I couldn’t resist putting an Enya song in this week as we watched our 1:1 Chromebooks in grades 7-12, and a few classroom at the middle school, “sail away.” I’ll admit it, I cried…quietly to myself, in my car, alone. It had to be done, for the safety of our students, absolutely. Every day I feel so proud when I see all that everyone is doing with technology – from little tasks to HUGE assignments. However, this too shall pass and we will come out of better, stronger, and hopefully with even MORE Chromebooks! The technology is simply a tool, and it does not replace nor is it needed for GREAT teaching.

In the event you are unaware of what I’m talking about in this post, click here for one of the many local news stories.  A special thank you to Greg Shea, who brought coffee and donuts to the IT office Tuesday. You are so thoughtful. 😊

TIPS THIS WEEK 🙌🏻 🙌🏻 🙌🏻

How to use the cell phone to access Google Apps

Since the JRSRHS is without devices, many are using student cell phones.  SHOUT OUT to Curt Shippee who loves Google Forms and uses them regularly in class! Shout out also to Annemarie Meaney and Chris Dickey who were using Google Classroom with students Thursday morning on cell phones! We ran into one little snafu with student logins, so if you’re also using student cell phones to access Google Classroom and other G Suite apps, below are two video tutorials and/or Slide Decks to show you how to get the students on their school accounts.  If a student is not logged in on the school account on his or her phone, then they cannot open Google Classroom or any other google application. It will say “You need Permission.”

Using Iphones with School Accounts Video or Slide Deck

Using Samsung with School Accounts Video or Slide Deck

Tech for Cell Phones

The sites below are great on ALL devices. However, if you are using student cell phones, and want to use some technology in the classroom, these are some apps that run particularly well on a cell phone for technology integration:

🐙 Plickers (no student devices needed – just a “plicker”) 🐙

 🐙 KaHoot! (has a phone app) 🐙

 🐙Quizizz (has a phone app) 🐙

🐙 Pear Deck (go to peardeck.com/join on a phone) 🐙

🐙 Quizlet (has a phone app) 🐙

🐙 Flipgrid (has a phone app) 🐙

🐙 SeeSaw (has a phone app) 🐙

I’m sure there are many, many more great apps that work well in the classroom! Feel free to share and comment below, it may help your colleagues during these low-tech times!

NEW TECH 💻 💻 💻

KaHoot! Jumble

KaHoot! is a fun site to use in class all on its own, but now they have even more to offer! KaHoot! came out with KaHoot Jumble.  This game wants kids to sequence the answers into the correct order.  So, rather than choose the correct answer, students really need to think critically and order the 4 options correctly. This would work well for ordering numbers (fractions, decimals, whole numbers etc) or sentence parts, or anything really that follows a sequence. You can read more about this here.

KAMI

This application, that we purchased for teachers district wide, allows you to manipulate PDF’s.  It also allows you to push out PDFs to students to manipulate.  Here is a video with a very BRIEF overview of this program. I can’t say enough about it – it’s really cool!

🐟 🐟 🐟 If you would like to use any of the tech listed above or would like any assistance at all, please don’t hesitate to reach out.  Here is my booking calendar: https://efisher.youcanbook.me/  My calendar sometimes is the quickest way to get me! 🐟 🐟 🐟

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

oFISHally yours,

Erin Fisher

(PS – I will be teaching an online course through PCEA on everything Google titled Teaching and Learning with Google Applications! Check it out here: https://pcea.massteacher.org/courses/ )