December 2025

Tech Tips

NCCE 2026

NCCE returns to the Seattle Convention Center, February 25-27, 2026 for three days of edtech-focused sessions and workshops. This year's featured speakers include Holly Clark, who some of you will remember from Tech Connect 2024.

For teachers interested in attending, your building can use innovation funds to pay for your registration and substitute coverage.

Speak to your administrator to fill out an Innovation Funds application. (This must be filled out by your admin, as this will involve your absence from the building.) Innovation Funds will cover the conference registration and substitute coverage (if required). This is due by the start of Winter Break.

NCCE 2026 - Conference Website

CS Ed Week - Try an Hour of AI

8th-12th December, 2025 is the next Computer Science Education Week. Unlike previous years where students were encouraged to try an "hour of code," this year students and staff are encouraged to try an hour of AI.

The website below will hold a number of activities for all levels K-12, so that everyone can see the potential for AI in education. If you are curious about what an AI-enhanced classroom might look like, this is a great opportunity to try out some of the tools.

Also linked below is a choice board featuring further activities and lessons to explore Computer Science.

Hour of AI Resources

ASD CS Week Choice Board

Helpdesk

Out of Country Travel

If you are traveling out of the country this winter break and still want to access your email and Google account, you will need to fill out the form linked below at least one week before you travel.

Outside the Country Travel Request

Streaming Media Services

The majority of streaming media services (including, but not limited to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Tidal, and Disney+) have terms and conditions that do not allow for them to be used for public performance (including in schools). As such, the Department of Technology cannot support access to these services.

For schools who need this type of service, there are two supported alternatives:

Swank -- an educational video streaming service that is fully licensed for use in schools.
Soundtrack.io -- a music streaming service whose fees cover all appropriate licences for performance.

Reach out to the Department of Technology if you would like to explore either of these options.

Instructional Technology

Robot Spotlight: Dash (and Dot)

Beginning/Intermediate Level | Chromebooks Required | 2-5

The Dash robot helps students to build a foundation of block programming. It can move around, make sounds, light up, and even respond to voices. Students program Dash using their Chromebooks either on the web or through an app.

This is the next step when students are comfortable with coding on Code.org, and are ready to apply their skills to concepts in real-life math and science.

See the page below for information on all the available robots kits and how to check them out for your classroom:

ASD Robots

Accessibility Tip: Color Contrast

When making slide decks or online graphics, it will help your message to be clear if you design with accessibility in mind. One thing to remember is color contrast -- if the color contrast is off, it makes the text illegible. Even if a user doesn’t have impaired vision, poor color contrast can present significant problems in understanding the content on a webpage.

While most people understand that low contrasttext and background creates problems, it can also create problems on charts and graphs where series colors are too close to one another, or are in colors that are hard to distinguish for those with color vision deficiency ("color blindness") -- try to avoid red/green or blue/green combinations.

More information on color accessibility

Tech Tools

Did You Know? Canva

All Auburn staff and students have access to the premium version of Canva!

This means that you are able to:

Assign activities and designs to students
Access a vast library of premium photos, clip-art, and fonts
Use AI tools to help with image creation and video editing

Click the button below to sign-in with Google and start exploring. To level up your skills, look for courses in the upcoming Winter Training Series.

Canva

Seesaw - Reading Fluency

All elementary teachers and students now have access to Seesaw! As part of our recent upgrade, teachers now have access to new tools and settings in the app.

Reading Fluency assessments allow you to add your own texts for students to read aloud. Seesaw then offers an analysis of how well students were able to decode the text. Watch the video to the right to learn more.

Seesaw

Newline Boards - Share to Classroom

If you use a Newline interactive board in your class and want students to access the content of the Whiteboard or any annotations that you have made, you can do that easily by sharing to Google Classroom. Just follow these steps:

Ensure you have downloaded the Google Classroom app from the store, and signed-in
From any app on the Newline, click the "Share" button (three circles connected by two lines) and choose "Google Classroom" from the list.

This saves time and effort saving to your Google Drive and uploading the file to Classroom from your Chromebook.

Digital Citizenship

Spot the AI

Al videos and pictures might look perfect at first glance, but dig deeper and you'll find clues. Watch for weirdness - like shirts changing between shots or people vanishing in the background. Look at the details: extra fingers, misshapen teeth or jewelry that seems to float in space. If the shadows don't match or the physics feel wrong, you're probably looking at an AI fake.

For our students, this is a core skill in media literacy, especially as their world is bombarded with thousands of images and messages on social media every day. They need to learn to recognize what is real and what is fake.

Test your ability (and your students') to identify AI-generated content by taking the quiz below:

Spot the AI Lies Quiz

Data Security

Don't Get Hacked for the Holidays

As the holidays draw nearer, there are more cyber threats to look out for -- both at work and in your personal life. Here is our annual guide to staying safe this winter:

Holiday Hype -- Hacker's Delight

Where there's hype, there's an opportunity for hackers to strike. Online shopping scams jump nearly 30% during the holiday season, according to the FBI.

Common dangers:

⚠️ Fake livestream links to steal logins
⚠️ "Too good to be true" discounts that are really cybertraps
⚠️ Copycat sites that mimic real retailers, with similar URLs

A 2023 BBB report found that over 75% of victims of online purchase scams never received the product they ordered.

Smartwatches, Sneaky Threats

Smartwatches now store health data, contacts, messages and login credentials -- and many don’t rely solely on your phone for internet access.

What can go wrong:

⚠️ Your watch connects to WiFi outside your phone's protection
⚠️ Out-of-date software allows hackers access to your data
⚠️ Malware can slip in through public networks and unknown apps.

Security analysts at Kaspersky estimate that 1 in 4 wearable devices connect to unsecured networks at least once a week.

Shared Wi-Fi (and Danger)

Guests to your house bring devices -- and risks. Before sharing your WiFi password, make sure you understand the risks:

⚠️ One infected phone can hit the whole network
⚠️ WiFi networks with no password allow anyone access
⚠️ Guests connect to the same WiFi network as all your smart home devices

Over 60% of malware infections come from outdated software.

How to Stay Safe

✅ Shop only through verified sites and apps
✅ Skip suspicious discount links and QR codes
✅ Never trust "exclusive" deals in DMs
✅ Route smartwatch connections through your phone
✅ Update home devices before guests arrive
✅ Set up a guest WiFi for visitors

You don’t need to unplug to stay protected — you just need to stay aware. With a few proactive steps, you can shop, stream, gift and gather without inviting hidden threats into the mix.

Skyward

Transferring Student Grades from Another Class

When a student changes classes within a semester, Skyward has the ability to update the starting grade in the new class in one of 3 ways:

Assignment Scores
- Use the Assignment Scores option to transfer prior assignment scores from one class to another class in any grading period. This is most often used when students are transferring between sections of a course and the assignments match up.
Overall Percentage
- Use this option when a Quarter 1 grade is needed to calculate a student’s Semester 1 grade. If a student transfers into a class during Quarter 2 and has no Quarter 1 grade for that class, this allows you to import their Quarter 1 grade from their previous class so the Semester 1 grade can be calculated accurately.
Category Percentages
- Transfer Category Percentages if the class the student is transferring into uses category weighting as the calculation method for the grading period. A starting percentage can be entered for each category of the assignments used in the class.

Click the button below to learn more about transferring student assignment scores or grades from one class to another.

Transfer Assignments or Term Grades from another Class

Shout outs!

School Board Presenters

Thanks to Kristine Brown (AMHS), Edwin Torres (AJ), TJ Navilio (AJ), Mike Martin (ILK), Michelle Dutoit (ILK), and Sharayah Warren (ASHS) who all provided photos or videos to the school board, sharing their feedback about the latest phase of Newline Boards!

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