Unit 5 April Instructional Tech Tuesday's

Can you believe that April is almost over.  When I looked at the calendar for school days, I realized there is 24 more school days for Unit 5.  Have you already started your count down calendar for your students?  Take a look at the Unit 5 Instructional Tech Tip Tuesday.  I am posititive there is something in here for everyone! 

Over the Month of April we highlighted the following in our weekly Tech Tuesday Updates: 

• Book Creator  - Harnessing Student Narrative for Learning & Assessment
• Solar Eclipse - Escape Room.  What a fun activity that was. 
• WeVideo - Earth Day Challenge
• Canva - Teacher Library & Student Template Libraries
• Wakelet for Climate Change
• WeVideo AI Feature - Note: This is an additional paid feature
• Autism Month - Check out our VTAP program! 
• Britannica AI Education - Great way to start the conversation.
• Translate in Docs - You can now translate an entire doc within the Google Doc platform.
• Suno - Create your own songs...  We used this at a PD for an Institute day and got some great laughs.
• Stossel in the Classroom - AI Vs. Job  Check out this resources for learning about AI. 

Quarterly U5 Instructional Technology Update

In this edition of the Instructional Technology Update:

• Overview of the Unit 5 AI District Presentation 
• Women in History resources. 
• Podcast Corner

Overview of the Unit 5 AI District Presentation:  This presentation was presented at our Feb 20th institute day for all of our secondary staff.  It was a broad overview of what Artificial Inteligence (AI) is, the good, bad, and ugly of it and the positives.  It also reinforces that educators cannot remian passitve observers to the AI revolution.  It is a digital landscape we have to explore and bear the responsibiltiy of providing our students with ethical and effective uses of this technology. 

March is Women in History Month: Check out many of the resources that Unit 5 subscribes to which have ready to use resources for Women in History! 

Are you a Podcast listener?:  Check out this podcast with Cool Cat Teacher.  

You can also find the links to the weekly updates at the bottom right of the Quarterly Instructional Tech Update.  

Unit 5 Instructional Tech Tuesday March 5th

March is here, and when March enters the picture, I know we are 3/4 of the way through our school year.  With the mild February, I am hoping March is even better, but of course we live in Illinois which means at least one more snow, before spring actually arrives.  

In this week's issue of the Unit 5 Instructional Tech Tip Tuesday 

• Stickity -  This is a new ADD ON (Extensions) in Google Slide and Docs for TEACHERS.  You will notice that I have used some of the March stickers this month and the arrow which highlights Spring Break week. Take a look, I bet you love them! 
• When AI Art Meets Music -  This article talks about how to use AI apps to expand creativity.  Carl Hooker is amazing.  I was fortunate enough to see him in person at a conference last year and he was good. This article expanded my thoughts on creativity and how it can be used in the classroom.  This activity is a great opportunity for attention getters, as well as starting the conversation about AI picture generators.  Need some help in getting started?  Just let your tech coach know. 
• Visual Book Lists - Each one of these lists gives book recommendations on books.  You can use the template. (Canva to edit) or download the .png.  (picture).  The nice part about the Canva option is you can edit books you have in your own library, or request new ones be added.  I know I saw a couple I had not seen before.  
• Slido - This extension for Google Slides is great to use to grab real time survey results from your class.  Use it all day to grab data from all your classes or create separate slido's to individualize class data. 
• Quarterly Unit 5 Instructional Technology Updates: These updates starting in 2024 are going Quarterly.  Take a look inside for:
• AI District presentation followup 
• Women in History Month resources from platforms we are licensed on.
• Podcast segment with Cool Cat Teacher.

As always, I hope you get at least one thing out of these each week, which keeps you coming back for more. 

U5 Instructional Technology Tips Feb 26th

 

It's the end of February already and at least where we are, the weather has been beautiful.  Normally February is a month that drags on because it is usually rainy, or there are several inches of snow on the ground, but this year it has been great.  I hope this doesn't mean we are in for a terrible March.  Spring Break is 4 weeks away; so close, but so far away. 

Take a look at the U5 Instructional Tech Tuesday for the last two weeks.  

• Last week we had Institute Day on Tuesday February 20th and we presented a District AI presentation. It went really well and we got a lot of great feedback. 
• If you have not tried Class Companion, take a look, it is SOPPA Approved.
• Practice Sets in Google Classroom, what a great way to get some great formative feedback on instruction.  These can be created from PDF's as well.  Take a look at the short video. 
• Learning for Justice Website.  This is being used in many of our classes, it has many different topics to explore.  
• Teachflix is a great classroom video option.  The videos are already categorized by elementary, middle and high school.   You can browse by content area or by selecting the grade level.  There are also premade activities for you to download for your students.  Take a look, you may find something you can use right away. 
• Most Likely Machine - AI Simulator - Teaches students about algorithms and how they can make mistakes.
• First Chapter Friday -This resource allows you to listen to the Author read their first chapter of their book.  What a great way to provide many opportunities for books for students.  You can even filter these by your level on the left sidebar, elementary, middle, high. 

As always, use what you can and pass along so anyone else who can use it as well.  Here's to the 2nd month of 2024 being over in a flash! 

February U5 Instructional Technology Tips

Well February has been quite nice.  The sun finally decided to show itself and when the sun is shining regardless of how cold it is, my mood changes for the better.  I am looking forward to longer days and more sunshine and maybe even thinking about spring break.   

February is Black History Month and each week I will be linking out many resources for you to take a look at and see if and how they could be integrated into your curriculum. 

In this issue of the U5 Instructional Technology Tips

• Vocab Game for a Cause, called Free Rice.  
• AI Tool Goblin -  Link to a blog post and video.  This is one you can use without logging in.  Check it out! 
• 10 Black Scientists that Science Teachers should know about. PBS Resource
• Tax Season is coming up and do your students know how to do their taxes?  This is a great resource which walks them through the process.  Everfi is FREE for Teachers to use and yes it is SOPPA approved! 
• How James Brown Invented Funk - I thought this was a fun article with a video.  
• LASTLY  Our own April Schermann was interviewed on the ROE17 Podcast.  She talked about STEM and The Growth Mindset.  Take a listen, it was only 15minutes long!  

Hope you find something you can use this week.  Enjoy that sunshine, it will be in the 50's the rest of the week! 

New Year of U5 Instructional Tech Updates

 

The end of last year and the beginning of 2024 have been busy to say the least.  January has already consisted of two E-Learning days and a snow day.  I think we will be in person a total of 13 days the whole month!  It is crazy how one month can be so chaotic. 

In this issue of the January Tech update you will find our Institute Day recordings. Many are from our vendors, but Matt and I did a training on AI.    There is also a great video about how AI could save education (not distroy).  It is about 15 minutes, but worth the watch.  

If you got a new phone or device over the holidays you are probably wondering how to connect it to our WIFI.  Check out the how to sheet, which will allow you to connect.  This is great for parts of the buildings where there is no outside signal.   If you are wanting to send your self a digital copy of an assignment, or picture, check out the video that shows you how to do it from our Follow Me printer/copier.  

This year Google is also celebrating 25 years.  Check out the most search items in 2023 in their video.  Also, with the E-Learning going on, we put together a couple of videos on how to generate and update your Google Meet link in Google Classroom.  Last there has been an update to practice sets in Classroom.  You can now use a Google Form to generate a practice set for students! What a great way to get formative feedback!  

Instructional Technology Tuesday Tips

Wow, I can't believe it is the last week of November and December is right around the corner.  I went Black Friday shopping this year, like all years but it was really busy this year.  You can totally tell people are starting to embrace getting back into the idea of "doorbuster."  Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a well deserved break.  Here is what is in this weeks U5 Instructional Technology Tuesday Tips.  

In this issue:  

• Overview of Diffit - What it is and what it can do.  Short Video
• Getting started With Diffit - Longer video, but a great starting off point.  It will show you all the tools you can create and SHARE out via docs, forms and slides.  The sheer number of templates available to export to is amazing.   
• PD Slidedeck for Teachers - This is awesome because there are short video clips in the speaker notes to walk you through any of the examples you want to learn more about.  
• Login to Diffit and Play - The only way to learn about these tools is to play with them.  See how using them can reduce your workload.  

Whether you have embraced AI or not, this tool will definitely help in your work load!  Don't miss out!  

U5 Instructional Technology Tuesday Tips

Happy November... Yes, it seems like we just started school, but here we are in the midst of the holiday hustle and bustle.  Can't believe next week is Thanksgiving.  If you are like us, we are in school on Monday and Tuesday and there might be some fun activities in this issue of the U5 Instructional Technology Tuesday Tips to help with those days!    In this issue:

• MagicSchool.ai - Introduction as well as a video on seeing your Output.
• Goblin AI tool  - Simplify Tasks
• The Sift - A great way to get current events into your classroom! 
• Youtube's Interactive Questions - Learn how to enter them.  (Hint: Watch the MagicSchool First!)
• Thanksgiving Activities
• Why am I Thankful Activity
• Code a Turkey Game

As always, take a look and decide what you can use right now and what you can store for later!  Hope you all have a great week and Happy Thanksgiving! 

 

U5 Instructional Technology Tuesday Tech Tips

 

In this issue of the Instructional Technology Tuesday Tech Tips you will find:

• EdPuzzle's AI Teacher Assist
• Veterans Day Activities
• National STEM Day Activities
• AI Political Cartoon 
• 7 Ways to use EdPuzzle Live Mode

U5 Tuesday Instructional Technology Tips

 

Happy Halloween!  In this issue you will find some AI and Halloween activites.  

• AI Literacy 6-12 Lessons - This reasource is from Common Sense Media and each lesson is about 20 minutes.  Great for introducing students to AI. 
• Halloween Escape Room
• 27 Scary good Halloween Riddles - Use as a bellringer as students are coming into class.