Beech Tree News Network

On Tuesday, November 29, the Butler County Middle School STLP (Student Technology Leadership Program) sent four "Showcase" groups to Western Kentucky University to compete in the Fall Regional Showcase Competition.  The groups included the following:

1. BCMS Connections: Students included Isaiah Arnold, Ian Embry, Rex Henderson and Nolan Johnson.  This group has worked with connecting with students, parents and the community by creating newsletters, working on the school's website, creating a Facebook for BCMS and in future doing more school news, teacher websites and possibly Twitter.

2. Community Savers: Students included Abby Coomes, Annabelle Cooper, Erica Daugherty and Emily Wallace.  This group has worked to help the Youth Service Center (YSC) and community by doing community projects each month.  First started off with a Food Drive (raising over 3,600 food items), then Red Ribbon Week, and now Toys for Tots.  They also used various technology included creating a website, Twitter, brochures, Prezi, PowerPoint, PSA, flyers, etc.  In the future, they will be gathering items for a gift basket for Raven Durbin for Christmas, Spare change for YSC supplies, Hoops for Heart, Pull tabs for Ronald McDonald house and patient gifts for St. Jude's Research Hospital and more.

3. Geek Girls: students included Allie Easley, Addison Hall, Hayden Johnson and Tori Shain.  This group has been providing various technology training to BCMS faculty including Teacher Website and Prezi.  In the future the group will be doing Glogster, Edmodo, Voters, Interwrite board, iTunes Kentucky, etc.  We will also be inviting teachers from other Butler County school to attend, providing door prizes at each training and giving points to those who attend for a VERY nice technology prize at the end!!

4. KBA Festival of Technology: Students included Gracie Deel, Ivy Donaldson, Haley Hope, Lauren Tyree and  Macy West.  This group read all ten of the middle school KBA books and through technology reviewed the books with others.  Technology included creating a website, Voki, Glogster, Prezi, Jeopardy PowerPoint, ballots, bookmarks, Skype, etc.  In the future, this groups will do more with getting students involved in reading the books and then hosting a KBA party for those who have read the books.  They also plan to go to go to the 5th grade once next year's KBA booklist has been released to encourage them to read and get involve next year.

To be able to advance to state competition the groups had to score a 100 out of 118, according to Sherlyn Bratcher, STLP Coordinator and teacher at the middle school.  "We have found out that ALL four BCMS STLP Showcase groups have been invited to go to state for competition in March in Lexington.   They have worked many long hours both during school and especially after school," said Bratcher.