Technology Resource Page

Welcome to the Wayne County Middle School Technology Resource Page. This is where you can find technology-related tips, tricks, ideas, troubleshooting, and all of your technology needs.

Check out our featured tool of the month below..........

March

Edulastic

Edulastic2018.pdf
EdulasticOne-PagerwithYouTubePlaylistLinks-2pg2col (1).pdf

February

Screencastify

Screencastify allows a student to show whatever is on their screen with the option of providing a narrative to the presentation. You can show a slideshow and talk through the points. You then save the castify version and share it.

January

November

October

FlipGrid

Check out this idea for using FlipGrid - Making QR Code Selfie Videos

Idea 1: Students could give a presentation about your Social Studies unit (or other content) and print their video as a QR Code. Post the QR Codes in the hallway for a creative way to share student videos for parent conferences!

Idea 2: Make a QR Code selfie video of your procedures. When students need reminding of procedures or rules, tell them to scan the code with their phone or the classroom iPad instead of having to go through the explanation.

Idea 3: Make a selfie video to introduce yourself to your students and parents when school starts.





OTHER TUTORIALS and IDEAS on FlipGrid found here.

September

Create everything from videos, slideshows, newsletters, brochures, posters, flyers, and so much more! Below are only a few of the optional projects available. See tutorials and ideas HERE for Adobe Spark Page or HERE for Creating Videos, both in the Tutorials section.

Tired of your newsletter finding its way to that “special filing cabinet” (the trash can) at your students’ homes? Bored from those antiquated slide show presentations? Try something new on for size: Adobe Spark! Adobe Spark offers THREE great student-creation presentation tools: Page, Video, & Post. Get your students understanding video, graphics, and website creation with basic structures for free! Adobe Spark is versatile, so we thought you may want a few tips to help begin your implementation path!

Lesson Ideas:

Tip #1: Shadow-box & mobile book reports on hangers are so 10 years ago. Move your students’ projects into the 21st century by using Adobe Spark Video! Students can select video templates to match the plot of their story and make their book report come to life! Allow them to add voice to create a more personalized presentation!

Tip #2: Looking for a way to make your Star Student of the Week feel special? Create an Adobe Spark Post with their picture and a few great words about them! Adobe Spark Post provides a variety of templated options to choose from when creating posts about your outstanding students! Print out the post, display it, and send it home for encouragement!

August

See more about Piktochart in the Tutorials dropdown

Student presentations and projects have become a classroom norm. But, student projects no longer have to be poster board related! Have your students use Piktochart to create beautiful infographics and bring information to life! This is a user-friendly tool allowing even younger students to get involved with presenting information. We think Piktochart is a must-use in your classroom. Here are a few ways to utilize this versatile tool!

Lessons/Ideas:

Tip #1: Make your anchor charts without having to continuously throw away chart paper & fill up all your wall space! Use Piktochart to digitally create anchor charts & upload them for easy student access!

Tip #2: Tired of using up poster board and not knowing where to keep the projects? Have students use Piktochart to create digital posters instead! Print them out and post them on the wall with feedback!

July

Google Slides

Google Slides is in your Google account that you have with your Google Drive for school so it's easy to get to and you're already signed in usually!

Why use Google Slides?

    • For your own presentations and interactive games

    • Student group projects - they can share and work on the SAME presentation at the SAME time, share it with you, the teacher, and you can see the timestamps of who did what on the presentation so you know that one person isn't doing all of the work. This is also time-efficient because each group member can be working on their own slide contributions on their own computers/Chromebooks and it all shows up together in REAL-TIME so group members don't have to question what the other members are doing.

    • Class assignments (Reciprocal Teaching) - You could use the reciprocal teaching approach (in which you divide a chapter in your text or section out a topic of study), share a blank slideshow with the students and assign them each a slide number to be responsible for. Now, on your end, change the view of the slideshow from filmstrip view to grid view. Now you can see each of the slides and their slide number so you know which student is working and putting in full effort and check for accuracy in an easy way! If you teach multiple classes, just create a new slideshow for each class period so you will have everyone's slides easily accessible and organized. Slides timestamps each change made to the slideshow and who did what so you can see if someone didn't participate as well as they should have or if they tampered with someone else's slide. You will be able to see it all! This would be a very quick way to cover a chapter or topic!

    • Interactive Flowchart - Using the “insert shapes and arrows” option in a slide, you can create a flowchart for your students to use to learn a new topic or to assess their understanding at the end of a lesson or unit. You could also do this together in class! Allow the students to give their own ideas and even add in their own portions to the flowchart as you discuss as a class. For instance, you're discussing a topic as a class and have the flowchart started. Perhaps use this as you teach the water cycle or life cycle, or a math concept, or characters in a story, cause and effect, etc.). Call on students to tell you what would come next in the flowchart. If they get the answer correct, they get to add their idea on the flowchart while you call on another student to tell the next step in the flowchart. This would go quickly, at a good pace, and allow students a chance to participate and be active in the discussion even if they don't like to be verbal, it may be the motivation to participate like never before!

    • The iPhone app for Google Slides is super quick and easy to use! For quick creation of lessons on the go, this is great!!! Definitely worth trying it out!

June

APP-PREVIEW-12X9.m4v.mp4

May

How to Use Tweetdeck: All Things Tweetdeck, straight from the company!

April

FORMMULE

One of the most underutilized Google Add-ons is formMule. This Add-on is an email merge utility that works within Google Sheets. formMule will send targeted, personalized emails straight from the information that you’ve pulled from your Google Sheet. We love using it with the response sheets we get from our Google Forms.

Here are a few ideas on how to get started with formMule:

  • Observation Feedback - great for principals and teachers

  • Detention Notices - fill out a Google Form so that when the data is translated to a Google Sheet, it can be shared with the student, teacher, detention teacher, etc. in email form

  • Late Work - students fill out a form and the information sent to the Sheet translates into an email and alerts all parties involved)

Check out this tutorial on how to set up formMule and start saving yourself time right away!


Copy of ITD-FORMMULE-GoogleHandouts-10.19.17.pdf

March

This is a Youtube Playlist with a plethora of tutorials and information about the NEW FEATURES in Padlet.

  • Control having "no bad words" written by students!

  • Connect posts with arrows = make it like a flowchart!

  • Grade, star, upvote, and like posts on Padlet!

  • Print your Padlets (and save them) as PDFs, Excel sheets, and images!

  • Make diagrams with Padlet!

  • Students can DRAW their response, add videos, images, files, and so much more with the newest features in Padlet!

See more about Padlet in the Tutorials Section!

February

Copy of EdPuzzle.pdf

See more about EdPuzzle in the Tutorials Section!

January

See more about FlipGrid in the Tutorials Section!