EDay Blog

Friday, May 29, 2020 - National Paperclip Day

The paperclip, patented on April 23, 1867, has since become a staple office supply. Apparently, however, not everyone stocks their home-offices with them...if you're reading this, then you're probably playing Goosechase, and wondering how to get credit for "Blogging about Paperclips." Show us your paperclips! None on hand, get creative!

So on Fridays we usually all blog, but today we're just on the busy side with a little thing we call ChromeCamp Online! Thanks to everyone for joining, playing, sharing, and participating. We appreciate you and hope you have a great summer! #wildkitway #evanstrong

Thursday, May 28, 2020 - National Work From Home Day

No better time to celebrate National Work From Home Day than today! For many of us, this will be our second to last day working from home for the next couple of months, so congratulations! We have finally released the full program and schedule for tomorrow's ChromeCamp Online! Mix and match sessions to create your own personalized professional development experience. Oh, and don't forget to join in on our GooseChase Scavenger Hunt!

A brief summary of the day can be found below (from today's email sent by David Chan).

• • 1. We will begin the day with an opening session featuring Dr. Campbell and several ETHS students.

    2. We continue the day with four concurrent session slots where faculty and staff will share on a wide variety of topics.

    3. At 12pm, there will be an All Staff meeting as well as the final dance party of 2019-2020.

    4. We will close the conference together and kickoff summer at 3:15pm, announcing winners from the GooseChase.

See you all tomorrow!

Wednesday, May 27, 2020 - National Sunscreen Day

For National Sunscreen day, we all took some extra precautions to protect ourselves from those damaging rays. Lathered in protective lotion and donning shades, we set to work putting the finishing touches on the details for ChromeCamp Online. We added Zoom links for accessing the sessions on Friday and we're working on putting together the program with descriptions. We're also excited to announce the return of a Goosechase Scavenger Hunt, with which we'll be running all day on Friday for exciting prizes. Stay tuned for the details on how to join.

We'd also like to say thanks to all our bright, shining stars - our ChromeCamp Presenters - who are working hard to prepare sessions for Friday. We're excited to bring you sessions featuring teachers, department chairs, administrators, tech specialists, and even students! Good thing we're wearing all this sunscreen. Now go take some vitamin D.

Tuesday, May 26, 2020 - National Paper Airplane Day

Dust off your paper airplane making skills for National Paper Airplane Day! David is in for the win with his special "trick" paper airplanes (provided by his 7-year ringer).

On the EdTech at ETHS front, we are in the final stages of preparing for our end of the year "ChromeCamp Online" event taking place this Friday. Check out www.chromecamp.org to learn more! Don't miss special presentations from your colleagues, students and administration as we delve deep into e-learning. Come learn from one another and share your own experiences to prepare for any future e-learning days ahead!

Friday, May 22, 2020 - National Road Trip Day

For National Road Trip Day, we're taking this show on the road. Visit www.chromecamp.org to get a sneak peek at the ChromeCamp lineup for May 29.

Thursday, May 21, 2020 - National Memo Day

Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - National Rescue Dog Day

Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - National Devil's Food Cake Day

It's National Devil's Food Cake Day. Do you have a favorite recipe? We don't either. Luckily, we can use our Edtech skills to find one! We could poll our peers using Google forms. We could use an advanced search on Google to find pdfs of non poisonous recipes posted in the United States in the last year. We even have the option of using our New York Times school subscription to look up their recommended recipes.

Sometimes, however, you need to work with what's nearby. Good luck and happy celebrating!

Monday, May 18, 2020 - National Visit your Relatives Day

We know it may be hard to visit your relatives in person during these challenging times, but hopefully, you can find a way to connect virtually, on the phone, or through good old snail mail. The EdTechTeam brought the following to today's check-in: some family photos, a live video visit, and a virtual stop to the corn fields of Iowa.

After that, we shifted our focus to some asynchronous professional development opportunities for staff. For the last two Mondays, we offered live sessions, and we wanted to demonstrate how learning can take place in both synchronous and asynchronous fashion. With that, we released three new online PD courses: Screencastify 2, Zoom 2, and Bringing Discussions Online. Our staff can choose from six courses now and earn PD hours as they view content, engage in activities, take a quiz, and post reflections on our discussion board.

Friday, May 15, 2020 - National Chocolate Chip Day

Happy National Chocolate Chip Day! You don't need to ask us twice to eat chocolate chips at 9am or to write limericks about them. So grab a chip, cookie, or brownie and enjoy our odes to this chocolatey confection. Then sign up to present at ChromeCamp on 5/29 and stay tuned for new online PD sessions coming Monday.

Thursday, May 14, 2020 - National Dance Like a Chicken Day

On a more serious note, we are pleased to announce our PD plan for next Monday. During the last two Monday PD sessions, we have offered three live sessions offered twice throughout the day. This Monday, we will be giving you the opportunity to complete any of our Online PD Courses. We currently have three courses; Zoom for Teaching Part 1, Screencastify for Teaching Part 1, and Bringing Your Course Online: One Way to Approach The Challenge.

On Monday, we will be launching three more courses: Screencastify for Teaching Part 2, and Zoom for Teaching Part 2, where we delve into how to use both tools pedagogically, and Bringing Discussions Online. Look for an email that will share more details. If completing these courses during Monday's PD time (8am to 4pm), these courses will count toward your 5 PD hours. If completing outside of a Monday PD day, you have the opportunity to earn an additional 1.5 hours of PD credit.

Wednesday, May 13, 2020 - National Fair Trade Day

When we think of Fair Trade, we often think of coffee. Jess was on point with her Fair Trade beans from Needmore coffee roasters. The rest of us searched our pantries and found Kosher, Organic, Non GMO but sadly no Fair Trade. Instead, we took some time to research the movement, which aims toward "reducing poverty, mistreatment of workers, climate issues, and economic constraints around the world." On their website, fairtradecertified.org, we learned more about the many cooking, baking, confectionery, and textile products that are Fair Trade, many of which are available at Ten Thousand Villages on Chicago Avenue in Evanston.

After thoroughly exploring Fair Trade, we focused on planning for our upcoming ChromeCamp Online on May 29. Right now we're looking for teachers willing to share their experiences during e-learning through short 15-20 minute presentations, and we have some planning money available. Stay tuned for more details on the schedule for ChromeCamp, which conveniently takes place on the last day of school. Start your summer on the right foot with inspiration to make your lessons e-mazing for summer school and beyond!

Tuesday, May 12, 2020 - National Limerick Day

There once was a man from Limerick...

In honor of National Limerick Day, we've composed our own limericks for you! Are you inspired to create your own? Check out Melanie's instructions and email us with your favorite technology/school themed limerick. EdTech Team, we have certificates for the best limericks, right?

Instructions:

Line 1: 7-10 syllables A

Line 2: 7-10 syllables A

Line 3: 5-7 syllables B

Line 4: 5-7 syllables B

Line 5: 7-10 syllables A

They say that the virus is maxing.

So naturally we all keep on asking.

Will there be school in the fall

because there's no way at all

that we can all teach while we're masking. -MM

If you want to prepare for fall (in case we have to continue with elearning), attend our PD Mondays, stop by the main eLearning page, or reach out to the edtech team by email and we'll help you start to think through how to teach your content virtually.

Google slides, Google Classroom, and Docs

Some teachers would prefer the pox

We’ll help you each day

Until you can say

This Google Suite stuff - It just rocks! -JD

Don't worry if this tech is all new for you. We're here to help it become more routine. We can offer suggestions of best practices and tech you useful tech tools to make your teaching easier.

There once was a team of four.

Whose meetings were never a bore.

They shared out new tech.

With slides from a deck.

Work never felt like a chore. -DC

Want to temporarily join the "never boring" edtech team? We're looking for presenters for ChromeCamp coming up May 29th.

A special birthday shout-out limerick for Ali H -

Some people use just one template

Others can use up to eight

You blew my mind when

You shot clear past ten

Using thirty or more - and that's great!

(Have a great rest of your day!)

Monday, May 11, 2020 - National Twilight Zone Day

If you would have told us that we'd be working from home, engaging in e-learning for 34 days and counting, we might have thought we were in a different universe or another dimension. Well, today, we start another week of e-learning and we celebrated National Twilight Zone Day at our morning meeting.

Today also marked the second Remote Learning Planning day at ETHS, and the EdTechTeam shared multiple sessions on specific applications including Jabber, Flipgrid, Padlet, and Jamboard. All session titles, descriptions, and slide deck links can be found here.

We'll be back for a third round of PD sessions next Monday and close out the year with a full day conference experience. That's right, ChromeCamp returns on Friday, May 29. Our Call for Proposals is officially open, so please consider submitting a session idea on something that others would benefit from learning as we consider our return in the fall.

Friday, May 8, 2020 - Melanie's Surprise Birthday Party!

Thursday, May 7, 2020 - World Password Day

Passwords, passwords, passwords... So much to say about passwords on World Password Day! If you haven't thought about your password game yet, look at our resources below. Maybe you have all your passwords on sticky notes by your computer. Maybe you use the same passwords for all your accounts. Maybe you are guilty of using one of the common passwords shown in our daily photo above (1234567, abc123, qwerty, qwerty1, or even password). It's never too late to step it up!

Password guidelines

• Use a different password for each of your important accounts, like your email and online banking.

• Long passwords are stronger, so make your password at least 8 characters long (length is one of the most important factors. The longer the password, the longer a computer would take to hack it.)

• Don’t use personal info (birthday, initials, street name, numbers in address)

• Don’t use common words & patterns (qwerty, password, password1, etc.)

• Add a recovery email and phone number to your account if possible.

• Set up Two-Factor Authentication on your account when possible.

• Use one of these strategies for creating secure passwords you can actually remember.

Password Resources

Password management

• • • LastPass

    • Google Passwords

Password Generators

• • • passwordgenerator.net

    • LastPass

    • Google Passwords

Wednesday, May 6, 2020 - National Beverage Day

We raise our coffee mugs on National Beverage Day to all the nurses of the world on National Nurses Day! We also continue to honor the Staff at ETHS for Staff Appreciation Week and are thankful for all the hard work by essential workers, educators, and volunteers all over the country during these unprecedented times. Don't forget to say thanks to a staff member by filling out a Staff Appreciation card this week.

Our team is busy planning PD for the weeks and months to come to make sure that teachers are equipped with the skills and strategies to continue engaging students during this pandemic and beyond. Stay tuned for announcements on upcoming opportunities via email and right here on our blog. In the meantime, let us know what other types of PD you'd like to see in the future, or reach out if you are interested in hosting your own PD session.

Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - National Teacher Appreciation Day

We appreciate you!!! The odds are very good that you are an educator reading this. Happy Teacher (and Staff) Appreciation Day! We appreciated seeing lots of you yesterday at our PD sessions where we were chatting, chunking, and challenging ourselves because that's what great educators do.

What does good classroom community look like? You could ask the attendees to David's sessions. He hosted great discussions on building community with your classes, both when you already know the students or if you haven't met them in person yet.

Some educators that came to Mina's sessions had already tried using videos with their classes pre-pandemic, but now had to think about how to use them more effectively with remote learning. Mina's research and tool tips gave them constructive ways to incorporate video into lessons.

Melanie's session pointed out that with when you assign a well structured project, you are freed up to work with individual students. She explained methods to design projects for your classes for your students to show what they know. (The magic word is "chunking".)

We're already planning for next week's PD sessions. Is there something that the EdTech team can do to help you become an even better remote learning educator? If you have any requests for future sessions, let us know!

We also want to thank all the educators who taught us everything we know. We couldn't have done this without you!

Monday, May 4, 2020 - National Star Wars Day

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away...well, OK, it was just this morning and it was in a Zoom call, but nevertheless, today was the first ever Remote Learning Planning Day at ETHS. Do or do not, there is no try as the EdTechTeam was busy sharing multiple sessions throughout the day. The force is strong with this group, and each session saw dozens of ETHS faculty and staff in attendance. It was impressive that folks managed to stay on target and six hours of sharing and learning are now in the books. For session titles/descriptions, see below or reference the link sent to your email which also included links to our slide decks. May the 4th be with you, always!

Friday, May 1, 2020 - National Space Day

Thursday, April 30, 2020 - National Honesty Day

Today we are honoring "National Honesty Day" by playing the beloved game, "Two Truths and a Lie"! This morning, the EdTech team played against one another during our daily meeting and we were pretty spot on! Hard to stump each other at this point... Go ahead and play with us and see if you know us just as well as we know each other. The game is at the bottom of this blog post.

Most importantly, we are excited to announce our offerings for next Monday's Remote Learning PD Sessions. See the schedule below and be sure to expand each section to see a full description of the session. If you have any requests for future sessions, let us know!

Monday’s Schedule 5/4/20

Two Truths and a Lie with the EdTech Team

Check back tomorrow for the answers

Wednesday, April 29, 2020 - National Denim Day

Today we are taking a break from EdTech to don our denim in support of National Denim Day, which raises awareness about rape and sexual assault. Today and throughout the month of April (which is sexual assault awareness month), it is important to continue learning how we can put an end to sexual assault through education. One way to do this is to educate yourself and others about consent and what consent looks like. If you or someone you know is in a dangerous situation, there are many resources to help.

• ETHS students can seek support from the Social Work office by calling 847-424-7230.

• Anyone can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 for free, confidential services or visit a local rape crisis center.

Check back tomorrow for an update on our upcoming PD offerings for Monday's remote learning planning day.

Tuesday, April 28, 2020 - National Superhero Day

A superhero is a hero that has extraordinary or superhuman powers. Spiderman, Hercules, or Google Forms Girl are all semi-well known superheroes. They use their strengths to battle insurmountable challenges. (Google Forms Girl is especially famous for collecting large amounts of data.)

During this pandemic, other superheroes have emerged - our students, teachers, support staff, administrators, safety and operations crews. It's a tough job, but you superheroes are doing great. The EdTech (and all of IIT, actually) are proud to be your sidekicks! You save the world and rescue the education system and we'll be there (at least 6 feet away) to help you battle through all your tech challenges.

No need for a Bat Signal:

For instructional issues or questions - elearningsupport@eths202.org

For Chromebook issues or questions - chromesupport@eths202.org

Other modern day superheroes: delivery people, retail associates, first responders, home health aides, daycare providers for essential employees, food pantries, postal employees, transit workers, manufacturers, mask makers, and medical staff. Thank you!

Monday, April 27, 2020 - National Tell a Story Day

Everyone may or may not have a favorite story, but everyone has a story to tell. Today, we shared some of our favorite opening lines for stories that speak to us. We are mindful that we'll have a common theme for a story to tell when we return to school. However, each of our own stories will be different, unique, and interesting to hear in its own right. How can we make sure that our stories are told, and those of our students are also brought to light?

Here are five resources to integrate storytelling into your E-learning journeys:

• The Moth - storytelling school, live events, and a library of recordings to get lost in exploration

• Podcasts

  • Listen - choose from a plethora of options on a variety of topics.

  • React - engage in discussion over a particular episode or series

  • Create - challenge students to brainstorm, storyboard and even produce their own story (WeVideo works with Podcasting creation now too).

• StoryCorps - engaging families in telling stories about the people that matter the most in our lives.

• TED Talks - from large scale, massively funded projects to local thought exchanges and idea generating discussions.

• Unsilence - stories from humans that have been hidden, untold, or marginalized. Now brought to light and shared with the world through education.

Friday, April 24, 2020 - National Arbor Day

It's Friday, which means you GET IT ALL. Well, at least you get all of us blogging at the same time. Typically we take turns (and you get to guess who authors what). Today, for fun (because why not) we've created a #characterlimitchallenge (we just made that up). See our microblog updates on topics we think are important in 140 characters or less - throwback Twitter style. Want to check our work? Here's the most popular Word Count Extension. Add it. Select the text. Right click. Use it. We did.

hello, world. Wow. Have you ever noticed how if you stare at a word long enough, it looks wrong? That's how I feel about the word world right now. Really look at it. WORLD. R-L-D: three separately pronounced consonants in a row!? Anyway. This reality also highlights its opposite - how it's easy to get so accustomed to your environment that you no longer really see it? It just becomes something we take for granted. Well, for the 50th annual Earth Day, we all took extra time appreciating our environment - the trees, flowers, plants, rocks, and ancient globe puzzles. We also took time to reflect on our drastically different physical work environments - basements, living rooms, porches, and bedrooms - all places better suited for activities other than work. While our work spaces have drastically changed the past few weeks, our fun, collaborative EdTech team environment thankfully has not. So celebrate the Earth today; celebrate the environment - however it shows up for you. And just because you're stuck inside doesn't mean you can't get out and explore the third rock from the sun, good old Mother Earth. Here are some virtual ways to consider:

• Take a virtual field trip with Google Earth. You can do this live while Zooming or make a Screencastify video showing your students places related to your content. Or assign them an area to discover and have them explore. Bonus points if you have students create Screencastify videos of themselves sharing their explorations.

• Read or assign an Earth Day Article. There are lots to choose from on Newsela related to various topics or this one on CNN about lock-down-related pollution reduction.

• Create (or have students create) custom maps with Google My Maps. This is yet another way to allow for exploration of the globe in content-related ways.

• Take it up a notch with Google Tour Builder. Have students create customized tours related to your content. For example, map out the locations in a story, follow a historical event, or map out important scientific discoveries across the globe.

• Play Geoguessr! Or challenge a friend. See who can recognize world locations using clues from Google Maps. Play with your whole class via Zoom! You can play one free game per day.

"Google can bring you back 100,000 answers, a librarian can bring you back the right one." Neil Gaiman

Mina's featuring her favorite high school librarian, Lor Gehret, and the Norton Star Atlas she awarded her for her research in Science. David's reading Devils Within by S.F. Henson on his Kindle. Jessica has Someday, by Eileen Spinelli, a book that was checked out back in February. Melanie is learning about History - both European and U.S. (but she's not actually a "Dummy").

"I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved." Barbara Kingsolver

We love our ETHS library staff! Even though the building is closed, they're still supporting us. (See April 16th's post for details.)

Knowledge lives at the library, and the nice people there always let us take some home. ~Terri Guillemets

Well, it's National Look Alike Day, and the EdTech team is doing what they can to make this one work. Mina channeled her inner Jodie Foster, David found his art doppelgänger with the Google Arts Selfie app, Jess posed with her mid-Zooming mini-me, and Melanie was spot on with her stick figure's beaming smile. As we start off week 6 of remote learning, here are some highlights.

Got a Swank Request?

Last week, we shared the new access to hundreds of movies now available for simultaneous and at-home streaming. As you may have seen, there are additional movies available by request. Note that we have a limited number of titles that we can request, and teachers will receive a notification from Swank when the title has been approved and available in the system. Any requests for R-rated films must have pre-approved permission forms signed by parents/guardians if these are to be requested/shown to students.

Update to Attendance Taking Process

Guess what teachers? No more checking those long attendance reports! Thanks to IIT team members Midge Stocker, Ninan Mathew, and Rosti Ilinskiy for developing the automated attendance process. We know that this has been an evolving process for teachers and we thank you for your patience and feedback over the past few weeks as we’ve worked to improve it.

Beginning with today’s attendance, teachers will no longer mark students absent using the emailed check-in reports. IIT has created an automated process that will run after midnight every day to update attendance for the prior day. To confirm, teachers should enter attendance through and including Friday, 4/17/20, but going forward, it will be done automatically and cannot be edited by teachers directly through TAC.

Teachers will still receive the daily check-in reports so they may review for any errors. If a student is marked absent from class that you know was present, direct that student to contact the attendance office. Students that do not complete the check in form should contact the attendance office to request changes.

• A reminder that the Library team is available for a variety of supports and resources during e-learning. Refer to the email message from Head Librarian, Bill Latham this week.

Librarians can offer the following.

• • • • curriculum planning assistance;

      • resource gathering / sharing;

      • Assistance with elibrary card sign ups;

      • Zoom lessons for database / resources instruction;

      • answering student / teacher reference questions;

      • booktalking;

You can sign up, as before, using the online reservation form. When your reservation request is received, a librarian will be assigned to work with your class/es.

• In addition to using the Jabber application to connect with families using your work phone, the application "Remind" allows teachers to safely text students and parents without disclosing your personal information. New features include office hours, options to text different "groups" of people (e.g. separating messages between parents and students of a specific class), safe student-to-student interaction, and much more! View official ETHS documentation here.

• Bonus! Did you know it is now "incorrect" to use two spaces after a period nowadays? Mina says we "Gotta Get Hip". Melanie didn't even "know two spaces after a period was a thing". Well now you know... Read more about it here.

Wednesday, April 15, 2020 - National Tax Day

• • As everyone spends more time in remote learning, we've seen interest increase in Google Classroom. We hit our record high in the number of active classrooms on April 4th with 1,145 active Classrooms. If you're a more recent investor in the Google Classroom market, look back at our Tech on the Terrace session on 5 Tips to Maximize Productivity with Google Classroom. Or, if you're feeling exploratory, try Google's new Distance Learning for Educators Course, which reviews some strategies for teaching remotely. One caveat is that it refers to Google Meet as a tool for video chatting with students. In our case, we do not have access to this service, but we do recommend using Zoom (with security precautions mentioned) as a replacement.

  • As we mentioned in yesterday's post, we now have access to Swank for showing and assigning movies. Thinking of adding this tool to your portfolio? Peruse available titles on their website or search for others through their search. Use the "Request" button below a movie to request additional titles be added to our collection. We have limited additional titles available, so please make sure to explain your request. Thanks to everyone who already requested movies.

  • Congrats to many who have invested time in Online PD courses. Stay tuned for new courses coming in the next week. Topics will include Screencastify for Teaching Part 2, Zoom for Teaching Part 2, and Bringing Class Discussions Online. Have an idea for a topic you'd like to see covered? Email us at elearningsupport@eths202.org with suggestions.

Tuesday, April 14, 2020 - National Gardening Day

It's National Gardening Day and three out of four of the EdTech team appear to know how to keep a plant alive. (We're very impressed with Mina's cutting-hedge technology.) We're blossoming with things to tell you.

• We have Swank! Remember back in the day when you showed your class a movie? You don't need to buy all your students Netflix subscriptions (or try to stream a choppy movie over Zoom). We won't leaf you hanging. Swank allows you to assign a movie to your students that they watch from home using their eths202.org accounts. Find instructions here or reach out to your friendly EdTech team.

• Speaking of videos, Facing History's branching out. We've just received access to their "large and diverse streaming video collection". Find instructions here or reach out to your helpful EdTech team to access these resources for your class.

• We know your class is a welcoming environment where students can learn and grow, and you'd rather not invite unwanted strangers or unruly participants into your Zoom room. We've updated our ETHS Zoom Guide with a section on security features and tips. No time to read it? Check out this video walkthrough of security settings and tips.

Monday, April 13, 2020 - National Scrabble Day

Welcome back E-Town!

We hope you had a restful spring break. Maybe you replaced some tiles in your bathroom? We were out of words to express our excitement about returning to action. No point in dwelling on that and no use in writing any letters. Here's the updated score for today:

• Attendance reports will resume tomorrow. As a reminder, you should have received a report on Saturday, 4/4/20 for attendance taken for Friday, 4/3/20. Do check in your Spam/Clutter if you are not seeing these reports. They are being sent to all eths.k12.il.us email addresses.

• Good news for students! IIT has eliminated the need for students to choose their periods/teachers on the check-in form. We are using their schedule information in eSchool, so the reports will be more accurate. We know that taking attendance this way is not ideal and are working on additional improvements to the process. If students missed a check-in, they can contact the Attendance Office (https://www.eths.k12.il.us/domain/385).

Friday, April 3, 2020 - ETHS Spirit Week - Orange & Blue Day

Thursday, April 2, 2020 - ETHS Spirit Week - Thankful Thursday

Wednesday, April 1, 2020 - ETHS Spirit Week - Willie the Wildkit Day

Tuesday, March 31, 2020 - ETHS Spirit Week - Dress 2 Impress Day

• Remember to share your amazing lessons, stories and ideas on our message board page!

Monday, March 23, 2020 - National Chip and Dip Day

Friday, March 20, 2020 - National Proposal Day

Thursday, March 19, 2020 - National Chocolate Caramel Day

Wednesday, March 18, 2020 - National Awkward Moments Day

Tuesday, March 17, 2020 - St. Patrick's Day