ECSD Technology Newsletter

We are very fortunate to have lots of instructional tools at our disposal in the Elbert County School District. I know that with everything going on we may get overwhelmed with instruction. This is a follow up from last week to discuss some of the things that we have a subscription to.

As part of our L4GA grant we ALL have access to Discovery Education. In fact, last week I was able to meet with teams from your school to show many of the resources with Discovery Education. Discovery Education has Resources for ALL academic subjects and standards. This program syncs with our Google SSO (Single Sign ON) and all teachers and students have to do is go to www.discoveryeducation.com and choose sign on with Google. If you would like more information please let me or those in your building who went through the training know and we will be glad to show you. Here are some more resources about Discovery Education

Webinar Events Calendar: https://den.discoveryeducation.com/events/calendar

Interactive Courses : https://teachers.discoveryeducation.com/resource/interactive-learning-courses/

Step By Step Guides: https://teachers.discoveryeducation.com/learn-lead/step-by-step-guides/

We are very fortunate to have some enhanced features with Google. With this there is no additional sign in feature. We are able to do things like record our Google Meets, have originality reports (Which I covered in a previous newsletter) and also enhanced. There have been lots of updates to Google Meets which have actually just rolled out this week. One of my favorite Edtech folks Eric Curts put together this great video about a new feature for Google Meets called Break Out Rooms. With Break Out rooms you can put students or participants in your Google Meet into smaller rooms (that you have control of). Check out the video below.

Clint will be offering the following Virtual PL classes after school during October. I had great feedback from some teachers who attended in September that it would be great if I recorded these classes. I will be recording and posting these PL classes for October and November! You still need to sign up to receive the recording. Use the following link to sign up

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe3uTWcoz7ywJK2ISO7lPa84Hw6UGYOcN_LQ5HonU4f4Q9Qww/viewform?usp=sf_link

October 22nd - Wevideo for student engagement and creativity

October 29th - (More information below)

We have had some our state leaders in Instructional Technology agree to be part of the Instructional Technology (Call in Swap Shop). This will be both an informative and GREAT time. We will be joined by several special guests. Please sign up https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe3uTWcoz7ywJK2ISO7lPa84Hw6UGYOcN_LQ5HonU4f4Q9Qww/viewform?usp=sf_link if you would like an invite to the Meet

Mike Afdahl - Coordinator of Technology Services for NorthWest Georgia RESA

Brian Buffington - EdTech Guru, Connoisseur of bright sports coats, Buff Nuggets Podcast, PD Leader + Keynote Speaker, Owner Studio Blue LLC, EdTech Director at

@PioneerResa

Lee Green - Lee is a Game Design Teacher for the Floyd County Career Academy and a facilitator for the Obriant Group.

Kris Plummer - Kris is a Digital Learning Specialist for the Jefferson City School District and is a Google Certified Trainer

During this session participants can call in and join and ask anything and everything about . . . well anything.

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

Joe Dawson - Elbert County Elementary School

Matt Johnson - Elbert County Middle School

Sherri Rampey -Elbert County Primary School

Hector Santiago - Elbert County Comprehensive High School

Bruce Stewart - Technology Director Elbert County School District

Clint Winter - Instructional Technology Coordinator Elbert County School District

Website: elbert.k12.ga.us
Phone: 706.213.4000
Twitter: @elbertcoschools