Student Essay

During the late 19th Century there was a dilemma that many common citizens faced, the fact that technology needed to stay up to speed with the people. However living in the 21st Century, that isn’t the case. Technology right now is moving at a faster rate than most have time to figure out and understand the programs that one device can contain. Traveling through my education years, from elementary school to high school technology has taken many levels.

Starting my learning in Kindergarten and moving through to my fourth grade year, I encountered my first stage of the technology advances dealing with floppy disks and CDs. Initially when I first started using the computer and understanding some of the programs that it contained, my visions of the technology world had widened. In school I did many educational projects on programs such as powerpoint and word processor; however, in order to show my instructors the projects I was required to save them on floppy disks. Floppies were an easy way to keep important things on because they were portable, inexpensive, and simple to use. As the technology wheel kept on turning floppies became less used and out of date. Later another use of saving information was introduced, keeping data on a CD. This allowed people to have more storage capacity than the floppies. As technology kept on taking more steps, I later come upon the next stage of the technology advancement.

The next stage of the technology advances that I seen growing up was during my fifth grade through sixth grade years with the introduction of the handheld Palms and the S.M.A.R.T Boards. To begin with having Mrs. Morrow, a technology equipped teacher, made learning more enjoyable than ever. She had expanded my knowledge in academics with the use of a handheld Palm. Using the Palms to write journals, accomplish DOL, and draw sketches of topics that I was being educated on; made learning an adventure. Next, She even broadened our horizons with the S.M.A.R.T Boards. Having a larger view of a computer screen in front of the classroom made it easier to understand the steps of the procedure that we needed to take on our lab computer, worksheets, group projects, and much more. The frontal projection of the S.M.A.R.T. Board transformed the classroom into a more dynamic learning environment.

The third stage of the technology advances that I come across as I developed into Jr. High was the usage of USB flash drives. The USB flash drives are very convenient to use and allow you to save GB of information on a smaller device. Data can be very quickly written to, or read from, this convenient portable device. USB Flash drives were a very unique way to keep information because many computers today don’t even have floppy drives, and while CDs can be used to exchange data, writing a CDrom can take time and not everyone always has a CD burner.

The fourth and final stage of the technology advances that I have encountered as I came into contact with high school was the use of the MacBooks. Taking a MacBook to every class and interacting with learning on a whole new outlook has made learning more enjoyable than ever. Using a series of programs to fully educate myself on new topics, I have had a different perspective on learning. With so many applications to use there is a wide variety of ways to make projects including imovie, powerpoint, keynote, pages, word, photoshop, and garageband are just a few of the ones that are offered. When unable to attend school because of illness, school activities, or any other reason, assignments are available on Angel, a school assignment webpage. The MacBooks have tremendously enhanced my typing ability by improving my speed and accuracy. I believe that this will help me in years to come in the business world because in many jobs you need to be skilled at typing. Now that I have been in this stage for about a year, Technology is still improving.

Living in the 21st century I have been through many improvements of technology. Technology is progressing at a very fast pace. Each time you start to thoroughly understand how to incorporate a piece of equipment, a new and more advanced device is introduced. Getting involved with technology at a young age will help you to more understand how to use the new developments because of the rapid tempo of the new technology. I will keep trying to stay up with the increase of technology devices because of the impact that they can have on your life. With the pace of improvements that technology has provided for us we won’t be having a dilemma any time soon like the common citizens encountered during the 19th Century.

by Bobbi Walters

O'Neill Public Schools hosts visitors and showcases technology efforts

For the past four school days, O'Neill has hosted visitors from three different schools hoping to learn more about technology in the educational process.

Teams from Fillmore Central and Ashland-Greenwood, along with a teacher from Elkhorn Public Schools, all soaked in the knowledge and experiences of many teachers, administration, and staff across the district.

Both Fillmore Central and Ashland-Greenwood are planning to implement 1:1 laptop initiatives in their districts, although they are each in different planning phases, and Elkhorn Public Schools have begun to implement SMART Board interactive whiteboards in their classrooms.

O'Neill staff and students represented our school and community well and were great ambassadors for the transformative power of technology in education. Of all the positive comments from the visitors, the most significant may be how impressed they were by O'Neill Public Schools' students. Students were extremely willing to share their firsthand experiences with their MacBooks and the many digital projects they have created since the inception of 24/7 Learning. Whether informally pulled aside in the lunchroom, the classroom, or directly interviewed by the guests, OHS students shined in their expertise, honestly, and excitement about laptops in their learning process.

Classroom Connectivity with Math and Science

For the past four years, Janice Vosler and Deb Barelmann, OHS Math teachers, have been involved with a grant/research study incorporating TI calculators and the TI Navigator in the algebra classroom. To help bring the research study to a conclusion, Dr. Doug Owens from the Ohio State University recently visited O'Neill High School to see the use of technology in action in math classes. Listen in to an interview session with the three above-mentioned educators about Classroom Connectivity in Math and Science.

http://ops.esu8.org/groups/teach42morrow/weblog/e4fe3/

Great photos from 8th graders

by Brady Wakefield

and all were captured on point-and-shoot or cell phone cameras!

http://gallery.me.com/mrsmorrow#100178

Fillmore Central Visitors

Steve and Katie - I want to thank the both of you for
taking the time out of your day and rearranging your
schedule to meet with the Team from Fillmore Central on your
use of 1:1. We were able to come away with a good picture
of what needs to happen for us to have the same success as
your school. Your school and community are fortunate to
have such dedicated educators. Best of luck with the
remainder of the school year.

Steve Adkisson

OPS Digies Finalists 2009

2009 Digies Finalists have been announced. Out of over 400 entries, students from O’Neill had 20 projects named as finalists, represented by 27 different students, and sponsored by 10 different teachers.

ALL PROJECTS CAN BE VIEWED AT: http://web.me.com/mrsmorrow/09Digies

And the O’Neill Public School Nominees are:

7-12 Digital Still Picture
Angela Moore - Angelea Moore
Reflection - Jacqueline Parks
Walking Home - Tyler Hipke

7-12 Digital Still Image
Fireleaf- Demi Devall
Froggy Fun- Jacqueline Parks
Mortal Instruments - Alex Atkins

7-12 Highlights
OHS Volleyball - Bergen Hesse
OHS Girls Basketball Highlights - Kelsey Mundhenke and Liz Watson

K-6 Highlights
Digital Divas Go Green- Emily Morrow, Julia Bauer, Claire Morrow, Amanda Brown, Allison Ludwig

7-12 Animation
The Wooden Man- Kaitlynn Kizzire

7-12 Informational and Curriculum Related Video
A Day in the Life- Angelea Moore
Tia Zia Commercial: Filming a Commercial- Abbie Swanson
Apathy Motivates Passion - Alex Hedlund, Molly Shane, Mark Vavra, Angel Rodriguez, Dillon Dick
Apathy Annihilators - Rachel Price, Allison Depko, Shianne Coventry, Jordon Mauch

K-6 Informational and Curriculum Related Video
Macs and Robotics- Chandra Spangler and Claire Morrow

Open 7-12
Hands- Emily Sallach

Open K-6
Emily in the Outdoors- Emily Morrow
My Ancestor Project- Corbin Dean

7-12 Community Promotion
Out of the Phoenix- Ashley Sandall

The 2009 Digies ceremony will be held on Saturday, April 25, at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln, East Campus at 1:00 p.m.

Sexual Assault Awareness PSA

Angelea Moore, Molly Wetlauffer, and Kelsie Niederklein created this PSA for Bright Horizons in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Cable Nebraska will be airing this student-created PSA on cable during the next few weeks, so look for these stars on TV!