INNOVATE ASD
Spring/Summer 2024
Welcome to the Spring/Summer edition of Innovate ASD! As we wrap up the school year, I wanted to highlight some ways that we used technology as a district this year and look ahead to summer professional development as well as things you can expect when we return in the fall. Happy reading, and let's continue to innovate together!
Here is a picture of Sarah Ward and I enjoying the eclipse on April 8th!
**Just for fun search "Eclipse 2024" in your Chrome browser and see what happens!**
-Kim Zimmer
(Co-Director of Learning & Innovation)
AHS teachers, you will hang onto your Lenovos for one more year, and then we'll make a decision on the refresh for high school teachers.
A shout out to AEF for their incredibly generous donation of 1:1 Chromebook Plus Devices for every AHS student! THANK YOU AEF!!
Get Excited for full access to Newsela!
Next school year, we have full access across K-12 for all content areas. Newsela gives teachers and students access to a huge library of the best leveled reading materials out there, and great classroom management and assessment features - In English and Spanish. Keep an eye on Newsela's Text Sets, which offer thematically curated texts as well as lesson plans and activities that can give students a more holistic picture of a topic. These rotate regularly, including timely content like a set of texts for Native American Heritage Month. Newsela's range of reading levels invites targeted intervention and differentiation. You can assign articles to individuals as well as small groups, using the quizzes to track progress and make further suggestions. Whole-class work has just as much potential: You can select articles for targeted instruction on specific reading standards while modeling good annotation and close-reading strategies for your students. Afterward, encourage them to practice independently.
The Social Institute for grades 3-9
What is The Social Institute, you ask?
Through #WinAtSocial, their gamified, peer-to-peer learning platform, The Social Institute equips students, educators, and families with the skills necessary to navigate their social world – in the classroom and beyond, both online and offline – in healthy, high-character ways. This site does not collect student names, emails, or any personal information and it's very user friendly for teachers and requires little to no prep to execute a lesson.
TSI was founded by Laura Tierney, a social media expert who learned as a student that empowering and equipping people to make high-character choices can lead to positive, life-changing experiences. With real-time insight into student experiences and lessons at your fingertips, you can equip students with healthy tech habits and stronger academic performance. At AES, students will participate in these lessons during class meetings, in the library and in the classroom on occasion. At AHS, students will receive these lessons in 9th grade connections and health. Stay tuned AMS!
👀 An app that has caught my eye 👀 - SchoolAI
After just having finished a conversation with Emmett Till in preparation for the Mississippi ExEd trip I'm going on this fall, I encourage all instructional staff to check out one of the newer AI apps on the market, SchoolAI. Right now, SchoolAI is free for teachers for up to 80 student participants and within SchoolAI, you can access and then provide AI experiences for students at any age. What I love about SchoolAI is that it does not collect any personal or identifying information about our students. They simply access the "Space" that you create for them with a web link and then they're off and running for research, learning and tutoring. This link will take you directly to the page with thousands of curated "BOTS" that can teach, inform, coach, train and tutor students in a way that a Google search simply cannot.
When I told the SchoolAI Historical Figure chatbot who I wanted to learn more about, it not only provided me information but also probed me with questions. When I told the chatbot that I wanted to talk with Emmett, the conversation started like this: Hello there, I'm Emmett Till. Did you know, despite my young age, my story sparked a pivotal movement in the fight for civil rights? What comes to mind when you think about fighting for what's right?
This is where SchoolAI sets itself apart. It does more than just output information, it starts a conversation, and this is where I see the connection with IB and international mindedness, along with the learner profile traits - Communicators, Inquirers, Thinkers!
Go and get yourself and account and let me know what you think....
👀 A Cool Chrome Extension 👀 - Text Blaze (Free)
This Chrome extension can help teachers more efficiently communicate with students, parents, and others by letting them easily grab “snippets” of frequently used text that can be inserted into any text field with a simple shortcut. High school English teacher D.J. Conger says that the tool saves her “so much time entering oft repeated messages.”
According to educators, Text Blaze comes in handy for comments on student work related to common errors—comments that are often written over and over during the grading process. (Watch this video to get a sense of what this looks like in real time.) The tool is also useful for communications with parents or students over email, in which teachers may receive similar questions and find themselves spending time writing out the same response over and over.
Templates that teachers develop can also include placeholders for customization, which educator Med Kharbach writes helps ensure that teachers can “maintain a personal touch in their communications without the time-consuming process of typing out each message from scratch.” Reducing the time spent on administrative tasks like these can help teachers “free up more time for meaningful educational activities,” Kharbach added.
Sign up for a free upgraded Canva account!
This is an updated link after we had over 500 students and staff sign up for Canva after the last newsletter. Please use the link above if you do not have an upgraded account yet. I'm working on merging the two but need to be sure nobody will loose their creations.
In walking around our hallways, I can see that digital design is alive and well, and this skill will greatly benefit our students. I'm heading to the ISTE conference in a few weeks down in Denver and the purpose of technology use in our classrooms, according to ISTE is: Technology should be used “to empower student voice and ensure that learning is a student-driven process.
As explained in my last newsletter, Canva is a great app for achieving this in your classrooms, and there is no harm in using this for personal use because as of now, our Canva EDU accounts are free. I am a member of one of the Canva Facebook groups and the way in which people young and old are using this is astonishing. It has really made graphic design accessible to all!
