Tech Bytes

 It's Time to Let the Kids Out to Discover with Virtual Field Trips       Everyone could use some fun and de-stressing - students and teachers alike. Check out these virtual field trips for giving your students a view beyond their home-based classroom! Each link has wonderful possibilities that can connect with your standards, content or just curiosity and wonder in general.      Please click on the Google Doc, copy it and add it to your resources. You may find a few you too want to spend a little time with some of the links. I can't wait to check out The Louvre! Virtual Field Trips! ~Jeri

  Digital Learning Day Thursday, February 25      Join the nation of educators and students celebrating Digital Learning Day 2021! But...this is easy. Use Google Applied Digital Skills - ready-made lessons - to help get inspiration and avoid more planning. Google Applied Digital Skills pairs beautifully with Google Classroom. Video lessons, instructions and projects are all packaged in a student-friendly format for an introduction to beginning or advanced tech skills that include integration with Common Core Standards. No need for teacher tech knowledge...the skills are built into the lessons!  Google Applied Digital Skills - Digital Learning Day      And check out these Digital Learning Day resources that including kindergartners as well! Digital Learning Resources

      If you are having a hard time engaging your students or if you feel you are in constant competition with Youtube, check out this infographic for some great ideas and useful pedagogical moves!      

 Footsteps 2 Brilliance - New Assignment Feature      For teachers using Footsteps 2 Brilliance, this new feature will make it easy to personalize and differentiate your students' learning. You can simply copy the link for the activity you want into Google Classroom, Parent Square or wherever your students get their assignments. Student activity will show up on your F2B reports dashboard.      How to make an assignment: 1 - Navigate to the desired activity on  myf2b.com . 2 - Click "Assign this activity" in the top right corner 3 - Copy the link and paste it into your LMS 4 - Monitor student progress in Report Dashboards      Here is a 2 1/2 minute tutorial video...

 Easy, Interactive and Fun - Get Started with Smart!        Let SMART help you create fun, interactive, content-rich lessons that your students will love! PSD has a license for this flexible, user-friendly tool. Why not use it to make lessons and content you already have more engaging for students and more useful for you.      You can use existing Google Slides presentations and embed games, activities, assessments, worksheets, links...you name it! Find resources and lessons made by other teachers - free!       Don't pay for Nearpod, Peardeck, or other presentation software. Use this multi-dimensional platform that is already a part of school district resources.      SMART Notebook and SMART Learning Suite Online are perfect for both synchronous and asynchronous lessons. It's also a perfect tool for use when we go back to face-to-face classrooms.      Click on the link below to take a look at what SMART can do for you. Then contact one of your humble ed tech coaches for a perso

 Valentine's Activities for Distance Learning      How do we get students to engage their creative side during distance learning? Well, it's simply a matter of letting them loose on Google Slides or Google Drawings. One of our favorite ed tech bloggers, Eric Curts at Ctrl Alt Achieve has a few ideas.      The magic in this is to let students play and create their own versions of these activities. Why not give them the template to get them started and then ask them to make their own version? Or you can go to Slidesmania  and copy their template to give to students.       In addition, let your creativity shine. (We can all use a little release from the more mundane!) So click on the activity in his blog post below and Make a Copy when prompted. Now it's yours and you can change and modify it as you wish. Make a copy for each student in Google Classroom and voila, you have an asynchronous or Zoom activity that will challenge students and help teach them the tech skills they ne

 Spruce Up Your Zoom Meetings with Jamboard Student Check Ins!      Find your students interest wandering off? Wondering how they're doing with the constant barrage of messages about the future? Just want to have more interaction? Check out these Jamboard templates. One or more of these could be a great way to freshen up everybody's experience--including yours! 10 Jamboard templates for distance learning  from Ditch That Textbook        Not sure how to use Jamboard? Reach out to one of us...we are here for you! 

  You are invited to attend a FREE day of Ed Tech learning sponsored through CUE-LA. Palooza is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 20th. Tickets to the event can be secured at: bit.ly/Palooza21 This is an optional, non-paid PD offering. As we will not be hosting our AV EdTech Summit this spring, and as CUE is a virtual conference(and not free), I would recommend attending the Palooza if you have the day free.