Technoflash

Bellevue Public Schools, Bellevue NE

May 8, 2015 Volume 14

Operation Read 2015

On April 28, the Lied Activity Center was swarming with elementary students from Bellevue Public Schools. Students were geared up to participate in the Operation Read Competition! Kari Schroder from Leonard Lawrence and Terry Osborn from LeMay did an amazing job of running Operation Read!

This year there were over 60 teams involved and every Bellevue elementary school was represented at this powerful competition. During the past year, students read the 10 Golden Sower Nominated books and practiced answering questions about each book. The students formed groups of 3-6 people and were excited to represent their home school. On the day of the competition, all student teams competed against each other in the first round. The top three scores of this year's 18 teams, moved on to the final round where the champion was crowned. This year the 5th grade winning team was from Belleaire Elementary! The winning team included: Bennett Schliesser, Noah Reimer, Madelyn Faisetty, and Madison Stendnitz. They were coached by Mary Olszowka, library media specialist and the assistant coach was LeeAnn Longhini.

What a powerful event Operation Read has become---a room full of students who love reading and adults cheering them on!

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Sustaining the iPad Academy

This time of the year always brings with it many questions about our fabulous iPad Academy. We always have a little shuffling around that occurs over the summer with staffing and possible initiatives like BYOD at our high schools. As of now, the district is unable to purchase anymore devices. That means that our traditional AFT sessions that we have offered in the past will not be offered this summer. We will be maintaining what we currently have and supporting all of you just as we have been doing over the past two years. If there are any additional iPads available due to staffing changes we will do our best to utilize them in the best way possible. If you have any specific questions pertaining to your situation do not hesitate to ask Jenny, Jeanette, Ann or Greg. Thanks for your commitment to this powerful initiative.

Amazing Learning Opportunities

Edcelerate

We will no longer be offering online CCU courses. If you are looking for accredited graduate level courses in educational technology and innovation check out the course offerings at www.edcelerate.org. All of the courses are taught by Ann, Jenny and Jeanette.

iOS Summit

Bellevue West will be the location of an iOS Summit brought to you by the EdTech Team and organized by your technology coaches. The conference will be a 2 day event focusing on using iPads in the classroom. This is a great opportunity to be a presenter of you have some interesting iOS topics to share. Let us know if you are interested in presenting and we will help get you set up. Keynote speakers will be outstanding! For more information check out http://iossummits.com/ne/ or ask one of your technology coaches.

From the #tt4t Hashtag

Be a tweeter to be connected! If you are a tweeter, remember to tag your tweets with #tt4t 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.

NETA 2015 Highlights

NETA 2015 turned out to be two amazing days of inspiration and learning. The two keynote speakers, Adam Bellow and George Couros, kicked off each day of the conference with uplifting messages as well as challenges and inspiration. Over 2600 educators took part in this conference at the Century Link Center.

Bellevue Public Schools shone brightly as we had eight teachers presenting, two groups of student presenters, and contest and grant winners. Congratulations to Megan Kinen and Laura Swanson who won a grant for a $4335 to purchase Little Bits Kits to utilize in elementary HAL classrooms. Be sure to check out our contest winners from our previous t-flash here.

Shout outs to Bellevue Public Schools NETA presenters: Michelle Boyce, Monica Evon, Michelle Klamm, Julie Rowse, and Garrett Sims and your very own #tt4t team too! Several of the presentations were featured in the Apple Room.

"You inspired, informed, and challenged every educator who attended your sessions, as well as all of us! We are incredibly fortunate to have you as champions and models of using Apple tools to transform learning, as are the students and communities you impact." said Barry Sevett.

Many teachers shared their NETA experience and reflected in blog posts. We have listed several of the blogs here so you can dig deeper and learn from their experience. The

TT4T Blog

Mrs. Evon's Blog Bellevue Elementary 4th Grade

Miss Sallie's Blog Leonard Lawrence 6th Grade

Mrs. Klamm's Blog Bellevue Elementary 3rd Grade

Mrs. Geldes' Blog Two Springs Elementary 4th Grade

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Appy Time!!

Play Osmo was called one of the best inventions of 2014 from TIME magazine. Thanks to Garret Sims for helping us out by making the Osmo affordable. Click here for how you can get an Osmo for your class. The Osmo attached to your iPad and comes with four free apps. Apple features the Osmo on their education site as well.

Mac Tips & Tricks

Yosemite! Starting in May, all teachers are able to upgrade their Macs to the Operating System Yosemite. Please note, this is not required, but if you have been waiting for this, you can go ahead and update your laptop. There are a few major changes with this system that you will notice if you use Apple's native apps like Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. Do not hesitate to ask your Building Tech Coordinators for more information. Check out this doc for more information.