Edmonds Digital Learning

Whether or not technology is present in classrooms, it is vital that time is taken to cover some Digital Citizenship basics. Our students have never lived in a world without pervasive technology. Every piece of information ever recorded is available just by logging into a device. The term 'Digital Natives' is sometimes tossed around to describe the current generation traveling through our K-12 schools. Unfortunately, despite the massive comfort students have developed using technology, they also have little understanding of the consequences and implications that can result from using technology inappropriately. In this way, they are digitally naive. Luckily, there are resources to help! Below are links to some sites to help implement positive digital citizenship lessons into instruction. Above are some videos for educators courtesy of Common Sense Media. Digital Citizenship is also a great topic for morning meetings and can be a great way to connect with individuals.

"I wouldn't mind grading online assignments as much if students could just organize their answers in a way that makes sense!" said an exasperated teacher on a cloudy Tuesday afternoon. Well, now there is a way to help students write their answers in a more organized fashion and the solution is TABLES, of course! No! Not that kind of table! I'm talking about inserting a table into a Google doc. To do this: 1. Create a new, blank Google document . 2. Give the document a title, preferably one that would make sense for students completing the assignment. 3. Type a question the way you normally would on any assignment. 4. Click on the 'Insert' menu and hover over 'Table'. 5. Choose a one-celled table. 6. Fill the table with a light, pleasing color such as 'light cornflower blue 3'. 7. Add directions at the top of the document so the students know to type their answers in the blue boxes (or whichever color you choose).

MobyMax can be used to give insight into student progress and to examine how students are doing in different content strands, but you have to know where to go to find the data. After students have taken a placement test, here are the steps to follow to view their data. 1. Log into MobyMax through the Clever Portal 2. Once into the MobyMax system, click on the tile of the subject area where students took the placement test. For this post, we will investigate math data. 3. You will see a menu near the top with many different tabs to view 4. At first, you'll probably be most interested in the 'Progress' and 'Placement' tabs. Progress shows the student's level and the work they've completed. Placement shows where they placed after taking the assessment. 5. After you click 'Progress' you'll see your class list and the level each student finished last year and the level they are starting the current year. 6. If you c

Ever want to change the background image on your Windows 10 computer, but just weren't quite sure how to do it? Now you can by following these easy steps! Or, for more visual directions, watch the video above. 1. Close all open windows so you're looking at your empty desktop 2. Right-click anywhere on the desktop 3. Select 'Personalize' 4. Click 'Background' (it also defaults to this automatically) 5. Under 'Choose your picture' click 'Browse' 6. Find the photo you want as your background on your computer 7. Select the picture you would like and click 'Choose picture' 8. You're all done! Change it as often as you'd like!

Ever want to create a no-frills picture slideshow in less than a minute? Well, let Google Photos lead your picture parade! To get your slideshow rolling, watch the clip above or follow the steps below. 1. Open Chrome and enter the URL: photos.google.com 2. Once you're there, click 'UPLOAD' 3. Browse your computer and find the photos you want to upload. You can click any you want by holding the 'Ctrl' (control) key while you click. When you've selected all the photos, click 'Open'. 4. Back in Google Photos, click the 'Albums' icon on the left. 5. Click 'Create album' 6. Add a title and click 'Select photos' 7. Once the album has been created, click the three dots at the top right. 8. Select 'Slideshow' and you're off and running!

If you are an Edmonds School District classroom teacher in grades K-6, that means you have access to the  Clever system .  Clever  is a convenient way for students to sign into online programs because they only need one username and password for the programs that sync up with  Clever . Students can also access  Clever  from home or from school with their username and the password 'test'. K-1 students will automatically be logged in at school by using their Clever Badge, but will need their log in information for home unless their home computer has a webcam and they have a Clever Badge at home. To find your student's usernames, the quickest way is to go to the  password reset tool  and click 'Print this student list'. This will create a class list with usernames that you can print. The generic district username formula is the first five letters of a student's last name, the first three letters of a student's first name, followed by 000 (zero, z

After Drawings, Google Slides might well be the most underrated of all Google's apps. If used creatively, Slides puts the sweet in G-Suite! The video above shows how to change the page layout in Slides so it could be used to make an online school newspaper, but there's so much more to do! Since there is an option to create links that connect to other slides in the deck, Slides is a perfect tool to have students write 'Choose Your Own Adventure' stories. Alice Keeler  wrote a brilliant blog post about using Google Slides as an essay template . By using Slides in this way, students can easily add images, videos, manipulate text location, and more! Give Slides a try for more than presentations and before long you'll make like Paul Simon and be Google  slip sliding away !

Up late at night pondering which is the backslash and which is the forward slash? Watch this devastatingly entertaining video to find out! Also, spoiler alert : Backslash = \ Forward Slash = /

Have you ever wanted to display an amazing presentation ALL DAY? Now you can with Google slides! The trick is publishing the presentation to the web. Once you have created your slideshow, click on the 'File' menu and select 'Publish to the web...' Select the settings you want and then copy the URL and paste it into your browser. Your presentation will now roll indefinitely until you decide the time is right to stop it. Hey, if it's that good, maybe never! See the video above for visual support.

You can use Voice Typing in Google Docs to support English Language Learners in the classroom by going to the 'Tools' menu, and clicking Voice Typing on the student's computer. Select the language above the microphone icon and then the student can type with her or his voice in her or his home language. If you cannot read the language typed by the student, click the 'Tools' menu, and then select 'Translate document...' Next, select the language you wish to translate the document into. The translation will not be perfect, but should give you a gist of what the student has written.