Throughout the 2016-2017 school year, thirty Vanguard team members will have the opportunity to take a deeper dive into coaching with Kennesaw State University's Jo Williamson, author of Effective Digital Learning Environments: Your Guide to the ISTE Standards for Coaches.

These coaches will meet on the Fulton County PD days to receive coaching training. If you are interested in this opportunity, please add your name to the list. Participants will be selected based upon response time and/learning community.

If you are transferring schools or leaving Fulton County, please be sure to email me when it has become official. We are in the process of determining what schools will have positions available and opening up the final round of applications for the year.

If you are leaving Fulton County, you will remain on the team until the end of the school year. Your iPad will need to be collected and returned to the Instructional Technology department. Your Vanguard purchases should be dispersed among the remaining Vanguard members in your school.

One aspect of Vanguard that we are looking to improve is the way we communicate with one another. To address this problem, we have created an FCS Vanguard team using the tool Slack. Both web-based and an app, Slack will allow us to use different channels for sharing information (when I say channels, think hashtags on Twitter).

You can send quick, easy messages to the whole team, or directly to another member.

I encourage you to join our FCS Vanguard team and start trying to incorporate Slack into your daily routine. For example, when I open my email each morning, I also open Slack and log in to my different teams.

Use the button below to get started! (If you've already joined using Fulton County Schools, the team name has officially been changed to FCS Vanguard, but your membership transferred over.)

While there is no new touch base for April, please be sure that you have completed the previous months required by your cohort.

• Cohorts 1, 2, 3: All months should be complete
• Cohort 4A: All months except August
• Cohort 4B: March and May
• Cohort 5A: You are welcome to comment, but it is not required.

If you visit "The Team" page on our Vanguard website and your name is not listed, you need to complete the Vanguard roster form.

Vanguard members in all cohorts are invited to attend VanCon 2016 on May 31 at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center. Food, parking, and incredible learning are all provided for free!!

After May 1 we will release remaining spots for others to attend. If you are planning on attending, please register ASAP!!

Check last week's issue for:

• Link for the application to present at Summer Summit
• The Vanguard Reference Guide for Administrators
• TIM-O portal link for recording observation results
• April VanChat sign-up link
• Roving Reporter - Computer Lab Transition

This week's Roving Reporter comes from Oakley ES and their PBL Lab with Nefertiti Singleton. It's about sixteen and a half minutes long, but there was some great information to share! To contact Nefertiti directly, you can email her at: singletonN@fultonschools.org.

One level we haven't seen with Roving Reporter yet is high school. If you or someone you know is doing great work with personalized learning, please let me know! I'd love to feature some of our amazing high school teachers!

WHAT IS A PLAYDATE? No presenters. No agendas. Just play time.

Join us for a new kind of #EdTech conference to explore, collaborate and most importantly, PLAY! (As a bonus, there's free breakfast, free lunch and LOTS of giveaways!)

Visit the website for more information and to register for this FREE event!

On June 1, you are invited to participate in the Microsoft Innovative Educator 1 Day Teacher Academy (description below). This will be facilitated by other Vanguard members who are certified Microsoft Innovative Educators. You will receive $100 stipend for participating. This will be held at the GA Tech Hotel.

This one-day professional learning experience is designed for the K-12 classroom educatorwho wants to learn more about Microsoft’s best tools and resources for classroom learning. Learn how to most effectively use the latest version of Windows and Windows Apps. Discover Office Mix, Sway, and OneNote, including how digital notebooks can be created and used as a productivity tool for educators and students.

If you missed the Discovery Education Spring Virton last weekend, you can view the entire thing online, including Vanguard member Kati Searcy. Don't want to view the whole thing, but would like to see Kati's 25 minute session, jump to the 54:46 mark!

Our mission as a Vanguard team is to build the capacity of FCS educators and leaders to provide innovative instruction which meets the needs, skills and interests of all students.

Email: heather@ksuiteach.org
Website: fcsvanguard.com
Phone: (678) 902-5782
Twitter: @FCSVanguard