AACPS OIT Byte

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...

by Debbie Ray, Teacher Specialist, Office of Instructional Technology If you're as old as me or have been with the school system for a while you will remember NCLB otherwise known as No Child Left Behind. You are probably wondering what does NCLB have to do with Anne Arundel County’s eCoach program? Well, that is how the program started back in 2004. NCLB wanted every eighth grader to be technology literate by the end of 2006. The Maryland Department of Education (MSDE) created the Maryland Technology Literacy Consortium for the counties to work on achieving the requests of NCLB. The Office of Instructional Technology (OIT) represented Anne Arundel County in the consortium. We decided the best use of funding would be to provide professional development for our teachers. How could you have literate students if teachers weren’t integrating technology or even using it? However, we knew that we could not alone provide this professional development. Thus the creation of the eCoach Progr...

 by Kerri Lambert, Teacher Specialist, Office of Instructional Technology This is the second in a two part article on digital holiday activities.  To read Part 1, click here .  We love the idea of having students conduct research on holidays around the world as explored in Part 1 of this article , but sometimes you want something more specific. Keep reading for ideas that fall under that category.  Giving Thanks As Thanksgiving approaches, we often reflect on the people and things we are grateful for over the last year. Wixie offers many Thanksgiving activities that are perfect for reflecting and sharing on family traditions. Students can complete a gratitude journal , fill a cornucopia , share a special family recipe , or even reflect on their blessings . Can’t decide on which you like best? Give your students their choice, using the primary or elementary choice board. Wixie has plenty of ideas to choose from for November (and all the other months!) in their Month...

By Kerri Lambert, Teacher Specialist, Office of Instructional Technology ‘Tis the season for thinking about ways to keep students engaged in learning as the holiday season begins. Traditionally, this has meant cutting out turkey feathers with the things we are thankful for, writing persuasive letters on alternatives for the turkey dinner, and taking a ride on the Polar Express. Those are all classic, enjoyable activities, but this year consider taking your holiday activities up a notch with these digital options: Researching Holidays Around the World Now, I know what you’re thinking. We do this already! This type of activity is one that many teachers implement in their classroom, and for good reason. It brings in the opportunity to discuss the diverse cultures in our classrooms and around the world, but it’s easy to get stuck in a rut using the same books and paper packets to learn about the same cultures and traditions year after year. Shake things up by substituting or supplementing...

by Darren Towers, Teacher Specialist, Office of Instructional Technology 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, we should also backup our students' key educational artif...

By Tracey Brown, Teacher Specialist, Office of Instructional Technology Self-paced courses are designed to be flexible to your availability. Rather than signing up to attend a live session that requires you to account for travel time to and from the course site, or give up valuable hours on a weekend, you can engage with the content any time that fits in with your schedule, including before school, during lunch, after school, or even while traveling if you are connected. The other great thing about self-paced courses is you can work entirely at your own pace. Just because someone else decided the content can be completed in two hours, if you can work through it faster because you are already familiar with some concepts, or need more time to review the content multiple times, or practice with the features, it is entirely up to you as you are in the driver’s seat. Finally, self-paced courses can actually give you more access to an instructor than in person courses because you aren’t vyin...

  By Tracey Brown, Teacher Specialist, Office of Instructional Technology Over the last fews years teacher obligations seem to have increased more and more. In an effort to continue to provide excellent professional development to all instructional staff, we have increasingly moved offerings into a self-paced format in an effort to allow just-in-time learning that fits anyone’s busy schedule. We know not everyone learns well in a self-paced format, and that is why we continue to offer live sessions at schools throughout the day and during faculty meetings, and to offer them in the evenings in a remote format with the hopes of returning to in-person soon, but there are steps you can take to make a self-paced course work better for any learner. Chunk it When schedules get busy, we sometimes adopt the mindset, “I just need to get this done so I can move on to the next task.” Working through a self-paced course with the sole goal of getting it done is a recipe for frustration. If a cou...