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.