A Newsletter for the Tangipahoa Parish School System

October 1999

Fourth Edition...

TANGITECH INSTITUTES  During Summer 1999, TangiTech Institutes were held all over Tangipahoa Parish. Danny Williams conducted two high school sessions at Ponchatoula High with 23 ninth through twelfth grade teachers attending. Jake Ragusa, Mary McMahan, Smithie Cooper and Dee Potasnik held two junior high sessions at West Side Middle School in Amite with 21 fifth through eighth middle school teachers attending. Vicki Blackwell conducted three elementary sessions at D.C. Reeves Elementary with 70 Kindergarten through fourth grade teachers attending. Tangipahoa Parish teachers participated in five days of intensive technology training. The emphasis during these sessions was not only techology skills but the integration of these skills into the curriculum to help technology become one more strategy for effective teaching and learning. Some teachers were asked to write two to three sentences about their TangiTech workshop. Kim Zabbia from Ponchatoula High had the following comments about TangiTech. "Agh!!!! (1) I couldn't go to sleep for two days afterward because my mental capacities were so drained that the function for "go to sleep" was in default. (2) When I did get to sleep, my dreams were filled with Custom Animation and Slide Transitions. (3) During my waking hours, I heard myself saying things like, "Insert peanut butter from file jar to bread." (4) And, lastly, I knew I was addicted when I asked my daughter if she was sure she wanted to delete the kitchen garbage. Needless to say, I soaked up everything I possibly could and I can't wait for Day 6 and Day 7. Thanks, Kim Zabbia  INDIVIDUAL TEACHER LEARN GRANTS Congratulations go out to 46 Tangipahoa Parish Teachers who were awarded Louisiana LEARN Individual Teacher subgrants in September. Each of these teachers received $1000 of materials and equipment for their classrooms. This is the first round of awards, with more expected at the end of October. Those awarded are as follows: Amite Elementary- Kindergarten Group - Nora Burch, Nancy Campo, Sharon Hicks, Becky Lawson, Kathy Schilling, Dina Spears. Champ Cooper- Tia Giglio Chesbrough Elementary - Altarene Brown, Paula Splane. Crystal Academy - Stan Salassi D.C. Reeves Elementary School - Melissa Hebert, Kathy Prine, Shannan Reis, Kristi Simmons, Dorothy Sledge, Lisa Strahan, Margaret Tucker, Vickie Welch. Hammond Eastside Upper - Ann Dwelle, Sally Klein, Amy Russell, Melissa Ryan. Hammond Junior High - Georgia Barras Hammond Westside Primary - Stephanie Evans, Sandra Holley. Independence Middle School - Linda Morgan, Mary McMahan. Kentwood Elemenatary - Janet Strickland Loranger Elementary School - Tonya Martin, Melissa Stilley. Loranger High - Jane Terrase, Gloria Vinyard. Ponchatoula High - Steve Grigas Ponchatoula Jr. High - Joann Sellers/Stan Laroux SLU Lab School - Heidi Rhea Spring Creek Elementary - DeRoxolyn Hall Sumner High - James Lewis, Carrie Pugh Tucker Elementary - Amber Gardner, Jeanette Gregoire, Denise Grigas, Monica Hutson, Anita Johnson, Becky Roberts, Melanie Sanchez, Christie Thomasson, Cathy Tricou, Carla VanVrancken, Jean Veasey, Kristy Williams. AFTER-SCHOOL TECHNOLOGY TRAINING Jake Ragusa, TPSS Instructional Technology Coordinator, has announced that After-School Technology Training classes will be held at three training sites this school year. D.C. Reeves Elementary in Ponchatoula, Independence Middle School, and West Side Middle School in Amite will host classes every Monday through Thursday afternoon from 3:45 to 5:45 p.m. All Tangipahoa Parish Schools should have the schedule of classes posted and employees should register by emailing Vicki Blackwell at vickib@i-55.com or faxing her at 386-9620. Some of the things that these sessions will cover are: Windows 1 and 2; MS Word; MS Excel; MS PowerPoint 1 and 2; Internet 1 and 2; Peripherals 1 and 2; Graph Club; Kid Pix 1 and 2; and Ultimate Writing and Creativity Center; Web Page Design will begin second semester.

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FEATURED SITES OF THE MONTH Classroom Today Each week a new topic will be available for you to use a replacement unit or to supplement a unit you are already teaching. Each topic includes an Essential Question with daily focused questions to guide your students in an open-ended exploration. Daily activities and interactivity involve students in oline and offline explorations where students inquire, research, learn facts, form opinions, make connections, solve problems, and create projects. Some activities include - reading daily news headlines, guessing mystery photos and sounds, discussing questions on message boards, posting work on student galleries, answering surveys, going on scavenger hunts and field trips, reading interviews and breaking inews. www.classroom.com SchoolNotes.com SchoolNotes.com is an excellent site for the "connected classroom". With more and more students having Internet access from their homes, instant communication between school and home is becoming an effective way of involving everyone in the student's education. Teachers post homework, test and project schedules, and announcements on the web in seconds. Parents and Students - view notes from your teachers by entering your School ZIP Code. It's as easy as that. www.schoolnotes.com LACUE conference The annual Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educators (LACUE) conference will be held at the Alexandria Riverfront Center on October 21 - 23, 1999. Tangipahoa educators that are interested in attending should contact Vicki Blackwell for details. Accelerated Reader During the 1999-2000 school year, all K-3 and some 4-6 Tangipahoa Parish schools will implement the Accelerated Reader program. Jake Ragusa, Instructional Technology Coordinator and Marj Morgan, Title I Director have worked to coordinate funding to provide this for our schools. A preliminary training session was held for librarians at D.C. Reeves on August 30. Dr. Cole Reeves, Accelerated Reader consultant gave librarians and Title I resource teachers an overview of how the AR program works.Click here to see other pictures. TECH TIP OF THE MONTH  Keep "Alt Tab" on all your applications You PROBABLY know that you can switch among open Windows applications by pressing Ctrl + Tab. And you DEFINITELY know that you can switch among applications by clicking the appropriate buttons on the taskbar. But now suppose you want the best of BOTH: You want to use the keyboard to switch among applications, but you want to SEE all the applications you're switching among, the way the taskbar lets you. Try this: 1. Hold down the Alt key. 2. Press Tab once. The task switch panel appears. 3. Press Tab until the application task you want to switch to is selected. (A description of the selected task appears below the icons.) 4. When the appropriate task is selected, release all the keys. TPSS WIDE AREA NETWORK UNISYS has almost completed the wide area network for the Tangipahoa Parish School System. All schools are now connected to the Wide Area Network. UNISYS will conduct a meeting on Wednesday, September 22, 1999 at Hammond High to train a representative from each school in troubleshooting procedures dealing with the WAN. QUOTE OF THE MONTH "Ode To Spell Checker" Eye halve a spelling checker It came with my pea sea It plainly marks four my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea. Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write It shows me strait a weigh. As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long And eye can put the error rite Its rare lea ever wrong. Eye have run this poem threw it I am shore your pleased two no Its letter perfect awl the weigh My checker tolled me sew. Author unknown   If you have something you would like to add to this newsletter please email me at ...vickib@i-55.com WWWords to Live By  "Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic."

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1998

1998