Educational Technology at IU13

Here are some new December resources from Discovery Education to keep the momentum of the school year going through the winter holidays and break. Be sure to log into your instance of Discovery Education before clicking on the links below.

Timely & Relevant Resources  

Did you hear the news? DE has launched an Activity Center for K-8 teachers with daily ready-to-use activities! Here, you can find a calendar of ready-to-use activities to engage students with a variety of science, social studies, math, and ELA content. DE will release a new calendar each month with timely and relevant content, so be sure to subscribe to the new Activity Center. 

The ready-to-use activities combine the best of the SOS Strategies with high-quality content, giving you that magic formula for constructive, engaging activities that save teachers time. 

• K-2 Activity Calendar: December 2021 
• 3-5 Activity Calendar: December 2021 
• 6-8 Activity Calendar: December 2021 

This Month at DE

Explore the full Discovery Education December 2021 Newsletter to learn about all the timely and relevant resources happening this month!

12 Days of Virtual Field Trips
On December 1st, Discovery Education kicked off the 12 Days of VFTs! Explore it on social media or see the full calendar. 

Virtual Field Trip to the International Space Station (Call for Questions)

Through our partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Discovery Education has been given the exciting opportunity to host a Virtual Field Trip to the International Space Station! And, we are inviting students around the world to submit questions for a chance to have them answered by astronauts aboard the space station. Learn more about this opportunity and work with students to get their questions submitted by December 17^th!

Keep Your Students Engaged Over Winter Break

We just released Winter Break Activity Calendars – for K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Keep your students engaged in learning with some fun activities over winter break! These are also available in 6 other languages to support families at home! 

With most student checkouts already happening in Sora, OverDrive will soon start the process of retiring the legacy OverDrive app and encouraging all students to use Sora as the primary app to enjoy your digital collection.

The first step will be to remove the OverDrive app from the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Microsoft Store starting February 23, 2022. At the same time, the download links for the legacy OverDrive desktop app for Windows and Mac will be removed from overdrive.com/apps.

How this initial change will impact users

• Current OverDrive app users (mobile and desktop) can continue to use the app.
• New users looking for the OverDrive app will be directed to Sora.
• All users can continue to use, borrow, and open titles from your school’s .lib.overdrive.com OverDrive website via a browser until we begin further migration to Sora.

What happens next
Your school should actively promote Sora and remove references to the OverDrive app from school websites and promotional materials. In future phases, we will encourage OverDrive app users to switch to Sora, with a goal of moving most over by the end of 2022. We are committed to supporting a smooth transition for you and your students and will send you updates on the plans and timing for the eventual retirement of the OverDrive app.

Whether you're excited to get coding with your students for CSEdWeek, or looking for ideas to find the time, we've got you covered. Join us on December 2 from 5:30-7:05 pm (EST) for BrainPOP Connect: Coding Beyond the Hour of Code webinar. Level up your instruction with BrainPOP’s Creative Coding tool — developed in partnership with Scratch and Vidcode, you’ll walk away knowing how to seamlessly introduce coding, no matter what you’re covering in class.