Washington Tech Tidbits

It is hard to believe that we are already into week 4 of the 2018-19 school year! As a reminder, if you need any tech assistance, in terms of equipment or software, please email Pat at wasupport@d64.org. For curriculum support, please contact me at rlabuz@d64.org.

If you're interested in setting up a weekly, biweekly, or monthly meeting time with me for the school year, please fill out this form or email me with some dates and times that work best for your schedule.

Just a friendly reminder to keep your web presence up-to-date. If you need any assistance with your site, blog, online newsletter, etc., please let me know! Here is a link to the District 64 Web Presence Rubric.

Last month, Google made several changes to Google Classroom to improve its functionality and ease of use. To read more about these updates, click here and check out this article by Eric Curts.

Here is a great resource by Matt Miller that highlights 20 free ways to connect and collaborate with classrooms around the world. There are so many great ideas on here, from global sing alongs and author chats to collaborative art projects and Mystery Skypes!

Seesaw is a student-driven digital portfolio that allows users of all ages to document and share what they are learning at school. It is a free iPad app that is available on all of our kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade, and gen ed cart iPads. Intermediate teachers, have no fear... Seesaw is fully accessible on the Chromebook through seesaw.me.

Seesaw is a learning journal that allows teachers and students to create and/or upload work to post in a private class feed. Teachers have the ability to approve all posts before they're uploaded to the feed. Parents can be invited to see their child’s posts through a different app.

Seesaw posts can be photos, videos, drawings, typed text, or website links. All posts can be annotated with audio and drawings!

This tool can be used in all settings and with students of all ages. Please let me know if you'd like to get started! It's a great way to enhance student motivation and increase communication with parents.

This year, District 64 is a Seesaw for Schools district, which means that we have access to some premium features, including Seesaw Skills, private teacher comments, and an enhanced activity library!

If you were having Seesaw student login issues, they should now be resolved. Teachers should be able to log into Seesaw using Google. Students on Chromebooks should log in using Clever, and students using iPads can continue to use QR codes.

Since your classes are populated through PowerSchool now, you will have a different class for every PowerSchool subject. These cannot be deleted in Seesaw because they cannot be deleted in PowerSchool. My recommendation is to choose one class (probably AM Attendance), rename that class, and set its color to be different from all the other classes.