Summer PD Inclusive Practices

Kicking off the week and day with a Summer PD workshop on a Special Education and Inclusive Practices with my Nashoba colleagues.

I have curated some resources and a presentation for day 3 of the workshop that I will present on Special Education and Technology here along with a Link  to the presentation.




Some additional new announcements from Google this week at ISTE.
4 new tools link here http://goo.gl/iFm6sw  (see link and below for details from Google)

1. Accelerate the feedback loop: Quizzes in Google Forms 
Getting feedback early helps students learn and teachers teach. Starting today, Quizzes in Google Forms will allow teachers to auto-grade multiple choice and checkbox questions — so teachers can spend less time grading and more time teaching. 
2. Google Cast for Education, a free Chrome app that allows students and teachers to share their screens wirelessly from everywhere in the classroom. Cast for Education carries video and audio across complex school networks, has built-in controls for teachers and works with Google Classroom so it’s easy to invite your students. And because the app runs on the teacher’s existing computer, it doesn’t require new hardware. Teachers run the Cast for Education app, and students can share their screens with the existing Cast feature in Chrome. Check out the Cast for Education video.

3. A collection of creative apps on Chromebooks that schools can purchase as a bundle.
Explain Everything, Soundtrap and WeVideo are creative apps that help students demonstrate their understanding of curriculum through their own unique voice.

4. Bring curriculum to life: introducing the Expeditions app 
Since we launched the beta Expeditions Pioneer Program in September of 2015, more than one million students across 11 countries have taken one of our virtual reality trips. Today, we’re making Expeditions available to everyone. To get started, all teachers need to do is download the Expeditions app onto a set of devices. With more than 200 Expeditions to choose from, students can journey far and wide, learning from immersive new experiences. Our content offering has also grown and now includes Expeditions made by established educational content providers including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Pearson is beginning work on Expeditions content as well. The app is available today for Android and will be available for iPhones and iPads soon.

Wrapping up another school year!

Looking forward taking time off this summer.  I plan to teach a few GAFE Classes this summer, present at a SPED in school workshop that will count towards recertification. I plan to showcase GAFE and Web 2.0 tools to help all students achieve.

I will continue to use twitter this summer to stay up to date new features in classroom for the fall and Google's announcement with changes coming to Google Sites.  According to to Google the new Google Sites, "you can build beautiful, functional pages to aggregate and distribute content across your enterprise, optimized for every screen. A new intuitive drag-and-drop design experience supports real-time collaboration by multiple editors, just like in Docs, and offers easy access to all your content from Calendar, Docs, Drive, Maps and more. The new Sites also includes themes and layouts designed to scale and flex to any screen size, so they’re as useful when you access them on the 30-inch monitor at your desk or your smartphone on your commute."

And thanks to many educators that have the beta version, I am able to follow their progress on twitter and and their blogs.

I am hoping to incorporate many of the new features if released into my summer classes, especially with Project Based Learning resources.

Topic - Mentor Meeting Overview of Positive Climate/Bullying Prevention & Intervention Guidelines

Discussion for today Mentor Meeting
Overview of Positive Climate/Bullying Prevention & Intervention Guidelines
Presentation Link  Slides 27-31 Social Media Outline


Presentation to all freshman students 12/11/15 in conjunction with the School Resources Officers and District Attorney's Office. Key message (Good - Bad - Ugly) and Consequences

Google Takeout Tool (seniors and retirees take all your data with you)

Seniors, before graduation please make sure you take your Google Data with you!
If you are taking all of your data, lots of files make sure you use Google Takeout.

Go to see the screencast/recording below:

To start the process go to https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout 
Note: School Accounts are unlimited so you may want to clean up your account prior to the transfer.

More details:
See document with details: https://goo.gl/EsJzLq  and Video
Share a few files - Try this link https://goo.gl/VZi1m6

Checkout Twitter for updates #googletakeout

Teaching GAFE Reflection and new features

When teaching a GAFE class last week we introduce new features just released by Google.
Check out the Google Blog here on Accepting Questions from your audience

I plan on testing out with a few classes this week and provide an example here.
Note/Tip: to insert a Google Presentation into a Blog you must use File Publish and get the embed code and edit under html in the blog.


See example of a student asking questions of audience!
Video link

Bonus! Allowing your audience to ask questions isn’t the only way we’re improving the presentation experience on Slides today. We’re also making the following possible:

• Use your mouse as a laser pointer in Slides on the web. Just choose the laser pointer option from the toolbar and move your mouse, and a red laser-like dot will appear in the same place on screen, helping your audience know where to look and when.

• In the Slides iOS app, present to a new Hangout or to a Hangout selected from a meeting on your Google Calendar. For more information, check out the Help Center. 

What will you try with students and teachers when presenting your next presentation?

Carousel Digital Signage - Tightrope Media Systems

Earlier this year the seniors were looking at providing signage options in the builing and I bebegn to explore what other schools are using.  I learned about Carousel and was able to determine we had an existing service in our distirct.  We were able to upgrade the server and configure the library Flat Screen display with a player and a pre-made channel. Learn more about  Carousel Digital Signage - Tightrope Media Systems and pre-made channels. Our next steps will be to configure a device in the lobby and for the Senior class gift a unit in the cafeteria, hopefully before the seniors graduate. Stay tuned for more details.

Motivating teachers for PD and changing the culture

I love showing teachers new ways to integrate technology into their teaching practices.  It is particularly rewarding when you have the opportunity to teach a graduate level class over an extended time period and therefore, teachers are able to make an investment in the course, assignments and projects.  Those teachers are able to quickly and effectively implement the tools in their own classrooms and are rewarded with student engagement and results.

The problem is trying to teach teachers ways to integrate technology into their classrooms within the time restrictions of a school day and in addition to all of their other daily responsibilities.   It is a challenge to engage teachers who may not be technologically savvy; who may not appreciate the value of technology; or who are overwhelmed with their many classroom responsibilities.  The best way to accomplish this is to try to motivate and build momentum.  This month I was given the opportunity to hijack our school staff meeting.  My challenge is to figure out what I can do in one hour to get teachers to think outside the box.  My method was to adopt the Edcamp model and allow teachers choice in professional development topics.  

 How do you do this?

1.  Find a group of teachers that are using technology or are willing to take on a lesson or a project.
2. Help design and facilitate the lesson.
3. Use the EdCamp model, or at least stage it the first time by providing choice.
4. Listen to what they want and at the same time show them new option.
5. Collect the information using Google forms to showcase.
6. Create a signup for a PD session form and post to a Staff Google Classroom and share the results.
7. Create the session slides and share with presenters, as editors.
8. Build momentum, one tweet at a time.
9. Tweet out an image of their slide and tag the next presenter.
   What if everyone is not tweeting?  
10.  Provide options, post to padlet and comment in Google Classroom.
11. Work with a teacher and market their session in three minutes and use a building hashtag #nashobalearns.
12.  Make it fun, provide a raffle to encourage engagement and collaboration.
13. Promote what teachers are doing, encourage and support.
14. Share by inviting stakeholder to the sessions.
15. Remind staff it does not have to be perfect and thank them for taking a risk.
16. Get teachers behind you and support each other.
17. Remind them that the only way to implement change is to drive the change.

Created with Padlet

Most importantly, show teachers the possibilities and keep moving forward!
Here are a few is a great article and resources (5-Minute Film Festival: Taking Back PD with Edcamp) describing the Edcamp model from Edutopia.

I am holding my breath for our session tomorrow, but I am feeling optimistic. Follow us on Twitter #nashobalearns!