Tech Tuesday Year End Wrap Up!

They say that blogging is like exercising daily - when you're on a roll you just do it without thinking, but if you take too long a hiatus, it's hard to get back on track.  The month of May got away from me as the end of the school year shenanigans ensued.  However, I wanted to share one last post before we all depart for the summer.

10 months ago I wiped clean my old dusty Twitter account and started connecting with teachers online.  I had a goal - to have the #bestyearever and that goal has been accomplished with flying colors.  Had Mrs. Whalen and my son Finn's birth been the only thing that happened, it would have been a fantastic, albeit much more sleep deprived than usual, year.  But the year at CHS has been transformative and so promising for the future.  Last I checked approximately 750 people are following me on "the Twitter" and the positive posts shared through #CHSonegoodthing, #CMSonegoodthing and all of our district hashtags are almost innumerable.  The district Talking Tech PD day was one of the most positive experiences I have had learning with all of my beloved colleagues.  The 1:1 initiative, in its infant stages, was a massive success overall with students trying so many new ways of learning.  Lastly, I will be moving into a new phase of my career here at Collingswood as the Secondary Tech Coach next year, a move that has me both anxious and excited as we continue to blaze the trail of 21st century learning.

I thank all of you for putting up with my incessant tech emails and I hope that I have helped you in some way.  I truly look forward to helping you with any and all ed tech ideas that you want to institute.  I do have a couple of tips or ideas for the summer time that I'd like to share.  Please don't hesitate to email, text, tweet direct message or use whatever new app pops up in the next couple months to contact me over the summer with thoughts, ideas or problems.

TIPS:

1.  Get Connected! Summer is the perfect to time to test the Twitter waters.  I am currently in grad school and though it is time well spent, I can honestly say I've learned as much, if not more, from my connections on Twitter.  That speaks volumes not only for PD, but for the future of learning for our kids too.

2.  Google Classroom - check out these tips for wrapping up the year.

3.  Google Expeditions! Check out this newest intitiative by google for virtual reality field trips.  Request a pilot group and maybe you'll luck out.  I brought in my pair of Google Cardboard Virtual Reality googles today and the kids loved them.

4.  Edcamp Global - Many have heard of or attended an Edcamp.  Edcamp global is on 7/21-8/1 and is free online PD.  Sign up and try some new things.

5.  Edcamp Jersey Shore - The thought of doing totally elective PD on one of your last days of vacation sound insane? Maybe, but if you think of it like a pep rally for the start of the school year, and thats what EdCamps are like, then you might be more willing to try it.  I tentatively plan to be there.

6.  Disconnect!! I was at an event at my son's school last week and heard somebody nearby in an angered but hushed tone, "put that phone AWAY! right now, put it AWAY!".  I turned to see an 8 year old shaking his finger at his mom.  I'm as guilty as anybody - I need to consciously put the tech away and just BE a lot this summer.  Get outside, read a book, play with your kids, enjoy some good food... do all of it.

I wish you all the very best and hope that you have a restful, relaxing and replenishing summer.  I will be, but in between I'll be all sorts of connected and tweeting, blogging and maybe even periscoping for those who are interested.  Happy Summer - See you in Septemeber!

Broken Windows

I recently finished Gretchen Rubin's latest book entitled, "Better Than Before - Mastering the Habits of our Everyday Lives" and I can't recommend it to you highly enough.  I've read a few books that discuss habit formation and this was the most accessible and inspirational of them all.  One idea that stuck with me was that of the "broken window" theory of reducing crime.  Some social scientists in the 80's developed this idea that if communities reduced the petty crimes in their area and maintained an order of lawfulness that it would reduce the incidence of more serious crimes.  Now, I am the furthest thing from a criminologist and have no idea whether the theory really holds true in actual communities.  However, the philosophy behind the idea really struck a chord with me.  So much so that "No Broken Windows" has become a kind of mantra for me over the last couple of weeks:

"I've been good on my diet, I deserve a piece of my son's Easter candy" "No broken windows!"
"I'll grade those tomorrow." "No broken windows!"
"I'll work on that assignment tomorrow, right now I deserve some TV time." "No broken windows!"

You get the idea.  What are your broken windows? How could you better address them? If you are interested in the book, Ms. Rubin is appearing at the Philly Free Library this Thursday, April 30th for a talk and book signing.  

Tech Tips!

Google Classroom - 

• The beauty of Google is how they respond to users.  The biggest request that I had heard this year (and that Google heard as well) was to have multiple teachers access a single class.  It is now possible.  Go to the "About" tab for a class and you can invite a teacher:

• Another request I heard was being able to grade assignments through classroom, without the students being able to see the grades until you wanted them to.  For English teachers making their way though a long essay, this was particularly applicable as they wanted to return the assignment all at once.  You asked, Google responded.  Draft grades are now possible.
• Lastly, similar to draft grades, if you start to make an assignment, it will auto-save a draft for you. Quite helpful when you forget what time it is, start typing something and the bell rings and you slam your laptop shut... not that I ever do that... 

ROCKETBOOKS!

I am really excited about these.  Most current research says that even techno-digital peeps still enjoy and retain more information from simple pen and paper.  However, it is often easier to save and store your notes in the digital realm.  Enter the rocketbook - A paper notebook that uses special pens and automatically uploads everything from the page to Google Drive, Evernote or another cloud based service.  The craziest part? When you have filled the notebook... you microwave it and it clears all the ink! Brand new notebook! How awesome is that?? It is running on Indiegogo right now and if you buy through my link below you (and I) also get a legal pad that will upload but is not microwavable.  It's 25 bucks and could be the only notebook you ever need again.  Check it out. Only 7 days left on their Campaign.

Speaking of awesome campaigns to support...

I would be remiss if I did not mention our own amazingly talented, Neil King and his kickstarter campaign.  If you have never seen Neil's work, it is so original, funny and beautifully drawn.  $10 gets you his latest book.  Check it out!



Plickers! - Great for classrooms without chromebooks!

Thanks so much to Valerie Sanchirico for this recommendation.  If you have used Kahoot, you know how engaging these class quizzes can be.  You may have also started to notice that it can turn into a racing game more than a thinking game.  Try out Plickers - this gets the "coolest app I've seen all year" award.  As long as you have a smartphone, you download the app, print out a sort of puzzle piece for each student and type up some quiz questions.  When you want to review, you post the question son your board and the students respond by holding up their shape with A, B, C or D facing up.  You then use the app on your phone, which uses the camera to scan the student's responses.  The students are less likely to be affected by other student's responses and time is not rewarded or punished.  You really have to try it to see how great it is.  https://plickers.com/

Toontastic and Telestory

I know not many of you use ipads in your classroom, but even if you have only 1 ipad or iphone in your room, these are 2 tools that might prove helpful to you.  They recently were aquired by Google and are now totally free apps to help you and your students with your next digital storytelling adventure.

Have a great week everybody, thanks for reading!!

Tech Goodness for your Spring Break!!

A teacher saying: "I'm not good with technology," better be ready to hear a kid say: "I'm not good with books." edchat via @education_geek
— Dr. Justin Tarte (@justintarte) March 8, 2015

It's the week before Spring Break and tomorrow is April fools day! Everybody have thier riot gear ready? If we stick together I know we can do this and get to a much needed break.  I'm sure all of you have nothing planned and really need some tips and some extra reading for the week, so I saved up some great stuff for you to peruse on your time off!

• ALL TEACHERS: The Atlantic featured an article last week entitled The Deconstruction of the K-12 Teacher, which reads as ominous as the title would suggest but I would highly recommend reading it anyway.  I personally don't see the removal of what I call "the human element" from K-12 schools as a possibility at all.  However, the changes that are happening in society are going to flood schools over the next few years and we need to be prepared.  There are plenty of intangible lessons that we all help student's with throughout their time in school, but we should think more about the curriculum that we teach and the way in which it is taught. 
• Math Teachers! Check out this resource that I heard some hype about this past week: Prodigy Math
• Remind users: The company recently announced a Chat feature in which students can "have safe, simple, one-to-one conversations with students and parents".  As great as REemind is, this feature really does not follow our electronic communications policy that was approved at the beginning of the school year.  But don't lose faith! There is a solution - E-mail! If students are not availing themselves of their own school email address you should encourage them to do so.  It's one of the easiest (and approved) ways for them to communicate with you.  Not to mention, it's the form they will be using as college students and beyond, so all the more reason to encourage its use now. 
•  Cool stuff... Video is really becoming the new medium for social media.  It's pretty cool that we are actually capable of video conferencing just like Marty McFly did with Needles in Back to the Future. Last week, the app Periscope was released and I think the potential is amazing.
  
   You can live stream to your Twitter followers and get "likes" and comments in real time.  Yesterday, after downloading it I saw a teacher asking for feedback on a student's blog design and I talked to another teacher about his video game design class.   I haven't streamed anything yet, but maybe a future Tech Tuesday can be live and we can interact.  Give it a try.
• Jeopardy Powerpoints are long gone...  Thanks to Valerie Sanchirico for this one! Build an online Jeopardy game for a review.  If you been playing Kahoot and want to change it up, give this a try!
• Digital Citizenship - We've all heard the message that social media can get kids in trouble when they apply to college.  I thought this news story brought up some ideas I had never thought about though.  Take a look: 

I hope you all have a great and restful Spring break.  Enjoy the time off and let me know if you need any help with anything!

Welcome to the Tech Tuesday Blog!

Welcome to the Tech Tuesday Blog!  For a while I've been thinking it would be nice to have a place to store all of the information that I've been sharing with you.  We get tons and tons of emails everyday and I know that often mine have been a bit long.  I'll still email you to notify you of new posts, but I think a blog may be more suitable to the information I am trying to share with you all.  I hope that the blog will be a resource for you as well as a place that those of you interested in Edtech can have discussions and develop new ideas.

I have 4 things to share with you this week:

1.  Security Update - Last week my checking account was compromised and I had to go through a lot of steps to remedy the situation.  I am now using an free app on my phone that is also available for your desktop:

https://idprotect.vip.symantec.com/desktop/download.v

The app generates a string of numbers that changes every 30 seconds and you use a "token" from the app to login to sites that you need to keep secure.  Keep it in mind if you do banking online.

2.  Email Charter - Thank you to Mr. Fenton for sharing this with me.  I think we can all agree that emails have gotten out of hand and we can all use some tips on how to best handle this phenomenon.  Take a look at this agreement and see if there are some tips you could use:  http://emailcharter.org/

3.  How much do you use your phone?? For those heavy phone users, I started using an app called "Moment" about month ago.  It tracks when you are using your phone (not if you are using it for music).  The results are... well... I use my phone a lot.  You can set limits and track device use for an entire family with a paid account.  Definitely something worth looking into if you think you should be limiting you or a child's phone use.

4.  Apple Researchkit - I was talking to a friend about the new Apple watch today and he sent me this video.  Must watch - amazing possibilities for medical research: http://www.apple.com/researchkit/

Thanks for tuning in this week - Please let me know what you need help with - all comments and concerns are welcome!

Tech Tuesday Archive 19

Good afternoon everybody,

I know you've missed the updates! Next week I'm determined to get you some good info on an actual Tuesday.  However, the delay this week brings with it a teachable moment.  I was all set yesterday afternoon to send you a Tech Tuesday email when I suddenly had to deal with fraudulent activity on my checking account.  All is fine now and it only took a measly 3 hours of phone calls to get it sorted out yesterday...  I just thought it was important to remind you all to carefully pick your passwords and change them once in a while.  If you are like me, you get really annoyed at having to remember every different password for every different website "Is this the one I have to start with a capital letter? Does this one need 8 characters? Do I have to do the hokey pokey in the webcam before I can log on to this website??" There is definitely a point to these exercises as there are, unfortunately, people out there looking to steal your money or identity.  Here are a couple resources for you:

-Lastpass.com stores all of your passwords and can generate highly secure passwords for you.  You can use the site to access several sites and it is secure.  This one is new to me, but recommended to me from a highly reliable source.  

-Check out this article about changing your passwords - It made the rounds on Facebook last summer and stuck with me - a great story even if you don't want to change any of your passwords.  There are a few swear words, FYI:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mauricio-estrella/how-a-password-changed-my-life_b_5567161.html

Some other tips:

-Google classroom now allows you to customize your classroom settings even further.  They've added more options (I'm particularly excited to have a picture of the digestive tract greeting my honors bio students) and you can upload your own pictures as the background for your class.

-The mobile app has increased how much students can share to assignment submissions.  Something that was brought to my attention, however, is that students with Android phones are having trouble accessing classroom/drive/docs from their phones due to the school domain and their phone being a google device.  IPhone users don't seem to have any issues :)

-Several of you have asked me if 2 teachers can be in charge of a single class on classroom.  The answer is no but this seems to be the most requested feature on Classroom.  If this pertains to you, I encourage you to click the question mark on the bottom right side of the classroom site and put in the request to Google.  They have been very responsive to the feedback they are receiving and I am sure they will bring this feature soon.

That's it - as always, if you have any feedback or need any help, let me know!

Have a great week!

Tech Tuesday Archive 18

Good afternoon everybody,

Thank you to everybody who participated in both my presentations on Friday as well as the myriad of other choices.  It really was a great day and I'm excited to start so many conversations with people about that "next step".  

There is a very brief, completely voluntary form that was attached to the menu of choices for the PD day.  If you'd like to share your experience, take a couple minutes to fill out the form.  Here is the link:

https://docs.google.com/a/collsk12.org/forms/d/17VXzzANHwsPMLZxDe7ZcI8A-6Vh6_rojoMNnGWavbg0/viewform?usp=send_form

I know a lot of people would love to have a PD day like this next year and maybe you have a suggestion for the next time - please share - that's what this is all about!

Couple minor tips this week:

-Duplicate a tab: If you right click a tab, there is an option to duplicate it.  This can be really helpful if you are filling out a form or entering grades in genesis and you want to quickly look something up.  

-Screencastify extension - this is what I used to make my videos the last couple of weeks.  I'll be out on a personal day tomorrow and will be sending my students a quick screencast that they can watch while in class.  Also its a great option for students who might be too anxious for a traditional class presentation.

-PDFescape extension - I had to type in a pdf over the weekend and, while PDFs are great for printing and saving formatting, they're not great for modifying.  The extension is not perfect, but I was able to type in the document and save it.  Sorry to Mrs. O'Neill that I figured this one out about a month and half too late for your needs!

Have a great short week, and stay warm!

Tech Tuesday Archive 17

Good morning everybody!

Due to general "life is crazy" issues, tech tuesdays keep rolling into Wednesday.  No tips this week - just a short video about Friday's PD day.  Check it out when you get a chance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiD79plE8mc

Have a great rest of the week!