Videos

Ben Rimes - Problem
Ben Rimes works for Jennings Elementary for the Quincy Community Schools in Quincy, MI as a computer teacher. As a technology teacher, Mr. Rimes felt there was a disconnect between the curriculum and use of technology at his school. View his solution. Tags: Social Studies, Elementary
Ben Rimes - Solution
Mr. Rimes uses Web Quests to create a lesson plan for his students to create baseball cards about famous European explorers. Review his problem. Tags: Social Studies, Elementary, Web Quest
Carolyn Curtis - Problem
Carolyn Curtis is the 5th grade Choir director for the Battle Creek Area Catholic Schools. Since Ms. Curtis is the only choir teacher for 35 students, she is unable to consistently help her students learn their pitches on an individual basis while keeping the choir as a whole engaged. View her solution. Tags: Elementary, Music
Carolyn Curtis - Solution
Ms. Curtis tackled her problem using Palm Pilots loaded with the software miniMusic. She was able to give almost every student a hand held device with the software suite which allowed her students to practice pitch on their own while she worked with the choir at large. Review her problem. Tags: High School, Middle School, Music, Hand Held Devices
Catherine Colagross - Problem
Catherine Colagross is a high school drama teacher at Oxford Middle School. Ms. Colagross saw a lack of communication in her school community between students, teachers and parents. View her solution. Tags: Middle School, Community
Catherine Colagross - Solution
Ms. Colagross convinced her peers to form a Web Ambassador program where teachers learned how to create web pages through School Center and how to support and coach their peers in website development. Now more 95% of the teachers have web pages with information like homework grids and content expectations. Review her problem. Tags: Middle School, Community Portal, School Center, Web Development, Technology Support
Cindy Morden - Problem
Cindy Morden is a 3rd grade teacher at Dorhety Elementary School in West Bloomfield, MI. Her students have a hard time grasping the concept of maps and require a more concrete representation of how maps represent information. View her solution. Tags: Elementary, Geography
Cindy Morden - Solution
Ms. Morden's solution involved having her students use the website MapQuest to examine landmarks that they could relate to, such as their neighborhood and school. Also, using the website GlobExplorer, she could have students see aerial photos of their school and compare that to the maps from MapQuest. Ms. Morden also built interactive experiences using a video camera and tourist maps of areas she had visited. Review her problem. Tags: Elementary, Geography, Video, Online Maps
Dawn Stark - Problem
Dawn Stark is a high school Japanese teacher at Everett High School in the Lansing School District. She saw a disconnect between her students and authentic learning of a foreign language and the ability to achieve Michigan standards for teaching Japanese. View her solution. Tags: Foreign Language, High School, Standards
Dawn Stark - Solution
Ms. Stark decided to use email to start a correspondence between students in an English class in Japan and the students in her Japanese class in Michigan. By emailing back and forth, both her and her Japanese counterpart were able to enforce grammar and vocabulary each class was currently studying, while providing authentic conversations between the students. The students were also exposed to Japanese culture in a way not possible in her classroom in Lansing and were more likely to tackle higher level language skills than in normal instruction. Review her problem. Tags: Foreign Language, High School, Email, Digital Imaging, Standards
J.D. Birchmeier - Problem
JD Birchmeier and Steve Dickie are high school physics teachers at Divine Child High School in Dearborn, MI. Mr. Birchmeier and Mr. Dickie find that their students have a hard time conceptualizing the concept of motion because of a lack of frame of reference. View their solution. Tags: High School, Science, Physics
J.D. Birchmeier - Solution
Using the software Logger Pro and video cameras, Birchmeier and Dickie were able to overlay particle models over the top of video of moving bodies to better illustrate the concept of motion and the forces that control motion. Review their problem. Tags: High School, Science, Video, Physics, Graphs
Keith Forton - Problem
Keith Forton is a science teacher at Traverse City Central High School in Traverse City, MI. Mr. Forton found that his students are good at plotting or finding points on a graph, but often have difficulty reading and interpreting graphs. See his solution. Tags: High School, Science, Physics, Graphs
Keith Forton - Solution
Mr. Forton's solution is to use video capture to acquire video of simple and complex examples of motion. He then has the students use the software World in Motion to plot the and create a graph of the motion. This way students can see the translation of energy and other hard to conceptualize physics principles. Review the problem. Tags: High School, Science, Video, Physics, Graphs
Kelly Deboer - Problem
Kelly Deboer is a computer teacher at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Grand Rapids, MI. Ms. Deboer saw in her students an apathy towards social studies, in particular history. She saw that the work the students were required to do in their class didn't line up with real world problem solving and team building. See her solution. Tags: Social Studies, Middle School, History
Kelly Deboer - Solution
Ms. Deboer used a claymation, using digital imaging and video editing, to create a project that required her students to analye important historical events and their effects. She had the students conduct Internet research, use the program Inspiration to create outlines and then use digital images to create the animated videos. Review her problem. Tags: Social Studies, Middle School, Video, Digital Imaging, History, Animation
Laura Glish - Problem
Laura Glish is a physical science teacher at Baker Middle School in Troy, MI. She found that her students understood the effects of physical phenomenon such as waves and magnets, but had a hard time conceptualizing the cause. See her solution. Tags: Middle School, Science, Physical Science
Laura Glish - Solution
Ms. Glish used animation to help illustrate concepts using digital video cameras and the programs FrameThief, iStopMotion and iMovie. Her students draw out a concept on paper under the digital video camera and then sequence the animation together using the different programs. They would also add titles and music, then create a QuickTime movie that they could take with them at the end of the project. Review the problem. Tags: Middle School, Science, Video, Digital Imaging, Animation, Physical Science
Marilyn Western - Problem
Marilyn Western is a 5th and 6th grade computer teacher in Mt. Pleasant, MI. She has found that students have had a difficult time understanding the reasons for the seasons, confusing concepts about the Earth's orbit and tilt and how they affect the seasons. She also has felt that the students often have a hard time understanding concepts that are not directly related to them. See her solution. Tags: Elementary, Middle School, Science
Marilyn Western - Solution
Ms. Western devised a lesson plan using technology that makes the experience of learning about the seasons active and personal to her students. Using Weather.com she has her students record sunrise and sunset and use Microsoft Excel to plot the length of days for an entire season. Ms. Western also uses digital images to take a picture of a stationary object on the playground over a series of eight weeks to illustrate the shadow growing or shrinking. Review the problem. Tags: Elementary, Middle School, Science, Digital Imaging, Graphs, Animation, Excel
Miriam Taylor - Problem
Miriam Taylor is a social studies teacher at Thornapple Kellogg High School in Middleville, MI. Ms. Taylor had a three fold problem which involved getting her AP Government students excited about covering content during the summer, maintaining a single source for the content and effectively communicating with students and parents about the class. View her solution. Tags: Social Studies, High School, Community
Miriam Taylor - Solution
Ms. Taylor used a virtual learning environment to create a central location for her students to go to get assignments. She started with Blackboard, but moved on to creating her own content rich site using Microsoft FrontPage. Besides housing the coursework Ms. Taylor also added a discussion board and chat environment to facilitate interaction between her and the class. Review the problem. Tags: Social Studies, High School, Community, Web Development
Nora Thompson - Problem
Nora Thompson is preschool teacher at the Galileo Early Childhoold Center in the Ingham ISD. Ms. Thompson has found it difficult to keep preschoolers attention engaged while trying to solve classroom conflicts. The students often don't have the attention span to resolve the conflict in a way that works in a traditional classroom. See her solution. Tags: Preschool, Conflict Resolution
Nora Thompson - Solution
Ms. Thompson chose the solution to video tape the verbal part of the conflict, then review the video with the students. She will then use the same traditional conflict resolution techniques, but with the video as an independent record. Ms. Thompson's solution keeps the students engaged longer and helps the students overcome their egocentric perceptions. She also then uses the video for professional development with her peers. Review the problem. Tags: Preschool, Video, Conflict Resolution
Robert Attee
Robert Attee is the technology enrichment teacher at Salina Elementary in Dearborn, MI. Mr. Attee has been working in his district to increase their achievement in the area of science on standardized tests with their limited English student population. After designing rubrics for the teachers to help assess the students, the district needed to find software that would be general enough that it address multiple intelligences, had a constructivist approach and was tailorable to the needs of the students. No solution video available. Tags: Elementary, ESL, Science
Sandra Smits - Problem
Sandra Smitts is a 3rd grade teacher at Bauer Elementary in Hudsonville, MI. Ms. Smits and her peer teachers have to deal with the pressure to meet the district, state and federal standards while still creating lesson plans that are engaging and creative and that meet the needs of all of their students. See her solution. Tags: Elementary, Science, Standards
Sandra Smits - Solution
Ms. Smits uses claymation to motivate her students to meet the standards for her science class during the their life cycle unit. Using a digital cameras and the software Video Blender, the students use clay to create an animation of different life cycles. After the unit is done, she hosts a movie day and the students watch each others videos. Afterwards she uses the videos as an assessment using a rubric she created with her peer teachers. View the problem Tags: Elementary, Science, Video, Digital Imaging, Animation, Standards
Traci Holboth - Problem
Traci Holboth is junior high computer teacher in the Mount Morris Consolidated School District. After becoming the media specialist, Ms. Holboth felt unqualified to help her peers with their technology needs. See her solution. Tags: Middle School, Technology Support
Traci Holboth - Solution
Ms. Holboth started using students proficient in different technologies for just-in-time support that her peers needed. As the students gained more confidence and the teachers more trusting of this support, the tech aides became a more enfranchised group, with training sessions and technology instruction to broaden their areas of expertise. View the problem. Tags: Middle School, Technology Support