Join us this month for the tricks and treats of technology integration. Sign into Frontline to register for any session. (Don't know how to use Frontline to register? Click here for instructions.)

This week is National Digital Citizenship Week. Common Sense Education has resources that you can use to promote good digital citizenship in your classroom: send a letter home to parents, have students sign an online safety pledge, or start a digital citizenship poster contest at your school! Check out these free resources:

Common Sense Media Resources

Pear Deck Resources

EdPuzzle Resources

Nearpod Resources

We have heard about so many of our FCPS educators taking part in FlipGrid Live Events. What an amazing way to bring the world in for our students! Check out the awesome selfies from past events below. Here is what teachers are sharing:

From Melissa Brewer, Media Librarian at Bryan Station Middle School:

"BSMS had a live event with author, Rick Riordan with Ms. Perez & Mrs. Swartz's 7th grade classes. Rick Riordan is the author of the Percy Jackson series. He has a new book coming out called Daughters of the Deep. He also told everyone there is a live action Percy Jackson TV show coming. They start production this summer and will be on Disney+ in 2023."

From April Dale, Media Librarian at Russell Cave Elementary with Mrs. Hardy's kindergarten class:

"Not sure if any of you did the Flipgrid live with Todd Parr, but if you didn’t, it was SUPER easy. Here are the steps:

1. Register for the event.
2. They will email you a link. It is through Microsoft Teams, but you can view it on the web. Click on the link at the time of the event and it starts playing.

You do not need a web cam as the authors can’t see you, but you can see them and you can ask questions through the chat feature. Another thing to note is that the events are scheduled for 10:00 PDT, which is 1:00 pm our time. I didn't catch that until I tried to log in at 10:00 this morning and no one showed up!"

Be sure to mark your calendars for November 4th at 1:00pm EST for a FlipGrid Live Event with the youngest inaugural poet in US history, Amanda Gorman, and Illustrator Loren Long (Fun Fact: Loren is an alumni of FCPS - attending Clays Mill Elementary, Jessie Clark, and Lafayette High School!). Learn How Change Sings Inside Us All will feature this duo’s new picture book and empower your students to share their voices. Make sure to share your selfies and insights with us (just reply to your Tech Snacks email).

The timing is perfect to talk about giving automatic feedback and celebrating the Halloween vibe! According to John Hattie, giving feedback is one of “the most positive influences on achievement.” We won’t discuss Hattie’s amazing research here, but we do want to share a way that students can receive automatic feedback using a fun, Halloween-themed, Google Spreadsheet template.

Our very own Dave Carty created a Halloween Pumpkin Quiz that allows students to “check” their answers by piecing together a pumpkin puzzle. Teachers can easily customize the quiz and create questions/answers which align with their curriculum. Spelling does count (of course!) for students to score a correct response. If needed, teachers may opt to include a word bank of terms inside the quiz. To learn more about the Pumpkin Quiz, visit Dave’s Schooled in Tech blog site. If you want to try an example quiz, make a copy of the Halloween - Science Biome Quiz and try your hand at making a Pumpkin!

Check out new titles added to our FCPS District Sora account. The titles include multiple world languages (in both eBook and audiobook formats), as well as Global Cultures representative of our FCPS Community. These titles were added thanks to funding and support from the EL Department. Click here for the interactive slide with links: https://bit.ly/SoraLang.

Where has the #FCPSSTEMBUS been travelling? Check out their stops from September at William Wells Brown and Deep Springs Elementary for Storytelling with Spheros. Click the links below to see the students in action! Follow @Frizzle_of_FCPS and @JoshRayburnKY on Twitter for more on the STEM Bus route this month or check out the website for more information.

Grace Cottam, Media Librarian at Brenda Cowan Elementary, recently introduced Spheros while co-teaching with her 3rd, 4th and 5th grade teachers. "I wanted to use the Spheros because they gave me options to differentiate with my students between drawing, block code, or even text code for some of my upper-level fifth graders." Grace said. "The zippy 'race car' nature of the Sphero was a great way to get my students excited about coding. The Bolts have been a blast, and the kids loved them! It's been great to share them with the teachers, and talk about their applications not only for computer science, but also with other subjects, like math and even art. The advice I'd give teachers is to leave plenty of time to set up student accounts. Take screenshots of each log in step, or hook up a student computer to a large screen so they can watch a step-by-step log in. Make sure you set expectations specifically for the Spheros, and go over them before the kids start to use them. My students loved these, and I hope yours do, too."

Are you interested in using Spheros in your classroom? We can offer training and have several Spheros for you to use! Fill out a FCPS OIT Training Helpdesk ticket today!