EdTech@NSCDS
All the Tech & Innovation News You Can Use • Issue #11
EdTech@NSCDS News
New News
- Make sure to check out the Candy Around the World Project below. Any grade level is welcome to participate now through December. At the very least, we'd love for NSCDS adults and students to take this survey: http://bit.ly/CandySurvey151
- Department heads, I'd love to come to any upcoming department meetings. Let me know if you'd like to schedule a time to meet!
- I am going to be scheduling individual meetings with teachers and classrooms visits over the next few months. My goal is to take a deep dive into classes so that I can get a better sense of our next steps with ed tech.
- If you are experiencing any consistent issues with connectivity in your classroom or any other technical issue, please make sure to email IT at tech@nscds.org.
Old News
- NSCDS middle school and high school faculty should email me (Lucy) with requests for apps to be installed on their school or student iPads. I will then approve the request or ask for more information and the IT department will install.
- Lower school should email Jeff with their requests and he will approve. Please cc me so that I can see the apps that are of interest to you.
- For subscription services, generally speaking, you should go through your department for these purchases. For example, if you need (and will use) a particular subscription-based tool or app such as Quizlet, purchase it and seek reimbursement from your department. Over the course of this year, I am planning on developing a process for requesting subscriptions prior to the next school year so that we can obtain bulk pricing or negotiate pricing based on users with specific companies.
INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE - Publishing Student Work
Recommended Options
- Publish eBooks via Apple's Pages on a Mac or iPad to iCloud. Directions are here. Two new features in Pages: you can publish now directly to Apple Books and you can animate drawings.
- Book Creator is an iOS app and is also available on the web. It is very simple to use and allows for voiceovers, videos, drawings, and other media to be embedded in eBooks.
- Apple's iBooks Author is another option for publishing. You can upload eBooks to Apple Books. You can make these books free or charge for them.
- There are other ways to publish. I also recommend looking at Storybird and these resources are recommended by educator Matthew Farber for publishing on Amazon.
Examples
Found It - This is a series of books created by art classes in Book Creator
Study Guide Templates in Pages - create templates for students to use when creating their own study guides
#PagesBookChallenge on Twitter - see how other educators are using Pages to create books
Portland's Japantown Revealed - an interactive iBook created by Apple Distinguished Educator Peter Pappas using primary source material. Check out Peter's other books.
Barrington High School - this is D220's application to be an Apple Distinguished School and it was completed in iBooks Author
Gathering Feedback and More with Google Forms
- Check out the Google Learning center's Google Form topic to get started.
- Here's another good basic tutorial on how to get started.
- Power users should consider investigating Google Form add-ons and Google Sheet add-ons to automate some tasks.
- To make life easier when it comes to writing grade report narratives, create a Google Form with a drop-down menu containing your students' names and a field for entering text. Add this form to the home screen of your iPad. When you want to write an observation of a student, click on the button on your home screen, select the student, enter a few comments into the text box, and click on submit. This allows you to keep an easy to manage running record of your students. Simply refer to the spreadsheet that's generated from your form when it's time to write your narratives.
- For more Google Form ideas, check out Matt Miller's blog post on the topic.
GLOBAL COLLABORATION
Microsoft's Annual 48-hours Skype-a-Thon Takes Place This Week
Candy Around the World
Candy Around the World is inspired by a recent series of articles in the NYT Magazine. Participating classes can pick and choose from various activities which range from participating in a survey designed by our fourth grade (coming soon) to conducting research on topics related to environmental and health concerns related to candy. The project is designed to be flexible around your schedule and curriculum.
Our Current Count
191 Participating Schools/Classes
12,200 Students
Current countries Represented
Albania, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, Greece, India, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and the United States.
US states Represented
Alabama, Connecticut, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin
Tayasui Sketches School
Tayasui Sketches School is a free drawing iOS app and it's also available for Macs. Find tutorials, examples from artists, and join a community of users here. I have the Pro version and really love it, too. If you would like this installed on student iPads, let me know!