After the success of last year's inaugural Get Your Tech On event, 600 Jeffco educators joined our Ed Tech department on January 8th, at Green Mountain High School, to get their tech on this year! This annual day of learning put technology to transform learning and Jeffco Generations Skills at center stage. Educators across the district shared how technology can support our call to transform the task and learning experience for all students. Educators engaged in tasks that used technology to  increase student collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking across all grade levels and subjects. The learning these 600 teachers received has the power to impact approximately 32,000 Jeffco students! 

• Share the learning and resources with a colleague, teammate, or friend who couldn't attend. Just think of the students who could be impacted through the power of peer support!
• Consider partnering with your Digital Teacher Librarian or Ed Tech Specialist to co-plan, answer lingering questions, or take the next step. 
• Add Jeffco Ed Tech to you professional learning network. Connect with us in the way you'd like:
  • Read our weekly Blog
  • Bookmark our Website
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Subscribe to our YouTube channel

This professional learning opportunity couldn't take place without our amazing partnerships. 
Thanks and appreciation to:

• Green Mountain High School
• GMHS student volunteers
• Jeffco ECTS department for technical support
• Teacher leader presenters

Shortly after winter break, Jeffco received access to the Google Classroom Grade Book beta program. You will now see a Grade tab at the top of Google Classroom. In the Grade tab, teachers can:

• See all grades for a class in one place
• Add and update grades for classwork created in Classroom
• Create grading categories and set weighted percentages or default points for each
• View an overall grade (including averages) for students based on all work for a class 

In the beta program, you can still export student grades to a spreadsheet; however, you cannot find this feature under the Grade tab. You will still need to use the old workflow by clicking on an individual assignment, clicking the settings wheel, and then clicking on the export method of your choice (Sheets file or CSV). 
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*Google Classroom Grade Book beta does not integrate with Campus. 
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Many of you probably know that you can use Google's Revision History feature to see who has modified or edited one of your Google files. You can also use Revision History to restore an old version of a file.  However, Google has released the Activity Dashboard feature that allows users to see who has last viewed a file. At the top of your file, click the Activity Dashboard icon (zig-zag arrow in the top, right-hand corner). You can also access the Activity Dashboard by clicking the Tools menu at the top of your document. The Activity Dashboard allows the user to see the most recent date and time that collaborators viewed the document, in addition to being able to check viewer trends over time.  Users can turn off this feature by individual documents, or on all documents, at any time within the Activity Dashboard settings.

Digital annotations are not new to the realms of technology and education. Digital annotation tools continue to be available and ever changing. The power of digital annotations rests with the user and their abilities to capture their thinking, as well as, share it with others. In K-12 classrooms, digital annotations can be a great tool that empowers learners to begin capturing their thoughts and ideas leading to artifacts of learning which demonstrate understandings. Digital annotations can also be a great source for digital/e-portfolios allowing learners to reflect on their growth and development. 

Why should digital annotations be a part of every classroom and learning environment? Reading, writing, speaking, and listening are all fundamental components of learning which lead to critical thinking and digital annotations have the ability to cover all four areas. Digital annotations empower us as learners to engage with text, capture our thoughts, share with others, and gain insights from others thinking. Writing is a great way to process our thinking and allows us to begin identifying the process to where our thinking is going. When we digitally annotate and begin to share those annotations in collaborative spaces, our annotations become the center of collaborative dialogue and learning in which we grow collectively. When we begin to learn about annotating for learning, collaborative spaces for sharing and engaging in digital discussion opens doors to understand annotation strategies and processes from other learners with more annotation experience. 

Where and how to begin using digital annotation tools can be daunting and intimidating however, there are a few simple tools that can empower us as learners to get started on the journey. The comment feature in Google is one of the simplest ways to get started. The feature is available on Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Drawings and a few other tools in the G-Suite. It is even now available on any file housed in Google Drive. Comments can be added to PDF's, images, MS Word documents and more when stored in Google Drive. A simple highlight of targeted text or information allows a user to capture thinking and share thoughts collaboratively. 

If you're looking for a more robust tool with increased options, Kami is a great selection. Kami has paid versions with additional features however, the free version has plenty of options that are perfect for learners to get started annotating digitally. Highlighting, underlining, and strikethroughs (in a variety of colors) are all available at no charge. Additional features include adding text, comments, and drawing shapes. Under a 14-day free trial when you begin your account you'll have access to drawing, text to speech and a few other advanced options to try them out. Collaborative annotations with Kami are a breeze and users can save their annotated files in Google Drive if need be. It also works well with Google Classroom. ​

Digital annotations can occur on web-based material as well. Hypothes.is is a great option to consider for annotating web sites. Hypothes.is is entirely free to all users for all features. The tool was originally created for medical professionals who were collaborating around medical journal readings to increase learning and growth. Hypothes.is requires a login which is fairly simple and free to set up. Users can highlight information on websites and even add annotations (notes) which appear in a side bar. Annotations can be public, private, or in collaborative groups. Tagging annotations is offered as an advanced feature at no charge as well for users to quickly access collaborative discussions or topics. Annotations appear to users when visiting websites while the Hypothes.is extension is enabled. ​

Digital annotations can be highly beneficial to us as educators along with our students. Collaboration is now easier than ever with access to new technologies and the tools shared above work just as well for adults as they do for kids. Curating and sharing resources saves us all time and energy and digital annotations can be a quick way for us to collaborate across schools, districts, states, and more. How are you thinking about using digital annotations whether for your professional practice or during instruction with students? We'd love to hear your thoughts using the comment section of this post and look forward to learning more about how you are transforming tasks through digital annotations.