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November 26, 2024

1. Get a Chromebook and sign in. Then go to WYAW and complete the attendance and activity.
   
   
2. Let's watch some fabuous digital stories from your peers! Confetti compliments.......
   
   
3. Communicating with Families
   What are some ways you can communicate with families using old or new technology?
   Old School Tool: Printed Newsletter
   Middle School Tool: E-mails
   New Tools: Remind, Class Dojo, and (drum roll.....)
   SMORE (https://www.smore.com/)
1. Free tool limited to 3 publications total, 200 email "sends" but this refreshes each month with another 200 sends
2. Good for digital communication - email blasts
3. Affordable for educators ($99/year - see if your media specialist or principal will cover it or set up a donor's choose)
4. Let's check out a few things Smore can do:
   
   1. Choose from a limited number of backgrounds, colors, and fonts
   2. Add text to preformatted boxes
   3. Add images and embed video
   4. NOTE: To add images, you have to download and save them and then insert them into your flyer/newsletter
      
      
4. Here are some examples from past students. This may be a great way to introduce yourself to your kiddos in the Spring for Internship!
   • To introduce yourself:
• https://www.smore.com/m6xt5-meet-ms-white Ashlee
• https://www.smore.com/bvab8 Taylor
• https://www.smore.com/9q0z2 James
• https://www.smore.com/vd9nj Hannah
• https://www.smore.com/ctx23-meet-ms-o-dwyer Ashlee
• https://www.smore.com/e14rc-welcome-to-our-2nd-grade-class Bailey
• https://www.smore.com/wxt6m-meet-miss-teryn Teryn
  
  • For international outreach and information: https://www.smore.com/mv0y3-kenya-bound
  • To share or promote your organization: https://www.smore.com/xeb30-let-s-have-a-parade
  • Or a combination of any or all of these: https://www.smore.com/02yt8-we-re-nuts-about-fall
  • It can be useful for personal events as well https://www.smore.com/33zxf
5. YOUR TASK:
   • Relevant text that is polished and grammatically correct;
   • At least 2 text blocks (with text only or with images)
     __ Text #1
     __ Text #2
     
   • One two or three image gallery
   • 1 embedded video
   • 1 event
   • Listing of sources (url is fine) at the bottom of the flyer/newsletter using a text block
     

RESOURCES O' THE DAY:

A Great Educational Coding Website
https://www.codeforlife.education/

Top Coding Websites for Kids
https://codakid.com/top-21-kids-coding-websites-of-all-time/

10 Free Coding Games Websites for Teaching Programming Skills
https://childhood101.com/coding-for-kids/

Hour of Code
https://hourofcode.com/us

Why teach robotics in schools?
https://blog.robotiq.com/7-reasons-to-teach-robotics-at-school

Computational Thinking Competencies
https://www.iste.org/standards/computational-thinking

Computational Thinking Teacher Resources (RICH RESOURCE)
https://id.iste.org/docs/ct-documents/ct-teacher-resources_2ed-pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=2

A Comprehensive List of Coding Resources
https://mommypoppins.com/coding-kids-free-websites-teach-learn-programming

Videos on Computational Thinking and Coding:

Computational thinking: A digital age skill for everyone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFcUgSYyRPg&t=1s

Other Videos from ISTE
https://www.youtube.com/user/istevideos/search?query=computational+thinking

A Fabulous and Free Coding Website for Kids from MIT - Scratch
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tutorial=getStarted

Sphero

Overview of Sphero for Teachers from the Company
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0306/6419/6141/files/SpheroEdu-k12-teacher-resource-guide.pdf?v=1585146735

Teacher's Guide
https://dmmedia.sphero.com/email-marketing/Sphero-Edu/SpheroEdu-k12-teacher-resource-guide-v1_updated050818.pdf

A list of Sphero Challenges from a classroom teacher in Georgia