Kim

**__Building Your Classroom Library with Digital Books__**
This session had a lot of good ideas for using Publisher and PowerPoint to create books and brochures that the kids can create. I especially like using the greeting card template in Publisher to create a 4 page mini-book. There is also a template for postcards. One thing I learned about PowerPoint is that there is a notes view that can be used to create books. Check out this link to see more of their documents and ideas:

http://www.vste.org/conference/virtual_conference/index.html

____Making Social Science Come Alive in the Third Grade ____
This session gave some ideas on how to use Excel, PowerPoint, and Publisher to teach social studies. There weren't a lot of new ideas, but it was nice to hear that we are on the right track in Virginia Beach.

**__**__WebBlender__**__**
This was a ticketed workshop that I signed up for. The most important thing I learned was the WebBlender is EASY and you can do it with students without a problem. We got to play around with the software for a while. The link below will show what I created to present to my staff. The other link is for copyright free music. If you want to learn more, go to myT4L.com and use the recipes. You will pick it up in no time!

http://homepage.mac.com/kewining/VSTE/index.html

http://www.freeplaymusic.com/

**__**__Access __**__**
I traditionally do not like Access, so I signed up for this ticketed workshop in hopes of changing my mind. The presenter loves using Access and had some good ideas for using it in the lab.

One of the activities we did was to use queries to solve a mystery. Our instructor, Sharon James of King George County, had the students rotate around the computer lab and enter their information on each computer. They entered things like their favorite food, favorite color, favorite sport, etc. Then she gave the kids a mystery and they had to use the database to solve it. It was a lot of fun!

She also did a database on animals. She showed us this website as an example of an online database - http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/ict/AAA/AAA.html For the kids to create a database, she had them bring in stuffed animals from home. They had to measure and weigh their animals, then created a database about them. The kids ran a query to decide what animals they would put in a zoo. Then the students created their zoo in the classroom.