Hello again everyone,
Thank you for making it so much fun to work with all of you.
It is a highlight in my week to see all the exciting things happening in
our classrooms. Here’s a quick look at what’s come up in the last two
weeks with education and technology:
What’s working:
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Remote access/VPN is working well – our
records show a high usage and so far we have heard of very few problems.
Yay! Click on VPN on the school homepage or https://vpn.northwestschool.org
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Jen K is using Evernote as an easy way
to collect and organize resources (from websites, to documents, to audio
clips and annotated notes…) Their slogan says it well: “Capture Anything.
Access Anywhere. Find things fast.“ It’s free and has some great
apps too: https://evernote.com/
-
David Montero and Tina have been
experimenting with Google Voice to do audio assignments –
students click on the icon on their teacher page, enter their phone number and
Google Voice calls them with a pre-recorded message from David or Tina with an
audio assignment. Students simply answer the question in the form of a
voice message. Here’s an example – scroll to the bottom of the page to
see the Call Me icon: http://teachers.northwestschool.org/nws/dmontero/9th-grade-course-materials
Check out some of the pretty cool things you can do: http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html
-
More teachers are using Quizlet – online
flashcards that students can use to study online or print out – cool little
bit of background… Quizlet was founded in 2005 by 15-year-old Andrew Sutherland
for a high-school French class. He wanted an easy-to-use tool for learning
vocabulary. He built Quizlet for himself, shared it with his friends, and it
grew from there. http://quizlet.com/teachers/
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Michelle has her 8th graders creating
their class presentations using Glogster – a website to create online
multimedia posters – it’s free for the basic tools: http://edu.glogster.com/
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Please continue to report any issues that
come up by sending an email to helpdesk@northwestschool.org
– please don’t worry about duplicating an issue that’s already been sent
in. It really helps to know if the issue is happening frequently!
What’s wonky:
-
The computer lab has been overrun lately during
lunchtime with computer game-playing students. We are reminding
students of the bump policy that prioritizes schoolwork (you are bumped off
a computer if someone needs to do school work and you are doing other things)
and empowering faculty to ask students to leave if playing games
while a class is happening in the lab.
-
You may have received an email reminding you
to change your password. This is a normal reminder every 6 months and
you can change your password here at school (not remotely) by logging into your
account, holding down the Control, Alt, Delete keys and then choosing
“Change Password”.
-
The Carson Smartboard is currently sporting an
impressive techy/crafty solution– a pencil and some tape are making the
Smartboard behave. Pop by to see but please don’t move the pencil!
A new board is likely going to be the only long-term solution.
What you wish for:
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More easy to use video cameras… we now
have new cameras- Sony Bloggies much like the old Flip Cameras - that
allow you to quickly shoot video. Check them out in the library!
-
New document cameras - are now
available in Fisken, Sprinkler and Feynman. These are Smart Document
cameras and seamlessly (hopefully) work with the Smartboards so you can pull
images from the document camera right into your Smart Notebook. More
about these to come!
Wild cards…
-
Check out Mark Terry’s impressive article
on our website called Getting It Right: Improving The Teaching of Evolution in
Schools - http://www.northwestschool.org/blog/teaching-evolution
his most recent project is here: http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/evolution/Skeletons/01.html.
-
Some
good tips on how to embed video – a great way to spice up your Teacher
page (the trick is to copy the embed code into the HTML view of your teacher
page) : http://www.miracletutorials.com/how-to-embed-video-vimeo-in-wordpress/
Phew! Lots of info.
I hope these are helpful and not too daunting.
Have a great week,
Catherine
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