Tuesday Tech Thoughts
Beth Rihtar- Instructional Tech Coach- Park Ridge, Illinois
July Edition!
Solar Eclipse Fever! Are You Ready?
Monday, August 21st, 2017 is a great opportunity for our students. Here in northern IL, we'll have a partial view of the solar eclipse, but there's a great band of 100% view just a little south of us. Check out these great resources for your room!
How can you tell if your solar glasses are safe?
So, if you're like me and rushed out and bought a bunch of glasses for your school..... NPR aired a report on Tuesday, August 1st that scared the crapola out of me! Apparently some unscrupulous retailers are selling glasses that won't actually be protective. So, I followed up with the information provided from NPR and ultimately the American Astronomical Society, and have this great link below for "how can you check your glasses?" Check it out!
Get your specs!
In order to safely view, you must use safety glasses. Get this very reasonable 100 pack for your team! (Amazon Prime eligible!)
NASA Education Resources
NASA has a ton of resources for learners of all ages! Check out their resource page here! They also have an "Eclipse Kit" with a lot of downloadable resources.
Eclipse with the Adler!
The Adler Planetarium is having great activities leading up to the eclipse (with a countdown) and lots of hype. Check it out along with your students!
Coding with Brainpop!
Great things are changing and going on over at BrainPop! New to the account is the capability to do coding with your classroom! From BrainPop: To get started, log in with your individual credentials and navigate to the Creative Coding landing page. We’ll continue to add projects to more and more topics in the coming weeks, so visit often. Turn to our collection of support materials – ranging from video tutorials and lesson plans to differentiation tips and assessment rubrics – to familiarize yourself with the feature and pick up tips for working it into class. If you don't know how to get started in BrainPop, or need help creating a classroom, talk to your school's tech coach! Click here for more information from BrainPop about coding via the BrainPop platform!
Chromebook Resource List!
I found this extraordinarily comprehensive list of Chromebook resources, how tos, and tips earlier in the summer from the Educational Technology and Mobile Learning blog. This list has so many embedded tutorials that you can just bookmark and have in one place. If you want to brush up about Chromebooks, or are new to Chromebooks, check out this great resource! This blog has regular entries on many other ed tech topics too... it's a great site to subscribe to. They post/share on Twitter, Google +, and Pinterest, so follow them wherever you like to work!
Want to collaborate? Join me on Pinterest!
Tech Integration Pinterest board... please add your voice!
Personal Best
I'm about to complete my Certificate of Advanced Studies in Instructional Coaching from Northwestern University, and one of my course professors, Dr. Alison Gordon, shared this article. It's really interesting, and I'm sharing it because I think it's a great rationale for this: GREAT TEACHERS NEED GREAT COACHES. We often are hoping to coach to strengths, not just to work on remediation. However, the perception is often that coaches are only there for "people who need them.". Check out this great article by Dr. Atul Gawande that talks about coaching in many different disciplines!
Elena Aguilar-- Keynote from the New Tech Conference
I've been participating in a summer book study on The Art of Coaching Teams by Elena Aguilar. She recently shared this great keynote on diversity in schools from the New Tech Network 2017 National Conference. Check her out!
https://youtu.be/3TN9TJbu7l0
Want to collaborate? Pinterest Mindset board!
Still pondering growth mindset? Join me and contribute to a shared Pinterest board!
Beth Rihtar
Job-embedded professional development; talks to teachers about tech integration, best practices, efficiency, 4Cs; Google Certified Educator, bassist for the Northwest Symphony Orchestra; teacher of 21 years.
Email: erihtar@d64.org
Website: https://sites.google.com/a/d64.org/firihtar/
Phone: 847-653-3687
Twitter: @bethrihtar