Digital Notes on Friday, April 17th (delayed)

Here's a semi-weekly technology update from Blake MS featuring the latest app updates, new professional development events, google and iPad tips, Coming Attractions and a new Shout Out Showcase to share what's happening in your classrooms!

Updates to your iPad

iOS 8.3

• Adds a lot of image faces with better organization, skin tone modifiers, and a bunch of flag, phone, computer, and watch Emoji. 
• Siri has gained some new languages, plus the ability to make phone calls using the speakerphone.
• Passbook now separates Apple Pay credit cards from other Passes. 
• iMessage has the option that will allow you to separate messages from friends from messages from strangers. 
• And one of my favorite new features removes the annoying requirement to enter your Apple ID password when you are downloading free apps!

Google Docs- this update brings editing to TABLES!

Explain Everything-the update includes new features of flipping objects and auto-group option in Draw, Shape and Text Tools pop-out menu.

*if students are not able to update due to lack of storage, please visit the Spring Cleaning Tips.

Professional Development Opp

Education on Air is a two- day online event, May 8th and 9th by Google for Educators with keynote speakers and topics such as, empowering student learning, digital storytelling, collaboration, digital citizenship and much more. Sign up today!

Wanted: Notability is seeking Beta-Testers!We are looking for beta testers that are willing to consistently test our new features and give constructive feedback as often as possible. Click Here

Shout Out Showcase #1

Introducing a new feature to give you a peek into the classrooms for grades 6th - 8th.

The first thing you'll notice is many of our student creations incorporated the use of a green screen (green table cloths) and two apps: TouchCast or DoINK.  

Mr. Heim's 8th Grade Science class found it worked perfectly to bring in actual footage, graphs, maps and facts into their Plate Tectonics research. Mrs. Alland's 6th Social Socials class were put to the task of creating an Infomercial on a specific cause/issue. Students were able to change the background image to reflect their message as they were presented as a team! And lastly, Mr. Gavaghan's 7th English students created a story trailer to show the changes the main character goes throughout the novel.

 Mme. Buckman's and Mme. Wellings' French classes also loved two apps: VoiceThread and Explain Everything that capture audio recordings of students speaking french! Listen into conversations about their favorite breakfast foods and watch their animated presentations to demonstrate a culmination of their learning this year!

Try-Outs

SMORE- is a website where you can create digital flyers. When Mrs. Gumas' 7th Math class began their unit on percentages, she was looking for a tool that would let her create her own weekly advertisement or flyer to help students apply those skills to real-life situations. Smore.com did the trick! She included her own videos, images and linked directly to their google spreadsheet for recording and submitting answers. **The free version limits you to five. But, that just may be enough! Check out her the Now and Then Flyer!

Emaze- calls itself the next generations' online presentation tool! Accessible via the web on any device, users can select from several professional templates to create slideshows, video presentations and 3D presentations.Give it a try and let me know your feedback! Click Here!

Coming Attractions

With our discussions about Student Digital Portfolios as a school, I held two workshops on how to setup and use Youtube with students and how to develop their digital portfolio using Google Sites. I know some teachers were not able to attend and asked for tutorials and resources. Stay tuned, as those are in progress and will be shared shortly!

Be sure to visit next Friday for more digital notes!

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Spring Cleaning Tips for your iPad! Sweep up those Photos!

Spring is the perfect time to clean things up including your iPad. As a BYOiPad school, students often have a big learning curve when it comes to managing their own device and its storage space.

 We learned that lesson with the last big update iOS 8.0. Students were constantly stopping by to 
get help with updating their iPads due to running into this very problem..

So to get ahead of the game before iOS 8.3 arrives (which plans to be another big one) by cleaning up storage space now. The best place to begin is by doing a clean sweep of your old photos and videos.  See the tips below. 

**Not sure how to perform that step?  The images contain hotspots for added support!

Be sure to click on the play buttons for How-To screencasts! 

This should get you off to a good start until the

 next installment of Spring Cleaning iPad Tips when we tackle your 

closet full of APPS!

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