Podcast Central

On November 15, 2005, Mabry Middle School paused to celebrate four significant accomplishments at our school: 27 years of outstanding service to our community Completion of $8.8 million in SPLOST renovations and additions Scholastic and Intel's prestigious Schools of Distinction Award for Technology Innovation Georgia's Silver Award for Academic Achievement: Highest Percentage of Students At and Above Grade Level In this audio-only podcast below is Dr. Tyson's presentation at the dinner celebration. He discusses each achievement and ends the presentation by answering the question, "Where do we go from here?". The goal he sets before us at Mabry: "In order to meet the unfettered demands of the global job market, we need to turn school on its head by changing school from an information distribution system to a collection of collaborative knowledge fabrication systems, and let's start that shift here at Mabry." Listen to find out what he means by this significant challenge. If you were unable to attend o

Posted by: Dr. Tyson “Les petits poisons dans l’eau” is a French poem. The title means “The Little Fish in the Water.” This poem tells us that the little fish swim as well as the big fish. Mabry French students use poetry to work on pronunciation and fluency.

Posted by: Dr. Tyson The French alphabet is very similar to the English alphabet. In this Podcast, you can practice your French alphabet along with Mabry’s French students.

Posted by Dr. Tyson Page d’écriture is poem by Jacques Prévert, a very famous French poet. The title of the poem means "Page of Writing." French students from Mabry’s feeder high school, Lassiter, are the voices of the teacher, student and narrator in the poem. The student in the poem is bored with her lesson and upon seeing a bird out the window of her classroom calls to the bird to play with her. This Podcast will be used to work on students’ oral fluency.

posted by: Dr. Tyson Moving to a new school is really tough. Being a middle school student is tough. Put the two together? No way! In this podcast we explore the stories of five of our new students in 7th and 8th grades. They moved from near and far. Most planned their move, but one 8th grade girl was forced to move unexpectedly because of the tragedy of Katrina. She and her family lost everything but found a wonderful school. This podcast contains the stories they told and the advice they give to students who move. They also share their thoughts on how students can welcome people to our school family.

posted by: Dr. Tyson Georgia law now requires every student in middle school read 25 books in a given school year. A book is considered 150 pages of printed text, and that's still a lot of reading. One of our students, Chelsea, has already read a total of 83 books. She got started this summer and has carefully documented her reading using our school reading logs. Obviously she is an avid reader. I wanted to recognize her outstanding achievement and thought our Podcast Central listeners would want to hear from this sweet little 7th grade girl.

posted by: Dr. Tyson Señora Rivera's 8th grade Spanish students have been busy at work this year as they begin to learn the rich culture and language of the Spanish-speaking people. In addition to their studies, several of our Spanish students have been working on assembling podcasts from their studies. Brandon put the finishing touches on this, the first Mabry Spanish podcast. This podcast reviews: the letters of the alphabet

posted by: Dr. Tyson On September 23, 2005, Mabry Middle School held an induction ceremony for our chapter of the National Junior Honor Society. Parents attended this special event in which over 60 of our 7th and 8th grade students accepted the oath of Leadership, Scholarship, Character, Citizenship, and Service. The ceremony was followed by a reception for parents and students. This was a special event in the history of our school as this is our first group of inductees into our newly-formed chapter. This short podcast illuminates the high ideas of the society to which the students made their pledge.

posted by: Dr. Tyson This podcast features the four students that are running for student forum president. I decided to give them the opportunity to show everyone how quickly they can think on their feet. Unexpectedly, each student came into my office to record just one reason why they would be an excellent student forum president. Listen to this short podcast to get an important impression of each condidate. Each one of them did an excellent job with the podcast.

posted by: Dr. Tyson Mrs. Hartnett, our 2005 - 2006 Teacher of the Year, and Ms. Collins, our 2004 - 2005 Teacher of the Year, team-taught their first 8th grade Language Arts research unit at the beginning of the year. The students researched world-wide charitable organizations as well as those found closer to home in the metro area. Little did they know at the time how timely their work would become with the recent tragedy experienced on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. In keeping with our Mabry commitment to give our students a significant, meaningful, global voice, and as part of the end-of-unit project, a group of students (Annie, Maggie, Mia, Mary, and Katie) was selected to communicate to our global community the wealth of information they had encountered. By sharing this information through this student podcast (which comes directly out of their curriculum), the students hope that they can in some way help the victims of these disasters. Mabry Middle School: giving students a s

posted by: Dr. Tyson We have such incredible students at Mabry Middle School. In fact, I believe they are the leaders of tomorrow. Each brings a unique set of skills and attributes into which we at Mabry want to instill maximum capacity for leadership. This category in Podcast Central, Kid Capacity, is a collection of interviews with Mabry students that gives voice to the leaders of tomorrow, today. For our second interview, I have asked one of our 8th graders, Stephanie, if she would participate in Kid Capacity. Stephanie offers tips for teachers and students alike. She talks about learning styles and how she is working to make our community a better place.

posted by: Dr. Tyson We have such incredible students at Mabry Middle School. In fact, I believe they are the leaders of tomorrow. Each brings a unique set of skills and attributes into which we at Mabry want to instill maximum capacity for leadership. This category in Podcast Central, Kid Capacity, is a collection of interviews with Mabry students that gives voice to the leaders of tomorrow, today. For our first interview, I have asked one of our 7th graders, Stephen, if he would participate in Kid Capacity. He has done an excellent job in "setting the pace" for this new category of podcasts in Mabry's Podcast Central.

posted by: Dr. Tyson During the second full week of school, Mabry hosted Open House for our parents. This time together begins with a general meeting with Dr. Tyson. He presents the vision for the school year, the mission for Mabry, general information and procedures. This enhanced podcast includes the Keynote slides from that meeting as well as much of his presentation. After the general session, parents are dismissed to their student's homeroom where they get a copy of their child's schedule and proceed through their student's academic day, meeting teachers and being introduced to the various courses of study. To both watch and listen to this podcast, click on the icon above to download the file. Then, drop the file into iTunes 4.9 or higher.

posted by: Dr. Tyson During the second full week of school, Mabry hosted Open House for our parents. This time together begins with a general meeting with Dr. Tyson. He presents the vision for the school year, the mission for Mabry, general information and procedures. This regular podcast represents the substance of his presentation. After the general session, parents are dismissed to their student's homeroom where they get a copy of their child's schedule and proceed through their student's academic day, meeting teachers and being introduced to the various courses of study. To listen to this podcast, simply click on the icon above.

posted by: Dr. Tyson This podcast teaches the days of the week to a traditional French jump rope song. The music is from Bizet's "Carmen" and "Walk the Dog" from freeplaymusic.com. This is the first teacher podcast produced by Mabry's students who are studying French.

posted by: Dr. Tyson This enhanced podcast is a summary of the beginning of the year meetings Dr. Tyson had with the students at Mabry. In it he goes over some of the important school rules, but most importantly, he sets forth a challenge for students. Since this is an enhanced podcast you can also see his Keynote Presentation in iTunes as you listen. You can download this file and drop it into iTunes to listen to it as well as watch it.

posted by: Dr. Tyson This podcast is a summary of the beginning of the year meetings Dr. Tyson had with the students at Mabry. In it he goes over some of the important school rules, but most importantly, he sets forth a challenge for students. Since this is a regular podcast, all you have to do to listen to it is click on the icon above.

posted by: Dr. Tyson Listen to find out! Just click on the icon above to listen to this podcast now on your computer. Since this is not an enhanced podcast, iTunes is not required. If you wish to download this podcast to your iPod so you can listen to it later when your computer is not close at hand, you will need iTunes. Start by reading the posts in the category, "About Podcasting." It's easy!

Posted by: Dr. Tyson This is the same podcast as the one posted above. However, it's an enhanced podcast; notice the "EP" next to the purple antenna. Listening to an enhanced podcast on your computer requires using iTunes 4.9 and has an extra step or two not required when listening to a normal podcast. But it's much more cool! (For more information on the features of enhanced podcasts and how to use them, read the posts located under the category, "About Podcasting" in the gray sidebar on the right.) To listen to this podcast on your computer, click on the icon above, which downloads the file instead of immediately playing it, like a regular podcast. Once the file has downloaded to your computer, drop it into the main iTunes window to play it. Now you can see the podcast as well as hear it!