#EMSISDITS Tech Talk

Please join us tonight, 7-8 pm, on Twitter to learn more about Nearpod! The #EMSISDITs team will be sharing a number of Nearpod facts and tips throughout the chat - we would love to hear your favorite tips, too!

If you’ve never participated in a Twitter chat before, it’s a great way to learn from one another in a quick chat format. A question will post from our team Twitter account (@emsisdits) every 10 minutes. You can retweet with comment and include the graphic of the question or simply tweet your answer. If you were answering Q1 (Question 1), your tweet would begin with A1 (for Answer 1) and then your response to the question. Another very important part of your tweet is the hashtag we use for our chats, #EMSedchat. This allows others to search for all responses to our chat. If you have questions, feel free to contact me or another IT team member, and we’d love to answer or provide any help we can.

Here's a sneak peek of the questions and times they will post tonight. (There's no shame in preparing answers ahead of time ... sometimes Twitter Chats move very quickly!)

The Instructional Technology Department spent a busy and productive week in Austin at the TCEA Conference and Exposition. We learned a ton and can't wait to share it with everyone in our district. Here is a list of some of our favorite takeaways from the conference.

Students and teachers alike will love Knowt, a tool that allows you to upload or scan your notes to their app or website and then magically turns your notes into a quiz. The quiz includes multiple choice and short answer questions from information found in your notes and allows you to evaluate questions as you answer.

When using the website, you can create a note or upload from a Google Drive. (Unfortunately no Office365 option yet, but you can always copy notes from a document and paste them onto the site.) The app is available for both iPhone and Android. Once installed, you can type your notes into the app or scan a handwritten page! (So cool!) In addition to these awesome options, soon you'll be able to enter any website URL and Knowt will automatically generate a note from it! Once you have your material, the magic happens and when you click the Quiz button, you see questions made right from your notes. What a great way to review over materials and know your notes!

Classroom Q- A VERY simple way for teachers to set up a help desk when using devices. Students enter a unique teacher code and when they need help, they press the need assistance button. The app tells them where they are in line so they can manage their time before the teacher gets to them. The teacher sees the list of students needing help and can get to all of them in the order received without dealing with a sea of raised hands.

PowerPoint- PowerPoint will soon have design ideas in the web version. It’s kind of like SWAY....the user types in information on a slide and hits the design ideas tab....PPT reads the slides and makes suggestions for designing the slide. It's going to be great for those students that need help with slide design.

Office Templates- Thousands of templates across the MS Suite to kickstart any project.

Editor settings in Word and PowerPoint- Use the Ideas button in Word and PPT to get editing suggestions for content clarity, conciseness, formality, Inclusiveness, Punctuation, vocabulary and sensitive geopolitical references.

I thoroughly enjoyed hearing Carl Hooker speak on accepting failure and adding comedy into your teaching. Check out his #FailFest presentation for ideas on how you can add movement and humor into your lessons.

• Celebrate Success
• Take Risks
• Be Independent
• Take Time to Reflect
• Encourage collaboration

Have you heard of Genially? If not, you need to go check it out! This amazing tool brings your content to life. You can use Genially for creating interactive content that makes your audience fall in love. Communicate, educate, and attract your students, parents, and community by making your lessons become interactive with Genially. Check out a #Jenalle example here. You can also watch these videos to help you get started.

Object Viewer for Merge Cube This VR/AR app is #AMAZING! It allows you to view 3D objects using a Merge Cube, but wait there's more! You can even design your own objects using Tinkercad or other 3D designing software and, instead of waiting hours for it to 3D print, you can view the object in the palm of your hand or "place" the object on the floor and virtually walk around it and create videos describing your design and share it!

TCEA held a lot of wonderful revelations for me. The biggest was just how massive the esports (videogame) scene has become. 72% of teenagers play video games regularly, which is no surprise, but the impact that has had on the economy is a real shock. The esports industry has surpassed $1 Billion annually and has more viewership through web services like Twitch than the NFL has on traditional TV. There are over 200 colleges that offer esports scholarships and the industry in general supports dozens of job types. I spoke with representatives from the Texas Scholastic Esports Federation and other Texas districts who have active esports programs and discovered that not every student involved in the program is playing games. There are students who work on the event planning and player management for their school team as well as students who focus on the IT and AV maintenance needs. These programs have opened new teaching pathways for traditional classroom teachers, giving examples for relevant instruction and opportunities for innovative projects and lesson plans. Esports can have a broad impact on students of differing interests who aren’t being reached currently, can positively impact traditional instruction, and prepares students for relevant and emerging industries. What are we waiting for?

If your students (or you) get a little nervous about presenting in front of a group of people, the new Presenter Coach is just what you need. This little gem is built into the online version of PowerPoint. It uses your mic and AI technologies to listen to you rehearse your presentation and it offers real time suggestions on how to improve. It even provides a report at the end of your presentation that summarizes ways to improve the presentation. Check out this quick video about PowerPoint Online's Presenter Coach.

Drawmatic AR

What if you can instantly turn into AR whatever you write on paper? Please print out DrawmaticAR Magic Paper @ http://print.drawmaticar.com Then write a story in the indicated space on the Magic Paper. Try using words the app recognizes from the Lexicon at http://drawmaticar.com/lexicon Point the app at Magic Paper and press the big button on the paper and see and hear what the AI reads from what you wrote!

See the demo video @ http://drawmaticar.com

Fluentkey

Turn listening into an engaging classroom activity with FluentKey Live – the interactive comprehension game your students will love to play. Supercharge learning with unique tools designed for language students like interactive quizzes, speaking training, and instant feedback. Assign videos to your classes for homework and track your students’ progress. Check it out at https://fluentkey.com/

Each time a user logs in to a computer, a profile is created. Our student computers are used by multiple students every single day, which means there are A LOT of student profiles saved to the hard drive. Eventually those profiles take up so much space that new users are unable to get logged in at all.

Our network team has set up a process that will delete user profiles once they are inactive for a certain number of days. (30 days for student devices, 90 day for teacher laptops.)

As this update is being pushed out to all computers, users may notice a slight delay while logging in or a Group Policy update notification while shutting down. This is all part of the process, so thank you for your patience.

You created this great assignment or activity in Canvas and you want to share it with your teammates. Instead of uploading your course to Commons, simply use the Send To button. Follow these steps:

1. Locate the Assignment or quiz you would like to share.
2. Click on the 3 vertical dots to the right of the assignment.
3. Click on Send To.
4. Type in the person you would like to send it to (email is best).
5. Click send.

That's it! Easy Peasey!

You can now create and manage Quizzes (classic) and New Quizzes from the Quizzes page. When creating a quiz, you'll get to choose what type to use.

Not sure which quiz type to use? Read about the differences here.

Microsoft's Office Lens has always been great at scanning physical documents into your OneDrive. Did you know that Office Lens now has the FULL Immersive Reader built-in? Just scan your document and Office Lens can read the document back to you instantly. It can also change the background color, font style, and size. You can view parts of speech, AND it will even translate the document into over 80 different languages! That's pretty awesome!

Now you can instantly translate your Word documents into other languages by clicking on the Review tab and selecting Translate. You can choose many different languages including Spanish, French, and German. You can choose to translate the entire document or a selection.

Single Sign On | Quick access in to your EMS Digital Resources

Device Checkout | Need to borrow something for a less? Reserve it here!

Microsoft Educator Community | High Quality, Anytime, On-Demand PD

The Jenallee Show | On-the-spot PD videos, featuring many EMS Superstars

Promethean Board Tips & Tricks | Growing playlist of quick instructional videos

EMS Tech Tools | Check out or recommended tools (scan QR code to save on your device!)

Need help planning a blended lesson? Do you need an extra hand while tackling a technified lesson with your students? Are you ready to add some technology to your classroom but don't know where to start? The #EMSTechsperts are here to support you! Contact your Campus IT today!

Follow the team:@emsisdits

Ricky: @rickygode | Scott: @scottboiles
Jeni: @jlo731 | Sallee: @salleeclark

Bob: @bobeikenberry | Jennifer: @jenniferprince

Jason: @lumberaggie | Emily: @EKillen817

Sasha: @SashaLBeavers | April: @DigitalDunning
Cindy: @tuckertech

Don't forget to subscribe to our blog for updates!

Email: its@ems-isd.net
Website: www.emsisd.com/its
Location: 1200 Old Decatur Road, Saginaw, TX, United States
Phone: 817.232.0880
Facebook: www.facebook.com/emsisdits
Twitter: @emsisdits