Why try something new?  it's the end of the year and it would be easy to cruise. If that's what's up with you and all is fine, then cruise away. However, if you are up for trying a few changes to end the year on a positive and more efficient note, read on.

The time between Spring Break and June can can be perfect for testing out changes you might want to put into place for next year. Your current students will enjoy the change of pace and can help you catch the snags and assess what works since they already have a good relationship with you. ( And if they don't, then all the more reason to shake it up rather than spend each day praying for June to get here soon. )

Here is a post from gamification guru and all round  eduvisionary Chris Aviles on ways for any teacher to change up your grading and feedback to make it more effective. Love his ideas (record yourself explaining the feedback a la the whole flipping idea) and writing style ("the stinkeye")

If you're feeling radical , pair it with Pernille Ripp's "No Homework No Grades No Punishment" Resources (I swear it's really not as radical as it sounds. If you want some ideas for easing into changes like no-coercion teaching, I'd be happy to talk it through with you.

Also check out the other posts this week for more ideas like new Chromebook apps to try, storytelling tools, and Educational Video Games to use with students or just share with them.

Learn Schoolnet 
Would you like training on Schoolnet? If so, let me know this week and CMS can come during your planning. Schoolnet training includes how to give autograded tests via schoolnet- scores instantly go into Powerschool. (to see how to do this with Google Drive check here) 

Google Classroom Updates

• has an app now for your phone and ipad
  
• 5 Things You May Not Know About Google Classroom - link courtesy of our very own tech-savvy principal, Mrs. Barone!
  

Tech Integrated tools and lesson ideas

• Smore   This site supposed to be a nice alternative to the old fashioned and expensive Glogster (take that Glogster!) 

• Make a Mixtape  - I  can think of a thousand ways this could be useful as a class project or in your lessons. Like you could have students make a mixtape about a topic or you could make one of songs for each morning opener, or exit ticket songs...

Digital Citizenship Resource  

• For you What Teachers Should Know About Privacy and the Internet
  
• For your students

Rubric Rethink
Here are 2 articles that were tweeted recently with interesting thoughts on rubrics:

• Single Point Rubric 
  
• Your Rubric is a Hot Mess, Here's How to Fix It
• 
  

Maker Movement
Ms. Newburger and I presented about the media center's makerspace and Piedmont's maker culture at the CMS tech meeting. If you don't know what I mean by our maker culture, think the 6th grade's egg drop designs, the 8th grade civil rights museum installments and this week's 7th grade industrial revolution inventions extravaganza.

The windows upgrade is a perfect excuse to move your documents over to Google Drive. Follow these instructions to upload and you will have access to all your files from any computer smartphone or tablet nomatter where you are. It will also allow you to share instantly with coworkers, students, or anyone you wish. See me if you don't remember your password.

The first vid shows how to do it from Firefox. The second shows from Chrome (to upload

Yesterday CMS delivered 3 carts full of shiny new Chromebooks. They are ready to go now (interested in how we got a 24 hour turnaround? see below) so head over to signup genius to reserve them for your end of the year digital needs!

Links:

• Piedmont Tech Signup (Signup Genius Link-use your CMS email to login)
  
• Chromebook procedures for teachers (private staff wiki link)
  
• Chromebook and Drive Instructions for students
• Online Learning Rules and Procedures for students
• Chromebook Usage Video Tutorials (my homemade)
• Drive Usage Video Tutorials (my homemade)
• Professional Tutorials via Atomic Learning- Passwords posted on private staff wiki, on media center doorway as you exit into the hall or email me.

Note: Ms. Newburger has streamlined a system to make the sharing of our school tech as smooth as possible. Please respect her work by adhering to procedures while the Chromebooks are in your care. Especially note that they are not as rugged as our iPads.

Setup Details:
The rest of this post is for those interested in how we keep up the Chromebooks. It's not the prettiest - but it keeps things organized when lots of people share!

Our district configures and manages them for us. Ms. Newburger figured out how to share them efficiently when we check them out to classes. She tapes down the cords so they don't get jumbled indaily checkout. She labels each cord to cut down on confusion and she puts an arrow label to help teachers see when a chromebook is missing . 

Setup workflow:

See photo above

1. take new Chromebook
2. Assign it a number on inventory list
3. Write it's number in sharpie on back of Chomebook/ total of chromebooks in cart.
4. Write it's cart number for easy return if we take them to another room for testing or if teachers share more than one cart.
5. Hand chromebook to helper.
6. Helper read out the serial number as you record that number on inventory list.
7. Helper place the chromebook in it's numbered slot and plug in
8. Repeat
9. Add new cart to your checkout form (we use Signup Genius)
   
10. Let the 21st Century learning begin!