AACPS OIT Byte

By: Samantha Wilkinson, OIT Elementary Teacher Specialist Lumio by SMART is my recent app obsession. While I enjoy all of our apps, and they each have something special, Lumio has grabbed my attention recently. Why? Well, I love that I can record up to 5 minutes of audio per slide so students can hear the directions over and over without me sounding like a broken record. I love how I can change it from teacher paced to student paced at any point in the lesson. I love the ability to upload a PDF, or existing Google Slide and make it and independent activity, group activity, or even whole class whiteboard. I love that I can share ad-free YouTube videos with students. And obviously, I love the templates, graphic organizers, manipulatives, and dozens of pre-made resources. Pre-made and low prep is just working smarter. But the thing I love the MOST, my favorite thing, is Lumio's ability for teachers to edit ON THE FLY! I recently presented in Lumio at a school and I realized I wanted t...

 by Tracey Brown, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist Issuing laptops to every teacher had additional awesome results. You now have a docking station that simplifies connecting to multiple other devices including, not only your SMART board and Document Camera, but also an extra monitor. That means many teachers now have a total of 3 screens available in their classroom. Are you making the most of your screens? Extend or Duplicate your screen The first choice you have is whether you want to extend or duplicate your screen. This means you can see the same application on both screens, or different windows on each. For example, you could be projecting your lesson onto your SMART board from your laptop screen and have PowerSchool open on the second monitor to mark attendance or keep grades up-to-date. To choose between Extend and Duplicate you will use the shortcut Windows + P. Getting Different Apps on Different Screens If you choose to Extend your monitors, you need the next s...

By: Koralina McKenna, Teacher Specialist - Office of Instructional Technology When I started teaching in 2016, I made it a point to ask students for their preferred name; I took notes on pronunciation and tried my best to get it right as soon as possible. But, it wasn't until 2020 that I added "preferred pronouns" to my first day survey. I created a way to keep track of my students preferred names and pronouns and made sure they were easily accessible for any sub or visitor in my classroom. These simple practices can affirm students' identity and help build a culturally responsive classroom. However, I quickly learned that I needed to do more to support my students and technology could make that seemingly daunting task a little easier.  In my early years, I often overlooked the Read&Write tool; mostly I found the purple puzzle piece to be an annoyance - until I came to appreciate how it could open up the digital world for all my students. During a reading heavy l...

By: Koralina McKenna, Teacher Specialist - Office of Instructional Technology The Teaching & Learning Instructional Observation/Evaluation Rubric has 34 criteria in which teachers are rated. Some of the observation stems are straight forward like "Class is neat and organized; arranged for student interactions and reflects current student learning". A teacher should receive a rating of "Effective" if the classroom is organized in a way that promotes student-to-student dialogue (think: groups), the teacher has relevant bulletin boards and student work displayed and the teachers' area is neat. If you can demonstrate that students can independently access materials and make up work; then you jump to "Highly Effective".  Move further down the rubric and you will find stems that are more complex and require the teacher to think thoughtfully and creatively about how they will demonstrate effectiveness. Observations can be stressful no matter what grade yo...

by Kerri Lambert, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist In OIT, we are often asked how we learn “all this stuff” and how do we keep up with all the changes across our platforms. There are several ways, but one of our favorite ways is to peruse Twitter when we have a moment. This allows us to get information from one place and in the small snippets of time- and it doesn’t fill up our inboxes! If you are on Twitter and looking for people to follow, here are a few that we recommend. It’s no secret that OIT supports a variety of instructional applications and yes, sometimes it can feel overwhelming! But, many of the programs we subscribe to are active on Twitter. Not only do they tweet out updates or upcoming features, but also showcase ways educators across the country are using their products with students. This is also a great way to find out about learning opportunities such as webinars or conferences. Following the companies gives you the best of both worlds- updates and inspir...

  By Koralina McKenna, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist Game Based Activity - Word Search ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Quick, easy to make, can change difficulty, use in Lumio or print I don't know how I would have made it through virtual teaching within Lumio's word search! It was such a fun way to get the kids ready for the lesson and an easy transition into "Based on the word list, what do you think we're learning about today?"  But once we transitioned back into the classroom, I quickly realized that Lumio's word search still had major value - not only could I have students complete it during a lumio lesson, I could also screen snip it and print it out! When students are using the word search on their computers, each student gets a unique search; no peeking at your neighbor's screen for the answers. My students loved to race each other to see who get find them all with the fewer number of hints - this was the perfect time to put in my attendance and set the tone f...

 by Sarah Morin, SMART Ambassador and HS Math Teacher, Washington County Public Schools Imagine you’re sitting in a high school math class just after returning from break, and experiencing several snow day interruptions. This is a stressful time of year for kids and teachers alike. We’re all tired. Keeping students engaged in my class around this time of year is tricky. Thanks to Lumio, formerly SMART Learning Suite Online, this task is much easier than it once was.   Lumio has amazing features to make any lesson engaging; graphic organizers, templates for notes and quick checks for understanding, direct access to outside platforms such as YouTube and Desmos. While it’s possible to create content in the Lumio platform, my FAVORITE way to engage my students and save time is to simply add something engaging to lessons I’ve already created. I start by importing an existing Google Slides, PDF or other file; and that’s when the magic begins. Let me share my top three tools I use ...

by Heather Schrader, Education Sales Consultant at SMART First and foremost, if you haven’t heard, SMART Learning Suite Online (SLSO) is now “Lumio by SMART”!  Lumio makes it easy to transform your PDFs, Google Slides, PowerPoint, and SMART Notebook files into lessons that you can send to student devices (anytime, anywhere) with interactive activities, games, group workspaces, and assessment tools. This change took effect in June and, here at SMART, we couldn’t be more excited. Finally, SLSO has a short and sweet name that reflects the illumination of learning, those “ah-ha” moments, that our online tool is built to inspire . So, besides the name, what’s new in Lumio? In two words: A LOT! Changing the name from SLSO to Lumio was just the beginning of a marathon of updates. July brought two major changes that teachers had asked for: new editing tools and undo/redo functionality! You can copy and paste, group and ungroup, and even order elements within a page in your Lumio lesso...