Ed Tech Blog
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Welcome back illustrious instructors, Tech fatigue is real! Just as teachers are always looking for new and better ways to engage students, tech developers are always creating new (and profitable) ways to make tech work for us. The result? Endless new products and updates! We truly have to be lifelong learners, just as our students need to be. Some are simply different ways to do the same thing, but others, like Nearpod/Peardeck, are revolutionary. It is hard to teach all day and simultaneously learn new platforms and keep up with all the updates. I enjoy this new role because it gives me the space and time to explore this world. Perusing the literature of Ed tech, I came across this article. I like “Top Ten” lists (holdover from Lettermen days). One new (to me) product that looks like a game changer is Mural. Mural is a business application, but they are offering free accounts for educators for this year. Check it out in the tech tool of the week. Please remember, I share these to help, not add to your overflowing plates! Take what you can, try what you want, leave the rest for another day. Nearpod update: Looking for Nearpod to do something that it can’t? Here is a place to give feedback and make requests. The Nearpod team is very responsive to making Nearpod work better for teachers. Share your suggestions and criticisms. Tech Tool of the Week: Mural is a collaboration tool that combines the best of a white board and a bulletin board. It’s biggest draw is the size and ability to zoom in and out on individual pieces of work. They are offering free accounts for teachers, by request, for the remainder of the year. They have great in person or step-by-step support for new users. It creates a digital workspace that can hold the work of a day, a six-week unit, a whole class or individual groups of students. This one is really special! This is a guide for using Mural in Education. Here is a more Lengthy manual from the business world in going remote that has some useful best practices that may be even more applicable to the “Hybrid world” . Check out the overview video here. Tech Resource of the Week: Black History Month gives way to Women’s History Month in March, but women and African American history is not separate from the rest of our history. Here are a couple resources to wrap this month up. Google’s Applied Digital skills offers simultaneous practice with tech and content; here are some of their ideas. Alexes Terry of TwistED Teaching. motto, "Together, we will create a classroom environment that makes all students feel seen, valued, heard, empowered, inspired, and learning fun” Here is Alexes’ free Black History resource. New hardware is arriving to help make the transition to Hybrid learning. If you need any help setting up or learning how to use these tools, I’m here to help. Reach out through email or visit my Office Hours. Take a deep breath and try to relax!
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Dear Dedicated Professionals, At some point, we will be “getting back to normal” in our daily teaching. As we approach a year since disruption, it is hard to remember what that day to day routine looked like. The gradual and transitional return to hybrid and eventual full in-person teaching is an opportunity to “think different” about our routines for teaching. I hope we are all able to contribute ideas and create a more equitable, healthy, and engaging public education system. One thing for sure is that the technology tools you are experimenting with and gaining expertise in will remain a part of face to face teaching. Nearpod Updates: Three new features: Live Teacher Annotation Tool; Draw, write, or highlight on any content slide (one you’ve created within Nearpod, or brought in from PPT or Google Slides), and students will see your annotation in real-time on their device. Live teacher whiteboard; Pull up a blank whiteboard on your teacher view. You can write and draw, and students will see on their device in real-time. Activity Library: Download pre-made Matching Pairs, Draw It, and Time to Climb Activities and Interactive Videos to use on their own, or embed them directly into your lesson to create Nearpods even faster. IOS App on IPads lag behind these updates, but should be coming soon. Read more here. Tech Tool of the Week: Poll Everywhere is a Chrome extension that allows you to add interactive activities to a Google Slides presentation. Poll Everywhere is similar to Nearpod but different in that it was originally created for business, not education, settings, and has more (20+) activities. One of the best tools to generate a “Word Cloud” from student responses. It also features activities such as: “Clickable images”, “Leaderboard”, and “Where on a map”. Tech resource of the week: Looking for a list of what is available for a certain task? Check out this impressive Spreadsheet from Ed Tech Coach Jordan Cotten. It is a comprehensive list of available applications for specific tasks, emphasizing no or low-cost options. Using fillable pdf documents in Google Classroom: Last week’s newsletter had information on editing a pdf using Adobe Acrobat. Unfortunately, it is still not seamless to use fillable pdfs with Google Classroom. If you are attempting to use them you will have to teach your students how to download and reattach them to GC to turn in. These are good skills to teach: When a student clicks on the pdf in google classroom (you attach in the assignment just as any other non-google document), they will need to click on the three dots in the right-hand corner and “open in a new window”. Once they have it open in a new window they can download the pdf. It will then be fillable. Students would fill it in, save and then attach it back to the assignment in GC. It is cumbersome but does work. Have a wonderful week! Link to Original
Dear Essential workers, As I began to feel low-energy or stress in the middle of the school year I would turn my attention to applying for activities that both enhanced my career and also energized me. Sometimes it was simply finding something to help in the classroom, but for me it was usually traveling. One of the great benefits of teaching is professional development with free, or low-cost travel. I was able to visit Japan, Germany, Indonesia, Czech and Slovak Republics as well as many parts of the US. These trips allowed me to develop my digital skills, network with teachers from all over the US and world, and have an experiential education experience outside of my comfort zone. I returned from these energized and ready for the new year with fresh ideas and contacts. Some of the best were through the Fulbright program, but there are many other resources as well. Fulbright is hosting a webinar on Tues Feb. 2 at 7:00 EST for prospective applicants. This week's digital resource is the Scholarship and Grants directory created by Mass Teacher Kent Gompert. Kent has collected a wide-reaching catalog, alphabetically arranged by subject (travel is at the end). It has something for everyone from Art to CTE to Speech pathologists and school counselors. Lots of options for school administrators as well! Many applications are due in the coming weeks for summer programs. Digital Resource of the week: Scholarships and Grants Directory Links to specific programs as well as other resources to network for even more leads. Featured Tech of the week: Using Boom Cards is another way to gamify your curriculum. Each card in a deck is a task students need to complete. Cards are self-pacing and provide immediate feedback/ data to students and teachers. Boom decks can be easily created or use a premade ranging from early elementary through high school. Boom Cards have a free account that you can “Fast Play”, or a variety of very affordable paid options with more features, such as creating classes, saving reports, and the right to sell your original Boom Decks in the “marketplace”. You can use it as a stand-alone or link Boom Deck through a Nearpod lesson (just as you would a Gimkit, Quizlet, or Quizziz) through a “Web Content” slide. Check out the video. Pdf help: Looking to edit those pdf files to a fillable format? You need the Adobe Acrobat app. Sign in with your school Google account below and then download “Acrobat DC” from there. Click on “Tools” and then “Prepare Form”; add fillable fields from the menu and save your new form. https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/desktop-app.html As always, I am here to offer any help I can with using any of the resources I highlighted today or in earlier Newsletters. I now have morning Office Hours: office hours from 7:30 to 9:00 AM M-Th. I will, of course, be available at other times by pre-arrangement and always by email. Stay Warm! |
AuthorRobert Frye is a retired 33 year veteran Of Holyoke Public Schools Archives
April 2021
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