I.T.S. a Tech Update
Aug/Sept 2017
Welcome to a brand new school year! We hope you had a restful summer and are ready to greet your students. The Instructional Technology Specialist team is going to continue to provide you with monthly newsletters that will keep you updated on new apps, user tips, as well as featured events and lessons. We hope that you find this helpful!
What network are we using?
EPISD is phasing out the EPISD and EPISD-IPADS WiFi networks. Those keys were stolen a few years ago and are now widely available on the Internet making those networks unsecure.
To access wifi on district-issued and personal devices, please use the EPISD-SECURE network. To access EPISD-SECURE, simply log in with your EPISD username and password. If asked, confirm that the network is trusted. Your students can also access the network by logging in with the same login that is used for Ren360.
To access wifi on district-issued and personal devices, please use the EPISD-SECURE network. To access EPISD-SECURE, simply log in with your EPISD username and password. If asked, confirm that the network is trusted. Your students can also access the network by logging in with the same login that is used for Ren360.
Our new Learning Management System
This year we are implementing the use of Schoology as our Learning Management System (LMS) in EPISD as a way to support both the Blended and Active Learning initiatives. As teachers, you will be using it to access curriculum materials, professional development and to create lessons or host resources for your students. This information can be access from anywhere you have a wifi connection and you can even use the Schoology app on your mobile device.
Your Instructional Technology Specialist Team will be hosting various follow-up training opportunities, both virtually and face-to-face, to support and guide you through implementation our first year. We are sure that you will find it to be a worthwhile tool.
Your Instructional Technology Specialist Team will be hosting various follow-up training opportunities, both virtually and face-to-face, to support and guide you through implementation our first year. We are sure that you will find it to be a worthwhile tool.
Seesaw 5.0 is here!
Once again Seesaw has made some amazing additions to their already great app! For those that are not familiar, Seesaw is a student-driven digital portfolio. Teachers can empower students to create, reflect, share, and collaborate. Students “show what they know” using photos, videos, drawings, text, PDFs, and links. It’s simple to get student work in one place and share with parents, and nothing is shared without teacher approval.
Seesaw has completely changed their interface to make it more easy to navigate and has added two key updates. Teachers are now able to communicate with parents directly through Seesaw. Announcements can be sent to all parents or all students and there is now a messaging feature that allows for two way communication. The other addition allows students to load multiple images to a post rather than just one.
If you have not updated your app, you will want to in order to take advantage of these features.
Seesaw has completely changed their interface to make it more easy to navigate and has added two key updates. Teachers are now able to communicate with parents directly through Seesaw. Announcements can be sent to all parents or all students and there is now a messaging feature that allows for two way communication. The other addition allows students to load multiple images to a post rather than just one.
If you have not updated your app, you will want to in order to take advantage of these features.
Eclipse
Your EPISD Instructional Technology Specialists, in cooperation with the Science Facilitators, have compiled resources for you to help teach your students about the solar eclipse that we will be experiencing on Monday, August 21. Check out the website to learn how to safely view the eclipse with your class. It will be taking place during the lunch periods for all of our students. It will be extremely important to go over safety since they will be out at recess.
Revolutionalize Learning Conference
TCEA will be sponsoring the upcoming Revolutionize Learning Conference on Saturday, September 30 with a free social the night before. Please make plans to attend and present! More information can be found at www.tcea19.weebly.com.
Film Festival - EPISD
Thank you to all participants of last year's EPISD Student Digital Film Festival held on May 19, 2017. It was our largest crowd ever and we had some great films submitted. To accommodate the growth of the festival, we will be moving the 6th through 12th grade part of the festival to Fall 2017. This will also allow our students to submit their work to other competitions that happen in early spring. The elementary festival will remain in the spring. Please be on the look out for more information to come or visit http://episddigitalfilmfestival.weebly.com/ .
We are no longer going to have Office365.
FALSE! We still will have full access to Office 365 and will also soon have Outlook email as well.
SharpSchool websites will be going away.
TRUE! We will no longer have access to the SharpSchool version of our campus and teacher web pages after October. Please copy all information and documents that you need from the sites that you currently maintain. If you have linked a Weebly website, you will not lose any information. We currently do not have details about when the new sites will be trained.
Did you miss any of our newsletters? Check out our past issues below.
May- www.smore.com/xpxnu
April- www.smore.com/bhkwd
March- www.tackk.com/501ea5
February- www.smore.com/bfja2Instructional Technology Specialists
We are Instructional Technology Specialists that serve all campuses in EPISD. We spend most of our time sharing ideas and teaching best practices for integrating technology as a seamless part of learning in the classroom. Please contact us if you are looking for a technology integrated session that would best meet the needs of the students in your classroom.
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