Happy Halloween week!

Busy week, so just a quick one today...

Cool stuff in my buildings:

Having a blast learning how to use the
DoInk Green Screen app!

• Smithton is digitizing the Second Steps lessons. Instead of printing 800 worksheets every week, lessons materials will be available in Schoology to push to Notability for student completion. Go Earth!! 
• Robert Bruns and Rebecca Wilmes launched their green screen projects. Students will be demonstrating their learning about cells. Look for some examples next week. Gonna be awesome! 
• Josh Smith and Brian Hudson are now using the Notes app to quickly scan hardcopy documents and turn them into PDFs. And Susan Elliott was mad that I didn't tell her about that feature. Her geek meter is on the rise. Love it!

Updates:

• Free eLearning courses are available through PD Express. They start on Monday so hurry up and get your spot. You'll earn 32 hours of inservice credit. And they are free. As in "no charge". Here is the list of courses:
• Chromebooks in the Classroom
• Digital Age Learning with iPads (I'm facilitating this one)
• Digital Citizenship
• Effective K12 Online Instruction
• Empowering Learners with PBL
• Innovative Teacher Leaders in the Digital Age
• The Respondus Lockdown browser apparently doesn't work on tablets. Would have been good to know before it was purchased...
• Circling back to green screens, we have apps available for student use. Just let me know and we'll see about making it happen.

Have a great weekend!

So many good ideas in this one...

It's starting to feel like Fall! Thanks so much for reading along. I love hearing the feedback from teachers about things they've tried from the Mattifest. 

And so much fun seeing all the "I don't know who I ever taught without @mattvillasana" tweets. Such a spontaneous show of support! Congrats to @MrsHannahKruse and @CoachCurtner! You've won a custom iPad sleeve! Check your mailbox next week for your fabulous prize.

Have you tried...

• Utilizing albums in the Photos app? Have students take or find pictures that can be categorized like obtuse triangles. Then organize in a photo album. Suitable for any grade.
• Using Flyover Tours in Apple Maps? Enter a city you want your students to experience. Then start the tour. Here's what it looks like:

Cool things happening in my classrooms (and can also happen in yours)...

• Rob Cunningham, WMS science teacher extraordinaire, is using the Google Science Journal app. It utilizes the internal tools of the iPad to record data such as light, sound, acceleration, and air pressure. Hook up to external probes using Bluetooth for more functionality. Here's a quick tour of the app:

• Amanda Minear, SMS Math innovator, has entered the world of Schoology/Notability integration. Ask me how easy it is to digitize your students' work so it's available anywhere. And reduce the clutter in those crazy anchors, I mean binders.
• Susan Elliott, Math Tech Ninja, created her first flipped lesson using the iPad screen capture to deliver to students when she was out today. She utilized the camera to record her intro and then Notability to walk them through the lesson. Pretty sweet!
• Jennifer Lampe started using FlipGrid today to have students record themselves in their just right books. Super easy. 

  

  Students recording reading using Flipgrid.

Building your digital PLN...

• Adam Savage, @donttrythis - You know him from Mythbusters. A variety of tweet content with a focus on STEM and making-related info.
• Mark Burlison, @MrB_BRE - Mark's the assistant principal at Blue Ridge Elementary. Love seeing how he promotes his students and teachers. And he's my golf coach, so there's that. 
• Erin Thompson, @mserinthompson - Erin teaches 8th grade math at Smithton. She's up for trying new things and sharing her experiences. See how she's currently flipping and digitizing her math content.

Tech updates that might interest you...

• Auto update of apps has been turned off due to performance concerns. Students need to go to Self Service and "reinstall" the app to update it. 
• Due to wide use, the following apps are set to update automatically:
• Schoology
• Notability
• Explain Everything
• iMovie
• Pages
• Keynote
• Garageband
• Numbers
• Google Drive
• Google Docs
• Google Sheets
• Google Slides

Have a great weekend! Maybe the Tigers can win one...

Come on down!!!

Thanks to those of you who gave the Mattifest feedback. I've made some changes in this week's edition. And Lis Hostetler (who wants more Schoology tips) and Amanda Minear (who suggested I use more video and identify grade levels) won the drawing! Fabulous prizes are coming your way!

I had a great time at the annual TAWL conference last weekend. Stephanie Wightman and Misha Franks put on a wonderful event. Shoutout to Marc Alexander for his presentation on project based learning. Put September 15th on your calendar for next year's TAWL conference. 

Finally, update your iPads and tell your students to update to iOS11 as well. 

Have you tried...

• SimpleMind+ app? It's an easy to use concept map creator (grades 2 and up)

  

  SimpleMind+ Screengrab

• Discovery Ed field trips? There's another one coming up called "Undeniably Dairy Virtual Field Trip". Get signed up to learn about modern farming innovations. And cows. Who doesn't love cows? (grade varies based on topic)
• Using the iPad camera to read QR Codes? Yeah, that's right. Forget those ad-infested QR reader apps and just use your camera. But you have to update to iOS11. (any grade level)
• Split view in Safari? A great way to view websites side by side. Perfect for researching course content or comparing shoe prices on competing websites. Good for any grade level. Here's how:

Cool stuff happening in my classrooms (and can also happen in yours)...

• Mardi Martis launched Pear Deck Vocabulary in here classes this week. Her words: "We had a great time using pear deck in RTI! They asked to do it again. I will definitely be doing this Friday during my classes!" (grades 3 and up)
• Hannah Kruse, Nikki Kunkel, and Scott O'Connell at Shepard all launched draft writing using the new(ish) Schoology/Google integration tools. Great way to support writing instruction through shared Google docs. (grades 3 and up)
• Trevor Smith from West Middle helped Smithton teachers discover the BuzzMath app. Huge hit! Customize learning targets and activities for students. Look at that #VikingCat co-opetition! (grades 3-8)

Building your digital PLN (Personal Learning Network)...

• John Schu, @MrSchuReads - Mr. Schu gave the keynote at TAWL last weekend and was awesome. He is the Ambassodor of School Libraries for Scholastic and his passion for books and reading is contagious. 
• The Kid Should See This, @thekidshouldsee - Collection of videos for students (and adults) around science, art, nature, tech, and more. Love their tagline "we don't underestimate kids around here". 

Tech updates that might interest you...

• The Respondus Lockdown browser is now available for use with Schoology assessments on iPads and computers. This feature locks students in a browser to take their assessments. More info will be coming soon, but if you are interested in a tutorial, just let me know.
• Middle school students are having the Respondus Lockdown app installed on their devices automatically. Tell them to leave it alone or it will continue to reinstall itself. Have them put it in their "stuff to ignore" folder.
• Tweet "I don't know how I ever taught without @mattvillasana!" to #cpsbest for a chance to win a custom made iPad sleeve!
• It's time for students to update to iOS11.
• Students who have updated to iOS11 will not have the ability to deny teacher access in Apple Classroom anymore. So get those devices updated.

Have a great weekend!

I need your help!

Lots of stuff going on this week at a lot of different places. I'm looking for some Mattifest feedback. The page views have dwindled over the last few weeks. What do you like? What do you want to see more of? What could you do without? My goal is to keep all my schools informed and moving forward even though my time for each has been reduced or nearly eliminated. Submit your feedback and you might win a prize!

Current #VikingCat Score: West 36, Smithton 28. I have signs at my desk that you can post for an easy 10 points...

Have you tried...

• Pear Deck Vocabulary? A fun and interactive way for students to work in pairs to create definitions of vocab words. Content exports to Quizlet for study. First person at West or Smithton to ask me about it gets 5 #VikingCat points. First to use it gets 20. Thanks to Ryan Pingrey for this hot tip.

Cool stuff happening in my classrooms (and can also happen in yours)...

• Shelli Thelen is using Flipgrid. This tool lets students record short videos to "grids" created by teachers. They can then watch and give feedback to their classmates (but only if you allow it). In this picture, students are submitting information about their Revolutionary War books. Let me know and I'll help you get started. 
• Heidi Barnhouse doesn't know it, but I got to bother several of her students who were working in the hall. They were analyzing and marking up a real-world scenario using Notability and then putting their responses on a collaborative Google Doc. Very cool!

Building your digital PLN...

• Mike Hall, @mrhallSTEM - Mike is part of the team that supports Gentry and Jeff Middle Schools. He has great updates and tutorials published through S'Mores. 
• Kristin Ziemke, @KristinZiemke - Kristin is a classroom teacher and author with TONS of fantastic tips for digital teaching and learning. A must follow. 
• Wonderopolis, @Wonderopolis - Website devoted to fostering curiosity, inquiry, and discovery. Excellent articles and "wonders of the day".

Tech updates that might interest you...

• The new Google integration with Schoology does work with Slides and Sheets. Yeah!
• Getting errors using Smart Notebook's ClassLab tools? Try closing and restarting the notebook file or log out and back in to the account. That seems to fix most issue.
• Schoology's enhanced question types are out, but we haven't activated them yet because there are some bugs to work out. Look for documentation in the coming weeks.
• Get those iPad updated to iOS11.

Thanks, and have a great weekend!