Weekly Geekly
October 27, 2017
eSchool update delayed- no new icons!
Because of issues encountered during testing of eschool 4.0, the update will not be released this weekend as planned. eSchool admin users, you are still welcome to come and get some assistance if you need it, and we will still be able to utilize our testing environment, but we will not see new icons on Monday.
Tip of the Week- Using the Print Center
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtWc6WnYwM4
Triple E Evaluation Rubric
Below is an interesting rubric from Liz Kolb (@lkolb for you Tweeters) that looks like a good way to self-assess how you are using technology in your lessons. While we don't officially utilize this rubric as a district, it's a quick and easy way to start considering the nature of your technology integration.
For a printable rubric with full descriptions of the levels, click here.
you can find Kolb's web site about the Triple E Framework here if you are interested in learning more!
Padlet- New Feature- Grading!
Padlet has added a feature that allows you to upvote, "like", give a star rating to or grade padlet entries. You can only choose one reaction type per padlet, so you can't give one student a 100 while another on the same Padlet gets 5 stars, for example. The negative? Grades are visible to everyone. And in order for the teacher to be the only one grading, you would need to to have grading turned off, then turn it on when you are ready to grade, then turn it off again immediately after. Otherwise anyone invited to the padlet could give a grade.
Of course grading or rating features doesn't have to be for teachers only. Padlet is a great way for students to give feedback to one another. Have a chat about appropriate and constructive feedback using sentence starters like... "What I lkiked about this was..." or "SOmething that you could improve upon might be..." and you have yourself a communication badge project- especially if you have students commenting between classes or campuses!!!
Released STAAR Items now in Aware
For those of you who build Aware tests, I have been told that Released STAAR items are now there for your use!
#BookSnaps
Have you heard of #BookSnaps? It's more of a movement than a tool. Basically, this idea takes SnapChat and has kids and adults snapping pics of books they have read, pulling out main ideas, summarizing, and all sorts of cool stuff. It's hard to explain, but thankfully you can read about it here. And there are some "how-to" videos here for you! Worried about kids being on SnapChat? Try http://snapsr.com/, a fake SnapChat creator!