Weekly Geekly
September 29, 2017
Awesome Job, "Emerald Emerging" And congratulations LT on surviving Forthcoming Week! Grades at CTE are due 3:30 PM Monday. At LT they are due 5:00 PM Tuesday.
Run Eligibility Reports for Your Activities
I have a video to show you how to do this below. If you need an "Activity" set up in eschool, please contact your data clerk.
Yay for Biology!
Tool of the Week- Baamboozle
You simply enter questions and answers (and optionally an image for each question) The image feature makes this workable for math folks as well!
Basically you can do three things with your cards once created. You can use them in Study Mode where all the cards appear on one page (very Pinterest looking) and you can quiz yourself and reveal answers one at a time. Or you can do the Game Mode which gives you the options of playing as a Quiz or in Classic Mode. For both modes you choose 2,3, or 4 teams to play, and you as the teacher can project this, and it looks like Jeopardy. It alternates turns between teams and keeps track of points. the only difference between these two modes is that in Classic Mode, you might select a square from the board and find that instead of a question you got a"power up" which may take points away from you, or give points to the other team, or both! Quiz mode only has questions, with no power ups.
Here is a sample example about Ice Cream Flavors.
Another cool feature of this game is that they have a link to "Get beautiful, free images" as you are creating. It's a link to Pixabay where almost everything is in the Public Domain. It's a great resource for images for any situation because the images don't have to be cited.
October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month!
If you have never been a part of a Twitter chat before, jump on Twitter from 7:15-7:30 PM for a little "pre-chat" tutorial! Follow the hashtag #FISDchat
If this is all VERY new to you, head over to the Twitter page of the Digital Melting Pot for a video tutorial to see how it works, or come see me and I can show you how to get started!
Also, follow our Frisco ISD Technology Department on Twitter (@FriscoISDTech) for daily Cyber-safety tips through the month of October.
Strive Updates
Walkthrough Timelines
Staff members being appraised under T-TESS have 2 required walkthroughs. The Walkthrough Timeline appears on these staff members in the card view and provides a walkthrough snapshot of the past five months, with a bar to indicate any completed walkthrough. The goal of the feature is to give you a quick view of when walkthroughs on any given teacher have been completed. As with all the STRIVE features we have thus far, we expect this feature to evolve over time as they refine it to be most useful. (See the image below)
Printing Goals
You can now print goals in Strive as well, as many teachers had requested that function.
Creating Goals on the Goals Tab vs. the Evaluations Tab
Teachers have the ability to create goals on either the Goals tab, or the Evaluations tab. If they create the goals on the Goals tab, they will need to attach their 2 required goals on the Evaluations tab for the goals to be counted as completing their first evaluation process step. The rationale behind this is that some teachers may want to have more than the 2 required goals that are part of this year’s evaluation process. STRIVE allows them to create as many goals as they want on the Goals tab, and then they are provided with a “Attach Goal” button on the Evaluation tab to attach the two goals they want to include as their evaluation process. Please note that only APPROVED goals will be counted as completed goals on the Evaluations tab. (This was a new update we had not planned on, but was created to meet a need)
Computer Carts...AGAIN
Bring them back on time. Please.
Plug them in.
Keep them neat.
Track who has the computers.
Only take equipment you reserved.
Pay forward kindness, not frustration.
Need help with any of the above, please let me know!
New Signage Appearing in Rooms
Win Free Stuff
Scholastic Art & Writing Awards- contest for students in, well, art and writing :)
Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest for students . They need to show how STEAM can benefit their local communities.
LTHS teachers don't forget to apply for a mini-grant from the PTSA!