Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Follow me at #DENSI2015 : My Wonderful Wednesday Playlist

Washington, D.C.
These are the sessions I am attending today and the corresponding notes, ideas, and links to presentations from the Discovery Education Summer Institute. I hope you enjoy learning this information as much as I did today...

Social Media Tips from Steve Dembo: Amplify your message with Thunderclap Twitter Service


Google with Rachel Yurk




App Smashing with Lina Rush




Perfectly Portable Presentations: with David Fisher: http://goo.gl/hpV4bF

@DavidFisher65
Google Drive tools that can be added to save to our Google Drive automatically
The MORE button in Drive- gives access to presentation tools like: drawings, forms, maps, movenote, powtoon, pixlr, zoho show, raw shorts, wevideo, and the 'connect more apps' link to the web store.

Get in Touch with your Inner Librarian with Susan Gauthier

https://sway.com/6pRx6w6PNYadMTA_ 

DENnovator Faire-- our own Maker Faire is this evening.  Click here for the website detailing the things we will see and make...

Sleep.
whew!


Bonus:
Check out the blogs of my U.K. friends here with me this week...
https://mrwrightteaches.wordpress.com/


Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Kahoot! Ghost Mode #GhostMode #iste2015 @getkahoot @kahoot

At ISTE 2015 I learned about Ghost Mode using from an awesome and personable co-founder of Kahoot, Jamie Brooker!

He was manning the Kahoot booth in Philadelphia from across the pond and personally greeting visitors + giving away really nice T-Shirts. 
I admired this so much about a company I already love.
I told him my 3rd grade students went home after using Kahoot and ON THEIR OWN they started creating Kahoots to use with their classmates... and did this all year. And are probably still doing this over the summer. 

Here's a blog post from Kahoot! :
"We’re calling this new feature ‘Ghost mode’. When you finish a game of Kahoot! you will see a new ‘Play again’ button that also contains a ghost icon. When you click on the button, the same game is relaunched. As well as your ‘live’ class, all players are joined by their ‘ghosts’! The ghosts play the game alongside live players, and their answers (and answer times) will be exactly the same as those the players entered in the previous game."
You'll see little ghost icons beside the ghost players.  Very exciting! 

P.S.- My 7th grader loves her Kahoot! T-Shirt from the Kahoot booth at #ISTE2015 and wore it proudly while touring Philadelphia!  She uses Kahoot at school in City Schools of Decatur, Georgia and can't wait to try out ghost mode.


Customizing your Google Apps Experience with beyondthechalk.net #iste2015

Technology Integration Specialist

Google Certified Innovators

beyondthechalk.net


Dean Phillips dean@beyondthechalk.net @DeanPhillipsMT
Jeff Crews jeff@beyondthechalk.net @crewsertech

Spreading the Good News: Social Media for Schools #iste2015

Spreading the Good News: Social Media for Schools
Presented by Heather Hurley, Assistant Principal, Arlington Public Schools (Disclaimer: I am quite fond of Heather!)

Recommended  Reading:
The Power of Branding
Show Your Work

Important points to remember:
·      Start SLOWLY!
·      Tell good stories
·      Share something small every day
·      Get out in the school and see what’s happening
·      Don’t be human spam and over-share
·      Give a voice to all stakeholders
·      Make sure you do not re-tweet the same users over and over
·      Use multiple platforms (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook)
·      Stick around: commit to the plan and don’t stop all of a sudden or discontinue

Jamestown Elementary’s Plan:
Based on a district committee where one representative per school is given a stipend to be social media director
Monthly meetings and trainings for committee members
District Social Media plan
Originally used Facebook, Twitter, Remind, Pinterest:

  • Twitter proved to be most useful and successful
  • Pinterest ended up being adopted by the librarian for sharing books each month that were new to the collection
  • Remind was useful to parents and managed by individual teachers
  • Facebook is launching ion the future

Add-Ons to improve the plan:

·      Nurph- a Twitter clean chat platform for teachers and administrators to facilitate chats in the evenings – a question is posted and a unique hashtag

·      Periscope: Live feed videotaping allowing a post to Twitter. Viewers can comment and also save the feed to their device
·      Flipagram: Several photos can be added and posted online with music, titles, etc.
·      Storify: Makes a story from a Twitter feed based on a particular hashtag
·      Tweetdeck: multiple Twitter accounts can be viewed in one window—Tweets can be scheduled, also great for managing Twitter chats

Follett Product Updates: Lightbox and Playaway Launchpad #iste2025

Follett New Product Announcements- #ISTE2015 https://twitter.com/follettlearning 

Follett has a new specialized digitally paired book series called Lightbox that links print books to online digital media- the digital content includes quizzes, intervention, geography with Google Maps, videos, images, etc. Currently there are over 120 titles for PK-6... and upper grades including high school will be added soon.  (I will post the list of titles when it is available).  The titles will include fiction and non-fiction.

Lightbox access will be available directly in Destiny Library Manager if you are a Destiny subscriber for all titles you purchase.  The company anticipates selling a hardcover with Lightbox access, then additional softcovers to supplement small groups or whole classes needing access to print copies.

Each book is 40.00 with unlimited, perpetual access, and includes one copy of the book plus all related digital content.  
 Pre-order them here.  Sign up now and receive a 20% discount on your first purchase.




Follett shared another K-3 product called Playaway Launchpad that is also interesting- a mobile device that circulates and has a re-set button when it is returned for easy setup for the next patron.  http://www.titlewave.com/pdf/launchpad.pdf