The Outsiders Gallery Walk

Students scanning QR codes with their phones to learn more about
automobiles in the late 1960's.  

Our seventh grade ELA students will start reading The Outsiders in the next few weeks.  To focus on the setting in The Outsiders, Ms. Lott and Ms. Lafond worked on The Outsiders Gallery Walk.  They utilized YouTubeTimeMachine to find various video clips from the time period and attached them to poster advertisements of various fashion products, movies, technology using QR codes.  Students could walk through the gallery and scan the QR code with their phones to see a video of the actual advertisement.  Students also took a Socrative Quiz on some of the slang that was used in the book as well as viewed a ThingLink that focused on the popular musicians and actors of the time.  Students could listen to the over powering screams at a Beatles Concert, or find out a little more about what kind of music Elvis Presley sang.  Music from the late 1960's was playing on the speakers, while an episode of Mr. Ed was playing on the projector.  Students also could use their phones to take pictures with "Greasers" in a photo booth.  Seventh grade students were really getting a feel for the time period, some of the slang, and truly seeing how the cost of things then and now have changed.  They also saw how some of the fashion has changed, while things like converse and plaid shirts are things they would wear today.  Ms. Lott and Ms. Lafond provided an amazing learning opportunity for students utilizing many various technology tools.  

Students took a Socrative Quiz on 1960's Slang

Area and Geocaching

Mr. Teal's classes worked used our GPS devices to describe the resulting effects on perimeter and area when dimensions of a shape are changed proportionally.  

Students had to mark off a rectangular area of approximately 4 yards by 3 yards.  They used cones to mark each of the four corners.  They then used the GPS tracking devices to calculate the area of the rectangle.  They had to double all of the dimensions of the rectangle.  After marking their double dimensions, the used the GPS tracking devices to measure and calculate the area of the new larger rectangle.  They used their calculations and divided the area of their second rectangle by the area of the first rectangle to determine the correlations between the two.  Students then had to describe their findings, and answer some other critical thinking questions.  

Creating Soundtracks in Audacity

Theatre students in Ms. Ruiz De Chavez's classes used Audacity, a free audio editing program to create their own soundtracks to their pantomime unit.  Students can edit multiple audio tracks, change the speed, cut, and copy parts of the audio.  Below are some examples of what students created by mashing together different tracks.  

Plate Tectonics in Google Earth

What better way to learn about convergent, divergent, and transform boundaries than by looking at images in Google Earth?  Mrs. DeLaGarza's classes explored how to navigate Google Earth, how to measure and how to create their very own placemark in Google Earth.  When they were finished they started looking at a Google Earth file that showed the various types of plate boundaries and answered some questions about land features that were near all of the different types of plate boundaries.  To quote Ms. DeLaGarza, "I could use Google Earth to teach this entire unit on Plate Tectonics!"

DMS Robotics Takes Home Teamwork Trophy

This weekend, Westlake High School hosted the Central Texas Invitational First Lego League Tournament where Deerpark's robotics team, The Epic Rainbow Bosses competed among sixty other teams in robot design and programming, presenting a research project, core values, and a point value on how well their robot autonomously completed various missions that had to do with the theme, Senior Solutions.  

This video is a celebration of our entire season.  

Students created the song "I'm Epic and I know It" 

as a parody and all other music is used with permission from BMI

The Epic Rainbow Bosses researched Macular Degeneration and through interviews with Optometrists, community members, grandparents, research in books, videos and the web, came up with a solution to prevent seniors from getting age related Macular Degeneration.  
The robotics team shined and were considered for an overall award, innovation, programming, gracious professionalism, teamwork, inspiration, research, and presentation award.   There were only two awards that they were not considered for in each of their judging rooms!  In the end, they brought home the Teamwork trophy that we will proudly display in a trophy case on campus.  

The day before the tournament  DMS teachers showcased their Epic Rainbow Team Spirit by wearing tie dye and rainbow shirts!

Townsend's Class Goes SMART

Ms. Townsend's class recently received a Smart Interactive board, and she did not waste any time getting her kids out of their seats and interacting with this new technology.  Ms. Townsend had her students play a game where they threw a ball at the Smart Interactive Board.  When the ball hit the board, a random word would pop up and the students would have to decide if that word was a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb.  They are working on their sentence structure and improving their writing and applied the skills from the game into their own writing. 

Digital Creativity in Texas History

Students in Ms. Forbes, Mr. Richardson, and Mr. Waddell's classes were asked to do an Early Statehood Jigsaw Project.  They had to create a presentation that explains the cause and effect of various events that occured in Texas in it's infancy.  Students were given options to create their presentation digitally, in any form that they would like.  The teachers suggested, Prezi, Videos, and paper slideshows, but were open to creative ideas from the kids.  These teachers celebrated the 21st century skill of creativity.