Juliana entered my January essay contest to share that her students love using OSMO on their iPads. She has a student that is particularly interested in Coding apps and online programs. She has seen growth in this student's problem solving abilities, as well as, focus on an academic-based task such as coding. Having access to OSMO coding, this student would be able to physically interact and change the items in order to complete the skill or level. I am pleased to provide her with a OSMO Coding Program for her class.

If you are a new staff in the ECSES department, or a staff that has been here forever it might seem:), are you aware of all the Instructional Technology resources that we can provide for our students and staff? In my role as Instructional Technology Specialist I am here to assist all professionals and paraprofessionals in the ECSES department on Instructional Tools to use in the classroom or IU13 online programs that we use for our students. I have created a document that shares IU13 purchased or piloted programs for our classrooms and how to get on them. Click here to view document. Also, we have over 150 iPads being used by teachers, students and/or itinerants, and over 150 Chromebooks being used by our students. This is not to mention the laptops for each para, PCA, itinerant, support staff and/or teacher. With all that technology and trying to get to our teachers lots of great instructional tools to use with our classrooms, I have hired an Help Desk Instructional Technology Assistant to help out with all this great stuff going on. Please welcome Hillary Holler to this new role. She is currently with the Speech and Language Department as their PA, and many of you have worked with her on ITT or IEPWriter issues in the past. Once she transitions to this new role, she will be your contact to help with problems you might have with ITT, IEPWriter, Chromebooks, or other Instructional Tools that we are using. Please know, I am not going away:) and you can continue to go to me; however, as more and more staff are using these tools I can't keep up with the emails in a fast enough way to help everyone out. To assist with helping you faster we will eventually be using the ticket system to help respond to your needs in a more timely manner. This process will come out once Hillary is in her new role. Nothing is changed now until her current position is filled. Again, please check out the Instructional Tools we have here at the IU13 to use with our students and join me in congratulating Hillary. Also, huge reminder to check out this blog at least once a month so you can see the fun stuff you can win for your classroom. Check out the right hand side pf the Blog for the items to win. I have already given away a complete OSMO kit, an OSMO Jam program, and  an Ozobot to teachers and itinerants. Will you be the next to win??? You can "Subscribe" to this blog by going to the bottom right hand side and adding your email. You will get an email when I post something new on this blog. Stay warm!!!

I am excited to share that Lyn Carvell has been selected as our December Winner for a Coding game from OSMO. Lyn is an Occupational Therapist here at the IU13. She shared that during the first week of December, she participated in the global Hour Of Code by incorporating coding tasks in her OT sessions. Since some of her students on her caseload cannot participate in Music Education she felt using OSMO Coding Jam can incorporate that Music component as well. Enjoy and Happy Coding!!

Wow- I am not sure where the time went. We are through a marking period already. I am pretty far behind in my blogging as I haven’t created one in 2 months. Ok this blog is focused on a very exciting event that occurs globally, reaching tens of millions of students in 180+ countries. Why shouldn’t students at Lancaster Lebanon IU13 be in that group as well! This movement is called THE HOUR OF CODE. What is the Hour of Code you might say, this is a time during with week of Dec 4-10, where you have your students participate in some form of computer coding. But know, you can do the Hour of Code all year round. There are so many tools you could use to do this for students of preschool to high school level. Check out this short video to get you and your students excited Watch: Hour of Code I am going to share with you several tools you can try to incorporate the Hour of Code in your classroom. Likewise, if you check out the SPOTLIGHT section over on your right, you can try to win either an OSMO Coding Aubie game or OSMO Coding Jam game. There are three opportunities to win.

Congratulations goes out to Erica Peterson, teacher at Fairland Center. You have been chosen to win the OZOBOT. Thank you for your great essay on how you can use it with your students! 

Can you believe summer is over? I know for a few of you, it is still occuring with school not starting until Sept 5th or 6th! Enjoy the last few days and for those that started last Monday August 21st- remember you have many days already done:) Ok kidding aside, I hope you are all ready for an exciting year ahead. I know I am! It has been awesome training staff in August on the use of Chromebooks in the classroom as many of our classrooms received new Chromebooks this year. Thank you IU13! I created a helpful document for those staff that are using Chromebooks. This is for your students (and you too).Tips on Chromebook  I hope you find it useful. I also created a PowerPoint that I used to teach these tips on using a Chromebook. Tips to Using a Chromebook Please feel free to edit is and make it your own.