Technology at Mt. Washington
Computers has been available at Mt. Washington School for a long time. The Macintosh computer lab has been here for students since 1994. Classroom computers have been available since 1998. In 2003 desktop computers for teachers were added, and continued to be added for the next 2 years. With these machines, teachers can access student grades and other information from the District databases. Testing data is also available. In 2005 we began adding ceiling mounted projectors and screens in classrooms for teachers to use with their computers. Teachers can now share web sites, show PowerPoints, and display worksheets they can use interactively with students. As funds become available, we will continue to add more classrooms to this project. In 2006 we added 24 eMacs to 2 classrooms for students to access the Apex Math online system that the District purchased for grades 7 and 8. This year the District has provided Study Island another online tool for Ohio State Test preparation in math, language and reading, science and social studies for grades 3 - 8. We are hoping that students will be able to use this program during their weekly visits to the computer lab.
Computer Technology at Mt. Washington is used to support and enhance the District and State Standards through the use of classroom and lab computers accessible to all students. We currently have 28 Macintosh computers in the Computer Lab, and computers in almost every classroom. All the computers in the building are networked to eachother, and connected to the District and the Internet through the District Wide Area Network. The lab is equipped with laser printers and video for teaching and demonstration.
The information from the teacher grading and attendance system is stored in District wide databases. These records are available to parents of Mt. Washington students through Parent Connect from home, the public library, or the Parent Desktop that is in the school library. Teachers can also make their own tests for electronic scoring and use an electronic scanner to grade them. Benchmark standardized tests are done in the same way. Networked laser printers are available to teachers as well.
The use of networked software such as ClassWorks Gold supports the standards in Reading and Math by providing interactive instructional media for teachers and students. It also provides placement and is now aligned to the State of Ohio standards. Student scores on activities and tests are maintained and tracked by the software . Reporting features allow teachers and administrators to see the results for single students or whole classes, and these printed reports may be shared with parents.
Every student at Mt. Washington is scheduled into the
lab a minimum of 40 minutes per week. In the computer lab students
are encouraged to meet the technology standards set by ISTE (International
Society for Technology in Education). Primary students learn basic
machine operations, the names of the machine parts and the function
of each part. They are taught to care for their machines and software
by demonstrating good safety skills. They use software such as Classworks
Gold to reinforce the skills being taught in the classroom. They are
introduced to drawing and painting programs, skills such as copy and
paste, and they learn to save documents to their folders on the network
server. They enjoy making slide shows of pictures with Power Point
or Kid Pix.
Intermediate and Middle School students are introduced to presentation software
like PowerPoint and. The students create at least one presentation
to be shown during the year. They learn some typing skills, and how to cut,
copy and paste text and pictures into documents. They learn to scan images
with a scanner, change the size of the scanned image, save it in a useable
format, and place that image into a document. They are introduced to a digital
camera and the processing of a digital image for use in a document. They are
introduced to databases and spreadsheets, and learn to create graphs from spreadsheet
data.
Internet Use
Intermediate and Middle School students are introduced to the use of the Internet for doing school research. They must have a completed and signed Cincinnati Public Schools Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) form on file with the school before they are permitted access to the Internet. Parents are encouraged to go over the terms of the form with their student before returning it to the school. The form must be signed by the parent and the student and returned to the student’s homeroom teacher.
The student agrees to the following rules:
• At school I will only use the Internet for school work.
• I will talk to my teacher about which web sites I can visit.
• I know that my teachers and parents can see the web sites I visit.
• I agree to obey my classroom and school internet rules. If I break the rules, I know that my principal may discipline me or call the police.
It is important that students understand that they are signing a contract,
so time is spent discussing the ethical use of the Internet and computer
networks in general.
If students wish to use pictures or words from a web site in a paper of their own, they are taught to write to the author and ask for written permission first. They are taught that they must use the author’s name and the site address (URL) as a reference for any material they copy and paste into their documents. We also discuss what it means to use the Internet for “educational” purposes such as research for a class paper, and how that is different from what they may be permitted to do at home or elsewhere. We discuss what happens when they do not follow the rules – loss of Internet privileges. Another discussion takes place that covers respecting the rights of others on our school network so that no one's work gets deleted because someone else was careless or angry.
Our school web site:
Here you can find information about the school, the teachers and staff, useful information for parents, information about activities, lunch menus, school calendars, and some computer projects our students have done in the past. You can browse by choosing any of the links on our main page.
Back to Mt. Washington Home Page
Revised 8.24.2007