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If I can assist you with any of your instructional technology needs, please click on date below to sign-up for an available and convenient time for you!

I look forward to meeting with you to collaborate and integrate technology efficiently and effectively into your classroom.

Unless I am out of district or there is a conflicting need, my regular campus visits are as follows, starting the week of September 6, 2021:

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News Flash

The Tech Tidbyte is a regularly produced e-newsletter from the Technology Department. I encourage you to read each issue for timely tips, pointers, and recommendations. The latest edition will be at the top of this page. Click on the image to see the entire newsletter. 

  • August 2021

    • Message from Dr. Williams-Scott, CTO
    • General Computer Setup & Information
      • Printers
      • Email & Signature
      • Default Apps
    • Are You Forgetting to Clock in to Time Clock Plus?
    • Stop Microsoft Teams from Opening on Startup
    • Which Network Do I Connect To?
    • Phishing Emails
    • Eduphoria Schedules & Lesson Plans Templates
    • Document Camera Install
    • Update Your Skyward Password on Classlink
    • Schoology Information
    • Schoology Cheat Sheet
    • What is being Communicated to Parents About Schoology?
    August 2021

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  • May 2021

    • Message from Dr. Williams-Scott, CTO
    • Reimaging Your Computer: Back it Up
    • Leaving? Google Take Out
    • Dropbox Security Concerns
    • Google Sync
    • Schoology: Prep Your Laptop & Login Before Training
    • Technology, Heat, & Humidity
    • Passwords
    May 2020

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  • April 2021

    • Message from Dr. Williams-Scott, CTO
    • Warning: Do Not Accidently Show Your Password to Your Class
    • Junk Mail Folder
    • Outlook (New) Icon
    • Updates & Backups
    • Screen Capture Extension (full screen)
    • Turn Digital Worksheets into Fun Sheets
    • Chromebook Updates

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  • January 2021

    • Message from Dr. Williams-Scott, CTO
    • Password Changes Coming Soon
    • Phishing Sounds Fun
    • Before You Take a Device Home 
    • Keyboard Shortcut: Windows+L
    • Create Digital Worksheets with Conditional Formatting
    • Virtual Fieldtrip Ideas
    • Auto-Launching Apps with Classlink

     

     

    February 2021

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  • January 2021

    • Message from Dr. Williams-Scott, CTO
    • Beware of Email From SFISD.ORG
    • Adobe Creative Cloud Help
    • Passwords Expire Around Valentine's Day
    • Creating Reading Assignments for Littles
    • MLK Resources
    • Sharpen Your Google Skills
    January 2021

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  • December 2020

    • Message from Dr. Williams-Scott, CTO
    • Drag and Drop Activities 
    • Download Your Google Classroom Gradebook
    • New Semester Courses in Google Classroom
    • Cleaning Up Email
    • Backing Up Data to Google
    • Networks Options
    December 2020

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  • November 2020

    • Message from Dr. Williams-Scott, CTO
    • Password Change
    • Eduphoria Student Testing Site & Login Info
    • Updating Password Lockers in Classlink
    • Phishing Buttons in Email
    • Email Signature
    • Student & Family Technology Help
    • Update Your Eduphoria Planner
    • Google Shared Drives
    • Google Classroom 
    • Flipgrid Text Comments
    • Teacher Created Materials for K-5 Social Studies
    November 2020

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  • October 2020

    • Message from Dr. Williams-Scott, CTO
    • Cybersecurity Training from KnowBe4
    • Google Classroom Best Practices
    • Printers
    • Cleaning Devices
    • Google Drive Trash
    • Classlink Webinars for Instructors
    • Online Textbooks
    • Smore License
    • Nearpod License
    • Zoom Save to Google Drive File Stream
    • Creating a helpdesk ticket
    October 2020

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  • April 2020

    • Message from Dr. Williams-Scott, CTO
    • Keeping your Zoom & Google Meet sessions safe & secure
    • Webmail Tips & Tricks
    • Google Classroom Cheat Sheet
    • Google Slides Templates
    • Teacher Website Editor Cheat Sheet
    • Technical Help for Students & Families
    • The Symbaloo Page at Home
    • District Resources to Untilize from Home
    • Helpdesk
    April 2020

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  • February 2020

    • Message from Dr. Williams-Scott
    • Printer Clicks
    • Images
    • Presentations that pop
    • Twitter 101
    • New Team Members
    • Password Reminders
    February 2020

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  • December 2019

    • KnowBe4 Security Tips
    • Passwords
    • Tech for the Holidays
    December 2019

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  • November 2019

    • Update your password
    • Safe Email from @knowbe4.com
    • Reminder for district owned devices
    • Nearpod
    • Audio in Google Slides
    • Screencastify
    • Ways to speed up your phone
    November 2019

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  • October 2019

    • Changing online behavior to combat cyber criminals
    • KnowBe4 Campaign
    October 2019

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  • September 2019

    • Quick Chromebook troubleshooting
    • Login Reminders
    September 2019

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  • August 2019

    • Beginning of the year computer setup
    • Eduphoria beginning of year housekeeping
    • General login information
    • Technology Instructional Team Websites
    August 2019

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  • May 2019

    • Summer Projects
    • Computer Backups
    • Suspicious Emails - Viruses
    • Summer PD
    • Google Takeout
    • EOY Projects
    • Novel Effect
    May 2019

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  • March 2019

    • Protecting our children's cyber security
    • SailOn
    • Speak It 
    • Book Creator
    March 2019

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  • February 2019

    • Student Social Media Sites to Watch
    • A Few of our Favorite Things from TCEA
    • Blabberize
    • 60+ Best Math Websites
    • Notable Women AR App 

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  • December 2018

    • Changing your password
    • Energy Shutdown
    • Favorite Things
    • Teacher Feature
    • Ed Tech Websites
    Dec Tech Tidbyte

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  • October 2018

    • How to upload Eduphero certificates
    • Email etiquette and viruses
    • Online textbooks 
    • Teacher feature - Classroom Websites
    October 2018

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  • August 2018

    • Adding Printers 
    • Updating Forethought teams
    • Textbook and other logins
    • Few of our Favorite Things
    • Restoring a reimaged computer
    August 2018

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  • May 2018

    • Summer prep
    • Teacher feature
    • Summer learning opportunities
    May 2018

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  • April 2018

    • Summer workshops
    • Teacher feature
    • Sharing videos with students
    April 2018

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  • February 2018

    • Favorite things from TCEA
    • Teacher feature
    • Virus reminders
    • Bit Defender
    February 2018

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  • January 2018

    • Stay technically healthy in 2018
    • What can you do with your Chromebook?
    January 2018

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  • November 2017

    • Applied digital skills
    • Default web browser settings
    • Chromebooks
    • Password security
    • Bit Defender
    • Teacher feature
    November 2017

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  • October 2017

    • Creating email folders and rules
    • FastForWord
    • Khan Academy
    • Teacher feature: Google classroom, Plickers, and Sketch Up
    • Teacher Websites
    October 2017

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  • September 2017

    • Forethought help
    • Online Textbooks
    • Digital Resources
    • Tips & Tricks: Go Noodle, Kahoot, Chromebook management and care
    September 2017

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  • August 2017

    • Resources for Windows 10
    • Beginning of the year tips and tricks
    August 2017

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Each week that I am at your campus I send out an email with a few of my favorite things that I have come across. Sometimes they are blog posts, engaging websites, or super cool tools we found. I will add each of those little snippets here so you can easily reference them when you need them.  Check back often for updates! 
Storyline Online
Who remembers Reading Rainbow? My favorite part of the show was when LeVar Burton would read aloud his favorite children's books aloud while the images of the book were shown. Storyline Online is a free website that does just that but your favorite actors and actress are the ones reading the books. Who wouldn't love hearing Betty White read aloud Harry, the Dirty Dog


Storyline Online features apps for Android, iOS, and Chrome browser. The stories and app are free and will remain so. 

Check it out today!! 
Audible Stories

Audible is offering their read aloud stories for completely free the entire time schools are closed. All stories are free to stream on your desktop, laptop, phone, or tablet. 

The stories are organized in a variety of categories, such as the following: 


  • Littlest Learners
  • Elementary
  • Tween
  • Teen
  • Literary Classics
  • Fold and Fairy Tales for All

 

Epic

Epic! is the leading digital library for kids 12 & under and they are offering FREE teacher accounts for students to have remote access through June 30th. 

With Epic! your students can instantly access 40,000 of the best books, learning videos, quizzes and more!

They have the following categories to choose from: 

  • Popular
  • 5 & Under 
  • Ages 6-8
  • Ages 9-12 
  • Award Winners
  • Nonfiction
  • Spanish
  • Videos
Vooks

Bring storybook to life with Vooks, a kid-safe, ad-free streaming library of read-aloud animated storybooks. 

As a thank you to all teachers, Vooks is offering a FREE FIRST YEAR exclusively to all school teachers. 

Vooks bring children's books to life with animated illustrations, read-a-long text and narrated story. It has a variety of titles that students have loved hearing. 

Some of Vooks most popular titles: 

  • They All Saw a Cat
  • Where Are You?
  • Colors on the Farm
Storynory
Storynory has a variet of stories and tales in video, audio, and text format. They are accessible via the iOS or Android App store.

Students can read the story on the screen while listening to the audio recording, enhancing their reading and listening skills.

"Storynory has been giving free audio stories to the world since November 2005. We are a podcast and a website with audio streaming. All content is free."
Loyal Books

Loyal Books offers thousands of classic and popular audio and eBooks for FREE!  

They include books in the following languages: Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and many more. 

Loyal Books includes these children's classics: 


  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin
  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
  • The Swiss Family Robinson
  • Aesop's Fables
  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
  • Peter Pan 



Sight word assessment + Google Forms = Winning 

Do you have having tons of papers after assessing your students' knowledge of their sight words? Now you can digitally assess your students using Google Forms. You can now assess your students each 9 weeks or as often as needed and all the dad will be on one Google Sheet for easy evaluation of the data. I created a form for all the kinder sight words and a form for the color and numbers as well. The sight words are broken down into 9 weeks so you can test only what you need when you need it. Check out the links below and feel free to use them if you would like:  

Sight Word Form

Sample quiz:


This link is to my quiz so you can see it as it would look when you give it, it is only for you to play with not to give to students, because you will not have access to the data collected.

Sample Form

Editable quiz:

This link will force a copy of your to do what you want with it and for you to use in your classroom. It will create a Google Sheet that will collect your data.

Copy of Editable Form

Color and Number Form

Sample quiz:

This link is to my quiz so you can see it as it would look when you give it, it is only for you to play with not to give to students, because you will not have access to the data collected.

Sample Form

Editable quiz:

This link will force a copy of your to do what you want with it and for you to use in your classroom. It will create a Google Sheet that will collect your data.

Copy of Editable Form

Earth Day

What is Earth Day?

April 22, 2019 is Earth Day. To learn more about Earth Day and what you can do to help this movement click on the following link: www.earthday.org 

Earth Day Resources for Your Classroom

Do you want to celebrate Earth Day in your classroom? Check out the blog below to find picture books, videos, lesson plans, activities, and projects to teach us the importance of Earth Day. 

Earth Day Blog
Novel Effect

Foster a Love For Reading

With this app you will engage the entire class with a multi-sensory reading experience that connects with a variety of learning styles. You will bring your books to life! Novel Effect turns you into a master storyteller. Invisible technology follows along, as you bring the story to life and set your student or child’s imagination free. Custom composed music and sounds treat each story with care, to honor the spirit and tone of every cherished book. Smart voice recognition stays in sync with your reading style. There are hundreds of compatible books for kids of all ages with more added each week!

 

Book Creator

Unleash Student Creativity

Book creator is a simple tool for creating awesome digital books. Create your own teaching resources or have you students take the reins. 

Combine text, images, audio, and video to create:

  • Interactive stories
  • Digital portfolios
  • Research journals
  • Poetry books
  • Science reports
  • Instruction manuals 
  • About me books
  • Comic adventures
WriterReader

What is WriteReader?

WriteReader is a unique digital learning platform where children can learn to read by writing and publishing small digital books. With WriteReader your students takes pictures of family, friends, things or situation and write about them in their actual level of written language. A teacher then "translates" the child's text to conventional writing. Students can also tell their story by adding audio to the books. 

Who doesn't love a good emoji? We use them to express ourselves in text and social media, now you can create your very own emoji to use in your presentations or to decorate your bulletin boards. 

Click on the link below:

Emoji Builder 

You can now add your Bitmoji to your presentations, email, or any other digital application you may use. Check out this Bitmoji Extension in the google store. 

If you haven’t checked out Google Classroom, now is the time to do it! It is such a great tool to use in your classroom and with more and more chromebooks added each year it is something we can all  start using.  I even have some Kinder teachers using Google Classroom this year at another campus.

shake up learning

Check out the latest blog post from Casey Bell about the latest updates with Google Classroom:

 

littles

This summer I read a great book called Google Apps for Littles. It has so many great lessons and ideas to use with Pre K- 1st grade students. We often think that the little ones aren’t capable of using technology like 3rd and 4th graders, but they can! We just have to believe they can. Check out Cristine Pinto’s blog:

blog

 It’s full of ideas and lessons to use right now in your classroom, and the best part is she has created all the templates for you and they are FREE!! J

My favorite template I found on her site was for login cards. Check it out:

Pure GENIUS! I have modified the template to fit our district logins in you would like to use it:

border

Have you heard the latest news about Discovery education?? We have made logging in for students and teachers much easier with a single sign on solution! Now when you go to the Symbaloo page and click on Discover Education it will open up and ask you to login with you Google Apps account. No more having to remember yet another password! Many of you have used Discovery Education for years and know all about streaming the award-winning digital content, but did you also know there other features as well like powerful profession development, digital textbooks, virtual fieldtrips,  web-math,  and so much more! Don’t miss out on all the amazing tools and resources that Discovery Education has to offer. 

    1. Webmath - Webmath is a math-help web site that generates answers to specific math questions and problems, as entered by a user, at any particular moment. The math answers are generated and displayed real-time, at the moment a web user types in their math problem and clicks "solve." In addition to the answers, Webmath also shows the student how to arrive at the answer.
    1. Virtual Field Trips - Take your students beyond the classroom walls and into some of the world's most iconic locations for rich and immersive learning experiences — no permission slips required. Tour the National Archives, see how an egg farm works, explore NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, or hear from the President of the United States. Discovery Education Virtual Field Trips are fun, educational, and free! Check out some of our featured and upcoming Virtual Field Trips below or browse the full archive by category. For a complete list of Virtual Field Trips coming up, check out the Discovery Education Events Calendar.
    1. Discovery Now - Discovery Now is your destination for educational content and classroom resources from the Discovery family of channels that inspire curiosity and engage students in learning. Bring animal cams into the class from Animal Planet, reinforce the importance of biodiversity from Discovery Channel, or ignite a passion for science in partnership with Science Channel. Discovery Now offers a range of programs and resources to complement your classroom instruction.
    1. Puzzle Maker - Puzzlemaker is a puzzle generation tool for teachers, students and parents. Create and print customized word search, criss-cross, math puzzles, and more-using your own word lists.
    1. Assessment Builder - Learn more about Technology Enhanced Items (TEI) Create a Technology-Enhanced Assessment (TEA) from an item library that offers a variety of interactive item types.
    1. Board Builder - Create a fun, engaging, digital project with any content using board builder.
    1. Assignment Builder - Build and store assignments for your students that use Discovery Education curriculum content.
    1. Writing Prompt Builder - Give students writing practice with these images that include composition prompts.
    1. Professional Development - Find ways to bring digital resources into your classroom!

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ePortfolios and Google Sites: 

One of my very favorite blogs (Shake Up Learning) recently did a post about using Google Sites to create an ePorfolio. An ePortfolio or Learning Portfolio can be a powerful tool for students to demonstrate mastery, show growth overtime, and create dynamic learning experience for students that go beyond one and done, and each beyond the walls of the classroom to continue reading Casey Bell's blog post click on the link below: 


How to Create Powerful ePortfolios with Google Sites

Check out this pod cast on ePortfolios:

Engaging Learners with Video: 

I came across this blog a few weeks ago and found one of my new favorite tools... ClassHook

Using video in the classroom isn't a new idea. When we were kids we remember the when that big TV was rolled into our classroom, or when the film strip projector was powered on and the lights went out. Today many teachers use Youtube in their classroom, but finding relevant and safe content can take some time. With classhook you can search video clips from your favorite tv shows and movies that tie to standards and show an examples or what you are teaching. For instance you may be discussing similes in your ELA class and search Classhook for simile clips and come across this perfect example from the movie Shrek: 

Shrek

For more information on using video in your classroom to engage learners check out the following blog post: 

Engaging Learners with Video

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Engaging Learners with Vid

Tech It Out! – Tap Lights! (This one is low tech, but effective!) -Claudia Valastro

Tap lights are a simple, but wonderful tool for homes.  So why not use them in your classroom?

Here are just a few of the creative ways teachers are utilizing tap lights with their classes.

  • Creating the various stages of appropriate noise level with tap lights is a great way to visually remind your students of what is expected at that moment in your class.  Different activities may require different levels and the use of lights with your class lets them know where they should be.

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  • Whether or not your class uses a hall pass when students need to go to the restroom, this use of tap lights not only lets the rest of the class know someone is out, it will help remind you, the teacher, as well.  

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  • Students have a light they can tap when they have a question during non-talking activity.

    Have a set of tap lights to use for review games when you don't want to review digitally.  Each team gets a light and pushes it when they have the answer.

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  • Use a tap light that reminds students that you are working with a small group and not to interrupt until the light is off.

    There are likely many more uses in the classroom.

    Some methods require words taped or painted on the lights, others have the instructions next to them, and some only need to click on or off.  It just depends on how you want to use them.  Sometimes simple is really effective.

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Thanks to @miss6thmath and @fridyereading for sharing.
In education we love to beg, borrow, and steal. Below are some of my favorite educators to follow on social media and their blogs. They all have fantastic ideas you can use in your classroom today!  
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