Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Newsletter January 22, 2016

Free Tech Tools

Anytime we run across free tools that will help you in the classroom, we like to share them. Please let us know if you find success using any of these. We would love to stop by your classroom and see some of your success in action!

Evernote

Evernote is another great tech tool that you can start using today with your students. It is also an amazing tool for classroom organization. In a very basic sense, Evernote is an online notebook that allows you to create multiple notebooks, tabs and pages in an organized fashion for a variety of purposes. You can add in clip art, links, videos and most other content. 

Below are links to examples on how to start using the free tool for your classroom.

Evernote Website: https://evernote.com/?var=2

Lucidchart

A number of our teachers have been taking advantage of the benefits of Lucidchart. We applied to expand our license of this tool to allow more classrooms to take advantage of the wide variety of benefits to using this in the classrooms.


Below are some links for classroom use. 



Lucidchart works on Chromebooks and iPads, as well as PC's where the user is logged in via their Google Account. Students and teachers do need to sign up with the "Sign up using Google" option. The license is linked to the West G email account.


Twitter and 6 Tech Tools to Try in 2016

The curriculum and technology site has a direct link to our Twitter accounts. We regularly find a share resources that you don't have to have a Twitter account to access. 


An example of this was a recent article on 6 tech tools to try in 2016. These are free and ready to use to potentially support some of your instructional goals. Consider creating your own Twitter account to find and follow educators who tweet about grade level or subject specific content appropriate to your needs.

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Newsletter 1/5/2016 : Welcome Back

Professional Development Day

 Thank you for participating in PD Day. We hope that you found the sessions to be of value. They were developed based on the needs and concerns expressed by you and we are always looking to bring you content to support educational initiatives. We also want to thank all presenters and helpers for the amount of work done to make this day successful. 

 A short survey has been developed to garner feedback on what you would like to see more of in future PD opportunities.  Please consider participating.


 As a quick reminder, please check out the presentations from PD Day. If you were not able to attend a session of interest, the content and resources are of great value.


Daily 5 Newsletter

 If you haven't had the chance, consider subscribing to the Daily 5 newsletter. Regular support content comes straight to your email. This includes "Ready Reference Guides" that are downloadable, one-page documents that will help you remember the key details of the CAFE Menu strategies you want to teach. 

The "subscribe" button is in the upper left hand corner. 


SAM-R Follow Up

Whether you were able to attend the SAM-R session or not, there are some great resources for including technology in your lessons. Besides what is included on the original presentation. This pedagogy wheel, included many more resources.