Technoflash

February 21, 2019 Volume 56

The professional learning zone is hopping. We had three groups of teachers join us for blended learning training in January/February.

February 6 - 56 Teachers complete their six days of blended learning training

February 7 - Veteran iPad Academy teachers were in for a blended refresher

February 8 - 1400 new iPads in students hands with 56 new 1:1 classrooms

April 11-12 - 55 teachers complete six day sof blended learning training

April 16 - 1400 new iPads in students hands with the 55 new 1:1 classrooms

As we move into the next school year, we will run five training sessions so that by May of 2020, all classroom teachers will have been through the training and all elementary buildings will be 1:1. Starting in August of 2020, all secondary buildings will be 1:1.

BPS BlendED Professional Learning 2019-2020

Group C2: August 28-29, September 17-18, October 22-23

Group C3: September 25-26, November 13-14, January 22-23

Group D1: January 15-16, February 19-20, April 21-22

Group D2: March 25-26, April 7-8, April 28-29

Group D3: April 1-2, April 14-15, May 7 and 12

Congratulations to our newest iPad Academy Teachers. Check out their “Wheaties” pics in this short video.

If you are interesting in giving your sketchnoting skills a try, join the #everyonecansketch challenge created by Dan Koch (@danvkoch). Each week, Dan shares a sketch starter, whether it’s a line, circle or another shape You take that shape and create a sketch of your own. You can use the app of your choice such as Explain Everything, Notability, Keynote or Tayasui Sketches. Once you complete your sketch, tweet it out using the #everyonecansketch hashtag. Here are a few examples from some of our Bellevue Public Schools teachers.

Schoology has recently released a new feature for assessments. When you click into an assessment, you will find a new tab called reporting. Check out this short three minute video with the details.

Schoology has lots of public resources available for teachers to use! These resources range anywhere from puzzles and games to lesson plans. There are filters that allow you to search for resources by subject, grade level, and type of resource that you are looking for. To find these resources, go to the resource tab at the top of your Schoology page.

Click on “Public” on the leftside of your screen.

In the search bar, you will be able to search a topic or concept that you are looking for. Once you select the resource that you want to use, you have the ability to add that resource to your personal Schoology resources, or you can even add that resource directly into one of your courses! There is lots of material out there. Happy hunting!

This section is for self-paced learning. Here you may find events, podcasts, iBooks, blogs, and videos so you can choose what you wish to learn more about and you can choose your learning modality.

Podcasts

Solving Wicked Problems with Design Thinking - Vrain Waves

Blogs

Ask Yourself Why I am Grading This - Catlin Tucker

Teachers are Turning to Podcasts as an Instructional Tool - Education Week

On October 1, Apple released its Everyone Can Create curriculum. The curriculum is delivered through a series of iBooks and teaches students to develop and communicate ideas through drawing, music, video and photos on an iPad. A free project guide is included to help teachers easily implement these skills into lesson, assignments, subjects and more. The new, free project guides give teachers fun and meaningful tools to easily fold these skills into any lesson, assignment and subject. You can find the teacher guides and project guides here.

Last year we started our own #ipadacademy Twitter chat. The chat allows our teachers to have an online conversation, share ideas, and be inspired. Our #ipadacademy chats are held on Tuesday nights at 8:00 PM CST.

The last iPad Academy chat was held on February 19th. This month’s topic was Fast and Effective Formative Feedback, and was moderated by Linda Dunlap and Santha Walters. There were many great ideas shared during the chat. The next chat will be held on Tuesday, March 12th at 8:00 CST.

We are incredibly proud of the #ipadacademy teachers who have stepped up to lead each month’s chat this semester and how they generously share their innovative ideas with others. The archived chats can be found here.

If you are experiencing issues using your Microsoft Office applications on your Mac, for example you ribbons are greyed out or you can not access mail merge, you may need to do an update. To do this open Self Service on your Mac click App Updates and install the Office 2016 Updater. Once installed it would ask you if you would like to turn on automatic updates, say yes to that prompt. Next time you open your applications it should be working properly.

One of the most powerful parts of Twitter is the hashtag! It connects people, ideas, and creates communities within Twitter. It is a unique way for our teachers and administrators to share the amazing things happening in our schools, classrooms, clubs, teams and organizations. Our district hashtag, #bpsne, continues to grow and is becoming a powerful tool that we can leverage as a district to connect all of our teachers, students, parents, and community members. We encourage you to continue sharing the great things happening in your classrooms. Here is a list of all of the Bellevue Public School educators on Twitter. Let's create the 2018-2019 Bellevue Public Schools story together!

Use Twitter to connect with others from near and far! If you are someone who is already tweeting, remember to tag your tweets with #bpsne so more teachers can see what is happening in your classroom. Sharing is the name of the game! Remember there are lots of great chats to explore to connect with others in your content area. Just pull up the hashtag and enjoy the conversation.

Jeanette Carlson

jeanette.carlson@bpsne.net

Twitter: @mrsjcarlson

Chelsea Hoglund

chelsea.hoglund@bpsne.net

Twitter: @choglund87

Ann Feldmann

ann.feldmann@bpsne.net

Twitter: @annfeldmann1

Phillip Loomis

phillip.loomis@bpsne.net

Twitter: @teachloomis

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