How COVID-19 is Reshaping Education

K-12 schools have never understood the importance of educational technology more than they did when the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down across the country in 2020. Now being “technically” ready to allow kids and teachers to learn from home isn’t just a wish, it’s a necessity. K-12 schools should look to invest in a range of tech upgrades that will make a big difference in learning come fall.

1. Invest in better microphones and cameras. Pandemic-forced shutdowns forced everyone to quickly realize the importance of having good audio-visual equipment. Invest in microphones and cameras that allow instructors to move and teach, no matter if the class is online or in-person. EdTech Magazine says there are a variety of cameras with tracking functions, like AVer’s TR310 and TR530. Microphones vary with need but those that combine speaker and microphone capabilities, like AudioCodes 457, are ideal for hybrid learning as students at home can hear responses from those in class.
   

2. Choose videoconferencing tools that work for everyone. No matter if your school decides to use Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Zoom or another type of software, the most important factor to consider is how it will meet the needs of your educators and students. Not only is this essential for at-home or hybrid learning but recorded lessons can help those students with individualized learning plans or allow absent students to catch up on missed work. The software must be flexible so all parties can use it easily.
   

3. Take advantage of new cart-based technologies. Even before the pandemic, cart-based technologies helped educators easily move devices from classroom to classroom and makeshift lecture halls, like libraries and gyms. Now, they also make it easy to sanitize devices between uses. Companies like Anywhere Cart Classroom Solutions offer cabinets that both charge and sanitize. Investing in a dual-purpose cart could save you money in the long run.
   

4. Consider cloud migration. Cloud migration is the process of moving data and applications to a cloud computing environment. The migration saves valuable hard drive space but also lets educators collaborate from wherever. The argument for cloud migration could include savings by fusing cloud-based applications, like Google Apps for Education, with compatible programs.
   

5. Boost your school’s security. Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, schools will have access to funding that will help keep students and staff safe. Funds can be used to modify spaces and technology, like investing in touchless doors, screening equipment, video surveillance and more. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has truly changed how K-12 learning looks now and likely in the future. Luckily EdTech is keeping up and devising better solutions for the future. Arey Jones partners with multiple EdTech providers and we can help you develop solutions that will work for your school.

School’s Out, Professional Development Is In

Once the last bell rings and the lockers empty out, it’s time for teachers to enjoy some “me” time and fit in a little professional development. There are a lot of avenues to take from conferences and workshops to work-on-your-own certifications.  

Become a Google Certified Educator 

The Certified Educator program is offered at four levels, a Google Certified Educator Level 1, Level 2 and Google Certified Trainer and Innovator. Each level requires varying degrees of dedication on your part. Each of the four levels (Google Certified Educator Level 1, Level 2, Google for Education Certified Trainer and Google for Education Certified Innovators) has a course and exam you must pass to gain certification. Google for Education Certified Trainers and Innovators must also submit an application. You can either work on your own to go through these levels or work with a Google Certified Trainer for face-to-face instruction. 

Bring Coding to Your School 

Code.org partners with more than 120 school districts to bring computer science to your district. Besides teaching students how to code, Code.org offers professional development workshops for teachers and administrators. Workshops can be geared to those without any prior computer science experience. Administers can set up K-12 educator workshops by contacting a regional partner. 

Join the Microsoft Educator Community 

Microsoft’s Educator Center offers training and resources, badges and certifications. Take a course, master a Microsoft product, view your achievements and connect with others. There are also options to attend on-demand or in-person training and events.  

Take a Free Digital Media Course 

KQED Teach offers free, hands-on professional learning opportunities that are focused on digital media. You can build skills in digital storytelling, data visualization and critical media. The courses are free, take about six hours and qualify for a PBS Certified Media Literacy Educator. Sign up from the website. 

Sit through a LIVE Webinar 

EdTechTeam, the global network of educational technologists that works with more than 250 contractors worldwide, features both LIVE webinars and archived webinars on its website. Topics covered include “Chromebooks for Tools for Creativity,” “Innovative Strategies for Teaching Science” and “Ok Google, How Safe is My Data.” Most of these webinars run about an hour.  

Have a great idea for summer professional development? Share it in the comments below! 

9 Tools for 2019

You’re back from winter break, refreshed and ready to get back to work. Why not implement some of the best tools for 2019 to help? There are a plethora of apps and extensions that can help you, your teachers and students make the most of the new year.

1. Flipgrid. We’re going to keep talking about Flipgrid because we think it’s only going to expand in use, especially since Microsoft Teams integrated Flipgrid into its Microsoft Teams for Education. Flipgrid is a video discussion platform for educators and students. It allows students to share their ideas, wonderings, projects and questions in new and creative ways. Administrators can use Flipgrid to engage their professional learning network and build community among staff by creating conversations.

2. OneNote. Come for OneNote’s Staff Notebooks and stay for its other tools. Aside from Staff Notebooks’ collaboration space, shared content library and personal workspace for every staff member, OneNote also allows users to add any content and use digital inking. It also supports Flipgrid.

3. Google Keep. Google Keep is the online note-taker that goes with you. Webpages, images or quotes are saved with a single click when using this Chrome Extension and they are synced across all the platforms you use. Easy.

4. Microsoft Teams for Education. This popular software is free for educators and has recently been updated. We expect even more improvements to roll out in 2019.

5. Google Authenticator. In a time where BYOD is becoming commonplace in schools, making sure your device is secure is a top priority. Google Authenticator helps with that. It generates a code that gives a second-step verification when you sign in.

6. Google Docs Offline Sync. Believe it or not, there are times when you don’t have Internet access, or you just don’t want to use your data. Because Google Docs is available offline, now you don’t have to. Create, view and edit files on Docs, Sheets and Slides all offline.

7. Even the most seasoned writers can use the extra pair of “eyes” that Grammarly provides. The base app, which checks spelling, is free or upgrade to the Premium version which not only checks spelling but grammar and punctuation. You’ll be asking yourself, “How long have I been writing everything in passive voice?”

8. CheckMark. This Chrome extension, created by EdTechTeam, gives teachers the ability to provide students feedback quickly and easily. Highlight text in a Google Doc and an overlay pops up with quick shortcuts to frequently-asked comments like “Check Punctuation” and “Spelling.” It works on Slides too.

9. LastPass. It seems like every website, app, social media platform and even software requires a password; that’s a lot to remember. LastPass makes it easy and secure to kept track of them, plus it’s free.

Have a tool that you can’t live without? Let us know in the comments.

Microsoft Teams For Education: Are you on board yet?

Microsoft Teams in Office 365 Education is just into its second year since launching in June 2017 and is being touted as one of the best ways to further classroom engagement, strengthen professional learning communities and streamline staff communication.

 Microsoft Teams puts everyone on the same page, especially if they aren’t always in the same room. Microsoft Teams works off one central platform where everyone can see what everyone else is doing. You can upload and share any Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, SharePoint and Power BI) and also comment on others’ work. Teams is also a complete chat and online meetings solution allowing users to host video, audio and web conferences and chat with anyone inside or outside an organization.

Teams For Education

Educators have used Teams to transform the learning experience at schools. Its uses are many.

• Microsoft Teams allows any virtual student or collaborator to participate via webcast and encourages collaboration across classes.

• Teams Assignments helps develop a digital classroom. Content, conversations and assignments are all in one hub so students can sign in, get started and begin connecting with each other.

• Rubric grading is also being introduced into Teams. Your teachers can create, store and apply rubrics to assignments to make it easier for students to get feedback. Not only does this help students improve their work, but it is a consistent way for your teachers to grade.

• With Microsoft Forms, a teacher can quickly add a quiz for students to complete and return. Plus Teams allows educators to keep track of feedback and grades.

What’s New?

Microsoft Teams is the fastest growing business app in Microsoft history. It is currently being used in more than 325,000 organizations, 87 Fortune 100 companies and is available in 44 languages. It only makes sense that Microsoft will continue to expand this valuable tool.

• Page locking in OneNote assignments. The pages of the student will now automatically “lock” as read-only when the due date/time passes. The teacher can still edit and annotate these OneNote assignment pages with feedback.

• Mute all students. Educators can now pause students from posting in the conversation tab.

• Join codes. Teams allows administrators to create a simple code for members to join a class, PLC or staff team, making it easy for many people to join a team all at once. Display the code in ‘projector mode’ so that everyone in the room can see it.

• Reusing a team as a template. Teachers can reuse an existing team as a template when creating a new team, then customize what they want to copy over: channels, team setting, apps, and even users.

• Archive teams. Safely store a Class, PLC, or Staff team content in read-only mode. Easily reference archived teams while setting up a Teams experience for the next school year. 

Love Microsoft Teams for Education? Let us know how you use it in the comments below.

Get These Free Tools From Microsoft

Free is always good. And, it’s even better when something that’s free is also super useful. Microsoft has three free tools for educators we think you should take full advantage of as they will organize staff and enable professional development. 

Flipgrid

Flipgrid announced last summer that its recent partnership with Microsoft means it will be free for all educators and students. Flipgrid is a video discussion platform used by tens of millions of PreK to PhD educators, students and families in 150 countries. It works on Chromebooks, iPads, iPhones, PCs and Android devices.

What’s special about this software is it has tons and tons of uses, including how administrators can use it to engage their professional learning network. Flipgrid can build community among staff and create conversation beyond small talk. Just returned from a conference and have something to share? Take a few minutes and use a grid.

The best part is if you already had Flipgrid, it was automatically upgraded to Flipgrid Classroom this summer. And if you bought it, no worries, Microsoft is prorating every educator who upgraded to Classroom last year.

Microsoft Teams

Organization is the name if the game. Get the entire team on one page with Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft teams is the tech giant’s complete chat and online meetings solution. With it, you can create collaborative classrooms, connect in professional learning communities and communicate with school staff from a single experience. Host audio, video and web conference or just chat with any staff member in your building, Microsoft Teams makes it all easily attainable. Oh, and it’s free.

What’s more is this handy tool is also integrated with Office 365 apps so you can easily co-author and share Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and SharePoint files. It is customizable and pairable with a phone system.

Microsoft Translator

Today’s school culture can include students and parents who speak another language besides English. When you can’t employ enough translators or bilingual teachers, download the free Microsoft Translator app.

The app works on any device to allow you to start and join a translated conversation. Microsoft Translator can translate more than 60 languages and its camera capabilities translate text in photos and screenshots. Voice translation mode allows you to have conversations with parents and students who speak a language other than English.

These three free Microsoft tools may be just the tech you need to make the new school year run as smooth as cafeteria pudding. Which ones are you planning on integrated into your school this semester? Share in the comments below.

Tackle Productivity Head-On With These 5 Tech Hacks

Time. It’s always something you need more of, especially as school administrators. Your days tend to be full of improving instruction, managerial tasks, delegating and creating a climate where kids want to learn. That’s a lot to pack into a single day. Good thing there are lots of tech hacks that can get help get you organized and STAY organized.

Here are 5 tech hacks you should be using every day to boost productivity:

1. Use Microsoft Outlook. Microsoft Outlook has tons of productivity and time management tools. You can use it to set appointments and remind yourself of tasks with the Calendar. You can also organize your schedule by day, week or even year. Outlook Calendar has these fun, colorful sticky notes that you can drag anywhere on your screen. Don’t forget to list the times you aren’t available – lunches, personal development time and vacations. This hack helps to keep your staff updated about your time too.

2. Set a daily reminder to check Microsoft Teams and Google Tasks. Microsoft Teams is the hub for teamwork in Office 365. It contains chat threads and online meetings. Make it a point to come in every day and check Chat and note any meetings that may have popped up so you’ll never have to scramble at the last minute. If Google is more your thing, the same rule applies. Google Tasks can only keep you on, well, task, if you use it on a daily basis.

3. Set up email filters. Whether you use Gmail or Outlook, filters are wildly available. With filters, you can automatically sort your emails and move them into folders. You can filter messages by subject line, sender, large attachments, etc. and even send canned responses. If you’re not filtering your emails, you could be missing the important ones because they’re lost in all the junk that’s littering up your inbox.

4. Download a personal dashboard extension. This can be a real timesaver, especially if the first thing you do in the morning is look at your laptop. Wake up knowing your to-dos, the weather and even add words of inspiration.

5. Keep your digital workspace tidy. It’s easy to let general digital housekeeping duties fall to the wayside, especially when you’re busy. But, if it takes you forever to wade through your files, folders or desktop to find what you need, skipping clean-up tasks won’t do you any favors. Set a reminder for the end of each day or week to clear out your downloads and desktop.

Put these hacks into practice and you’ll be on your way to your most productive year yet! Let us know how it goes in the comments.