This school year is coming to an end, but you have an opportunity with a new beginning in the fall.

One thing that I know for sure each year is that there is an end in sight!  But this also is an opportunity for a new beginning each fall.  Supporting staff with their use of technology is my job and this is a critical juncture in their learning.

When we have staff set goals for the year, and they don't quite meet those goals, it is a perfect time for them to reflect and plan/prep for the new year.  We have  1:1 staff do 9/9/9 goals in the fall and find them to be very helpful.  This format gives them some short-term wins and some long-term stretches.

9/9/9 stands for 9-day goal, 9-week goal, and 9-month goal.  As an administrator, I want to help staff reach these goals with time and support.  Reading their reflections after each helps us to know what support they need from us.

As you enter summer as a school staff I hope you relax and recharge, but also spend some time on your own skills with some tools that will be engaging and relevant in your classroom.

Off my soapbox.. into the tech tip.

Gimkit Example Screen

Gimkit is here and it's awesome!

Gimkit is made and maintained by high school students from Seattle. They crafted Gimkit to not only be a product that students want to use but teachers as well.

I encourage teachers to check it out and support these students by paying for the premium version.  

It is a combination of Kahoot and Quizlet that adds a level of gamification and understanding of compound returns.  It is extremely effective at repetition and lends itself nicely to any type of DOK level 1 stuff that kids just need to know.

A teacher starts a kit and his/her students go to play.gimkit.com on any phone, tablet, laptop, Chromebook, or desktop. Each student inputs the game's 4 digit code and their name.  Students answer questions on their own device at their own pace. Throughout a kit, each student will get exposure to the questions multiple times to ensure mastery.  Students earn in-game cash by answering questions. The more questions they answer correctly, the more money they earn.  This can be assigned individually, by team, by group, or by class. The teacher gets a live view to see how the class is performing real-time. 

And the coolest are the reports at the end for the entire group in addition to each individual.  Check out GimKit and add it to your toolbag of online apps to help your students learn in a fun gamified way in your classroom.

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Free Image on Pixabay - Goals, Setting, Office, Work, Note. (2018). Cdn.pixabay.com. Retrieved 8 June 2018, from https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/08/28/21/07/goals-2691265_960_720.jpg

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(2018). Gimkit.com. Retrieved 8 June 2018, from https://www.gimkit.com/client/img/Home/MacScreenShot1.png

Teachers Are Awesome!

Quizlet Live - "Quarterback Method"

Another awesome couple days of training for our iPad 1:1 teachers.  We had a lot of growth this year as they reflected on their goals both personally and for their teaching and learning.

These days really re-energized me as we are able to have great conversations about student learning and allow them time to share and celebrate too.

We typically have some new tools, updates, and some logistics to cover for the upcoming weeks.  This training was really about ending the year process and looking toward next year leveraging their excitement as they reflected on their progress thus far.

Taking a selfie for the Amazing Race

Teachers are amazing and I am humbled every time we meet.  They are professionals who are always seeking out ways to help their students no matter what.  Some of them are personally not comfortable with technology but know that it is the right thing to do.  Our job as coaches, mentors, and facilitators is to guide their energy and provide them the tools and resources needed to improve student learning in their classroom.  We have to internalize the framework and have the ability to model and use the same tools we expect students to use.

This training we had them do an "Amazing Race" challenge using Google Tour Builder, Sites, and Forms.  I couldn't even count the number of small wins, lessons, and laughs we had during this part of the day.


Thank you to all the teachers to make our student's lives better every day and write sub plans to attend our trainings... trust me we get as much out of the day facilitating as they do learning and collaborating.

New Gmail Interface in Education

I have been away a while from the blog, but that doesn't mean I haven't been using some of the newly available tools.  Today I would like to give a hearty thumbs up to the new Gmail interface.  I have been using it since it was first available for our edu domain and am very pleased so far.

There are a slew of new features, but I want to focus on a few that will help busy school staff and students be more efficient.

First of all, you have to turn on the new features by visiting your Gear in Gmail and opting into the new interface.  If you don't see this option as the first listed, you will have to ask your domain administrator to turn this feature on for your domain.  It is well worth it.

By far my two favorite features are the smart reply messages you can use when replying to emails and the ability to snooze an email so that it comes to your inbox when you might want to look/work on that item.

But there are a couple other enhancements that really save me time.  The sidebar on the right with add-ons is great.  I now have my Calendar, Keep, Tasks, Zoom meetings, and Pod.  Pod is a cool free add-on that looks at the messages in your inbox and lets you create events from the content of emails, find free time, suggest 1:1 meeting times, and other great features without leaving your Gmail interface.

Overall I am appreciating the hover buttons to delete, archive, read, and snooze mails.  With an improved overall look and feel I can say that I am happy with it and will now roll it out to all the staff in our district as our standard.

iPevo Whiteboard App #edtech #ipevo

One of my favorite things to do is try out new EdTech tools, whether it's an app or a website. I recently saw on Twitter about the iPevo Whiteboard app and thought it looked like a great teacher tool.

It seems very similar to Stage Pro but it's free.

Sometimes, instead of paraphrasing what it says on a product's website, it's easiest just to paste it. Their website describes it this way:

The Intuitive Whiteboard App for iPad

The free IPEVO Whiteboard app turns your iPad into a portable, wireless whiteboard. Draw and annotate directly onto real-time video from your document camera or iPad's camera, onto a blank white canvas, or onto any image from your Photo Library.

Put the focus where it belongs

Whiteboard offers a simple and intuitive set of drawing and text tools. Add text boxes, shapes, and lines to emphasize key points of interest and highlight important parts of your image. Different colors and line thicknesses, undo and redo functions, a pointer tool, and a clear all function are right at your fingertips.

Choose the image you want to annotate

Multiple whiteboards ("boards") can be created and easily switched between, each using a different image as its background. Import photos from your Photo Library or take a picture with iPad's camera and use that snapshot directly. You can even draw on the real-time image feed from iPad's camera. Or, you can use the app as a true "whiteboard" and stick with the default white background.

Harness the power of your IPEVO document cam

When combined with the WS-01 Wireless Station and your IPEVO document camera (Point 2 View, Ziggi-HDor VZ-1 HD) , Whiteboard delivers a portable, wireless teaching tool using razor-sharp real-time images from your doc cam. Project and annotate text, artwork, diagrams, math equations, 3D objects and more. Teaching and presenting have never been this smart, effective, or fun.

Textingstory.com - Create your text story in video #edtech

I did random search for #edtech in Twitter today looking for cool tools and came across this great app from TextingStory.com. What it does is give students a place to fake text someone else and record their conversation in video.

Some obvious applications to this are students in an ELA class who are learning about character development or analysis and having to pretend to be that character to prove they know how they would think, act and text. The possibilities here are endless and students will really have to know a character's ins and outs in order to convey their personality.

Another situation might be in Social Studies or History class where students need to become a historical figure and text as if they were Einstein or George Washington or MLK. It's a fantastic way to prove what they've learned in a format that students will like.

The free app is customizable in the sense that students can change the names and colors of the text.

It's free for iOS and Android with the option to unlock other features.

Game Changer for Math Teachers!

When it comes to helping math teachers and showing them the value of Google Applications we always bump into... how do I type equations?  How do I easily make tests and worksheets?  I would love to go digital but how can I with the limited tools of Google Docs?

Well the answer has been around for almost a year, but I have re-discovered and love the simple ability of this Chrome extension to really make it easy!

EquateIO Chrome extension will insert math equations from common language, Latex language, spoken language, camera, or handwriting.  It doesn't get much better than that!

I tried from a worksheet with my phone camera, from voice, and from my tablet and they all worked seemlessly.  Getting the graph on assignments was a pain until now too!

They are offering this product and ReadWrite(an ELA product) free to teachers... Teachers can apply at: https://www.texthelp.com/en-us/products/free-for-teachers/

NewseumED - Media Literacy

Ray Birks, our Instructional Technology Facilitator extraordinaire, found this fabulous site for teachers on media literacy.  What a great free toolkit of resources provided for teachers.  I spent a bunch of time in the Media Literacy Booster pack and found the lessons relevant and engaging when thinking of middle school to high school learners.

The site has the full lesson with activities, videos, handouts, discussion topics, sources, and extensions.  There are a ton of resources here for teachers.

Current relevancy is obvious when I found "Filtering Out Fake News"  This lesson had videos activities and artifacts ready to go for the teacher.

Thank you to this museum for providing these detailed lessons and resources to help us teach students media literacy.

Check it out and get your free account today at https://newseumed.org