ECSD Technology Newsletter

Technology Info and Tips from the Elbert Co. Tech Department

Discovery Education in the Elbert County School District

Happy Friday,

Our school district has access to Discovery for Education. Discovery Education is a wonderful platform for teachers to find resources across grade levels and content areas. Teachers can find content by subject and standard. Resources can easily be shared with students through Google Classroom. Discovery Education offers a whole source of both video and interactive content. Personally, I am looking forward to the virtual field trip opportunities that it has to offer. To login to Discovery Education you just go to discoveryeducation.com and choose login with Google and use your ECSD E-mail account. It is the same process for our students. Our new Literacy Coordinator Thesa Beatenbouh and I are working with school level administrators to offer professional development on this resource. More information will be forthcoming but for the meantime if you would like to get your feet wet check out the teacher resource link HERE.

PL Opportunities

We are so fortunate to have so many great programs for our 1:1 devices in our school district. I know that it can be overwhelming but there are so many great things that our students can use to create. This week I will be offering 2 virtual PLs through Google Meets after school. Please see below and sign up if you would like to attend. Professional Learning this fall will take place remotely

WeVideo - I will be offering PL on Wevideo on MONDAY August 31st from 3:30 - 4:30 virtually. This is a program for students in grades 5-12where students can make and edit their own videos and create podcasts. Sign up HERE

Read and Write For Google - I will be offering a Virtual PL on Read and Write for Google from 3:30 - 4:30 on Thursday September 3rd Agenda HERE and You can Sign up HERE

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August 31st 3:30 - 4:30

Meet Link - meet.google.com/pix-hihg-gts

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Thursday Sept 3 - 3:30 - 4:30

Meet Link - meet.google.com/fqj-svuo-hgu

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PD Opportunites

Updates to the ECSD Instructional Technology Site

During our school closure in the spring I worked on updating our Instructional Technology Site for the district. This is a one stop shop for everything that has to do with instructional Technology. There are resources for introducing your students to chromebooks, a GREAT video that ECCHS students created on caring for your chromebook, and help guides for all programs that we support. It now includes a place for information about EC ONLINE You can access the site at Bit.ly/ecsdtechnology.

Tech Tool Kit for Families and Guardians

Google has recently published resources for teachers to share with families to learn more about the Google Suite for Education. I think that this is a great way for us to be able to better familiarize our families with Google for Education. Below is the link to the document

TECH Toolkit for Families and Guardians

Google Classroom Updates

Google Meets are now part of Google Classroom! - If you need to have a Google Meet with your class you can generate the Google Meet right within Google Classroom. This can be the same meet link for the semester or for the school year! The great thing about using the Google Meet within Google classroom is added security. Students can only enter and exit the meet once the host (aka teacher) starts and ends the google meet. More information HERE

Originality Reports - Teachers can now run originality reports to check work for authenticity. The report compares a student's Google Doc vs webpages and books on the internet. Click on the originality report for more information

To-Do lists - The To-do list is great because it helps teachers and students see their "To Do" list for all Google classrooms they use. Google CLassroom is rolling the "To-DO' from the classes page.

You can keep up with everything that is going with Google Classroom on the What's new in Google Classroom page. I am excited to hear from you what you are doing with your Google Classroom.

Pear Deck Support

We are fortunate to be able to have the new tool "Pear Deck" in Elbert County. This is a tool to make google slides interactive for all students. Teachers who attended the 1:1 bootcamp before school started were able to hear about these features. Below are a couple of resources about Pear Deck. If you would like to learn more I will be leading a virtual training at 3:30 on August 24th. You can sign up HERE

Getting Started with Pear Deck

Cool Things you Can Do

Pear Deck Knowledge Base