ECSD Technology Newsletter

Students in Ms. Cutts zoology class are studying environmental effects on coral reefs. Ms. Cutts decided to give students the option to use a video creation tool for students to be able to demonstrate their knowledge. Students not only had to provide good content in their video but they also had to learn about editing, special effects, and how to create an engaging video about their subject. Ms. Cutts and I collaborated virtually, in person, and over E-mail to come up with ideas of how to best roll this out. This project made me think about grading digital projects. I came across this great site from Kathy Schrock that has templates for rubrics for multi-media sites. If you are doing a digital performance task or project with your class in the near future I would encourage you to check out some of these rubrics!

Google has recently made some updates to make Chromebooks more accessible for students with disabilities. Now students have options for different color for cursors, live captioning in Google Meets, and using voice commands in most Gsuite products. Here is an announcement about many of these features.

• According to our Google Admin Console On October 30th there were 390 Active Google Classrooms in our district!!
• Our Go Guardian analytics state that the most visited sites by students in October were Google.com Google Docs, Youtube, Clever.com, Renaissance learning, Get Epic, Gmail, Google Earth, and I-ready

"Clint, why does my google look different" - I have heard that a few times the last couple of weeks and also have asked that myself. Google has rebranded GSuite to Google Workspaces. Nothing has changed at all other than the look and the name. Everything has remained the same

Clint will be offering the following Virtual PL classes after school during October and November . I had great feedback from some teachers who attended in September that it would be great if I recorded these classes. I will be recording and posting these PL classes for October and November! You still need to sign up to receive the recording. Use the following link to sign up

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe3uTWcoz7ywJK2ISO7lPa84Hw6UGYOcN_LQ5HonU4f4Q9Qww/viewform?usp=sf_link

Did you know that within Google there are already created templates made for you? For example by going to docs.google.com students can have a premade template for a book report. If one goes to sheets.google.com then you can have access to an already created gradebook. Forms.google.com has a premade ticket out the door. These templates are available to all students and teachers.

Joe Dawson - Elbert County Elementary School

Matt Johnson - Elbert County Middle School

Sherri Rampey -Elbert County Primary School

Hector Santiago - Elbert County Comprehensive High School

Bruce Stewart - Technology Director Elbert County School District

Clint Winter - Instructional Technology Coordinator Elbert County School District

Website: elbert.k12.ga.us
Phone: 706.213.4000
Twitter: @elbertcoschools