The Hour of Code is HERE!

The Hour of Code is HERE!

We live in a world surrounded by technology. And we know that whatever field our students choose to go into as adults, their ability to succeed will increasingly hinge on understanding how technology works. But only a tiny fraction of us are learning computer science, and less students are studying it than a decade ago.

Our Hour of Code is a statement that WRSD is committed to teaching these 21st century skills. To continue bringing programming activities to students, this week (Dec. 7-13) our WRSD students in grades K through 8 will be participating within their Computer Technology classes, and 9-12 will have the opportunity to explore while in many of their seminar and core classes.

For more details on the Hour of Code go to (https://code.org/) and try it out.  Here are some additional websites that students can explore for Hour of Code activities:

• Hour of Code Tutorials (Star Wars, Minecraft, Frozen) - https://code.org/learn
• Google's Made with Code - https://www.madewithcode.com/
• Tynker's Hour of Code - https://www.tynker.com/hour-of-code/
• Khan Academy’s Hour of Code - https://www.khanacademy.org/hourofcode
• Codecademy’s Hour of Code - https://www.codecademy.com/courses/hour-of-code-en/0/1
• LightBot Hour of Code http://lightbot.com/hocflash.html Lightbot for Mobile Devices http://lightbot.com/
• Build with Chrome–kind of like Minecraft, more like Google Earth Warehouse; use virtual Lego blocks to build in your browser https://www.buildwithchrome.com/

Explore and have fun!

Maria

Maria E. Pearson

Instructional Technology Specialist

Winnisquam Regional School District

603.286.4531  x211

My Blog - http://wrsdtechnology.blogspot.com/

Hour of Code coming soon...

Computers are everywhere, but fewer schools teach computer science than 10 years ago. Good news is, we’re on our way to change this. If you've heard about the Hour of Code before, you might know it made history. More than 100 million students have tried an Hour of Code.

With the Hour of Code, computer science has been on homepages of Google, MSN, Yahoo! and Disney. Over 100 partners joined together to support this movement. Last year, every Apple Store in the world hosted an Hour of Code and even President Obama wrote his first line of code as part of the campaign.

This year, let's make it even bigger. I’m asking you to join in for the Hour of Code 2015. Please get involved with an Hour of Code event during Computer Science Education Week, December 7-13. 

Our Hour of Code is a statement that WRSD is ready to teach these foundational 21st century skills. To continue bringing programming activities to students, we want to make our Hour of Code event huge. WRSD students in grades K through 8 will be participating within their Computer Technology classes, and grades 9-12 will have the opportunity to explore while in many of their seminar and core classes.

For more details, go to Hour of Code (http://hourofcode.com/us) to try it out yourself, or why not with your class.  Also, take a look at the activities offered by other Hour of Code partners:

• Hour of Code Tutorials (Star Wars, Minecraft, Frozen) - https://code.org/learn
• Google's Made with Code - https://www.madewithcode.com/
• Tynker's Hour of Code - https://www.tynker.com/hour-of-code/
• Khan Academy’s Hour of Code - https://www.khanacademy.org/hourofcode
• Codecademy’s Hour of Code - https://www.codecademy.com/courses/hour-of-code-en/0/1

Explore and Enjoy!

Maria

Maria E. Pearson

Instructional Technology Specialist

Winnisquam Regional School District

603.286.4531  x211

My Blog - http://wrsdtechnology.blogspot.com/

New Features in Google Classroom...

As many of you know, WRSD is using Google Apps for Education in grades 1  through 12 this year.  One of the easiest ways to introduce students to this  integrated environment is through the Google Classroom App.  To go through  a tutorial on how to set up your virtual classroom in Google, go to  WRSD Google Apps Resources for Google Classroom, or contact me at MPearson@wrsdsau59.org and I can help you get started. To keep you up to date, I want to share some enhancements to Google  Classroom that were just released earlier this week. Google Apps update alerts

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Head back to school with new features in Google Classroom Posted: 24 Aug 2015 11:51 AM PDT As teachers gear up for the new school year, we’re adding a number of new features in Google Classroom to help them save time, engage with students, and keep everyone organized. Most of these features are rolling out this week, with others coming soon. Keep students engaged with question-driven discussions Since Classroom launched last year, teachers have been using their class stream to host student debates, Q&A, and discussions. Starting today, they’ll be able to do this in a more collaborative way. They can post questions to their class and allow students to have discussions by responding to each other’s answers (or not, depending on the setting chosen). For example, teachers could post a video and ask students to answer a question about it, or post an article and ask them to write a paragraph in response. Reuse posts Teachers can now reuse assignments, announcements or questions from any one of their classes — or any class they co-teach, whether it’s from last year or last week. Once they choose what to copy, they’ll also be able to make changes before posting or assigning it. Calendar Integration In the next month, Classroom will automatically create a calendar for each class in Google Calendar. All assignments with a due date will be automatically added to class calendars and kept up to date. Teachers will be able to view their calendar from within Classroom or on Google Calendar, where they can manually add class events like field trips or guest speakers. And a few more improvements based on teacher feedback: Bump a post: When teachers want to make sure an older item is easy for students to find, they can now move any post to the top of the stream.  Due dates optional: For long-term projects or student-driven assignments, teachers will have the option to create assignments that don’t have due dates.  Attach a Google Form to a post: Many teachers have been using Google Forms as an easy way to assign a test, quiz or survey to the class. Coming in the next few weeks, teachers and students will soon be able to attach Google Forms from Drive to posts and assignments, and get a link in Classroom to easily view the answers.

EPIC! Online library of eBooks for kids 12 and under on the web, iOS, and Android devices

Epic! opens the doors to a new world of reading for kids 12 and under by providing an unlimited selection of eBooks that can be instantly discovered, read and shared with friends. Personalized for each individual reader, Epic! is the only place to access thousands of high quality, curated children's books without the need to purchase or download them one by one. Beautifully designed for mobile and featuring fun, game-like elements, Epic! provides kids with a personal library they can take anywhere. In a world of unlimited screen time, Epic! is a smart alternative to games and videos. Epic! is available on all iOS and Android devices. Go to https://www.getepic.com/ and get started today!

Thanks Trisha Kent from Union Sanborn for sharing this terrific resource!

Google Classroom: Multiple Teachers and Draft Assignments & Announcements

Teaching teams: New ways to work together in Classroom Posted: 21 Apr 2015 09:05 AM PDT from Google Announcements Google Classroom allows teachers to spend less time on paperwork and more time with their students. Starting today, multiple teachers can work and collaborate in a single Classroom class. With the exception of deleting the class altogether, additional teachers can perform all of the same functions as the primary teacher, including: Creating assignments and announcements Viewing and grading submissions Participating in comments on the class’ “stream” Inviting students to the class Receiving email notifications related to the class Teachers can also prep for their classes in advance, saving announcements and assignments as “drafts” and waiting to send them until they’re ready. Like in Gmail, once a new announcement or assignment is created, it will be automatically saved as a draft. Those drafts can then be accessed by multiple teachers, making it simple to collaborate on prep work. Finally, in response to teacher feedback, we’ve made two additional changes that will make Classroom easier to use: Autosaving grades - Grades will now be autosaved as they’re entered, meaning teachers can grade assignments over multiple sessions but still return those assignments to students all at one time. Improved notifications - Teachers and students will now receive email notifications when private messages are left on assignments. Release track:   Rapid release and Scheduled release More information: Help Center: Invite teachers to a class Help Center: Draft announcements Help Center: Draft assignments Google for Education blog post

Tech Tip: Essential PC shortcuts you should know...

Repost from Windows Get Help...

I've always liked that Windows gives me multiple ways to perform popular tasks. Say you want to print something. You could go to the File menu and select the Print command, or you can press the Ctrl button and the letter P. Ctrl+P is just one example of a keyboard shortcut. Shortcuts combine two or more keys to do something special that neither key does alone.

I prefer to use shortcuts whenever possible. It’s kind of amazing how much time you can save by cutting out mouse clicks. Here are my top 20 shortcuts that you might not know about—but should.

Get to know the basics

There are certain shortcuts I use all day, every day. They work whether I’m doing stuff with photos, music, documents, or spreadsheets.

• Copy a selected item: Ctrl+C
• Cut a selected item: Ctrl+X
• Paste a selected item: Ctrl+V
• Undo an action: Ctrl+Z
• Redo that thing I just undid: Ctrl+Y
• Select everything: Ctrl+A
• Print: Ctrl+P
• Lock your PC or switch users
  Windows logo key +L
  This shortcut locks your PC and instantly displays the login screen.  This is especially important if you will be leaving your classroom!

To see more shortcuts, go to 20 essential PC shortcuts

Maria

Maria E. Pearson

Instructional Technology Specialist

Winnisquam Regional School District

603.286.4531  x211

My Blog - http://wrsdtechnology.blogspot.com/

A Classroom mobile app and new desktop options for teachers...

Our next Tech Tuesday, January 20th at 2:45 to 4pm (WRMS Media Center Lab) will be on Google Classroom... Take 2, and will include these features. Go to My Learning Plan to enroll.

A Classroom mobile app and new desktop options for teachers

Posted: 14 Jan 2015 09:40 AM PST

Today we’re launching a native Classroom mobile app for both Android and iOS to help teachers and students be more collaborative in the classroom and save even more paper and time:

New with the mobile app, students and teachers can:

• Snap a photo: Right from the assignment page in the mobile app, students can snap a photo and attach it to their assignment.
• Share from other apps: Students can also easily attach images, PDFs and web pages from other apps to their assignments. 
• Offline caching: Class streams and assignment information are automatically cached every time you open the app with an Internet connection, so that you can see them when you don’t have a connection. 

We’re also launching two new desktop features to help teachers stay organized as they head into the second half of the year: 

• Teacher Assignments Page: On Classroom for desktop, we’re launching a teacher assignments page, where teachers will be able to get quick access to any assignment, see how many students are done and mark assignments as reviewed.
• Archive Classes: We also know that classes don’t go on forever —that’s why today we’re launching the ability to archive classes. Archiving a class will remove it from the home page and make it read-only — teachers and class members can still view valuable information in archived classes, but can’t make any changes or turn in assignments.

Hope to see you next week thanks,

Maria

Maria E. Pearson

Instructional Technology Specialist

Winnisquam Regional School District

603.286.4531  x211

My Blog - http://wrsdtechnology.blogspot.com/

More details on this announcement, go to http://googleforeducation.blogspot.com/2015/01/A-Classroom-mobile-app-and-new-teacher-goodies.html

Indoor Recess Activities for all ages...

Yes, It's another day too cold to go outside!

Indoor recess is in full-swing with the new year, so I wanted to share a resource that our friends at Sanbornton Central School have been using to keep students active. GoNoodle.com is a website with tons of brain breaks, and it’s especially great this time of year when it’s hard to get outside. You can choose from a variety of activities (dancing, running in place, stretching, and lots more) for an active and controlled indoor recess.

Maria

Maria E. Pearson

Instructional Technology Specialist

Winnisquam Regional School District

603.286.4531  x211

My Blog - http://wrsdtechnology.blogspot.com/

INTRODUCING:  Indoor Recess Mega Mixes! Mega mixes are our most popular brain breaks, mixed together for longer GoNoodling sessions. Each mix takes the class through a warm-up, longer active session, and a cool-down at the end. Find all three under the new Indoor Recess Tag! Indoor Recess 1: 12 Minute Mega Mix! Indoor Recess 2: 14 Minute Mega Mix! Indoor Recess 3: 15 Minute Mega Mix! Share your secret for staying active during the winter months by sending an email to school staff! You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website, www.gonoodle.com. GoNoodle · 209 10th Avenue South · Suite 350 · Nashville, TN 37203 · USA