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.

Need some fun spring activities for your class. If you have Lesson Pix account there are some Egg-celent Ideas for Spring through a thematic approach to promote language and learning.  Lesson Pix is a tool that the IU13 purchased to replace BoardMaker. This tool not only helps you make pictures for different activities it now provides pre-made materials for themes. Check out this one for Spring.  For OTs, PTs, and SLPs check out these premade activities you can just tweak to make yours.  

Check out the right hand side to win an OZOBOT for your program, classes, student. All ECSES staff members can participate. Good Luck. 

Coming April in MLP I will have my summer technology sessions posted. Please read carefully as they are specific to professionals and/or paraprofessionals. If sessions get filled I will run duplicate sessions at One Cumberland. Those dates to be determined based on sessions filling up at Burle. 2018 Summer Technology Sessions offered by Lori Blantz

Congratulations to Faith Burchfield (Speech Therapist) and Tabatha Hedrick (PCA in AS classroom) for being the lucky winners of last months give-away. They each won a Mini Sphero to use with their student(s) that they serve at the IU13. Thanks for all the essays this month. This was our biggest month of submitted essays. Keep them coming. You only have two weeks to try to win this month's spotlight item - Ozobot!