CurTech93

Google Education on Air was a live event Friday evening and all day Saturday.  Many speakers presented different ideas for utilizing GSuite with students and for professional learning.  Google also announced a few new updates to GSuite.  Most exciting: parents no longer need a Gmail account to access email updates from Classroom.  Parents can now register with any email account. Check out this update and more here:  http://www.controlaltachieve.com/2016/12/new-gsuite-features.html 

 Have you been using Google Classroom? Many teachers and students are enjoying the convenience of using Google Classroom to push out  and turn in assignments, to hold student resources (like rubrics, anchor charts, etc.), and to flip classrooms. Did you know that iCurio now connects to Google Classroom? You can assign any resource found in iCurio through your Google Classroom. Here is a brief video that demonstrates how to move iCurio content into Google Classroom. Not sure how to access iCurio? Not sure how your students can access iCurio? Be sure to visit CurTech and review how to do those things. There are a number of digital resources available in our district. Sometimes it is difficult to remember how to access them all! Go to CurTech, to the Technology Resources page and find your resource. Click on the link and you will find videos, documents, and other links that support you as you make use of these digital resources. If you still have questions, the l...

“Let’s Recap” is a website that was featured at the August 2016 Summer Tech Academy.  “Recap is a free student video response and reflection app developed by the makers of Swivl. It gives teachers and parents insight into students’ learning and progress. Recap provides evidence of student thinking, improves formative assessment, and supports personalized learning.” Some ways it can be used: “ Formative Assessment Quickly and easily gather deep insights on each student for personalization and differentiation. Present thinking Meet common core standards with video that captures evidence of thinking when doing or completing assignments. Build Reflective Practices Help each student and the whole class build upon each lesson with regular reflections. Keep parents engaged Share with parents to gain alignment and help answer “what did you learn in class today?” This is how it works: “ Assign Create and assign questions to a student, a group of students or t...

Are you looking to expand your classroom globally? Check out Discovery Education’s “Collaborative Projects.” You can find this information by clicking on the Professional Learning tab at the top of your Discovery Education home page. Scroll down to the blue box entitled “Events and Experiences,” and then choose “Collaborative Projects.” These offer a connection to classrooms around the world. "A unique, web-based educational platform, GlobalLab enables students, teachers, and learners of all ages to pose questions and together find a n swers." Projects are available for grades K-8 and align with various standards (Science, Social Studies, and ELA). If you choose to get involved with Discovery's Collaborative Projects, tweet about it using the hashtag #CelebratewithDE.

This is our 3rd blog post around Discovery Education updates this fall!  Attached is an overview of the updates in the Science Techbook. Be sure to download this document since it includes numerous links that will give you more information about the updates. Some of those updates include: A simplified design New phenomena-driven questions Technology-enhanced items (many mirror PARCC items) Integrated STEM learning experiences   Also attached is an overview and an invitation to Discovery Education’s VIRTCON ! VIRTCON is a virtual conference run by Discovery Education that takes place on Saturday, October 22nd. Check it out!

Google has announced multiple new updates - the biggest being Google Apps for Education (GAFE) is now called G Suite.  The name change reflects the wide range of applications in a "suite" format.  More information and updates can be found at the G Suite official update blog: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/ Enjoy the new G Suite!

Google has released additional updates to Docs and Drive.  Here are two updates we wanted to highlight to everyone: 1)  Drive will now do spelling recognition - if your spelling is a little off, the search feature in Drive will recommend search words to you.  This can be very helpful to our students who may have had frustration searching in Drive. 2)  You can now add columns to a Google Doc!  In the past a table was the only way to add a column.  Now the page can be divided into columns.  Click on "Format" then "Columns." Both of these updates will roll-out slowly to all district Google accounts over the next week.  Be on the look-out for these great updates! Read more about these updates (and a few others) here: http://googleappsupdates.blogspot.com/2016/09/what-you-love-about-google-search-now.html

This is our second blog post in our Discovery Education series.  Attached is an overview of five ways to " Rediscovery Discovery Education " this school year.  Included are: Board Builder Spotlight on Strategies (SOS) Virtual Experiences The new Professional Learning Center Accessing student accounts Be sure to check out My Learning Plan as more LEAD courses are being offered focusing on Discovery Education. Have a wonderful week!

We hope the school year is off to an amazing start!  Discovery Education has been putting together information to help get the year started.  We will be sending their info brochures for the next few weeks. This week's feature: 1)  How to archive a class from last school year (if you created classes) 2)  How to create new classes for this school year 3)  A welcome back with new features to explore We will also be hosting the DEN Ambassador Program again this fall.  The three face-to-face meetings will focus on teaching with digital media in the classroom.  It is a wonderful LEAD experience for all grade levels and content areas!  You can access this LEAD course in My Learning Plan Archiving Classes and Creating New Classes New Features

Welcome Back! Another new school year is under way! There are always so many things to remember to get done when students return to the classroom. We have created a specific page on CurTech93 to help you with these tasks. When you are on CurTech93, please choose the tab “ Getting The Year Started .” This will provide you with reminders about digital tools to set up, links to your curriculum resources, and resources to review. Please let Becky or Karen know if there is anything missing from this page, that would be beneficial as people set up classrooms at the beginning of the year. Have a great 2016-2017 School Year!

Welcome back from CurTech93!  We are very excited for the 2016-2017 school year! We have three professional development opportunities to consider for the first part of the school year.  Please let Karen and Becky know if you have any questions. We will be hosting the Discovery Education DEN Ambassador Phase 1 program again this fall.  This LEAD course will introduce you to the DEN Ambassador program, focus on incorporating technology and teaching with digital media, and looking into all the opportunities for learning and growth with Discovery Education.  We have three face-to-face meetings (with pizza!): Wednesday, September 14th Elsie Johnson Innovation Center 4:15pm-5:45pm Wednesday, October 19th Carol Stream Innovation Center 4:15pm-5:45pm Wednesday, November 30th Roy DeShane Innovation Center 4:15pm-5:45pm We are offering an online book study for the book Flip Your Classroom by John Bergmann and Aaron Sams.  Bergmann and Sams give practical advice ...

 The 4th Annual CCSD93 Summer Tech Academy is taking place during the weeks of June 13-17 and August 1-5.  We have over 70 different classes this year, with 90% of them taught by classroom teachers! Sign up in My Learning Plan to attend part of the week or the entire week (3 credit hours for full week attendance). Some new classes being offered this year include: Math“app”matics Dubin This is a session for iPad users that want to become more familiar with math apps offered on the iPad.  We will learn and share ideas for using math apps throughout the different levels of SAMR and allow time to practice and explore the apps while we learn.  Please have the following apps downloaded and ready to use: Math Doodles, Geoboard, Number Pieces, Ten Frames and Pattern Shapes. All Levels iPad Early Childhood Teachers, K-2 Teachers Math 90 minutes Please install Math Doodles, Geoboard, Number Pieces, Ten Frames and Pattern Shapes prior to this ...

Happy Teacher Appreciation Day! Google has gotten into the spirit and sent a special gift to all Google Classroom users:  scheduled posts!  You can now schedule a post in Google Classroom.  Follow these steps to stay super-organized in Google Classroom! 1)  Open Classroom and click the + icon 2)  Choose "Create Assignment" 3)  Enter all of your assignment information - don't forget to add any links! 4)  Click the drop-down next to "Assign" 5)  Choose "Schedule" and choose the date/time you would like the assignment to be posted to Google Classroom A big idea for this new feature:  Use the feature to create assignments ahead of time.  Sometimes we have additional time and are ready to create and post assignments.  This new feature will allow you to create a large amount of assignments and post them at specific times. Check this site for a visual walk-through of these directions and more ideas for this great feature!

Discovery Education has so many resources on their site that it can be very overwhelming! How do you use the Science TechBook? How do you use SOS strategies? How can you limit your options when searching? Where do you find the video you want to use? Discovery has a professional development section that can walk you through some of those questions. Here is how you access it: Log into Discovery Education On the top black bar, click on Professional Development Click on Interactive Training You will see a number of “courses” listed. Choose one that you need to/ would like to know more about. In each course, Discovery has provided videos to support your learning, as well as pdfs that you can print out and follow. Currently there are 16 courses available, and Discovery is always adding more. If you find something in this list that you would like to learn more about, take the time to work through these training courses!   Effective the fall of 2016, CCSD93 will be adding an ...

Google is updating again and adding new features to Google Drive!  While your Google Drive view and layout will stay the same, a few new features will make your experience even better! First, Google Hangouts is updating to allow 25 individual Google Accounts to be on the same call at the same time.  This is a big increase from 15! Second, Google Drive now offers a "link sharing" option.  Click on the "link sharing" icon to immediately get a sharable link to send to students and colleagues.  See this in action here:  http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2016/04/4-new-google-drive-updates-teachers.html Finally,  Google is adding a setting that will all you to share documents and folders with others and have the sharing turned off after a specific date.  The expiration date feature will allow you to decide when a file or folder should no longer be shared with students or colleagues. Be sure to read the blog post at http://www.educatorstechnology.com...

Discovery Education - SOS! Discovery Education has an incredible resource called SOS! SOS stands for “Spotlight on Strategies.” The strategies can be used with their videos and other technology, but they do not have to be used in that way. They have over 100 strategies! Some of them you may be familiar with, some you may have forgotten, and some may be entirely new to you. Check it out! Log into Discovery Ed and then look at the black toolbar along the top. Find “professional development” and click on that. Now you will be on a page that offers a variety of professional development (we will look at that next week!). Click on the SOS picture:   This will take you to a page that lists a number of strategies by category. Choose one of them and you will have the option to read a brief description, watch a video describing the strategy, print out a pdf of the strategy, or choose another strategy in the same category. At the bottom of each SOS page, there is an opportun...