Oakland Schools Digital Learning
Newsletter - February 2022
In this issue you will find
- Black History Month lessons and resources
- Resources to help you incorporate the Winter Olympics into your lessons
- Digital activities for Valentine's Day
- Presidents Day lessons and activities
- A site where you can create your own Wordles
- A simple poster of some key Chromebook keyboard shortcuts
- An interactive video to help you learn more about Microsoft Immersive Reader
- A free book with strategies and step-by-step instructions for using Keynote for teaching and learning
- Links to some great resources for Discovery Streaming subscribers
- A mini-poster explaining how to open an Emoji picker on different types of computers
- A link to the end of the Internet
- A free professional learning opportunity from the Oakland Schools Digital Learning team
Please reach out if you have questions about any of the information in this newsletter.
~Laura and Vinos
Black History Month Lessons & Resources
The New York Times: Unpublished Black History
50 Black Writers Whose Impact Went Beyond the Page
2022 Winter Olympics
Olympic Values Education Program
Valentine's Day Digital Activities
Festisite Valentine Heart
Starfall Valentine Themed Activities
Watch, Learn, and Live Heart Interactives
Presidents Day Lessons and Activities
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Lesson Plans
C-Span's Presidential Historian Survey 2021
C-Span’s annual survey of presidential historians reveals not only every president's overall ranking, but also their scores for each of 10 criteria, from “Public Persuasion” to “Performance Within Context of Times.” The most recent results can be found on the Presidential Historian Survey 2021. The survey serves as a fine jumping off point to compare presidents and explore questions such as “What traits matter most in a president?”
PBS Presidents in 60 Seconds
Digital Tools
Make Your Own Wordle
Make Your Own Wordle allows you to create a Wordle and then get a link to share with your students. No registration or login is required and it’s absolutely free.
If you aren’t familiar with how Wordle is played, here are the rules.
- You are trying to guess a five-letter word.
- You have six tries to guess the word.
- After each guess, the color of the tiles will change to show how close your guess was to the word. Green is a correct letter in the correct location. Gold is a correct letter in the wrong location. Gray is an incorrect letter.
Try guessing our Wordle word. The first person to send us the correct answer will win a "prize" and bragging rights. 😃
Some suggestions for how you might use your customized Wordle game include
- using it as a warm-up either with a random word or a word from the day’s lesson.
- posting a Wordle each day with a new vocabulary word for students. Once they’ve solved the Wordle, have them look up the definition and then try to use it the rest of the class period.
- having students create a Wordle for their classmates.
- creating themed Wordles on topics like seasons, holidays, sporting events, "this day in history," etc.
Chromebooks
Chromebook Keyboard Shortcuts
Microsoft 365
Improving Reading with Microsoft Immersive Reader
iPads
Teaching with Keynote - Free eBook
You can download the epub of the book here, open it in Apple Books and find quick inspiration for new ideas to try with your students. If you prefer to open the book on a Mac use this link.
Discovery Streaming
February Activity Calendars - Grades K-8
Explore ready-to-use activities for the month of February that provide students with opportunities to explore their curiosity around a variety of topics in the NEW daily activity calendars for grades K-8th.
William Shakespeare Channel
SOS Strategy of the Month
Read All About It is a teaching strategy that uses summary to help students develop a better understanding of how a main idea is supported with details. In this strategy, the teacher provides a headline, and students work to summarize the main ideas presented in a video segment.
Tech Tip
Emoji Pickers on Computers
- To call up an emoji keyboard in Windows 10 and later, hold down the Windows key and pressing period.
- On macOS, hold down Control and Command and press the spacebar.
- On a Chromebook, press the Search/Launcher key plus Shift plus Space.
All of these keyboard shortcuts require the cursor to be in a text box.
Below is a graphic created by Tony Vincent that shows the key strokes in a mini poster.
Technology Fun
The End of the Internet
Professional Learning Opportunity
"Make & Take" Spectacular Titles for Google Slides - FREE 1 Hour Virtual Session
When: Tuesday, February 15, 2022 from 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Facilitators: Laura Cummings & Vinos Kassab
Registration Link for Spectacular Titles for Google Slides
Learn how to use Word Art, layering, and formatting tools to make spectacular titles to use in your Google Slides and then practice creating your own titles. You will leave this session with slides that look so good you will even impress yourself. :)
Information for the virtual connection will be emailed to registered participants prior to the start of the session. The email you register with will be the email used to send the connection link.
1 SCECH credit available for attending this session. ($10 processing fee)
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Oakland Schools Digital Learning Twitter posts can be found at os_edtech.
When you are posting to Twitter about things related to digital learning and educational technology, don't forget to use the hashtag #oakedtech.
Using the hashtag will help Oakland County educators, who are interested in the effective use of digital learning, to connect and better collaborate with each other.
Oakland Schools Digital Learning Consultants
Laura.Cummings@oakland.k12.mi.us
248-209-2283
Vinos Kassab
Vinos.Kassab@oakland.k12.mi.us
248-209-2229