Welcome Back, Teachers! 2016

Summer has flown by, but I hope everyone enjoyed a refreshing and relaxing break! It's hard to believe that tomorrow morning will by my 13th Opening Meeting at Powdersville Middle. #timeflies

Throughout this week, I'll be doing my best to get to each of my schools in order to meet new teachers, help those who need it, and share updates for the coming year. To help organize the many resources that I would like to share with everyone, I created a Thinglink. In addition to being more visually appealing than a long list of links, this tool helps teachers to share several resources with one link. It is also a great way for students to bring together several links, images, videos, and text information all in one final product.


The background image for this Thinglink was created using Canva, which is one of my favorite tools for simple graphic design on the iPad. I hope everyone will find these resources helpful as we prepare for these first few weeks of school!

If you haven't already, I'd like to encourage everyone to join the Google Tips Remind Group, which sends a new Google Tip every Wednesday at 2 PM. Another great place to find useful tips and ideas for the classroom is on Twitter. Please use #asd1 to share ideas, photos, and videos from your classroom!

As we have done in the past, our team has created a Techie Door Sign Template for teachers. Please click HERE to create and personalize your own copy. This is a great way to help parents, students, and visitors to know how to connect with your classroom! I'll be bringing new Tech Badges to everyone who hangs a Techie Door Sign on or beside the classroom door.



Professional Development for 2016
This school year, I will be changing my monthly professional development at each school. Instead of introducing new tools each month, I will be joining teachers during regular planning times as a resource for planning new lessons and integrating technology into your specific grade and/or content. This will look slightly different at each of my five schools based on the unique goals shared with me by the administration, but the goal is to integrate technology into the lessons and assessments that teachers are planning and to infuse regularly scheduled professional development with appropriate technology tools. Please click on the correct link below for more specific dates/times:


Apple Updates for 2016-17

• Apple did an education update over the summer that no longer requires students to create an iTunes account in order to download apps.
• Students will download all apps from the School App Catalog, and they should not be required to enter a password. Our testing over the summer was successful!
• We did have to recreate each School App Catalog this summer. Please check the catalog to make sure the apps that you would like to use with your students are there. If not, please send Preisig or the iPad expert an email. 
• Each school will be receiving an iPad Distribution Presentation this week with instructions for students. (These instructions should be fewer than in the past, but it is very important that students follow the directions given!)