PASD LTR for Staff

Ctrl Alt Achieve from Eric Curts is a HUGE resource for me to keep me up to date with G Suite changes, techniques and just general technology information. He has a wealth of information and templates that are FREE to use with your classroom. It is as easy as just sharing a link with students, giving them a quick tutorial on how to use it and they are off and running! I have used these templates with my 3rd graders on up, and even had a second grade teacher give the Halloween Jack-o-Lantern activity a go with her class this year! This year for his 12 Days of Techmas he has posted more awesome resources for blogs to follow, podcasts AND my favorite ACTIVITIES! All free, and all ready to just be shared with students. My personal favorite from the 6 Googley Wintertime Activities for Kids and one that I think my students will really enjoy is the Pixel Art Ornaments, with Minecraft on the brain students are sure to get into this pixelated style creation of images. While, I won't be g...

I follow a lot of different forms of media in blogs, social media, and YouTube. This post is about a super valuable YouTube Channel called Epic Reads ! Now, I know that it is not a technology post, however I am using Technology to keep up to date with current book trends and this is one of those ways! I like it because it talks about adult book and teen book trends and the vlogger (video blogger) is not too annoying, I can handle her talking, in fact if I was in a classroom I would use the December 2017 Book Haul (at around the 1:30 mark) to talk about trigger books and how books can have themes that really grip the reader. Some other channels that I follow are: Google for Education -I have spammed you before about this one, however I feel like highlighting again the EDU in 90 sessions. They only take about a minute and a half of your time to look at features of the G Suite! Origin of Everything -This is a relatively new one. It is PBS branching out into YouTube land. They...

Many people ask, how do you keep up to date with everything that is going on? Technology is always changing. Well, my answer is always quite long. I feel passionately about technology and WANT to keep up to date, it's not something that one can just hear about and wait until you know EVERYTHING about it before using it in the classroom, learn enough to keep students safe and jump right in. If you wait until you have mastered it,  you will be outdated, often students if they are engaged will want to discover how it all works and be willing to share with their peers. One thing that I do to stay up to date is follow many different blogs, when I attend a conference I will often hear of new bloggers or things to follow. One of these blogs is Global Digital Citizen Foundation. Often blogs (even like this one) allow you subscribe, because let's be honest who has time to keep checking blogs and while I know there are blog aggregates out there, you still need to VISIT the website. In ...

Rather than bombarding you with email after email or forwarding you a newsletter that  you may not have time to read, I will send out monthly highlights of things that I thought were noteworthy. In Issue V, 2017 Google for Education highlighted the new Science Journal with a brief article: Science Journal on Android and iOS Let your class explore the world like scientists with the Science Journal app. Students can measure real time data and record their observations in a digital notebook. The redesigned app is  now available on iOS and Android  with over  20 new activities  from educational partners. What does this mean for you?  Well, if you teach science this tool is amazing! While it does have an app, many of the lessons can be used right in front of your students! There are over 20 activities that walk students through the Scientific Process. What about the App? So, I downloaded the app on my phone. The look and feel of it is similar to Google...

How to Reserve a Chrome Cart at PASD Go to your Google Calendar  Click Use the following format:  Untitled Event: Last Name  Date:Specify what date  Time: Please only reserve the cart for the whole day 8a-3p or half day 8a-11:30a or 11:30a-3p because honestly you are not going to be running across the building to wheel a cart full of Chromebooks in the sea of students in 3-4 minutes  Where you would add "Guests", click on "Rooms, etc."  Click "Save" Here is a short video showing this (no audio)

I challenged myself this year in completing stop motion animation projects with all of my computer skills. I started with the 3rd grade so that I had an ideal expectation of what students could complete. Third grade had to do a short video with StikBots that had something to do with reading. 4th grade needed to animate their letters. 5th grade had to tell a story of some sort. Prep Work For myself I needed to develop a way to roll this out to students who may not be aware of what Stop Motion was. I created this presentation . The video was a little older, but had a good grasp on the basics. For the students, I broke it down into different days. I know from previous tries in photography that if I give them the tool right away they will forget about the process. The planning process is important. First they needed to come up with a story board and plan what was going to happen. Production The students picked up on the Stop Motion Animator Chrome App  very quickly. The most di...