AACPS OIT Byte

 By: Samantha Wilkinson We have some spectacular seasonal technology activities to use with students this October. They bring in some fun as well as build valuable tech skills that align with the Maryland Digital Learning Standards . As Lumio says, "It's not a trick- dive into our basket of treats!" They are referring to the Lumio library . Dozens of October, Halloween and monster inspired activities including a Halloween Integer Crossword, poetry collection, brain breaks, autumn mindfulness, writing prompts and more. One that I love is the Halloween diamante poem lesson. This walks students through the parts of speech, has them do a sorting activity, complete a collaborative poem, and then write their own. Perfect for teachers to practice using the various interactive presentation types in Lumio. One of my favorite resources is the Halloween channel in Discovery Education. Have you seen it? With just a quick search you can find the channel. And the best thing is that yo...

By Kerri Lambert, Instructional Technology Specialist This is the second in a series of posts about the Maryland Digital Learning Standards. Read the first post about standard 1: The Empowered Learner here .  Every year the third week of October is recognized as Digital Citizenship Week, so it’s only appropriate that our next post in our series on the Maryland Digital Learning Standards should focus on Standard 2: Digital Citizen. Here is the standard: 2. Digital Citizen Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world safe, legal and ethical. Students: a) manage their digital identity being aware of the permanence of their actions in the digital world; b) engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology and online social interactions; c) demonstrate an understanding of and respect for the rights and obligations of using and sharing intellectual property; and d) manage thei...

We asked Morgan Thompson some questions about her role in the Office of Instructional Technology, as the Learning Management System (LMS) Teacher Specialist. Here's what she had to say: Q:  What new and exciting things are going on with Brightspace?  A: For anyone who hasn’t seen them yet, the Creator+ Elements and Practices within HTML documents are really exciting. In a nutshell, Creator+ capitalizes on instructional practices that I would use everyday in my classroom, from organizing/chunking information to dynamic questioning types like sorting or sequencing. These instructional practices were then built into a guided creation process that is so easy to use, resulting in extremely interactive displays and activities built into your everyday Brightspace content.  And although it’s not new, something I have spent a lot of time working with lately is Game Based Learning within Brightspace. It incorporates assignments and quizzes that you may already be using with your st...

  Brightspace Spotlight Portfolio: Your New Filing Cabinet by Darren Towers, Office of Instructional Technology LMS Specialist If you have been around a while like me, you probably had a box or filing cabinet drawer to collect those key student samples throughout the year to create a portfolio. You know, the writing samples, art projects, or math and reading assignments from the beginning, middle, and end of the year. These samples were shared with parents, drove your instruction, and even influenced how you grade your students. This process was also used to show student growth - an essential part of the teaching and learning process.  As we grow as instructors we often adopt new ways of doing things...sometimes by choice, sometimes by necessity. I am not here to discourage the collection of those hard copies, but to suggest a way to enhance how they are stored, shared, and used in your process. The filing cabinet still has its place, but just as we backup our music and photos...