ITF Connection
September 2017
Digital Learning Competencies
What are the Digital Learning Competencies?
Digital Learning Competencies are a framework for educators centered around necessary skills needed to provide a high-quality education while integrating digital teaching and learning. A complete list of these competencies can be found here, and I will be highlighting them throughout the year in grade level meetings and in future editions of the ITF connection.
Why do I care about the Digital Learning Competencies?
Not only are these competencies embedded in some capacity throughout the teacher evaluation rubric, if you are renewing your teaching license in 2019 or later, you will need at least 2 CEUs in Digital Learning Competencies to renew your license. This law went into effect July 1, 2017.
Digital Resources
Clever
Clever will now be the platform our students and teachers will use to access many of our district resources. Students and teachers will click on Clever from our homepage, then select "Log in with Active Directory". They should be prompted to login with their computer username and password. Once signed into Clever, they will arrive on a dashboard screen that will allow them to access district resources such as Dreambox, iReady, and MasteryConnect. Users will automatically be signed into those resources via Clever.
DiscoveryEd
Discovery Education may have stopped offering the assessment piece that we have used for benchmarking over the past several years, but we still have access to all of their other great resources. You can still find content related videos, virtual field trips, teaching strategies, and more within DiscoveryEd. One of my favorite features is BoardBuilder where students can create online posters and embed DiscoveryEd content to demonstrate what they've learned about a given topic.
Dreambox
Dreambox is adaptive, meaning it gives students new activities and lessons based on their performance on tasks within the program. This often creates a disconnect between content you are covering in class and content students are accessing via Dreambox. If you have a student who needs extra practice with a concept you are covering in class, you can go in and assign them a focus to work on. See Mrs. Parker if you'd like more information about Assigned Focus within Dreambox.
https://youtu.be/SC5ARwUkVQg
Substitution
This edition of the ITF Connection is going to focus on the S in SAMR - Substitution. When I started teaching 11 years ago I never thought that computers would have been an integral part of the classroom as they are today. However, even with technology being as present as ever, not everyone is comfortable using this technology in the classroom. If you identify with this statement, Substitution is a great place to start with technology integration in your lesson plans and student activities. At the Substitution level, the task your students are completing does not change that much as a paper/pencil task is merely substituted with technology in some way. For example, instead of having students take class notes using paper/pencil, students would use a word processing program to take notes instead. Nothing really changed with this task, but the method of taking notes moved from paper/pencil and introduced technology. Substitution is a great place to start with Redefinition being the ultimate goal. Once you are comfortable with integrating technology at the Substitution level, look for way to challenge yourself to reach Augmentation. In the next edition of the ITF Connection, we will take a look at Augmentation.
- Note Taking - Notes taken via a word processing application
- Research - Using an internet browser to copy/paste information
- Presentation - Using PowerPoint/Keynote/Google Slides to make a presentation
- Reading - reading an eBook or PDF online
- Assessment - students take a test built in Google Forms
MAC Tricks
Command + Space
If you hold down Command + Space at the same time your spotlight search window will appear on your screen. This will help you search for files and applications on your laptop quickly.
Spotlight Tip
If you have the spotlight search bar open (see trick above), you can also use it as a calculator and currency converter.
Collaborate with Mrs. Parker
Do you have a great classroom activity you want to bring technology into? Have you heard of a technology resource and want to test it with your students? Email me to set up a time to collaborate. I love coming into classrooms to work with you as the teacher and support technology integration with students.