Embedded Files
The Elementary Technology Training Guide includes PL presentations, as well as links to online training videos and tutorials. Also visit our NPS Training Page for professional created online training materials. For resources related to Curriculum, please visit the Curriculum Closet. For staff wishing to share resources to support families, please visit our Elementary Ed Tech Hub for Families.
Understanding the Four C's
Understanding the Four C's
Think of the Four C’s as soft skills or character traits that enhance interpersonal capability and our success in working with other people. We need to incorporate these skills into our lessons, but they are more often cultivated rather than graded.
The skilled and intuitive educator finds a way to weave them into most lessons and purposefully adds opportunities for students to build these skills as part of classroom culture. We intentionally add them to the flow of learning that is happening in the classroom.
You may have surmised that these types of skills will be very important for students once they hit the workforce. For this reason, emphasizing including them in the early stages of student learning is vitally important to their future success.
Digital Resources to Support the 4 Cs
Collaboration Resources - Engage students in digital collaboration resources and build new skills.
Communication Resources - Effectively communicate content, ideas, and opinions.
Critical Thinking Resources - Exercise the brain and develop new ideas.
Creativity Resources - Creating should be part of the learning process, not just a final product.
Below are some useful educational technology tools that many of our teachers utilize in the classroom for a variety of purposes, and as a result the district has purchased the premium versions for some of them. All of these vendors have met the Data Privacy requirements and can be found in this Approved List of services. Any staff member may request a review of a new resource or permission to use a resource currently owned, subscribed to, or free by completing this Approval Form. If you would like a quick tutorial on any of the software below, please reach out to your respective Educational Technology teacher or contact Jay Salerno.
Use this key to identify apps and tools below to help instruction, activities and assignments.
Educational Technology Tools
Educational Technology Tools
BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. are a group of educational websites with over 1,000 short animated movies for students in grades K-12, together with quizzes and related materials, covering the subjects of science, social studies, English, math, engineering and technology, health, and arts and music.
To access BrainPOP Jr. please use your Google credentials and this document for school codes.
To access free selected material on BrainPOP click this link and get an individual access key good for 30 days.
Breakout EDU is the immersive learning games platform. With Breakout EDU kits, you can turn your classroom into an academically-focused escape room and facilitate games where players use teamwork and critical thinking to solve a series of challenging puzzles in order to open the locked box. Games are available for all ages and content areas.
Chromebooks are shareable, web-based devices that you can use to access the internet, enriching apps, and powerful extensions. With automatic updates and multi-layer security, Chromebooks continue to improve with updates.
ClassDojo is a school communication platform that teachers, students, and families use every day to build close-knit communities by sharing what's being learned in the classroom home through photos, videos, and messages.
Common Sense Media supports K–12 schools with everything educators need to empower the next generation of digital citizens. Our innovative, award-winning Digital Citizenship Curriculum prepares students with lifelong habits and skills, supports teachers with training and recognition, and engages families and communities with helpful tips and tools. Schools everywhere rely on our free curriculum, expert advice, and edtech ratings to help kids thrive. Our vision: Students thriving as learners, leaders, and citizens in the digital age.
The Discovery Education Experience: Recently teachers’ and students' names and G Suite log-in information have been synced with Powerschool for Discovery Education. Teachers and students simply “Sign-in with Google” with their G Suite username and password. In addition, classes have now been rostered. Resources can also be added directly to Google Classroom assignments, questions, or announcements in a class without leaving the resource you are sharing. Click here to read more about the Discovery Education Experience.
EDpuzzle is a free interactive assessment tool that lets the teacher select a video and easily modify it making it personal, engaging and effective. In addition, it contains powerful analytic tools to track each student in the classroom and is great for individualized lesson plans or the flipped classroom. NPS has premium accounts for all teachers. Here are the directions on how to upgrade your account. The upgrade code is cibsfi.
GoGuardian (for Teachers)--This application will be available for teachers to be able monitor and manage students and their Chromebooks. This actively integrates with Google Classroom. Here is the link to setting it up. You should have received an email from GoGuardian in order to activate your account and change your password. Here is how you use Google Forms with Scenes in GoGuardian. If you did not get an email from GoGuardian, please contact Jay Salerno.
Google Classroom helps students and teachers organize assignments, boost collaboration, and foster better communication. Classroom is a streamlined, easy-to-use tool that helps teachers manage coursework. With Classroom, educators can create classes, distribute assignments, grade and send feedback, and see everything in one place.
Google Docs brings your documents to life with smart editing and styling tools to help you easily format text and paragraphs. Choose from a variety fonts, add links, images, and drawings. With Google Docs collaborators can work together in the same document at the same time.
Google Drawings is a powerful, versatile creation tool that allows you to make all sorts of graphic designs and publications. Here is a collection of graphic organizer templates.
Google Earth Voyager is a showcase of interactive guided tours, quizzes, and layers that aim to help educate everyone about the world, locations near and far. Within Google Earth, students can experience and create stories about the world.
Google Forms to create forms, quizzes, and surveys to collect and analyze responses with the help of machine learning.
Google Maps are a fun and visual way to help students understand geography concepts, map reading, location, and distance measurement. Besides using Google Maps to teach the fundamentals of mapping, like latitude and longitude, you can inspire students to investigate the world and to think spatially.
Google Meet to connect with students virtually through secure video calls and messaging to keep learning going outside of school.
Google Sites is an easy-to-use web builder to create sites, host course curriculum, build development skills, and unleash students’ creativity.
Google Slides saves you time, keeps you organized, and allows you to connect and collaborate with your students in real time. With Google Slides, you can create, edit, collaborate, and present wherever you are.
Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that makes it easy to create, share and play learning games or trivia quizzes in minutes. Unleash the fun in classrooms, offices and living rooms!
Lexia CORE 5 supports educators in providing differentiated literacy instruction for students of all abilities in grades pre-K–5. Lexia’s research-proven program provides explicit, systematic, personalized learning in the six areas of reading instruction, targeting skill gaps as they emerge, and providing teachers with the data and student-specific resources they need for individual or small-group instruction.
Literacy Footprints is an online reading program that provides students with leveled digital versions of the Pioneer Valley book collection.
MagicSchool AI: The award-winning, most used, and most loved AI platform for schools in the world. Educators use MagicSchool to help lesson plan, differentiate, write assessments, write IEPs, communicate clearly, and more. And now use MagicSchool for Students to bring responsible AI experiences to students and build AI literacy for the next generation.
Padlet is a collaborative tool that allows users to add posts with one click, copy-paste, or drag and drop. Padlet works the way your mind works - with sight, sound, and touch changes are autosaved. Simple link sharing allows for quick collaboration. The district has a premium subscription to Padlet Backpack. To access this subscription, please click here and Log in with Google.
Pear Deck is an interactive presentation tool used to actively engage students in individual and social learning. Teachers create presentations using their Google Drive account. Students log into the presentation with unique access codes and interact with questions while teachers monitor student and whole-class progress.
PebbleGo is a curricular content hub specifically designed for K-3 students. Packed with informational articles, ready-made activities, and literacy supports for students of all abilities, it boosts engagement and fosters independent learning in core subject areas. Your students will love exploring PebbleGo time and time again.
Raz-kids is an online guided reading program which provides leveled books for students. Students can listen to books for modeled fluency, read books for practice, and then record themselves reading so teachers can monitor progress. Every leveled eBook has an accompanying eQuiz to test reading comprehension.
Texthelp describes Read&Write as an extension that acts "like a literacy toolbar that is great for all subjects to help students understand, learn, and express themselves. It offers support with everyday tasks like reading text out loud, understanding unfamiliar words, researching assignments and proofing written work. It’s designed in line with the principles of UDL (Universal Design for Learning), so it fits right in with a wide range of educational technology strategies, personalized learning plans, ESOL and IEP students."
Screencastify is a simple video screen capture software for Chrome. It is able to record all screen activity inside a tab, including audio. Just press record and the content of your tab is recorded. So you can easily create a screencast for video tutorials, record presentations etc. It also supports desktop capturing, allowing you to record anything on your screen (not just tabs). NPS has premium accounts for all teachers.
Seesaw: Student driven digital portfolios and simple parent communication. Seesaw’s creativity tools are optimized for Chromebooks and allow students to draw, record, take videos, and more. Students can add work from Google Drive directly into their Seesaw portfolio and teachers can import Google Classroom rosters to setup Seesaw classes. NPS has the premium version for Grades K-4.
WeVideo is used by millions of students in every grade and subject area, WeVideo empowers every learner to discover their voice and make an impact in their world. Our platform promotes deeper learning while making it fun and easy for students to express their ideas with creativity and authenticity.
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