Website redesign, G-Suite Updates, Sync Audiobooks, Spotlight on Strategies

BISD Website: Share Your Thoughts

We are currently in the process of redesigning our www.banderaisd.net website. The new site will roll out later this summer. To best meet the needs of those who visit our site, I'm seeking input from those who use it most frequently: YOU! 

Are there are things that you love about our site, and don't want to see changed? Are there areas that you would like to see improved? Are there things not on the site that you would like to see added? Click here to share your thoughts. Feel free to share this form with your students and their families. The form is anonymous and does not collect identifying information.

Two Awesome G-Suite Updates

A great big Bulldog thank you to our Technology Director, David Brown, for getting BISD involved in the Google Form beta to lock students' screens while they are taking Google Form quizzes. Check out this two-minute video below to see some pretty sweet features. (Thank you, Ashley Jones at HCE for letting me know that the beta feature was live for BISD!)

https://youtu.be/3uARN8GQJ_Y

The second update in G-Suite is the gradebook feature in Google Classroom. (Thanks, Stephanie Jones at BHS for letting me know this much-anticipated feature is live.) While we're not yet able to export grades from Google Classroom and import them into TXEIS, we can grade right within classroom, which makes keeping track of grades and communicating them to our students easier. The video below shows you how. Google invites you to use the comments section below the YouTube video to request features. Changes may not happen immediately, but Google has been pretty responsive to user requests to improve its products.

https://youtu.be/Wyop2l-N9mM

It's baaaccck! Sync Audiobooks for 2019

Sync Audiobooks kicks off its Summer 2019 free audiobook downloads on April 25, 2019. Download two free audiobooks a week through August 1, 2019. Click HERE for a list of the 2019 titles.  These are YA/Teen reads, but if you are looking for travel books for the summer, you might find some titles that you enjoy, as well.

Google Educator Certification

Google Educator certifications have to be renewed every three years. My Level 1 certification expires in May. If you're interested in taking the Level 1 certification exam, I'd love some company. If you have questions, Cassie Simon (BMS) and Lisa Gherman (AES) earned their Level 1 certifications last six weeks. Taking the certification exam helped me grow in my Google-ness and learn new ways to integrate G-Suite tools into instruction. The test costs $10 and has a 4-hour time limit. Click HERE for details.

Challenge: Discovery Education Spotlight on Strategies

Every educator in BISD has access to Discovery Education, and one of Discovery Education's hidden gems is its Spotlight on Strategies resources which offer collaboration and critical thinking opportunities to our students across the curriculum.  Last week I received an email from Susan Reeves at Region XX that offers a challenge to allow educators to explore the Spotlight on Strategies, share their tips/tricks with other educators, and earn some swag along the way. 

Looking for a fun way to share Discovery Education with other educators? Look no further! Discovery Education Spotlight on Strategies (SOS) are research-based instructional strategies for integrating digital media in meaningful, effective, and practical ways.

Encourage educators at your school to sign up and learn more through this challenge! Each week for five weeks we'll send you a hand-selected SOS instructional idea to your inbox, complete with ready-to-go graphic organizers and examples of how other educators are using it in their classrooms.

Try the strategy and let us know how it went in the DEN Online Community, and we'll select one response each week to receive a limited-edition Discovery Education hoodie. #DEswag

Encourage your friends to sign up, share this information and share the fun and new ideas to help you finish the school year strong.

Registration closes Friday, April 13. Sign up: https://teachers.discoveryeducation.com/spotlight-on-strategies-challenge

Haven't signed up for a DE account? See your campus librarian for your campus's site code. 

Strategies in Discovery Education, STEAM, Blended Learning

Spotlights on Strategies in Discovery Education

Your campus librarians have shared the Discovery Education campus codes with you. (If you can't locate your code, contact your campus librarian). DE is an awesome subscription resource for students and for teachers. But, holy cannoli, recently a presenter at a conference introduced me to an amazing gem hidden in Discovery Education that rocked my educational world. 

DE's Spotlight on Strategies is chock full of ready-made critical thinking activities for your students.  Search by skill, grade, or topic. 

Simply search "Spotlight on Strategies" and select "Text" in the menu bar to reveal twelve pages of amazing strategies for students to use to discover, learn, and reflect. 

Many of the strategies can be completed using both traditional and digital tools. If I were planning a lesson for a TTESS observation, this would be one of my go-to resources.

Looking to add a little STEAM to your Classroom?

Check out Peggy Reimers' TechNotes blog post for an inexpensive idea that allows students to collaborate and strategize while solving a problem.

Blended Learning 

Looking for some ideas to alter the path and pace to personalize learning in your classroom? 

Check out one school's approach to meet the needs of all their students one lesson at a time.

https://youtu.be/_4EUsSwTWmY

 

Discovery Education, LIttle Things, Shared With Me

Student Accounts for Discovery Education

BISD subscribes to Discovery Education, which offers powerful content to engage students in inquiry and supports teachers in inspiring students. Content can be searched by TEK, subject, grade level, and format. And resources can be downloaded, shared in Google Classroom, or shared by link. Discovery Education also provides professional development resources. 

Students and teachers can create digital boards that contain text, images, and videos. Think posterboard project on steroids!  Discovery Education provides ideas for using their Board Builder as well as support for building, assigning, and sharing boards.

Student accounts have been created for BISD secondary students. See your campus librarian for login credentials. If you have not created your teacher account yet, see your campus librarian for your campus access code.  Need assistance getting started? Your campus librarian is ready to help!

It's the little things!

This week was filled with conversations that reminded me that it's the little things that matter in life.
Here are some technology-related little-thing highlights that brought big smiles to students and teachers this week.

• CTRL Z (Chromebook) or Command Z (Mac) is undo. (You mean I didn't lose that clip I just deleted in iMovie? Yippee!)

• Use two fingers on your mousepad to scroll up and down the screen on both Chromebooks & Macbooks. (I don't have to use that little gray scroll bar to move up and down the screen? Awesome!)

• Adjust the brightness on your screen on your Chromebook or Macbook using the keys in the screen shots below. (Wow! I can see the screen better!)

None of these are life-changers, but they sure do make working on the computer a little easier!

Shared With Me Folder Driving You Crazy?

Opening your Shared With Me folder in Google Drive can be a stressful experience! The "most-recent-shared-file-first" organization doesn't work for many of us.

Enter the "Add to Drive" option, which allows you to add the shared files to your Drive and organize them without losing the file's original properties.  If you were to "Make a Copy" and the file was later edited by the person who shared it with you, the copy would not change; however, if you add the file to your Drive and it is subsequently edited by other collaborators, you will see the changes when you access the file. 

The Teaching Forward blog offers some great tips and a short video to help you organize shared files in your Drive.