| This week was the ADE Academy Class of 2017. I have been looking forwards to this event sense I received my acceptance email in April. I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived in Houston. When I walked into the conference center I was greeted by the Apple team with smiles high fives, hand- shakes, and hugs. We learned what it means to be and ADE, the 4 “A’s”, Author, Advisor, Ambassador and Advocate. We learned more about the community and what it means to be a part of the group. I presented at the annual “Showcase” event. This is when ADE’s take turns talking and sharing a Keynote for 3 minutes about a program or activity they are doing in their district. I presented about my student news team S.W.A.T. (Students Working to Advance technology) When you present there is a timer running for 3 minutes. It was a nerve wrecking event but I’m so glad I did it! Over the 3 days we did “Breakout EDU” activities, had great creative sessions that where grounded in learning theory. I met some very talented and creative educators. The last day we learned more about being involved in the ADE community, stay- ing connected with our peers and sharing what we do in our school district. After some closing remarks, and receiving our award It was over and I was saying goodbye to new my new friends feeling a little sad. I feel very lucky and honored to be part of the ADE community and look forward to working with them throughout the school year. |
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Last week Tyrone Elementary completed its training with TRIG and Apple Education. It was a great experience for the students and staff of Tyrone. Staff now have a strong understanding of how to use the iPads as a classroom tool both productively and creativity for education. Students now are using iPads for creative projects, not just drill and kill activities. I feel we are making a shift in the teaching process at our school. To complete the grant process, the TRIG team created an iBook of our experiences. This 4 chapter book was created in iBook Author, a free MacOS program. The book is 4 chapter, 13 pages, and explains the process in more detail, shows evidence of student’s work and reviews the data we collected from staff. We posted the iBook on our district’s iTunes U site. To down load the iBook; CLICK HERE To see an inspirational summary video of the training; CLICK HERE On Tuesday three members of our Tyrone S.W.A.T. team had a change to visit Judge Damon Keith. Judge Keith is the longest serving African American Judge in US History. He works in the Levin building in Downtown Detroit, and at 94 still is hard working as ever. Our students had an opportunity to tour the courthouse, and sit-down with Judge Keith to ask a few questions about his interesting life. You can watch the whole interview here: Spotlight The "Skype Cart" project is coming to a close. This project was funded by the 2016 MACUL Grant. Students at Tyrone Elementary School traveled over 11,000 miles, visited 2 countries, and toured places hundreds of miles away. It's been a great experience. To compete the grant I posted an article in the MACUL Community site. Read the complete post here: http://maculcommunity.org/skype-in-the-classroom/ Ed Camp Detroit held it’s annual meeting last weekend on the Campus of Wayne State University. This meet up is led my Dr. Mary Waker of College of Education at WSU.
The concept is simple, a “Tic Tac Toe” board of is placed on one or more white boards. Meeting times are placed down the left side, and meeting rooms are placed across the top. In the open squares are topics for discussion, and the name of who is leading that conversation. Who decides what the topics for discussion will be? That’s the best part about Ed Camp, its open for any participate to led a discussion. To present at Ed Camp, you don’t have to have a prepared Keynote, Power Point or slide show of any kind. You don’t have to have activities and references. EdCamp is more conversational than a presentation. This lets the participates control the content of the training, and takes pressure off anyone leading the conversation, you don’t have to prep for hours. In the end I led a conversation about Skype in the Classroom, and I learned about a site called “Flipgrid”. How nice is that when you go to share a resource and leave with more tools then you came in with? If you would like more information about Ed Camp Detroit, visit their website here: [https://edcampdetroit.org] A few weeks ago I attended a ADE Online for Apple’s new program “Clips”. We were shown an overview of what clips could do and I really like the many features that Clips has to offer. This app is geared towards social media. With Clips you can take pictures and or record video, while adding graphics, text, music which all can be quickly shared on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or your preferred social media platform. Clips is designed to be used with your device held vertically, no need for landscape mode with this app. Also, to record video you must press and hold the record button. For me this took time getting use to. There is also options having the camera facing front or rear, and disabling the microphone. What really makes this app interesting are the many filters, text, emoji icons and graphic choices. Some of these choices you must be on line to use. The feature I was drawn to the most is the text to speech feature, that places text of what people are saying right in to the video. To edit your video, you are limited to just trimming, and from my experience that seems to be enough. If you are doing a project that requires more detailed editing, you should stick with iMovie. In the classroom this app has many uses, from summaries to projects, or a way to show what was learned on a field trip. The speak text feature is a great way to help learners who have difficulty writing, but can explain verbally what they are doing. Videos shot with this feature have the benefit of being ADA compliant, a nice touch. To see an example of Clips being used in class CLICK HERE Today I received notice that I was accepted to the Apple Distinguished Educator program! I applied for this program back in February. I will be attending training over the summer and I’m part of a world wide group of educators that I can tap into for ideas and resources. I feel very lucky that to be part of this community. Today I had the pleasure of presenting to educators around Wayne County Michigan for “Tech Day”. I demonstrated “Skype in the Classroom” and the creation of the Harper Woods “Skype Cart”. This was part of the MACUL Grant I received in 2016. I reviewed the process of how I developed the “Skype Cart” and showed a few demos of students in Harper Woods using the cart to communicate with authors and take virtual tours. However the highlight of the presentation was a call I was able to secure from the Penguin hospital in South Africa! Our caller, Tamlyn Hardy, showed us the process and hospital where they care for Penguins of South Africa. It was a great call and the group really enjoyed the tour. I’m still amazed that we can call someone thousands of miles away, see and experience something that would be impossible to do in a regular educational setting. Learn more about this virtual trip at education.microsoft.com/ConnectWithOthers/sanccob
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About me...I'm an Instructional Technology Specialist in Harper Woods District Schools. Archives
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