Emani Moore's Blogger Web Quest

This semester the 7th through the 9th grade classes had to create Blogs for their Webquests.  Now, for those of you that have not been in my technology classes, a Webquest is a search for information on a particular subject using only the Internet as the source.

For this project, the students had to create a five page Blog using Google's Blogger.  I must say that I am very impressed with the results.  The students worked on this project for over a week writing, adding pictures, videos, and linking to their resource pages.

I am happy to say that these students have acquired skills along the way that will help them when they get into college!  to see more of the great Webquest Blogs, Click on one of the links below to see some examples of great Webquests:

• Annly Perez's Handheld Devices
• The History of Computers by Cheyanne Riddlebarger
• The Rest of the 7th Grade Class
• Dylan Grubb's Architecture Blog
• Austin Vander Mei's Webquest 
• Mark Chilver's Drone Blog
• The Rest of the 8th Grade Class

This week I'm going to show you a couple of safe websites that you can go to that will allow you to create your own cool comics. Yes, thanks to the miracle of the Internet, you can make your own comics, even if your aren't an artist. Some of these sites require an email address to use, while others will let you use their site without any identification or registration at all.

Comic Master is a great Comic Creator!

 Make Beliefs Comics -This is a pretty cool comic site with a lot of functions, characters and other stuff to keep you busy making the coolest comics ever! Well, OK it's pretty cool. Make Beliefs Comics

Pixton For Fun Comics Creator -  This is a really cool comic creator, but it requires you to register with an email and then make up a password! Pixton Comics Creator

ToonDoo - ToonDoo is a great comic creator that is simple do use but once again, you must use an email address ansd make up a password to use it, otherwise it is free!

Marvelkids - When I was a kid i would have loved this website because I was a HUGE fan of Marvel Comics.  This is a free site that does not require an email address so you should be creating your own comics in no time with Marvelkids!

Comic Master - This one looks very similar to the Marvelkids comic creator, and it is pretty slick.  Click here: Comic Master

Write Comics - This is a super easy one to use! All you have to do is point and then click!

Many things have transpired in the technology department so far, this year, at BGBS.  Most of my classes have completed all sorts of tasks to include creating newsletters, to learning how to utilize multiple programs to create vibrant, interesting documents.  For example, here is a newsletter from my 6th grade class in which the students had to use Microsoft Word to create a newsletter.  The students had to use the tables, clip art, and other functions to make interesting newsletters like this :

Newsletter by Chris Karenbauer

Newsletter by Catelyn Hall

The School Newspaper

My 9th Grade students have completed their newspaper articles and we are now working on design, crossword puzzles. art sections, an irreverent joke page and a few other surprises.  If all goes well, the first issue will be produced for all to read in October.

Here is a tutorial for my students on how to make a cool PaintShop Pro image:  Click Here:  PaintShop Pro Tutorial #1  This tutorial will allow students to put a cool background into any image!

The 9th Grade Computer applications class has been tasked with writing, designing, editing and having fun with making a school newspaper/newsletter for BGBS this year.  The students have been fast at work writing their first drafts to their news articles, and I have reviewed several of them and they are most excellent.  I really pushed the students on this first project like a hard task - master that I am,  forcing them to work all hours of the night to meet their deadlines, so that they can provide YOU with the best newspaper/newsletter ever.

A New Concept in School Newspapers

Instead of writing just about our school, the students are taking issues of national and state importance and writing articles, and opinions about those things and how they relate to BGBS students and staff.  Not only are they writing articles, they are creating crosswords, pictures and a beautiful layout that our school can be proud of.

But Wait!  There's More!

Due to the fact that there are so many online print on demand businesses, we may be able to print full color copies and give them out to students and staff, or use them as fund raisers and advertisements for our school.,

More on this later.....

The 9th Grade Computer Literacy Class has created brochures and they are currently working on new ones for the school.  It's not easy to teach students that already know so much!  This class seems to already know how to make beautiful designs using Microsoft's Word, which means that I will have to ramp up my projects to a higher skill level.  Just to make a case, here is a beautiful brochure by Danielle Johnson:
Stay tuned to see what the new school brochures will look like.  Next week, we will start working on Blogging with Google's Blogger.  I will really be challenging their skill level.  I just hope they don't know too much already!  Ha ha !!

• Turn on a monitor and actually find the button, because all of the monitors are different and the buttons are sometimes hidden.
• Log in
• Open a Word document
• Look for images on Google
• Copy Images from the Net
• Paste into Word
• Type and use Word Art functions

Hey, Guys and Gals, I've told you all about Photoshop so you know how expensive it is, well there is an open source (that means free to the public) piece of software that you can use that is identical to Photoshop, called GIMP 2.8!

GIMP 2.8 is very similar to Photoshop and you can do all sorts of amazing things with it. To check it out click on the link above or click on the picture in the top left corner!

It isn't easy designing an entire curricula for 6 different class levels from scratch.  Some of the courses, like business communications, didn't really have a viable text book.   So, this year, I'm trying to ramp up everything and get classes in order.  I'm actually building 6 new manuals so that successive years will have an easy blueprint to follow.

• Design a Blog
• Post 
• Create Pages
• Add Pictures
• Add Videos
• Comment
• Promote their blogs on social media sites

I am encouraging all of my students to use the onsite application DropBox. This application is simple to use and it acts like an online jump drive that you can access anywhere there is an Internet connection.
All you have to do to get started is go to this website: www.dropbox.com

Here is a link to the instructions of how DropBox works: DropBox Directions



Also, one of my students just showed me a really cool online paint program called Sumo Paint and you can see that online application here: www.sumopaint.com

Today, I had the opportunity to teach two elementary classes together, Mr. Searcy's class and Mrs. Parish's class.  It was a challenge because the older students were moving ahead much faster than the younger students.  So, I rearranged the class so that the older kids could help the younger ones.  Nothing will help you to learn something faster than being able to teach someone else what you have just been taught.  That's what we call REINFORCEMENT!!!  It works great, but man, did the time go by fast!!!

Today we started to actually do keyboarding because it took us at least a week to get all of our passwords set in our classes.  Now we are entering a regiment of keyboarding and learning different applications in classes that require it.  I told the students the reason we are learning applications and how to properly keyboard is so that we can avoid this:



Blogging with Mr. Ellis

The reason I am teaching students about blogging this year is because it is becoming extremely applicable to people in business to use them.  Blogs are very popular both with people and search engines and they are very easy to set up, as a matter of fact, they are easier to set up than a website.

Since I am teaching the subject, I thought that I would post a video series that I made for a New Zealand based company in my links page that shows you step by step how to make a blog in Google's Blogger and you can find the links under my links section.

Here is the first video in the series that I did as an Intern for Cooper-Taylor Training


The 11th Grade Yearbook class is now writing blogs about things that are happening during the school year.  Their blogs will have pictures of the school and their own personal insights as to what is going on at BGBS!

Wow, sometimes I feel like I fell head over heels down a rabbit hole!  This week went by so fast I can hardly believe it.  The Elementary and Jr. High Classes class quickly got immersed in word processors and learned the difference between Microsoft WordPad and Microsoft Office's Word.  They really seemed to enjoy using the different graphic functions and how to put pictures and different types of fonts and graphics on a page as well as importing images from the Internet.

The High School students finally got their passwords settled, and now in some of the classes we started developing brochures using Microsoft Word.

Coming Next Week !

Hopefully, this weekend, I will get a chance to download Corel's PaintShop Pro X4 (latest version) into 25 of our computers.  I bought the license and if I get the download instructions from Corel, I will try to get the computers loaded for our illustrious students.  We are going to have an absolute blast with this program, because it is very similar to Adobe's Photoshop program.  Check out the video below:



Please Start Bringing flash drives(also known as"jump" drives) to class.  They aren't that expensive, and you will need one to store the files that you create on.

Looking forward to another week!!

God Bless and Peace Out!!!
Mark Ellis
Technology Teacher Blue Grass Baptist School

Hello everyone, I'm your live on the razor's edge, laugh in the face of death, Education Technology Teacher at Blue Grass Baptist School.

For those of you not familiar with me, I was the history teacher at BGBS for the last ten years.  This year I have been laterally transferred to the Technology Department and Mr. Michael Frick is now my replacement as the history teacher.  He was an excellent replacement for me since he has a Master's Degree in History Education.  I wish him well and look forward to seeing him "go where no other history teacher has gone before."

As for myself, I have a Master's Degree from Boise State University in Education Technology where I took coursework in every type of offline and online technology education you can imagine, from Instructional Design to teaching in virtual worlds.



This year at BGBS I hope to have a blast with kids all the way from the elementary level through high school. Since we are winding up our first week of school, we have already been hard at work getting passwords and accounts for your students as well as getting our "fingers dirty" in technology.  My younger students are already learning all of the components of the computer as well as how to use word processors and all of the little buttons, sliders, and doo-dads that are on them.

All of my older students are going to get the basic diet of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel.  I have already ordered Corel's PaintShop Pro so that the students will get to use a powerful graphic program that is very similar to Adobe's Photoshop minus the extremely large price tag Photoshop comes with. The school has already purchased the license for these programs and I will be uploading the programs to our 25 computers as soon as I can.  (Probably this weekend.)  Also, in the High School this year, I want to teach them how to start making and editing video so that they can make a documentary.

All of this will be coming hard and fast as the year gets rolling along, so stay tuned to this blog for more great Ed-Tech news!

God Bless & Peace Out!
Mark Ellis
Education Technology Teacher
BGBS