JEFFCO ED TECH - Jeffco Ed Tech Blog

Remote Learning in Jeffco

3/31/2020

First and foremost, the Jeffco Ed Tech team would like to send out a huge thank you to all staff who have participated in or supported remote learning.
We have seen so many risks taken by teachers and students.
It is an unprecedented, but also exciting time to be in education!

In an effort to keep the communication coming to you from the central office streamlined and as clear as possible our blog will take a brief hiatus following today's post.
We are using this post as a way to share our remote learning resources and preferred method of communication and support.

Remote
Learning
Teaching
Supports

Remote Learning Support Links
This document contains online resources to support Jeffco educators during remote virtual learning. This document will continue to be add to and updated throughout this time.

Ed Tech
"Face to face"
support

Ed Tech Google Meet
Ed Tech is hosting open office hours via the Google Meet link above Tuesday - Friday from 7:30 am - 4:00 pm. Drop in with questions or support. Meet is a great space for support because an Ed Tech specialist can see your screen which gives us visibility into your needs.

Schoology groups

Schoology Group Codes
The preferred method of contact, outside of the office hours, is Jeffco Schoology.
The Schoology platform is monitored during business hours and often into the evening. Utilizing Schoology to ask questions, rather than email, casts a much wider net.
Many other staff members may have your same question and by posting in Schoology, more people have access to those answers.
In addition, Schoology is a great platform for sharing instructional ideas.
During remote learning, many teachers are looking for innovative ideas for scheduling, grouping students, using tech tools, and deeper learning instructional models. Sharing of ideas and resources supports our entire system and reaches more students!

Classroom Management with Technology

3/3/2020

Classroom management is a challenging area of teaching for new and more veteran teachers alike. Student seating, expectations for behavior, and routines for the classroom are something every teacher considers before the start of school each year. Now that Chromebooks and iPads are becoming a normal piece of most classrooms; have you stopped to think about how technology, specifically, figures into your classroom management plan? “Classrooms once featuring paper, pencils, and textbooks as the main teaching resources have evolved into spaces where each student can hold a device in his hands allowing him to download more information than a physical library can hold” (Dowd and Green). This has created an interesting challenge for teachers. Where do Chromebooks and iPads fit in to the classroom management landscape?

There are a few steps any classroom teacher can take to fold technology seamlessly into the classroom management of their room, whether they are new to the devices or they’ve been 1:1 for years.

1. Teach your procedures!

Every August (and probably the beginning of every term!), you review how to do common tasks in your classroom.
Whether it’s about coming to class prepared, your bathroom policy, late work, sharpening pencils, or anything else that requires repeated, explicit instruction. Device procedures are no different.

What are devices doing during the first few minutes of your class? In some classrooms, warm-ups are completed online. In others, Chromebooks stay under desks until the teacher says otherwise. Where do you stand?

Some procedures to consider teaching with devices next term:

Coming in to class and getting started
Day’s agenda (do they go online to Google Classroom or a similar tool to access this?)
Headphones during class
Acceptable use of technology during work time
What should students do with technology when you are doing full-class work? (close their device? “Tent” their device?)
Extension activities when done with classwork

2. Think about expectations and norms

What happens when a student forgets to charge their device or leaves their Chromebook at home? This might be a larger conversation to be had with your grade level or your school as a whole; but it is definitely something that WILL happen and should be planned for.
By having shared expectations, students will understand that the rules are the rules in EVERY room and won’t need to guess what is expected of them in each class. Also, consider how the students will learn this information. A device “boot camp” for all students to complete before using their device is a great way to ensure students have had exposure to the expectations.

Expectations to discuss at your school or with your team:

Charging expectations
- What do we do when students’ devices are not charged?
What are the expectations for extensions and add-ons?
How do we handle inappropriate use of technology?
What is the protocol when a student’s device is out for repair?
What is the discipline plan for transgressions on proper use?

3. how will devices will be utilized during lessons?

It can be overwhelming to consider how much teaching has changed over the past 5 years. The majority of teachers in the classroom today were not trained in college about how to integrate technology into their lesson plans. However, as TechforEd devices roll up through the grade levels, tech rich lesson expectations are only going to increase!
A helpful way to think about updating or changing your current lessons to accommodate technology is to consult the SAMR model.

Need a refresher on SAMR?
Here’s a quick video on Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition.

No one is expected to spend all their time in the Redefinition area. Sometimes Substitution makes the most sense! But for deeper learning, Substitution cannot be the ONLY way of bringing technology into your lessons.

Technology can be a powerful tool to engage your students in the content of your course.
But don't throw out what you already know about best practices in lesson planning! The essence of a lesson can get lost when we plan for the tool before the standards.

Begin with outcomes! For instance, if you are teaching a lesson on dialogue in your ELA classroom, perhaps a WeVideo or Soundtrap would be good digital tools so that you can hear/see their work in action!
Consider your content and the thinking you’re asking from your students, then choose the tool that makes the most sense.
With intentional and proactive planning, technology in the classroom need not be a classroom management nightmare!

Need more guidance or have questions not covered here? Contact your Ed Tech Specialist!
Additional Resources: Classroom Management in the Digital Age by Heather Dowd and Patrick Green

Book Creator ADDS Accessibility Features

2/21/2020

Book Creator is one of the 8 district purchased tools and a great way for students and teachers to get creative in crafting digital books.

In Book Creator you can combine text, images, audio and video to create:

Interactive stories
Digital portfolios
Research journals
Poetry books
Science reports
Instruction manuals
‘About me’ books
Comic adventures

Recently, Book Creator added numerous accessibility improvements in their latest update. A few of their updates are:

At Book Creator, our mission has always been to bring digital publishing to all, and allow teachers the means to differentiate lessons for all types of learners. We’ve spent the last few months diligently working through a list of major (and minor) accessibility updates to make Book Creator easier to use for everyone. For those who understand and prioritise accessibility in their teaching, this is our most important update yet. ~Dan Kemp

Add Captions to video and Transcripts to Audio

Now you are able to auto-generate captions for videos that you add to Book Creator. Generate the captions and then manually edit them as needed. When recording audio, you can now add transcripts to your recording. Book Creator developed speech-to-text functionality in November 2017, but now they’ve supercharged it so you can dictate your text in 120 different languages.

Directions: Add Captions to Video
Directions: Generate a Transcript
Directions: Use Your Voice to Type the Words

Navigate using the Keyboard

These new features support those with vision impairments. Some people with hand tremors find using a mouse very difficult and therefore usually use a keyboard. Keyboard navigation can help those who have difficulty with the hand-eye coordination required for using a mouse, and also supports those who may struggle locating the pointer on a screen.

Improved Color Contrast

Updates have been made to make the screen easier to read. Fonts and images have been updated.

Read to Me Function

Read to me is a great feature that allows students to have books that are shared with them. Not only is the book read to them, but students can change the settings to have the speech rate changed, the page displayed changed, and have the book read in different voices and language.
For more information: intercom.help/bookcreator/en/articles/2398649-read-to-me-in-book-creator

What does this Mean for Education?

Equality. Inclusion. Differentiation. These are important considerations as technology becomes more and more prevalent in education, and we want to remain right at the forefront of accessibility in education. ~Dan Kemp, Book Creator Tools for School’s Marketing & Community Manager

Other Features

Along with the added accessibility features, book creator has some other great features that add some amazing functionality to your books. A few of these features are autodraw, app smash, embed media, and insert audio to name a few.

Let us know what amazing things you've been doing with Book Creator to enhance creativity and provide accessibility for all students!

Ed Tech Resources

Google Goodness: February

2/21/2020

Best Practices with school-based YouTube accounts

School administrators are now able to request a school-based YouTube account (schoolnameyoutube@jeffcoschools.us). Administrators may request the creation of a school-based YouTube account by submitting a work ticket in ESS. Having a school-based YouTube account allows the school’s video content to live with the school, rather than on an individual staff member’s YouTube channel. For security purposes, these accounts cannot be used to log into any other applications other than YouTube. For more information on school-based YouTube channels, please see this best practices document.

Trouble Viewing YouTube Videos in Jeffco?

YouTube uses a safe-search filter, separate from our network filter, to keep our students from viewing inappropriate content. This can cause issues when users outside of our domain (guests and parents) try to watch videos while on our Jeffco Community network. If you are on our network, but not logged into our domain (@jeffcoschools.us account), videos not approved by Jeffco AND Google will not play. These same videos would play, without issue, at home where YouTube is not restricted. The best way to ensure that your videos will play for all users, on all networks, is to upload them from Drive, rather than link them from YouTube. For more support on this issue, please see this support document.

Google Classroom ORIGINALITY Reports & Rubrics

Originality reports and rubrics are are two newly available Google Classroom tools. Originality reports support instructors in detecting plagiarism in student work. Students can use the reports to check their work for citation accuracy and for poor paraphrasing before they submit their assignment. This allows students the opportunity to improve their work based on the feedback provided by the originality report. Google allows teachers to activate originality reports on 3 assignments per classroom.

The rubric feature creates opportunities for students to set expectations, provide feedback and evaluate student work. Educators might consider using rubrics for complex assignments that require multiple steps and/or criteria. You can attach a rubric to an assignment a way for students to reference when understanding their grades.

Classroom Support: Run an Originality Report
Classroom Support: Grade with a Rubric
Classroom Support: Creating or Reusing a Rubric for an Assessment

Read & Write for Google in Shared Drives

In becoming better acquainted with our new digital tools this year, we have discovered that PDFs stored in Shared Drives are not compatible with Read and Write PDF Reader. This is because Read and Write is tied to an individual user's account, and when files are moved into a Shared Drive, they are no longer associated with individual users. If you need to use Read and Write's features on a PDF in a shared drive, the best option is to make a copy and then move the PDF to your individual drive. Please see this help article for additional support.

Schoology Updates - February 2020

2/18/2020

It's been a while since we've had information about Schoology shared out so here are a few quick items to help you stay up-to-date.

In case you haven't heard, back in late 2019 PowerSchool purchased Schoology. What does this mean for current Schoology users? Nothing is changing, and we will see enhanced features and options in the future according to our Schoology connections. We will keep you updated as new features become available. If you want to read more about the acquisition, click here.

Digital Assessments
in Schoology

Assessment season is right around the corner and many teachers and students are working on preparing to share their amazing learning and knowledge. Did you know Schoology can serve as a robust platform for digital assessments providing practice opportunities for students of all ages? Schoology Tests/Quizzes have a wide variety of options for teachers to create customized assessments in a variety of ways.

A few of the customization features for teachers include:

Grading for a Test/Quiz - Any Test/Quiz in Schoology provides a variety of options for teachers to setup grading by category for a dynamic grade book, and grade by points or letter grade. Additionally teachers can assign an assessment to their whole class or just specific students. When grading, any multiple choice can be automatically graded for quick access to data saving time on teacher workloads. Teachers can also control the number of attempts thus allowing students to work on demonstrating mastery over longer periods of time. Last, Grading Statistics can be enabled so students can see how they compare to the rest of the class. No names are shown to student, just the grades/scores of their peers.
Question Type - Schoology has a wide range of question types available to create dynamic assessments. A few of the options include true/false, ordering, drag and drop, labeling images, short answer/essay, and much more. With a wide variety of options, teachers can challenge students to demonstrate their knowledge and learning in a variety of ways, as well as, practice using digital assessment tools and strategies. Schoology also has a large question bank which teachers can draw from to easily create and modify their assessment questions.
Results of Tests/Quizzes - Keeping up with student growth is no easy task for teachers but Schoology has made it much simpler. Teachers can get instant results for an easy to understand overview of how students are performing. In addition to an overall view, teachers can dig into each question to determine if there are gaps in understanding for specific topics/content. Teachers can also get a breakdown by student to provide differentiated supports without spending large amounts of time grading and transferring data before making instructional decisions.

For more information on how to use Schoology assessment features, you can visit the Schoology Help Center. Check out the Course Materials resources or more specifically resources for Tests/Quizzes to get started.

Schoology Kiosk
for Jeffco Chromebooks

Schoology has a Kiosk available for students on any Jeffco owned Chromebook. The Schoology Kiosk allows students to enter Schoology and work only in Schoology on their Chromebook without having access to any external content such as a web browser. The Schoology Kiosk can be a useful tool for teachers to provide students learning and assessment experiences in a more controlled environment. To learn more about using the Schoology Kiosk on district-owned Chromebooks, take a look at the Schoology Kiosk Google Doc. There is also a link included on the document for access to a quick video demonstration.

Course Deletion Issue

Jeffco Schoology is set up to automatically create courses for every teacher coinciding with their class rosters in Infinite Campus. Teachers will see their classes auto-populating the Course Section of their Schoology account. It is asked that teachers DO NOT DELETE these auto-created courses in Schoology. When a teacher deletes an auto-created course, it creates a backlog of Schoology sync issues and also causes students issues with seeing current or future courses they are auto-enrolled in. Once an auto-created course is deleted by a teacher, it cannot be reinstated. It is asked that if teachers aren't using those courses, or they don't want them interfering with current courses, they move them to the bottom of their course list. This can easily be done in the My Course section of Schoology by dragging courses in the order of desired preference. Teachers can delete any courses they have created at anytime without issue, this only applies to the auto-created courses within Schoology. If you have questions or would like further support, please reach out to either Nick Steinmetz or Lisa Summit in the Jeffco Educational Technology Department.

More Schoology updates, new features, and opportunities for learning will be coming in the next few months. If you have questions about Schoology you can contact the above supports at anytime or reach out to your Jeffco Ed Tech Specialist.

Pear Deck Flashcard Factory for increased retention and engagement

2/14/2020

Nearly any content area unit at any grade level involves learning important academic vocabulary to help students understand and articulate their knowledge in a manner that shows their newfound comprehension. Vocabulary comprehension is a critical skill when it comes to demonstrating understanding on the CMAS assessment, as well. Students are not able to comprehend vocabulary without picturing, and technology is able to engage support students in that task.

Pear Deck’s Flashcard Factory is a little-known feature that helps engage students in this work in a new, game-based way! Pear Deck explains, “In the Flashcard Factory, students work together to create the best example sentences and illustrations for your vocabulary terms. At the end of the game, you can review and choose the final flashcard set as a group. Finally, print the final set or export it to Gimkit for free. Students can play review games with their cards at home, and all of the fun examples they created will help them remember and better understand the terms.”

Getting started with Flashcard factory

Step 1 - Create a vocabulary list

Go to peardeck.com and log in as a teacher (use your jeffcoschools.us email address!) to open your Pear Deck Home. Please note: You must use a Google account to play the Flashcard Factory game at this time! When you reach Pear Deck Home, click Start a Vocab List:

Step Two: Add Vocabulary Terms to your List

Teachers can find a Vocabulary List by Subject, paste in their own list, or type in terms. Merriam-Webster is on call to help you fill in definitions as you go. You get to choose whether or not to provide students a definition. Learn more about creating a list.

Step Three: Play the Flashcard Factory Game

When you're ready to begin, click the blue Play Flashcard Factory button (see the image above). Pear Deck displays instructions on your screen (the Projector View) telling students how to join the game. Just like they enter a Slides Session, students need to go to joinpd.com, log in with their Google Account, then enter the code to join.

Students' names will appear on the teacher’s screen as they join. Students are automatically assigned a partner to create example sentences and illustrations for the new terms during the game. Once they have joined the session, teachers will click Clock in to enter the Production Phase. Students can then start creating their cards. As a class, students can review the cards on the Projector View and choose the best examples to be included in the final Flashcard Set. Learn more about how the game is played.

Step Four: Choose the final Flashcard Set

When you are ready for students to stop working in the Production Phase, and you want to decide which cards to send to the final set, go to Quality Control.

In Quality Control, you can approve cards for the final set (or dismiss them). The students can get in on the fun here as well!

After completing the Quality Control phase, click on the Shipping Phase button.

Step Five: Export, Print, and Review

In the Shipping Phase, click on Print or Export Set.

A new window opens. Click on Print Flashcard Set or Export to Gimkit.
If you choose Print, the Print menu opens. If a Flashcard does not have a definition, example, or image, we provide space for students to fill in their own copy or image after printing.

You can also play fun study games on products like Gimkit!

We hope you find a way to utilize this secret gem of a game/instructional tool soon!
As always, if you have questions, please contact your EdTech Specialist to get started.

Resources:

Discover Discovery Education

2/4/2020

One of the digital tools purchased for all teachers and students this year is Discovery Education. You may remember this tool for its amazing video collection, but it is so much more. Discovery Education (DE) contains standard-aligned, digital curriculum resources for staff and students.

With the easy interactive search features, teachers have the choice of searching for content by Trends, by Subject, and by Colorado Academic State Standards.

One of the most surprising resources in DE are the Professional Development teacher resource tabs. Teachers can join DE’s lesson sharing and social network in the Educator Network and Professional Learning tabs. Teachers share lesson ideas, find instructional strategies, located Discovery Ed learning opportunities around the country, and ways to become a DEN Ambassador. The Instructional Strategies tab offers cross content teaching strategies.

The last section is the heart of creation and workflow. Teachers can create Studio Boards, “favorite” videos & channels, and much more under the My Content tab. This is a place where everyone in the same school can also share resources; both teacher or student created material. Studio is really where content creation lives. Teachers can create Studio Boards to share with students much like a multimedia text set or a traditional poster board (see Studio features image). Students also have Studio. They can create their own content and then share it back to their teacher through the Classroom feature. DE has workflow built right into the program.

So far this school year, students have created over 2,000 Studio boards. Students are typically creating science and social studies boards to demonstrate their learning and share with others in their class. The sample below is a middle school student’s board.
Your EdTech specialist is excited to share more about this amazing tool.

Why every classroom should teach digital citizenship

1/28/2020

Every day, we see students struggle with how to
mindfully manage the potential and power of their digital devices.

With our TechforEd initiative, and other 1:1 school programs, it’s become obvious that students need time to examine the consequences of their online activity. Here are some reasons why educators should take the lead in promoting digital citizenship curriculum inside their classroom and some helpful resources for how to implement.

1. Guiding
appropriate
technology
use

The number one concern we hear from teachers across our district is related to inappropriate use of technology by students in the classroom. With our TechforEd initiative, we knew we would need to provide instruction and guidance for staff and students around this topic. Jeffco’s Digital Citizenship scope and sequence and associated supports are built on Common Sense Media’s research based curriculum. This school year, resources are released monthly to schools and include lessons, activities, reading materials and family communication. If you are new to Digital Citizenship, these free resources are a great way to engage your students.

2. Incessant multitasking
creates the need to "teach" focus

“Although students had been told at the outset that they should “study something important, including homework, an upcoming examination or project, or reading a book for a course,” it wasn’t long before their attention drifted: Students’ “on-task behavior” started declining around the two-minute mark as they began responding to arriving texts or checking their social media feeds. By the time the 15 minutes were up, they had spent only about 65 percent of the observation period actually doing their schoolwork.”
~study out of California State University

If we want students to thrive in the digital world, they must be taught and have time to practice sustained attention. This is not a new practice, but urgent in the current environment. In the classroom, we can (and should) offer students incentives to engage in undistracted learning on their devices.

1. Time their engagement
ex: if students are on task for __ minutes, they get 2 minutes of YouTube
2. Create more engaging digital tasks.
ex: Create slideshows in Pear Deck, allowing for digital interaction with the content
3. Give students choice in how they show they learning.
ex: a typed essay, a Google site, a WeVideo, a podcast using Soundtrap, a digital poster using Google Drawings or Boardbuilder in Discovery Education

3. We are more apt to search the intranet than visit a library to research

One of the most empowering elements of digital media is the opportunity to learn anything, anytime, anywhere. Evaluating and citing sources has long been a skill that educators have guided students through. Now, more than ever, this skill is needed and, luckily, we know how to teach it! Teaching digital literacy empowers students with the skills and understanding necessary to not only use internet and technology to their benefit, but use it in the most effective ways to quickly find information and utilize the ever expanding list of sites and means of communication at their disposal.

4. Digital wellness is a mounting concern

With the rising concerns of technology addiction, isolation, and depression in children comes the need for more personal interaction. According to Common Sense Media, “the line between healthy and harmful (digital) use varies person to person and context to context (with evidence showing that already vulnerable teens, for instance, are more likely to exhibit unhealthy use of media), and research shows both positive and negative impacts of everything from social media to games”. As educators, we understand that our content is not the most important thing. Building relationships that provide a safe classroom community is the first thing we do with our students, because we know that feelings often trump learning. We can use this same philosophy when thinking about digital wellness. We must build digital wellness supports into our 1:1 classrooms. Talking with students about what media balance means to them and making screen time limit goals around their personal needs is a good way to build awareness. One school is Columbus, Ohio created a Digital Wellness Month. Giving students a voice in determining what is “healthy” rather than mandating arbitrary screen time restrictions creates more buy-in.

Educators tend to have two major assumptions. First, we assume that as digital natives, there is no need for teaching students how to use technology. Second, technology comes in many forms and we tend to lump it all together. In reality, the quality of the tools and devices matters. Remember creation vs. consumption. Engaging with an educational app (like Book Creator) for one hour per day is far more valuable than something that provides entertainment.

If you want planning support or more grade level examples, please reach out to your school’s Digital Teacher Librarian or Ed Tech Specialist.

FREE Digital Citizenship resources for educators:
Common Sense Media
Be Internet Awesome
TechforEd

Trigonometry Learning with Book Creator

1/22/2020

This blog post is by Tracy Peronard, a math teacher at Dakota Ridge High School. She has had a fascinating career track and shares some amazing insights into how Book Creator can be used for creative instruction and to set examples for students when using Jeffco Digital Tools.

Tracy has been teaching in Jeffco for nine years, eight of which have been at Dakota Ridge. She is from Atlanta, GA. and has a BS in Management from Georgia Tech. Tracy also completed a post-baccalaureate program at Georgia State University in Secondary Mathematics Education and is working to finish her Masters in Mathematics in the fall. Tracy and her husband moved to Littleton, CO. in 1998 where she was a stay at home mom for the first few years. In 2001, she went to work for the Lakewood Police Department as an Investigative Technician. She then left the LPD in 2010 and returned to the classroom. Her son graduated from Dakota Ridge in 2011 and her daughter graduated from Lakewood High School in 2014. She likes to run, play soccer, and go to the gym.

Tracy currently teaches trigonometry and Integrated Math 3. The Math 3 class is comprised entirely of juniors who are working on a math Capstone Project to fulfill the new graduation requirement. Tracy uses technology almost everyday in her math classroom. Thank you Tracy for sharing your expertise with us!

Dakota Ridge High School went 1:1 three years ago. I was excited that my students would each have a device of their own. I dove head first into the technology pool. Despite a lot of groaning from my geometry students, I had them use Geogebra for many tasks that once had been paper and pencil lessons and activities. By the end of the first six weeks, most students were able to successfully use the technology that I presented to them. Through Google Classroom, I provided links to various resources for my students. Since Chromebooks were new for both myself and my students, there were some bumps along the way. My students let me know what was good and more importantly what was bad.

This school year, I started teaching Trigonometry. The school has a set of books that the students can use in the classroom but the students cannot take the textbooks home. I saw students taking pictures of problem sets from the book. They did not take pictures of any of the examples, definitions, or formulas. I also noticed that students rarely used the textbook if they had access to the material electronically.

Nick Steinmetz (Jeffco Ed Tech Specialist) and our DTL Robin Luster, did professional development training at the start of this school year that included a brief overview of the new digital tools that were available throughout Jeffco. Book Creator was one of those tools. Initially, I was not interested. Nick used the example of English teachers using Book Creator; and I thought how fun it would be to have my math students write pages of a math book. From that "aha" moment came a spark. What if I wrote a book for my students?

Trigonometry is a one semester class. The first unit covers some topics that I taught my Honors Geometry students. I knew that I had some electronic resources that I wanted to share with my students; so I decided that I would write a book for this first unit. I worried that the book might flop, but I had not invested a lot of time writing a book covering only one unit. I decided not to start Unit 2 until I had feedback from the students.

The best part about writing an eBook is that you can include links to Geogebra activities, Khan Academy practice problems, and my own videos showing how to do select problems. The other advantage to putting all the resources into a book was that students did not have to search Google Classroom to find one old video or link. I watched a YouTube video to learn more about how to use Book Creator, then I started writing.

This is a snapshot from the Unit 1 book. It has a link to a Geogebra activity and an example video about Coterminal Angles.

Like all new tools, there was a learning curve. I clicked on every button to see what would happen. Sometimes, I discovered things by accident. The first few pages were slow, but by the time I had written the material for the first lesson, I felt fairly competent. I was hooked. I worked on the book on and off for a few days before school started. Once it was complete, I was proud of myself.

It did not matter how enamored I was of the Trigonometry Unit 1 book, because the true test was whether or not the students found value in it. I put a link to the book on Google Classroom and told the students that it was there. Not only did the book contain the Google Slides presentation that I would use in class but it had so much more, including homework for each lesson. Below is the Google Classroom post I showed my students when I introduced them to the book.

When it was time for the first test, the book became a valued resource to some of the students. I knew that some students would not use it, but my hope was that a few students would. Much to my delight, I had students ask if I was going to write a book for the next unit. That was all I wanted to hear. You can see the Unit 1 book here.

Since the first book, I have written one for each unit of Trigonometry and they have been easy to revise. The students like the interactivity of the book and students who want to work ahead now have a resource available so they can be self-paced. I use the same language when I talk in class as what is written. The two biggest sells for writing an eBook are that I am not trying to fit my way of teaching to a textbook that is 20 years old; and that I am presenting material to my students in a format that is tailored to their way of learning.

EdTech YouTube Channel News

1/17/2020

Exciting developments in the Jeffco EdTech world! We have been hard at work compiling and curating new and improved content for our YouTube channel. These new playlists are directly aligned to many of Jeffco’s Eight Digital Tools (Book Creator and DiscoveryEd content is coming soon!) These handy playlists briefly go over commonly used functions and provide step-by-step guidance on how to access and use features. Someone having trouble with how to create a PearDeck? There’s a playlist for that! WeVideo collaboration and creation? There are videos for that! These playlists (and our channel as a whole) are constantly growing, so subscribe if you haven’t already, to get updates!

Here are the current playlists. Please share this resource with your staff and fellow teachers!

EquatIO
Pear Deck
Read&Write for Google
Seesaw
Soundtrap
WeVideo

We’re constantly working to make this a better resource. Please reach out to your EdTech Specialist if you have ideas for videos or questions that aren’t answered with the current video offerings.