to find facts about animals you should go to National Geographic.  It has all kinds of great facts about almost every animal.

• Fun Brain is website where you learn while playing fun games.

• ABCya is another fun learning site where you can choose your grade level.

• Hooda Games is another fun website full of educational games.

• Sports Science is a website from ESPN that gives science information related to sports.

• Hooda Brain is another fun website, it has games that help with lots of subjects.

• Khan Academy is a website that challenges you in all subjects.

• Envision is a student website that helps you if you forgot your textbook or workbook  at school.  It also helps you study.

• Acuity is a website that helps you review and take assigned tests.

• Reading Eggs is a website that helps improve reading skills.  It is great for younger kids.

• Math Magician is a website that helps students improve multiplication skills.

• Math Playground is a website that helps improve your math skills.

• Exploratorium is a website that helps improve your science skills.

• Cool Math is a website that helps you study math.

• Try Science is a website that helps with science topics.

• Multiplication Games helps with multiplication skills.

• Math Cats has games that help improve math skills.

• Math is Fun is an educational website that helps with math skills.
  
  
  What are some of your favorite educational web sites?  We love finding new sites that help us learn.
  Share your favorite sites below.
  Thanks!

Day Two: Cyber Safety

By Kara

At Oak Hill School, we believe it's important to remember some safety tips when you are online. No matter how old you are, we think these tips are important. In October, 2012, the eleaders hosted a Cyber Safety Night at our school to discuss Digital Safety and how our online activities leave a digital footprint behind. We invited the whole school to bring their families.  We talked about cyberbullying, your digital footprint, and many other things. I really think the families that showed up learned a lot. The sessions were divided up between parents and students. Everyone had a chance to ask a lot of great questions. If you'd like to see pictures from that night, click here. All parents and students who attended took a pledge to stay safe online. We plan to do this every year. If you couldn't join us last year, we hope you'll join us for the next one!

The bulletin board in Mrs. Riley's Tech Lab reminds us that we are always making a digital footprint.

Here are some tips we want you to remember when you are online:

• Don’t cyberbully.
• If you are being cyber bullied, tell someone. Even if you are not sure, tell someone.
• If you see cyberbullying, report it!
• Don’t share personal information on the internet. For example, don't post your address on a web site.
• Be kind.
• Be understandable.
• Don’t think that if you delete a comment it is completely erased, because it isn’t. Even if you can't see it, it's still there.
• Remember - you have a digital footprint. Everything you do stays in cyber-space!
• If you are emailing someone, make sure you know that person. Make sure it is okay with your parents that you have email.
• If you see something online that is inappropriate, tell your parents or a trusted adult as soon as possible.
• Never, ever agree to meet someone you met online.
• If you are ever confused about anything you see or read when you are online, ask your parents ASAP!

Now that you know more tips, it's your turn. Answer one or a few of these questions:

What other tips do you think are useful for digital safety?
Do you use these tips? Have you or someone you know ever been cyber bullied?
Why do you think your digital footprint is important?

Day One: Digital Gadgets

We're so excited that you've chosen to participate in our Oak Hill Digital Learning Day Challenge this week.  We hope to teach you lots of techie stuff and we also hope to learn from you when you post your comments.

We wanted to start out our week by talking about digital gadgets.  They are everywhere you look!  They come in all shapes and sizes, too.  We think it's so cool that you can get online and do research from your smartphone!



Our school has Dell Computers in our computer lab, so those are the ones we use at school.  Our PTA, who is made up of our Oak Hill families, worked extremely hard and we will soon be getting a set of 30 iPads for our school!  We are so excited to get our hands on them!  We're so thankful for our wonderful parents and families for seeing our need for technology.

We wanted to tell you about our favorite techie gadgets:

Christina -my favorite divice is my netbook because it is so helpful for doing things.

Kara - I love my iPad! I use it for fun, for help, and for contacting others from Skype, facetime, and email.

Kate - My favorite digital device is an iPod. It has many apps I can use for learning and making videos. There are cool games to play too. I love all the music and listen to it a lot. I want to make my own app someday.


Matthew - My favorite digital device is my laptop. I use it for doing my website and many other things.

Shoel - I always like to use anything Apple.  I usually use my laptop or my phone. But mostly anything tech is super awesome.

Sophie - I love using my iPod Touch because I can play fun games and I can FaceTime my Friends.

Tanner - My favorite device is my laptop because I can play games and use neat tools.

Sydney - My favorite device is my iPod because I can use it for games and talking to my friends.

Ms. Beard - I love my MacBook Pro!  It is my favorite digital device I own.  I also have an iPhone and I love it, too!  My MacBook Pro allows me to make really cool videos using iPhoto, iDVD, and iTunes.  I've been a Mac fan for many, many years.  I'm also a big fan of Steve Jobs; I believe his life can teach us so much about working hard and following your dreams.

Now that you know what we use, we want to know what you use.

What are the digital gadgets you use?
Do you use the same ones at home and at school?
How many digital gadgets do you have in your house?
What do you do with your digital gadgets?  Do you surf the web?  Play games?  Get homework help?

Tell us below!

Are You Ready? Are You Really Ready?

Ok, Oak Hill Family & Friends...
Are you ready?  Are you up for the digital challenge of the year?

We, the Oak Hill eLeaders, want to teach you more about technology.  Why?  Well, that's what we do.  It's how we roll.  (It's also why we're going to #ISTE2013 in Texas in June, 2013!  More on that exciting news in another blog post!)
On Wednesday, February 6th, there's this national event called DIGITAL LEARNING DAY and we want to celebrate that event.  How will we do that?  Starting on Monday, February 4th, we will issue a new digital challenge every single day for 5 days.  There will be 5 total challenges, or tasks, for you to complete.  
We ask that you read our blog posts every day and then share your thoughts in a kind and respectful way. In every blog post, we will issue a NEW DIGITAL CHALLENGE for you to complete before you post your comment.

Official Rules of the Oak Hill DLD Challenge:

1. Each blog post this week will be written by the Oak Hill eLeaders; we will also be reviewing each comment on our blog.  Any comments that are disrespectful will be removed.  Any comments that do not promote learning about technology will be removed.


2.  There is NO minimum or maximum age to participate in our challenge.  It is open to EVERYONE.  Young students can get help from adults when posting comments!  We love that!

3.  You must post at least one comment on each of the 5 blog posts.  You can post more than one comment, too.

4.  We encourage you to become a follower of our blog and also subscribe to our updates with your email address.




What happens after you complete the Oak Hill DLD Challenge?
All students (who currently attend Oak Hill School) who complete the challenge by posting a thoughtful comment on each of the 5 days will receive a certificate of completion. We will also announce your names on the morning school-wide announcements.
The Oak Hill homeroom with the greatest number of blog comments will receive a prize during the week of February 11th.  This classroom will also be the class who gets to use our BRAND NEW iPads FIRST!!!!!!!

Are you ready?

Your Oak Hill eLeaders are ready!

Matthew, Kara, Kate, Christina, Sydney, Sophie, Shoel, & Tanner

LET'S DO THIS!

To learn more about national Digital Learning Day 2013, you can visit the following links:
http://www.digitallearningday.org/ 
http://indianadld.blogspot.com/
http://www.digitallearningday.org/participate/educators/
http://www.digitallearningday.org/participate/students/
http://www.digitallearningday.org/participate/parents/
http://www.digitallearningday.org/participate/community-leaders/ 

To learn more about us, the Oak Hill eLeaders, visit our web site by clicking here.