The Friday Tech Tip

Happy Thursday! Last year around Spring Break I talked about the importance of unplugging. Again, I encourage all of you reading this to take a couple of minutes around Spring Break and ask yourself "Am I being intentional with my technology? Am I creating spaces for my students where they are using technology intentionally?" It is sometimes a struggle for my family. The Worst!    We cut the chord at my house about a month ago in an attempt to be more intentional about how and why we use devices in our house.  We still have a television but we have decided to go with a streaming service  and get far far fewer television channels.  Because he is a kid and he has ninja/ Russian hacker technology  skills  my 1st Grade son was sneaky and found a way (and I kid you not) to watch 1970s era Popeye cartoons. It drives me and Allyson  absolutely up the wall. I mean, I'm proud of him but it drives me crazy for a couple of reasons. 1) Look, I'm Sor...

Happy Friday! In the last couple of years in the Elbert County School District we have been talking about the SAMR model to purposely align Technology with our learning outcomes. If you are new to SAMR  SAMR stands for (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition).   We usually talk about how a big focus is to get beyond substitution. In my opinion when our  students are creating the same thing using technology that they could do without technology then I reflect and ask myself "what's the point?" I strongly believe that technology offers us the chance to create new things, get instant feedback, and better align what we are teaching to our students learning styles.  I'm also often asked if the point is always to get to Redefinition with my learning tasks. My answer to that is to make sure that our technology enhances and transforms our learning goals. We are very fortunate to now have WeVideo in our School District. All students wh...

Happy Friday! I get asked a good bit, "Hey Clint, what got you into educational technology?" I'm glad you asked. In 1986 I was in 4th Grade at Hollydale Elementary School in Marietta. Once a Month on Thursdays our teacher, Mrs. Duke,  checked out the Mac Cart from the library. By Mac cart I mean the one Apple computer for the entire school.  We would roll it down to her room and we would sit in alphabetical order in the floor (You guessed it, since I'm a Winter I was in the back which is a good thing because that's how I found out I needed glasses) she would then pass out the  class set of almanacs to all of us and then we would put in the giant floppy disk and play. . . . .. CARMEN SANDIEGO.... It was so much fun. . I never used an almanac in my life! I could beat Lee Broadwell in finding out that Yen was the official currency of Japan (Take that LEE).  I was engaged, I got to compete, I got to collaborate with my classmates, I got to use technology t...

Happy Friday! Yesterday I was fortunate enough to spend some time with ECMS Social Studies Teachers in 5th - 7th grades. I thought we had some great conversations about using technology to enhance the great things that they are already doing. One of the trends that kept coming up was using Google MyMaps.   MyMaps. Mymaps is a collaborative way for students to create maps and create a story. Students can make custom maps and drop and add pins and use those pins to insert facts, pictures, videos, and land marks. Just like a Google Doc Google Mymaps is collaborative and students can work on one map at the same time.  MyMaps can be used for the following 1) Tell a story 2) Have a way for students show what they know using many different 3) Jasper Huff shared how this could be used as a way for a Formative assessment 4) A way for the teacher to pin all of the different authors, places, landforms, etc. . . throughout the year for the students to be able to view. I have crea...

Happy Friday and Happy Read across America Day! This past week in our Google Level 2 Certification Course we talked about Google Add On and Extensions.  This caused me to go back and start thinking about my favorite Extensions and Add-ons. To review from previous posts Extensions are programs that are added to your chrome browser and work in Google Chrome. For example, Push to Classroom is an Extension that is pushed out to all chromebooks in the District. This is an easy way for teachers to push out websites to students. Here are 2 other  Extensions that you might want to consider. Screencastify - This is a real easy way to record your screen and your voice. You can push these screencasts to Youtube or Google Drive. A great way for students to explain something or a way for you to provide instruction and students and parents can view it On demand Save to Google Drive - This is a great way to save things that you have found on the internet. Found a picture you like...