AACPS OIT Byte

By Tracey Brown, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist If you have students doing research projects and you haven’t discovered Keep and Docs, you might be doing it wrong! The combination of Keep and Docs has cut the time it takes me to produce a quality research paper in half! No joke, in half. I used to waste hours rereading articles to find that quote I remembered seeing or to remind myself which one included that information I wanted to cite. I had so many tabs open during the writing process it was hard to keep track of where anything was and hard to get a rhythm going as I kept starting and stopping to reread. Sometimes I wrote entire paragraphs only to delete them and start over because it didn’t align with the point I was trying to make. I was just lacking the organization I needed to make the process more efficient. That’s when I decided to add Google Keep into the mix and just like that cute little logo, a light bulb went off for me. My Efficient Research Process My proc...

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 Tracey Brown, AACPS Instructional Teacher Specialist Those of us who work in instructional technology tend to throw around the term LMS as though it were a commonly used, widely understood term in education like IEP or STEM, but while it is becoming more common with the prevalence of technology in our schools, maybe it is time for us to take a huge step backwards and describe what an LMS is and how it can transform K-12 education. LMS stands for Learning Management System, and it refers to the digital classroom platform that a school or district may provide teachers to use to facilitate online learning. But it is so much more than a way for teachers to give students assignments. That is a big part of it and probably how teachers and students will interact with it on a daily basis. But it also consolidates and manages many technology initiatives in one convenient package. What can an LMS do for each stakeholder in education? Teachers An LMS allows teachers to post class materials lik...

  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 Tracey Brown, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist When students are working on their Chromebooks, they have access to Accessibility settings to turn on and off the tools that they need, as they need them. The great thing is, these are built into the Chromebooks and do not require any additional purchase or installation. As teachers, knowing about these tools can allow you to better guide and support your students in making the most of their digital devices, but it can also help you in the instance that you are asked to troubleshoot an issue that stems from a student accidentally turning on one of these features, which is common with younger learners especially.  Initially, accessibility features are found in the settings menu, all the way at the bottom under Advanced, and all the way at the bottom again ( directions here ). What we recommend is having students change the settings to Always show accessibility option in the system menu . That makes the accessibility button...

  By Darren Towers, Teacher Specialist, Office of Instructional Technology Content HTML Templates: The What, How, and Why A new and welcome hidden gem in the Brightspace environment are the pre-loaded HTML Templates. HTML templates can be used in your course Content tool and are easy to access and use. In this article I will briefly review what HTML templates are, how they can be used in Brightspace, and why you should give them a shot. What are HTML Templates? An HTML or website template provides an online page or site structure and a consistent appearance. This is similar to using a certain theme in a Powerpoint or Slide presentation. Various templates can be used throughout a Brightspace course to give the students a consistent and organized look and feel as they navigate through their learning. Some experimentation with the different templates will be necessary when you first start out. There are basic appearance templates as well as templates for specific use cases like meetin...

By: Koralina McKenna, Teacher Specialist, Office of Instructional Technology It’s that time of the year again; perhaps the most dreaded time of year - testing season. Where teachers everywhere scramble to keep their students engaged with meaningful content in between this test or that. For me my greatest challenge during this time was trying not to overwhelm the brains of my fresh-out-of-testing students with brand new material or highly rigorous activities without completely blowing off my instruction.  I spent my planning periods trying to delicately map out how to keep my classes in sync, debating whether to introduce new content or review prior content, all while managing my own stress brought on by testing.  This is the tightrope walked by teachers everyday but I found it particularly arduous during testing season. With this post I offer you the gift of ready-to-use activities, challenges, games and more. Below you will find a wide range of whole group or individual optio...