Technoflash

Looks Who’s Been Coding

Every building has been buzzing with busy coders learning and problem solving as they challenge themselves with a variety of coding activities. The activities ranged from participating in code.org activities, coding apps on the iPads including Swift Playgrounds, Hopscotch, The Foos, Tickle, Tynker and more. Many students also had the opportunity to program robots. Shout out to our Birchcrest Tigers where every student in the building coded for an hour and experienced programming a robot during the hour of code week. A special thanks to our Building Tech Coordinators, Instructional Coaches, and iPad Academy teachers who helped facilitate many of the activities across the district. Check out some of the Hour of Code highlights from our #bpsne Twitter feed last week!

12 Days of Twitter Activities

The #12daystwitter challenge has been going strong! The #12daystwitter began in 2013 and was created by Mickie Mueller (mickie_mueller). The tradition continues this year. It’s been a fun way to connect with other educators, grow our PLN, and learn from one another. It is NOT too late to join in on the fun! You may be surprised who you connect with or what you learn. We encourage everyone to participate for at least one day. You have 3 days left: today, Monday, and Tuesday!

Grow your PLN by following all who have participated in #12daystwitter. You will find all the #12daystwitter contact information in this spreadsheet.

Update from the Training Zone

We are happy to let you know we are ringing in the new year with lots of BPS BlendED Professional Learning. We have 69 educators joining us January 18-19 for their first two days of the six day training. The following week, January 25-26, we have our 3rd group of 26 teachers joining us for their two day BPS BlendED refresher course and they will have their new classroom set of iPads on January 29. We are delighted to be adding so many new iPad Academy classrooms this semester.

Seven Reasons We Love Using Schoology

With the district’s purchase of the Enterprise version of Schoology last year, the number of teachers and administrators using it has grown significantly. Everyone has used the Learning Management System (LMS) at least once, but more than likely several times. From our Annual Health Training, to the district, school, and subject groups we’ve joined, Schoology has quickly become a vital cog in the dissemination of information with each other - including our students! Having a consistent and universal method to communicate with everyone is extremely important. Here are the top seven reasons we love using Schoology in our classrooms.

1. Schoology frees up time for teachers

Schoology provides a Resources area - a repository for lessons, tests, quizzes, videos, and more - allowing teachers to easily copy them into classes, thereby eliminating the need for copies. Schoology frees up time by grading tests and quizzes for you.

2. It is a great place to build and/or share resources

Teachers don’t have many opportunities or time to meet face to face for solid collaboration. Schoology provides ways to share thoughts and materials with other teachers, regardless of building. Teachers can collaborate using updates or discussion posts. With the resources capability within Schoology, teachers can share tips, lessons, or entire units with each other.

Lastly, our curriculum currently being transitioned to Schoology groups.

3. Quickly differentiate assignments for all students by using grading groups

Grading groups are formed in the ‘Members’ section of a class (selected from the left hand margin of the classroom). The groups can be designed by any criteria and a student can belong to more than one group. Teachers can assign differentiated assignments to each grading group, allowing students to be met where they’re at as well as provide anonymity. This is also a great tool to use when implementing student IEPs.

4. Schoology grades your tests/quizzes

Grading is one of those tasks that seems to never end. Schoology assigned tests and quizzes are automatically graded with the exception of typed responses. Furthermore, the grades are then updated into PowerSchool eliminating the majority of grading.

5. Fast Feedback on assignments submitted through Schoology

Test and quiz settings allow for immediate feedback that can include links to specific lessons, audio/video comments, as well as students simply seeing the questions and correct answers.

6. Schoology serves as a single source for information for students

Occasionally, students miss a day or two of school. Teachers can provide daily updates so that when this occurs, students check Schoology to see what they’ve missed and can begin to work on catching up. While students are out, they can also check this from home.

7. Schoology provides students a consistent calendar

A powerful way to help students become more organized is through the use of a calendar. Schoology provides a student calendar that can list all assignments, notices, and tests for every class helping a student (and parent) keep track of upcoming due dates.

Schoology

Media Albums

Create albums to organize photos, videos, and/or audio files for your course. Photos can be cropped and rotated after you add them. You may allow commenting on each item within an album. You can also tag users in your uploaded photos, or allow students to upload and tag media as well.

Tweet Time--Tweets From Those You Know

Use Twitter to connect with others from near and far! If you are someone who is already tweeting, remember to tag your tweets with #bpsne so more teachers can see what is happening in your classroom. Sharing is the name of the game! Remember there are lots of great chats to explore to connect with others in your content area. Just pull up the hashtag and enjoy the conversation.

Hashtags Telling Our Story

One of the most powerful parts of Twitter is the hashtag! It connects people, ideas, and creates communities within Twitter. It is a unique way for our teachers and administrators to share the amazing things happening in our schools, classrooms, clubs, teams and organizations. Our district hashtag, #bpsne, continues to grow and is becoming a powerful tool that we can leverage as a district to connect all of our teachers, students, parents, and community members. We encourage you to continue sharing the great things happening in your classrooms. Here is a list of all of the Bellevue Public School educators on Twitter. Let's create the 2016-2017 Bellevue Public Schools story together!

Our Blog is on the Move!

The Technology Team's blog has moved to a new location! Why is this important? Many of you subscribed to our old blog and will now need to subscribe to our new one. If you haven’t subscribed to our blog make sure to click on the link below and click FOLLOW on the right side of the page. This will send our new blog posts directly to your email to keep you up on all the things happening with technology in Bellevue Public Schools.

Click here to access our Technology Tools for Teaching blog!