Hello - I hope your year is getting off to the right start!! Feels more like summer now than summer did. Just wanted to remind about the Spotlight Contest. If you want to earn an OSMO Genius Kit complete with stand, tangrams, words, and numbers please don't forget to submit your entry by Sept 10th. Also, today was the first day of afterschool help sessions. We had one at One Cumberland today and our next one for the month of September is next Wednesday the 12th at Lancaster Burle.  This is the time to get 1-1 help from Hillary or myself on ITT, IEPWriter, Instructional tools, etc. We are here for you!

Today (August 20th) some staff member start back in the classroom. For some, they do not start until after Labor Day. Regardless where you fit in that time frame...WELCOME BACK. Let's make this the best year for our students yet!!! I am very excited for the new year because I have a lot of new ideas, tools, and resources to share in our classrooms. Please call upon me for help and either myself or Melinda Oatman or Hillary Holler will assist you. My first monthly contest give-away is here. Check out the right hand side of this blog for more information. Voting will occur on September 13th and winner announce on the 14th. Good luck!!!

Hello everyone, I hope everyone had a fantastic summer. Can't believe it flew by already but here were are, ready to embark in a new school year. I know I am excited as there are lots of new things occurring. Staying the same bores me so change is always good, but we know it can be crazy at times. Hillary Holler and Melinda Oatman are both with me again this year- YEAH - we are ready to help you with ITT, IEPWriter, Instructional Tech Tools, PowerSchool, and perhaps lots of other stuff. I received two grants over the summer. We now have our own Google Expeditions Glasses set for the ECSES Department. I ran a session this summer that went great and even if you did not attend and are interested in having me come out to run a class lesson sign up on our Google Sign-Up Form. Finally, I want to make this first Blog short- but Hillary and I are after-school tech help sessions each month. They will go from 3-5pm. Come for all of it, come for just some, you get credit for the time you attended. These are informal and here to help you with questions on IEPWriter, ITT, tech tools, using your laptop, etc. If we can't answer your question we will find out who can and connect you to them. We are running one in Lebanon and one in Lancaster each month. Attached is the list of dates. Hope to see you then. Look out for the first contest of the school year. I am giving away an OSMO Genius Kit. This is valued at about $100.00. The company gave one to me this year as a bonus to give away! I will post the blog contest next week and you have until September 10th to email your essay. Good luck!!!

Hillary, Melinda and I are getting ready for the new school year to have all the instructional tools ready for your use. We noticed today that Discovery Education (DE) is saying it has expired. Please know, the IS department is working on this issue to have it up and running very soon. This program will continue to be available for all students and staff for the 18-19 school year using your active directory logins. All staff and students will also have Brain Pop and Brain Pop Jr available. These programs will also use your active directory logins. Starting the month of October I will be starting back up with the technology give-a-way contest. Stay tuned for that in September to hear what I will be giving away. Enjoy your summer, stay cool (it is 98 today!!) See you in August.

Leader invites you to attend an upcoming webinar showcasing new enhancements made to IEPWriter 3.5 for the upcoming school year. Sign up for one of the webinars now by following the link below that best meets your schedule. The webinars are being offered on different days for the convenience of our customers. All webinars will cover the same material.

 

Earth Day Is coming- to incorporate some coding and Earth Day into your classroom instruction click here https://csfirst.withgoogle.com/logo-teachers?utm_source=google&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ED1  You can try an Earth Day activity with coding, or create a coding activity to create a new Google Logo. Have fun!!

Congratulations Malinda Delpriore DHH teacher at Warwick Middle School - here is a piece of her essay. "I discovered that the Ozobot brings digital programming to the physical world. The Ozobot provides feedback to students through its movement. This is fantastic for my students who are unable to hear feedback provided by coding websites. Similar to coding websites and OSMO, my students would use the Ozobot during independent activity time to promote language development, creativity, analytical and logical thinking as well as constructive problem-solving skills." Congratulations. Can't wait to see how you use it in your classroom.

I am sharing a new resource tool called Flocabulary with you. I have joined Ken Zimmerman and several Lancaster Lebanon IU13 districts in a pilot that started yesterday to use all the features of Flocabulary FREE until the end of the school year. Currently this year we have 25 licenses that some of our teachers and SWs are using. If we have more staff that like this tool we can expand our licenses for a reduced cost. This can be used with student accounts or the teacher can just use it as a whole group activity. Please do not hesitate to ask me about it or how to use it. However, I am sending some resources here below.