#EMSISDITS Tech Talk

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The EMS Instructional Technology Team is excited to work with students, teachers, and administrators this year to support and enhance the great things going on in our district this year!

The EMS ISD Instructional Technology Team crashed the TCEA Conference again this year and we learned a lot! TCEA, the Texas Computer Educators Association, is an organization that promotes technology integration in all areas of education in the state of Texas. EDTech Companies and vendors come from all over the country to promote their new products and ideas.

This year, our team participated in the Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert Summit, presented in the Microsoft booth and conducted multiple sessions for other attendees.We also attended several keynote events, hands-on workshops, and presentations. We met with vendors and tried out some of the latest gadgets, software, and online resources. Our favorite activity was getting to collaborate with other educators and technology professionals to exchange information and ideas. Below you will find our favorite takeaways from this year's conference. We can't wait to show you all this cool stuff!

Novel Effect is a free iOS app that provides music, sound effects, and character voices as you read some of your favorite childrens' books aloud. The app uses voice recognition to sync music and sounds at just the right moment based on your personal reading style. It's available now for iOS devices (Coming soon to GooglePlay and Amazon Fire!)

TabCloud (Chrome Extension) - allows you to easily save all of your open tabs and open them later on any device. If you're going to visit several websites during a lesson, save them into your TabCloud account rather than having to search for them each time you present the lesson!

3D Museum Viewer

3D Museum Viewer brings the museum exhibit to your classroom! Hold a priceless museum artifact in the palm of your and be able to view it from every angle. With 3D Museum Viewer you are also able to "place" the pieces in your classroom and create your own museum without the worry of someone knocking over the precious works of art.

MakeCode Arcade

Quick, ask your students what they want to be when they grow up. They either say professional athlete or video game creator. Enter Microsoft MakeCode Arcade. This online tool is a web based beginner-friendly code editor that your students can use to create retro arcade games for the web and even small handheld micro controllers like the Adafruit M4 express. Resources are available along with free curriculum and projects to help bring MakeCode into the classroom. Interested? Contact your friendly Instructional Technologist.

Figment AR

Augment reality with objects, portals, and effects! Create imaginative scenes and capture them to share with friends. Make your world more fun by placing 3D emoji, animals, and other objects around you. Or step into another world by using portals and walk into a new dimension. Enhance these scenes with environmental effects like snow or fireworks or add filters to change your view of the world!

Experience Real History-ERH

Thanks to recent advances in tablet and smartphone technology, today’s history explorer can personally enter the Augmented Reality time-machine and engage in historically accurate adventure scenes. Personalized Reality Boards™, Reality Books™ and Trading Reality Cards™ all become the brilliant new window on Alamo history.

Purple Planet- Looking to add royalty free music to a video? Check this site out for plenty of great options. Don't forget to credit the site in your project.

Gimkit- Are you or your students Quizizz or Kahotted out? Check out Gimkit, a live learning game where students answer questions on their own device at their own pace while earning in-game cash that can be used to purchase upgrades and powerups. A cool sidenote: Gimkit was made and is maintained by a high school student!

rewordify.com- This site takes complicated, hard to read text and "rewords" it so that it is easier to read. It can also help teach your students the vocabulary words that they struggle with, so they can build their reading comprehension skills.

smmry.com- This site can summarize any text so that it becomes shortened and easier to read. You can upload PDFs, copy/paste, or simply paste the URL of the article's location into the smmry engine.

My Mini Factory

This website is a repository of 3D files and objects that can be printed on any of the 3D printers we have in the district. This site is similar to thingiverse.com but the 3D files found here are generally more professional in their form. There is also access to "Scan the World" under categories which has high resolution 3D files of masterpiece works of art and architecture from museums around the world.

Apple Teacher Certification

If you use Apple products in your classes you have an opportunity to earn free and easy certification from Apple by completing their quick and easy training programs. When you sign up, use your own personal Apple ID information instead of your ems-isd.net email address so that the certification easily stays with you. Through this program you will learn how to use the many powerful tools available to your students through iPads or Macs. I was able to complete this program and earn my certification on iPads in about 3 hours of work.

Sketch Nation - This is a free STEM tool that allows students to design, create and share their own game. It does not require coding (but this tool would be a great way to introduce coding). This tool promotes storytelling, student choice projects, gaming clubs, STEM, makerspace, history simulation, and much more. It's super easy to create and engaging to the learner that works on any device.

Radio.Garden - This website allows you to explore radio from all over the world. This is a unique way to explore culture and diversity.

If you haven't tried Adobe Spark yet, you're missing out. With Spark, you can create stunning graphics, web pages, and video stories with ease. This application is available across all devices and can be synced across them as well. Additionally, with your district account, you can replace the Adobe Spark logo with your own logo and begin to promote your own brand. How cool is that?

Students and staff can access Adobe Spark through the Single Sign On Portal right here. When you sign in the first time, just enter your district email address and hit the tab key or enter key on your keyboard to log right in without a password. Enjoy!

Digital breakouts have become very popular lately and for good reason. Not only are they highly engaging and fun, they are also extremely versatile and allow you to assess your students on many different levels. The following guide walks you through how to create your own digital breakout. As always, if you would like assistance, your friendly ITs are only an email away.

Digital Breakout Guide

Have you heard of Flipgrid? This application gives a voice to all of your students in a fun and engaging way. Did you know that all teachers in EMS ISD have a free account with unlimited grids? Flipgrid has taken the education world by storm and for good reason. Student use video to provide feedback, demonstrate knowledge and communicate their thoughts to others.

With all this Flipgrid Fever going around, new ideas are bound to surface, and the Flipgrid Fliphunt is one of them. The idea is to create a set of challenges(based upon your content) and assign a point value to each. Your students then film themselves completing each challenge and the team with the most points at the end wins the game. Super easy and super engaging for students. If you would like to learn more about this activity, click on the link below. As always, we are here to help, so contact us today.

https://flipgrid.com/flfliphunt

Did you know that the Instructional Technology department has a wide variety of technology tools available for check out for student/classroom use? We have everything from iPads to Merge Cubes to Augmented Reality goggles. See our current list of available items here.

When your submission is submitted, the IT team will verify that the devices are available at that time for checkout and will schedule delivery/pickup. You will receive an email with this information within 48 hours. If you don't hear anything after that time period, please email ITs@ems-isd.net to check the status of your request.

We would love to plan with you about how you will be using these devices, or even assist you in the the classroom with your students. How cool is that?!?!?

Does the brightness of your computer screen make your eyes tired? If so, try dark theme. Click on the window icon at the bottom left of your screen----click on the settings cog-----click on personalization-------click on color---------scroll down and choose dark.

When you close applications on an iPad, it is not actually closed. It is still running in the background and drain you battery and slow down the device. To close running application, simply double click on the home button and swipe the away the apps you no longer want to have running.

Do you like to type with your thumbs but can't on an iPad because it is too big? All you have to do is open your keyboard and drag half of it left and the other half right and you will a thumb friendly keyboard to use.

Sign in to sso.ems-isd.net with your district username and password on any computer or mobile device to have quick and easy access to many of our district digital resources.

We want to help you successfully infuse technology into your classroom. We would love to train you on how to create tech infused lessons, co-teach the lessons, or even share our favorite tech tools with you!

Email your IT today to set up an appointment! (Find contact info here.)

Follow the team:@emsisdits

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

Scott: @scottboiles | Bob: @bobeikenberry
Jennifer: @jenniferprince | Cindy: @tuckertech

Tim: @Thuynh912 | Jason: @lumberaggie

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