Good Morning Huskies!

Good Morning Huskies! Every morning the 8th grade news team at Heritage Middle School starts their day recording the daily announcements, sports updates and any news of the day.  Daily announcements provide a great way for students to get involved in school, build school community and pride and have a little fun to kick off the day. The team is supervised by Kellie Sheely, Kris Konik and Patrick Acocks who support the project helping the team write and edit scripts, filming and posting the final video daily in Schoology.

Recording daily announcements is not a new concept at Heritage but using tools like WeVideo and Schoology have helped with editing and distribution of the video to the staff and students. In the past, videos were posted to the Shared Drive for teachers to access and show during 1st period.  This year the news team began posting the morning announcements to the Heritage Middle School Group in Schoology.  “Using Schoology to post our videos allows teachers easy access to the videos,” explained Mrs. Konik. “It also provides a reason for our staff to get into Schoology each day and has helped in supporting the transition to building student centered blended learning environments.”  

Central’s New Makerspace Christened “The Hawk’s Perch”

This isn’t your grandfather’s library!

Libraries have always been a place for inquiry and deep learning, whether the medium is print or electronic, and at Westerville Central High School, the library is busier than ever. Recently, in partnership with the Renaissance team, Principal Todd Spinner, an anonymous parent donor, the library, and funding from the Westerville City Schools Educational Technology Department, a new makerspace area, nicknamed “The Hawk’s Perch,” was dedicated. The counter holds a host of small tech tools that students can experiment and explore with including a MakeyMakey circuitry kit, two Little Bits electronics kits, laser strategy games, Ozobot programmable miniature robots that teach students how to code, and much more. Students can use the Hawk’s Perch area before or after school, or during their lunch or study hall times, and the library maintains an open access policy for pupils.

In addition, the library has a green screen recording space, cameras, and a camera stand and easel
board students can use to make “Khan Academy style” videos using the district’s WeVideo editing program. WeVideo integrates with Google Drive, so students can edit from school or from home.

The makerspace movement is founded on the belief that learning is inquisitive and student centered
and is grounded in the educational theories of constructionism, constructivism, and Montessori, and aligns with the work of Piaget, Vygosky, and Dewey (University of Wisconsin, Teaching for Creativity and Innovation: The Maker Culture and Makerspaces).