Good Things Newsletter
January 2017
It's the Final Countdown for the End of 1st Semester
M-Powerment Strategy: M-4 "Data Driven Instruction"
Instructional Highlight: Review/Remediation/Enrichment Strategies
Tech-Checkup
I’ve heard a lot about teachers “dealing” with issues on laptops and with other technology. Don’t do this to yourself, normally if something is broken, or not working properly we can try to fix it. If I don’t know it’s a problem, I won’t know to fix it.
Check out the updated stuff to G Suite for education Link.
Don’t forget that you can borrow help desk students to help your students understand and learn about unfamiliar tech tools. We’re always looking for new things to do.
Check out these if you are in the market for a new case for your laptop.
A brief word on Social Media -- don’t use it to take pictures of your students and post it on your own social media. Also, a reminder not to post during school hours.
If you have any issues with wireless networks or anything please email me. I’ll try to fix it ASAP.
- A reminder to make sure students have their school issued backpack and their laptop cases on their computer. If you see a student without this, please let me know.
News From the Media Center
We’re having a photo reading contest to kick off our mhsreads Instagram account. Celebrate the holiday season with us by sharing the book(s) that you are reading or plan to read over winter break. One student and one staff member with the most “likes” will both win a $25 Amazon gift card.
Interested in participating? View the details here:
As you design remediation opportunities for your students, please reserve the Media Center for an exam review activity. Check out our upcoming schedule and let us know when you’d like to use the library. We have a variety of seating arrangements open to your classes and would love for you to fill them in January! And, if you’d like us to lead a small group station, we can do that, too.
Cool Tool: Playposit Builder
Try the brand new PlayPosit builder! It provides a way to collect data from flipped lessons and differentiate by giving students different videos based on their data from 13.5.
-String videos from multiple sources together to engage students in the content
-Chain multiple questions in a single pause or add an exit ticket assessment at the end of the lesson
-Allow students to fast-forward, skip questions, retake lessons after receiving a score
-Jump students forwards, backwards or to different video clips depending on their answers
Use Playposit for creating your own tutorial videos
Remember: Playposit is integrated into Learn, so you students and classes are already loaded for you.
If you would like to use Playposit, contact April, Tracey, or Damien for assistance!
You've Been Busted!
Ron Higdon - Sillyheart collaboration
The Playwright for Sillyheart, Billy W Boone, contacted Mr. Higdon through Facebook about two weeks before they went to NCTC Regional competition ( Mr. Higdon has a MHS Theatre page on FB and he found him). They started a correspondence together.
After Mr. Higdon's students won the Regional and were headed to State, he asked if he could Skype with Mr. Higdon's students, which they did on Tuesday before Thanksgiving (after State tournament). They performed some scenes from Sillyheart for him. They discussed the production and their NCTC festival experiences and talked conceptually and discussed characters and characterizations in his script.
Over the course of this skype, he presented them with his newest play which has not been published yet. The first staged reading of this new play was at Texas Tech on Tuesday of the last week in November (Nov 29). The play is currently titled The Darkness Inside, (....but he has several options for the title, it's still a work-in-progress).
He asked if Mr. Higdon's students would do the second staged reading of this new show, which they enthusiastically agreed to do.
Mr. Higdon's students worked on the new play and presented the reading via Google Hangouts on December 8th.
Awesome opportunity!