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We will have a Padlet that you will submit your victories, lessons learned, needs and concerns on a bi-weekly basis. Please include any artifacts that will support your victories :)

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Today is the first official meeting for tech team! At SP we will have the iJags Media Team that will consist of 5th-8th graders who will be in charge of ALL THINGS tech (i.e. school website, school social media, iPad issues, creating how-to videos for tech tools, etc). Students will meet every Monday and Wednesday after school. Hoping for a great turn out!

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Mr. Martella has REALLY embraced the new tech in his classroom. He has done the following:
1. Uploaded the PDFs of all of his math materials so that students can use the iPad in place of a textbook
2. Utilized Flipgrid at least once per week for an exit ticket
3. Heavily utilized Khan Academy, Zearn, and Discovery Ed on the iPads
4. Started posted his daily agenda to Google Classroom

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Mrs. Roberson is very wary of new tech because she often feels like she does not have proper training and gets overwhelmed. She recently let me help her set up her Google Classroom AND come to her class to demo Google Slides on the iPads!

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We had our first after school PD focusing on Google Docs last week and 4 teachers attended! For those who were unable to attend, I recorded the presentation and posted it to my Schoology page.

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We really think the students could benefit from a simple stylus, especially due to so many teachers embracing the annotation features available through the iPad. Trying to use your finger to highlight/write on the iPads can be a bit messy.

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Mrs. Max used Incredibox the other days with her 6th grade class and it was SO cool!

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Mr. Holloway is using the iPads all of the time in his STEAM class. He uses Google Slides so that the students can document their data and research. Here is an activity that was exploring momentum, speed, and gravity. Students included photos of their Hot Wheels tracks in their slide deck.

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Teachers were very excited about the "What Is Going On In This Picture?" resource!

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Per the suggestion of Katie (my boss at FE) I made these signs to hang in our bathrooms! Staff have come up to me several times and said they love them. I make one per month!

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Our iCats Tech Support Team went recently to the Bengals Football game. It was a great opportunity to motivate them, make them feel special, do some team building, and interact with the Principal and Vice-Principal!
We had a great time together, and it was a total success.
We were also able to show-off our Verizon T-Shirts, and received a lot of questions from other people at the game!

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Students from Roberts Academy presented the Verizon Program and our Robotics Club (incl. robots and drones) at the recent meeting of the Cincinnati Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
The Principal, Mr. Beauchamp, shared with the audience information about the Verizon Innovative Learning program, and the positive impact it has on the students.
It was yet another great opportunity to show-off our awesome Verizon T-Shirts.

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We started our Robotics Club getting ready for FLL (FIRST Lego League) competition. Members of the club are utilizing iPads to program the EV3 robots. We also practiced programming with the Sphero bots.
For the kickoff of Robotics Club we had several volunteers joining us.
The Principal, Mr. Beauchamp, welcomed the students and motivated them to do their best.

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Ms. Cuevas-Johnson is teaching English to ELL students. She has embraced the iPads from the very beginning and is using them in all of her activities.
Right now she is teaching the students how to use Seesaw app.

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Our iCats Tech Support Team started last week to work on building their video editing skills as part of our Media Team.
The first task was to learn how to use iMovies to create a video on a topic of their choice.
Once they master the skills, we'll work on creating a commercial for the school and VILS.

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Robotics Club received the FLL Challenge Set on Friday, and in the evening, within 2.5 hours all missions were built!! Great teamwork and great use of our new iPads provided by Verizon!

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Mr. Colon is on the cutting edge of technology by using the Google Expeditions in his Social Studies Class. Today, he was leading his students as a guide, taking them to the ancient Egypt.

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Today several classes went to the Cincinnati Museum Center to learn more about history and global cultures. The iPads were a great help as the students were able to take pictures of exhibit items and their descriptions.

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Students in Holly's class used Toontastic 3D to make their own versions of Greek myths. They were super fun and some students even designed their own characters and settings! I was worried they would think it was too elementary looking but they really liked this!

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Turns out Gizmos actually works really well on the iPads. Mr. Martella has used it at least twice in the last week with his students as they learn about light.

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8th grade students made trailers for "Lord of the Flies" as a way to end their book study using iMovie. I loved this one because it featured students from the class!

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Michael has arranged for us to visit Newburg Middle School on Thursday. Jamie is able to come too! Can't wait to see how teachers are integrating tech into their lessons😃

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On Nov. 7th, the Cincinnati VILS Coaches travelled to Louisville to learn best practices from the VILS Coaches there. We’ve experienced a wonderful hospitality there and have learned a lot! Thank you, Louisville!!!!

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I am so excited about my Appy Hour this week (Flipgrid/Flipgrid AR) and next week (Pear Deck). Fingers crossed for a good turn out at both!

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This teacher is admittedly very afraid of using tech because she finds it overwhelming and confusing. Enter a 6th grader who ON HER OWN showed the teacher how they could complete their daily edit work by annotating a picture. Previously the students would copy the whole passage down and THEN make corrections...this is pretty cool!

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One of our 6th Grade students has passion for creating flipbooks. I've suggested to him to go digital and he found an app called FlipaClip and after around 40 minutes he create his first animation:

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Exploring Animation on iPad with FlipaClip

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Using iPads and iMovie to create a video about hunger

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Using iPads and iMovie to create a video about hunger

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Our students are using iPads and iMovie to create a video about hunger for their class:

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Using iPads and iMovie to create a video about hunger

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In order to show students how easy is to use existing iMovie templates to create a commercial for our school, I've created a demo for them:

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We recently were lucky enough to hire a new teacher at SP who is AMAZING and so willing to try new things! We signed up for a free trial of Flocabulary on Tuesday and she used it today with her students. They LOVED it!

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The same teacher mentioned above used BoomCards with her class this week and they really seemed engaged and interested in the activity.

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Last week I was able to use the staff meeting as a PD session for the whole staff. I created a tech playground for core content teachers and for specials/related arts teachers. Staff was able to explore tools they could use in their classrooms and were asked to reflect on a specific way they could use that tool. I tried to make it so that no one felt like they were sitting through a PD that "didn't apply" to them.

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Non-tech related, but Jamie and Kyle proposed a new change to staff meetings: stations. Kyle, Jamie, and I will all have stations and staff will complete 15 minute rotations so that they can see each of us for a short period of time. I am really excited about this and hope that it will lead to more planning time with teachers!

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Fingers crossed that ILT approves our request to purchase Flocabulary for the entire school. I saw teachers in Louisville using it and I was obsessed! Teachers here used the free trial and were really excited about it.

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Have you guys heard about this site? It is AMAZING and 100% free. After showing it to Jamie he is thinking about getting rid of Achieve3000 next year (an $18,000 program that no one truly implements with fidelity) and using this instead. It gives teachers GREAT data and is aligned with ELA standards. Yay!

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We had a student a few weeks back who was behind on his typing (I think he just needs more practice)but wanted to finish his work before the end of the bell by using the dictation feature. That is when I noticed it was gone! I requested that it be put back on the devices (unsure of why it would have been removed) and Sean looked into it. We were told "no." Ugh.

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Started Google Level 1 Training with a group of teachers this week and I am so excited!

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We finally are able to start using our Flocabulary subscription this week and teachers are excited about having access to this tool. I predict high levels of student engagement in these classrooms! Going to help a teacher demo this tool in about 10 minutes to her 5th grade class.

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Coaching Cycles, Better Late Than Never!

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Coaching Cycles, Better Late Than Never!

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This week Jamie sent out information about coaching cycles that I will be running from now until the end of the school year. This is open to all staff and the goal is for me to help them in ANY way I can with their instruction, day to day teacher struggles, lesson planning, tech integration...pretty much anything! I didn't really expect anyone to take me up on the offer and I have 5 TEACHERS interested. I am nervous but very excited!