Smore for your fellow teachers — tech tools and classroom resources
Whether you’re sharing classroom resources or information about new software — make sure your team is making the most out of your updates. We’ve collected some great examples for sharing resources with educators in a way that is both short and super useful.
Create a monthly update for your team
Digital Learning Bytes
by Kathleen Graham, Digital Learning Coach at Lynwood Unified School District
What we love about this newsletter: It’s clear that this is a regular newsletter with an agenda you come to expect. Also, it includes everything teachers need to know from the tech department — upcoming events, integrations, resources and tips.
Tips from Kathleen:
What are your tips for creating a Smore newsletters with resources for teachers and colleagues?
We have a lot to share, but knowing educators’ time is often limited we do what we can to keep the articles in our newsletter short. Listen to your audience and include resources that are relevant to what you are hearing they need. This makes the Smore newsletter more relevant to them.
What are your tips for engaging teachers with interactive content, such as Smore newsletters?
Include video! We hear from our readers how much they appreciate the videos we create. Extra tip: keep the video under 2 minutes and direct them to your YouTube channel for your longer videos!
Link everything! When you are sharing a tool or other resource for teachers, link to it in your newsletter. This helps educators get to the tool faster and perhaps gets them using it more quickly as well!
Additionally, if you have a professional learning session coming up, promote it in your newsletter! We get a lot more registrations for professional learning off of our newsletter than in just sending a paper flyer or even an email.
What tips would you give our user community for creating great newsletter for students, parents and colleagues?
Be as interactive as you can. Include photos, videos and links as well as explore some of the other great features Smore has to offer and find the right fit for you and your community. Providing information that is relevant to your readers is important. Listen to the feedback and use that as a guide for your next edition!
See Kathleen’s newsletter here
Give teachers everything they need
Tech Tips #5.01
by Lori Roberts, Educational Technology Specialist — High Schools, Goose Creek CISD
What we love about this newsletter: there’s so many resources and it is so well organized! Also, jump to the end of the newsletter to see links to previous editions with more tips.
Tips from Lori:
What are your tips for creating a Smore newsletter with resources for teachers and colleagues? My number one tip is to keep it concise and to the point. We I first started created the weekly Tech Tips for our teachers in 2013, I tried to put all the information I could find into them. I’ve now learned that less is more for most of our staff. Keeping it simple and direct is the best approach. Sometimes that means creating multiple bite-size tips that cover the same general topic, but that ends up being the best approach for us. Additionally, it helps us have resources that we can refer back to when we work with teachers and link them via our department website.
What are your tips for engaging teachers with interactive content, such as Smore newsletters? I think the Smore flyers are a fantastic way to include text, images, and video. They allow us to hit the variety of learning styles of our staff. We are also able to link to other flyers, websites, or product websites to give those staff members that want to dig deeper the opportunity to do so. They are so much more visually appealing than a text based email to get information to our large staff.
What tips would you give our user community for creating great newsletters for students, parents and colleagues? As I mentioned before, the ability to include text, images, and video allow the flyers to be more pleasing to the eye and catch the reader’s attention. Also, pay attention to proofreading. I try to find all the errors before I publish, but mistakes definitely happen 🙂
Engage readers with bite-sized paragraphs
Ed Tech Tips with E. Mosier
by Evan Mosier, Technology Integrationist Lead Teacher at Sudlow Intermediate School
What we love about this newsletter: These bite-sized paragraphs guide readers through features and benefits of this program, while color-coordinated illustrations make the newsletter look next-level professional.
Tips from Evan:
Tips for creating resources using Smore newsletters : I like to design these flyers to correlate with the current happenings at school. For example, at the beginning of the year, my newsletter may be tips on connecting with parents, or engaging students immediately. Or, if test time is rolling around, I may offer tips for more effective assessment strategies and ways to make it more efficient for teachers. However, not matter what I choose to write about, the format of Smore makes it extremely easy to create and for the teachers to read. I love how organized and user-friendly Smore is in order for me to create them.
Tips for engaging teachers: When I write my newsletters on Smore, I always attempt to engage teachers by the content I’m providing by making it relevant to them. If the teachers can read it and see the benefit in it, then they’re more than likely apt to use the tool I’m writing about. Or, at the very least, reach out to me for further information.
Tips for others creating Smore newsletters: Keep it simple! Smore has a wonderful interface that allows for embedded links and shorts amount of text, so don’t forget to appeal to your audience with quick little paragraphs of information that can be ready quickly and easily. Additionally, I always make sure to use an accompanying image so it isn’t a mass of text. Along with that, I alternate which side my image appears, making the design and overall look of the flyer more appealing to the reader.
Topic focused newsletters are a resource to return to
A STEM Start to the School Year!
by Karly Moura, Teacher on Special Assignment (Technology TOSA) and Computer Science teacher at Sun Terrace Elementary STEM Magnet School
What we love about this newsletter: Great use of images to break up the newsletter into categories and love the combination of short text with lots of extra links — makes for a readable but effective newsletter.
Tips from Karly:
What are your tips for creating a Smore newsletter with resources for teachers and colleagues?
I try to keep my Smore flyers short and sweet but packed with resources teachers can use right away. I make them specific to a certain topic like Hour of Code, STEM or Google Expeditions so others know they can come back to that flyer for resources.
What are your tips for engaging teachers with interactive content, such as Smore flyers?
By creating an email list I can send my flyer to my staff and it will show up right in their email!
What tips would you give our user community for creating great newsletters for students, parents and colleagues?
Create your flyers with your audience in mind. As a teacher what would YOU like to see in a flyer. For me I want a resources that I can use with students tomorrow so that’s what I add in. Ask your students what they would like to see or better yet let your students create the flyer. Parents want to be kept up to date on what is happening in your class or school community so be sure to highlight the amazing things you and your students are doing.
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