Tech Integration Profile: PLTW Principles of Engineering

One great example of tech integrations at RMHS is the Principles of Engineering course and blog. PLTW stands for Project Lead The Way, which is an organization that hundreds of schools across America are part of. The class teacher, Mr. Buono, started the blog in 2012 when the engineering class first started running at RMHS and has been effectively running it since. When asked what prompted him to start the blog Mr. Buono said, "I felt that, since there are hundreds of other PLTW schools across America, it would a great to share our projects and coursework with them. It's also an easy way to showcase the fruits of our labor to the local community and to the groups that funded these courses." 

Below is a picture of and the link to the blog: 

The blog is mainly student generated, and each student in the class posts six times a year. There are hundreds of posts about robots, thermodynamics, electricity, and more. Lots of the posts include diagrams and pictures of class projects, here are some of them below: 

A Compound Machine

Robot Test Bed

Mr. Buono is happy with the integration of the blog in the class. He said, "Feedback seems positive,
for particular projects students are clearly proud of their work and I know parents enjoy seeing what their kids have done too."

In Person Consultation: Mr. McSweeney

Help Desk is the luxury of in person consultation. This service allows anyone in the  RMHS Community to talk one-on-one with a student help desk team member; they can come and visit us in the library or schedule a GHO session. These sessions  can be from something as simple as a question about an application or something more complex such as how to utilize technology for a lesson plan.

For one of first consultations, we had Mr. McSweeney come in to ask about the latter. Mr. McSweeney is an teacher and the English Department Chair at RMHS. He was looking for a way for students to effectively document and share in preparation for their unit on journalism. When he came into RHD, Mr. McSweeney already had some ideas of how to do this. Wanting to deter from the typical formal presentation, he was looking from something in the blog-o-sphere. We had multiple sites in mind; Storify, WordPress, and Blogger. With these three blog mediums there are two routes we suggested. Either each student can have their own blog or they can create a class blog that everyone has access to edit.  The latter option is only available in Blogger.

After our consultation, Mr. McSweeney decided to use a classroom blog on Blogger because students would not be posting more than a few times. He recommended to his students that they use either feedly or Twitter to follow news outlets and gather information on the top three of something they found interesting that week. Once they did such they would create a blog post on it. These initial instructions are shown here as delegated by Mr. McSweeney for his class.

After he presented the assignment to his students, they immediately got started with the blog. Many were new to blogging in a classroom setting but all took on the challenge well. Lauren Fiore, one of the more experienced bloggers, used many tools available in Blogger. As seen here, she effectively added an image while keeping it at a reasonable size. Lauren also used a link within the text to show more information on a specific facet of the subject. A post like this makes it easier to navigate the information as a reader but also cite information used for the post as an author.

If you want to read up on what Mr. McSweeney’s class is doing, you can read up on their blog here, they’ll be posting a few more times throughout the year.

If you want to create a great post like  Lauren’s, you can watch our Blogger tutorial here,

And if you are interested in consulting with us for any tech need, you can find us in the library D and E blocks or just shoot us an email at rocketshelpdesk@gmail.com and we will get back to you as soon as we can with more details. Happy Blogging!

Students & Teachers Expand Boundaries Together

Rockets Help Desk and several other RMHS students had the opportunity to present to the Expanding the Boundaries of Teaching and Learning cohort.  This group of forward-thinking teachers from throughout our district enthusiastically worked with Reading students on the philosophy and workflow behind a paperless classroom.


The presentation started with a teacher perspective on the philosophy behind a paperless classroom.  The most important points made were that a paperless environment gives kids more ownership in their learning and makes the learning more transparent for students, teachers, and parents.

Then the students talked about the workflow:

• Access - Julia discussed how students can access readings, video clips, and other resources through teacher-created QR codes instead of paper handouts. Also, the resources are saved in the QR reader's history on her device, so they are never lost.
• Record - Tessa explained how she records her learning in a cloud-based note-taking app called Evernote.  All her notes are automatically saved and dated, so they don't get lost and it is nearly impossible to be disorganized.
• Analyze - Megan showed how she uses Skitch to analyze and annotate political cartoons, graphs, and art.  These annotated images can be saved right in Evernote.
• Collaborate - Melanie let teachers get a peak at her expansive use of Google Drive to share ideas and learning with her classmates.  She also showed how Drive can make it easier to co-author presentations and essays.  Also, teachers can give students more personalized feedback using the comment and discussion features.
• Create - Christina shared that she likes to create impressive evidence of her learning by making high quality videos with apps like Animoto.
• Demonstrate Learning - Kyle talked about submitted proof of learning via a blog instead of by taking a test. He mentioned that he thinks its easier to remember information he's written about than it is when he's memorized for a test.  He also appreciates the way a blog creates a record of his progress in a class over time.

Throughout the presentation, students and teachers had a backchannel conversation using TodaysMeet.  Students answered teacher questions and added links to additional resources to enrich the conversation.  For many of the teachers present, it was their first experience with backchannel.

For the second half of our time together, teachers and students sat down in small groups. They brainstormed how to integrate this new mindset in their classrooms at all age levels and in all school buildings around the district.

Megan shows high school and middle school teachers how
to annotate images with Skitch.

Melanie and Julia show elementary and middle school teachers
 how to appsmash with Paper by 53 and Padlet.

Christina shows elementary school teachers how to
create a video with Animoto.

Kyle shows middle and elementary teachers how to use
Timeline by RWT with students.

The students left the afternoon proud of the way they shared their ideas about learning with some of their teachers, past and present.  One elementary school teacher tweeted later last night.

@KerryHawk02 thanks for a great presentation at #ebtl2 good luck at masscue.
— Carina Becker (@carinabecker6) October 20, 2014

Then, she turned around and tried TodaysMeet to backchannel with her students right away today!

@KerryHawk02 I just piloted today's meet with my fifth graders during a math lesson and it was amazing!! Thanks for sharing!!
— Carina Becker (@carinabecker6) October 21, 2014

We are looking forward to meeting with some of the cohort teachers and their students in the coming weeks and months.  We want to build our relationship with schools throughout the district so that we can be a service for all students and teachers looking to expand their boundaries.

Embedding Images & Videos in Blogger

Embedding media on your blog post can be very successful to both your grade or just the overall look. It is very simple to embed media and also allows you to give more insight into your work. Make sure to cite any resources you used and avoid copyright infringement!