Friday, December 19, 2014

Tech Tuesdays!



I am very excited to announce Tech Tuesdays starting January 6th! These fast-paced training sessions will be focused on you, the user! All Tech Tuesday events will be held at the Ed Center and are voluntary (unpaid). Below is an outline of the upcoming schedule and topics:

January 6th: Google Drive

January 20th: Google Docs

February 3rd: Google Forms

If you're interested in attending, please click here to fill out the form. If you have any questions, email Kelly Martin at kmartin@ltusd.org

Thursday, December 11, 2014

A Few CCSS Aligned and FUN Websites to Check Out

Recently I've found a few great CCSS aligned websites that also have a game-based element built in to help motivate students to succeed. I highly recommend checking them out.

First off is www.zeal.com. It's a site for K-8 that's aligned to both ELA and Math standards. Below is a video explaining it a bit. It tracks what standards students have worked on. You can assign the standards and once they've completed the assigned standards, they can then choose the standards they work on. It's game-based as well in that students build an avatar and earn coins to buy items for their avatar. Which as we've seen from some of our other programs is a good motivator for our students.






Next is www.teachyourmonstertoread.com. This is a super fun FREE website that teaches phonics through a very engaging game. I found this site while on Twitter and set up an account and was immediately sucked in. It's THAT engaging! It's great too because while it initially works on phonics, it moves students then through to digraphs and trigraphs in level 2. Currently they have two levels but level three should be released in early 2015. I HIGHLY recommend this site for K-2.



Tuesday, December 2, 2014

LTUSD ED Tech Pinterest Account






I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving break! I know many of the teachers in the district (including myself) have personal Pinterest accounts and use them to gather awesome teaching ideas. And I had the brainstorm while traveling last week that it would be great to pool our collective resources. I've created a Pinterest account with the name LTUSD Ed Tech. I've already created 30 boards some with significantly more content than others.

If you're interested in pinning to some of those boards, send me an email at kmartin@ltusd.org and I'll gladly add you as a pinner. If there's a board you'd like me to add, just let me know.

I learned a cool trick from Twitter (my new favorite form of PD) to create covers for Pinterest. I'll be posting directions on how to do that in the next week or so.

To see the district Pinterest boards click here.

Enjoy!
-KellyBy the way-all the Pinterest Boards I created have a board cover that looks like this:





Monday, December 1, 2014

Welcome to LTUSD's Newest Informational Tool!

Welcome to Lake Tahoe Unified's newest informational tool! This will come to be a great resource for teachers and staff to check. Here you'll find links to new ed tech tools, quick how to guides and even links to professional development.

I look forward to sharing new tools and information with you!

-Kelly