Celebrate Dot Day 9/15/16
International Dot Day is next week. This year, help your students make their mark on the world by providing them with the opportunity to explore digital dots with a great project on scratch.mit.edu. Using only the arrow keys and space bar, even the youngest students can create a unique digital project. Middle and high school students can try their hands at some advanced coding by manipulating the code to create Picture Dots on Khan Academy. Or share the day with Peter Reynolds on Ready Set Draw-ish. Check out more ideas for Dot Day at Barrow Media Center's Expect the Miraculous blog. Dot Day offers great opportunities for our students to collaborate with students all over the world through Google Apps for Education or Skype. Let me know if I can help you and your students make their mark for Dot Day.
What's an easy way to follow several blogs?
Much of my continuing professional development comes from following blogs from educators all over the country. While many blogs offer you the opportunity to have their posts delivered to your email inbox, if your inbox is already an avalanche of emails, that option is less than ideal. The solution may be an rss feed reader. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I use Feedly on my computer and Newsify on my iPhone to manage the blogs I follow. I simply copy/paste the URL of the blog I follow into the search bar on Feedly, categorize the blog by topic (technology, library, etc.) and new posts are saved in one place. While Feedly has an iPhone app, I find that's it's faster for me to scroll through the posts on Newsify than it is using the Feedly app. But, to each his/her own! It's taken me a few attempts to find the rss feed reader that works for me, but I love that I get the information I want when I want it instead of having my inbox overloaded on somebody else's schedule. If you are an Android user, here is a comparison of RSS feed readers. Chrome also has an extension that might work for you. Although this comparison of RSS readers is a year old, it will give you an overview of the possibilities out there. If you are new to following blogs, choose one or two from experts in your field, and you'll get bite-sized doses of professional development all year long! Please let me know if you are currently blogging on educational topics so I can add you to my news feed!
Extended Display vs. Mirroring
There are times when you want the display on your Chromebook to be mirrored to your tv, but there may also be times when you want to display one tab on your Chromebook and another tab on your tv. Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers offers great tips for when/how to use extended display.
Making Drive files accessible offline
Don't forget that you can make your Drive, Docs, Slides, and Sheets files available offline by adjusting your Drive settings. Offline access can come in handy if we lose internet connectivity at school or if you don't have internet access at home. Your files will be updated when you have wi-fi access. Android, IOS, and computer directions can be accessed HERE. Or Groff's Quick Start guide is HERE. (Caution: your Drive may house a lot of data. Activate this setting when you are on free wi-fi.)
BISD Technology Tutorials
Many of the teachers who attended the August 12 technology training have already signed up for the Technology Integration Google Classroom (Code: hp3kg5v). However, for those employees who don't have access to Classroom or who haven't joined Classroom yet, here's the link to our Technology Tutorials page. It's a "living" document, and is frequently updated. Whether you want to learn more about Chrome, about Google Forms, or about a Web 2.0 tool for your classroom, the Technology Tutorial document is a good place to start.
