PASD LTR for Staff

Standard 1 for Digital Citizenship states that " Students recognize the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of living, learning, and working in an interconnected digital world." I think that in order for students to recognize this that staff also need to recognize the impact of a Digital Footprint. One resource that I stumbled upon a few years ago was "What Happens in Vegas Stays on Youtube" by Erik Qualman and the more student version of "What Happens on Campus Stays on Youtube." Think of these books as a What if... Chicken Soup for the Digital Soul, where the author shares real life stories of how digital footprints have impacted both adults and students and gives ways to create a positive footprint. Let's face it, we can't not have a digital footprint, unless you are totally disconnected, so we, staff and students, need to focus on making sure what others can see of us online is what we want them to see. Ways you can check what...

This month's focus: Digital Citizens, is perfect because October 14-18 is Digital Citizenship Week! Citizenship is something that we as educators teach and model ALL OF THE TIME! It is especially important more so now that we model this behavior online and give students opportunities to practice proper digital citizenship in the safe space of our classrooms. Standard DC1 - Students recognize the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of living, learning, and working in an interconnected digital world. This does NOT mean that you should have them all sign up for social media and connect with them there. In fact that is against Board Policy. But there are ways that you can get creative, model appropriate digital citizenship and engage your students. It means talking about privacy, not just having students agree to statements without reading what they are agreeing to. Making sure that students are on resources that we have permission for through our Web 2.0 permission slips an...

Super exciting news guys! We were able to purchase the Adobe Spark platform for students and staff here at PASD this year. What is it? Well, thanks to Wikipedia : "Adobe Spark is an integrated suite of media creation applications for the mobile and web developed by Adobe Systems. It comprises three separate design apps: Spark Page, Spark Post, and Spark Video." Why do you want to know about it? Well, it allows you and your students to create (professional looking) publishable graphics and flyers (and more!) quickly and easily. It also has the ability (like Google docs) to collaborate on projects!  How can I use it? Here is an awesome guest post by Claudio Zavala Jr. on Matt Miller's Ditch that Textbook website from August 2018. There are some great "real" examples on this website. Here Adobe created an article titled "16 Ways to Motivate Students in the Classroom Using Adobe Spark." There are some great idea starters here. If yo...

Last year the Technology Steering Committee worked on the District Vision in terms of technology and our school. I presented this to the School Board at the end of the school year. The District Future Ready Plan can be found here . Our vision for the 2019-20 school year is: "... to inform all staff of ITL (Information and Technology) Standards and how they apply to their content areas and promote 21st Century Skills in their content area." For this the Tech Steering will be conducting literature studies on current trends and Authentic Learning. You will be exposed to this in many different ways. One way is through this PASD LTR blog. One of my professional goals is to focus on one Standard a month in at least 3 posts. The first post will be an overview of that Standard and how it can be incorporated in different areas. The following will look at different tools that you could or even already use in your classroom. Bottom line is that the ITL Standards and technology shoul...

As many have found out we are no longer paying for Newsela. When we first purchased this subscription Newsela was a great resource for leveling nonfiction content. Over the past few years they have transitioned into more of an assessment tool. While the assessment tool is great, it made it not covered by CSF, Common School Fund, one of my primary funds for budgets. The purpose of this Blog post is to highlight some other tools and websites that offer similar articles. If you have a website not mentioned, please add it in the comments or contact me directly!  1) Dogo News - ELA, Science and Social Studies articles for kids. While there is a paid version that has the assigning, listening and quiz options I haven't found an article that I haven't been able to access. Categories on the top ribbon include Current Events, Science, Social Studies, World, Environment, Fun, Video and Sports. You can filter top stories by Week, Month and Year. You can share the article to Google Classr...

Have you subscribed to the Google for Education's EDU in 90 second videos in YouTube? If not, you really should. If you had on May 1 you would have received this quick PD in 90 seconds with Chromebook tricks like how to enable CAPS LOCK on a Chromebook: What I love about subscribing to YouTube is that when I subscribe I get a notification ANY time they upload a new video and I can watch that video right away. Or if it's something that doesn't interest me, I can delete it. It's so much easier than trying to remember to go to YouTube to check what's new or find how to fix what I think is broken. It is so EASY to do! All you have to do is click the red Subscribe button below the video. Here are a few of my favorite subscriptions: 1) Google for Education - In case you missed the link above here it is again. This is how I quickly stay up to date and am often inspired by seeing videos of teachers talk about why they love GSuite. 2) Epic Reads - I love video b...