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The EMS Instructional Technology Team is excited to work with students, teachers, and administrators this year to support and enhance the great things going on in our district this year!

The EMS Instructional Technology Team just returned from a week of LEARNING at the TCEA 2018 Conference. We joined more than thousands of like-minded educators and leaders that share the common goal of innovating learning to transform the future.

With more than 1000 sessions/workshops/presentations and more than 450 Vendors (many providing presentations and sessions), we tackled as many different things as we could. Check out some of our favorite takeaways from the week ...

Oh my goodness I can never get enough of TCEA.

This marks my 22 year in education and I have been going to TCEA for 12 years. This year there was much to see, but my favorites were of more of the techie nature. Wifi sweetspots is a cool app that will show you how your network is doing in different locations of the building you are in. When you see where the weak spots are, you can bring in the EERO and evenly stream the internet throughout your home or work environment evenly.

Then my favorite education app was called Blippar- Where AR & AI meet presented by Corinne Hoisington.

Bring coding to life!

Microsoft Makecode.com offers your students the ability to code with both drag and drop and Javascript while operating an Adafruit Playground Circuit.

Why teach our students to code with Makecode and Adafruit?

Students will be able to code on the computer and then actually see their code in a tangible product with the Adafruit Playground Circuit. Interested in coding with your students & connecting it to curriculum? Contact us! We would love to help you plan and execute coding in your classroom!

Do you miss Moviemaker? Looking for a replacement?

Microsoft Photos has you covered!

Use photos, graphics, and music to quickly and easily create slideshows. Photos connects with your OneDrive!

How to use Photos on your laptop:

1) Click Windows icon

2) begin typing photos

3)Open photos and click create (top right corner)

Tip: Need to get photos off your phone? Use Office Lens app or the OneDrive app to save the photos in your OneDrive.

Check out this video creation made with Photos

This was my first time at TCEA, so I was definitely blown away by the multitude of learning opportunities and Ed Tech tools available. I wish I could say that my favorite part of the convention was a particular session, or cool app, or networking with people. All of that was great, but the coolest thing I did was battle Darth Maul as a Jedi Knight in training using Lenovo's VR Star Wars Jedi Challenges. This was awesome! I totally geeked out with the light saber, and I defeated Darth Maul handily. Master Yoda would proud!

I learned about a ton of new Ed Tech. tools and apps at TCEA. My favorite one is classroomscreen.com. You can add tools like a timer, random name generator and traffic lights all on one screen. I look forward to sharing that and other cool apps with you soon.

It was great to meet new people and network with other Ed Tech. gurus. I really enjoyed spending time with my team. They are a wealth of knowledge, and a whole lot of fun to hang out with.

https://translator.microsoft.com/apps/

Presentation Translator, a Microsoft Garage project, breaks down the language barrier by allowing users to offer live, subtitled presentations straight from PowerPoint. As you speak, the add-in powered by the Microsoft Translator live feature, allows you to display subtitles directly on your PowerPoint presentation in any one of more than 60 supported text languages. This feature can also be used for audiences who are deaf or hard of hearing.

http://dictate.ms/

Dictate is an add-in for Microsoft Outlook, Word and PowerPoint that uses state of the art speech recognition behind Cortana to convert speech to text.

https://pdfcandy.com/

PDF Candy is a new completely free service for processing PDF files online by Icecream Apps. There are 24 various tools to works with PDF files. You can convert files from PDF format, to PDF format and proceed with such operations as PDF merging, splitting, compression, and other.

TCEA...what can I say?!?! So much fun getting to learn about new resources and cool tech tools. I always love an opportunity to get re-energized. I walked away with so many new insights and ideas that I can't wait to share. Two of my favorites were Telestory and Dotstorming.

Telestory- Write, direct, and star in your own TV show. TeleStory takes you behind the scenes to create and broadcast your own TV show! Record a music video, teleport to an alien planet, film a high-speed-chase, or perform on a reality TV show - TeleStory is a TV studio in your pocket. It is very similar to Touchcast but I think it is definitely well suited for out littles.

Tutorial/Example

Dotstorming - What is Dotstorming?

Dotstorming takes the process of dot voting online to allow groups of people to collaborate on a topic. Dotstorming is a perfect way to “unconference” your next faculty meeting or even differentiate content in your classroom by giving students voice and choice. Give it a try.

Uses/Tutorial

Step 1 - Create a Dotstorming board

Step 2 - Invite participants

Step 3 - Add your ideas

Step 4 - Vote on the ideas you like

Free! Easy to use! Tools and widgets for ANY classroom! Little setup time! Do I have your attention yet? If so, you’re going to love ClassroomScreen.com! ClassroomScreen gives you the opportunity to set up tools such as a name generator, QR code, a text box, a sound level to monitor your class’s volume, a timer, clock, traffic light, exit question, and more. You can put as much or as little on your screen to save time and not have to move from one website to another for the tools you need that day. It’s a one-stop shop! For more information, check out this video.

Another tool I walked away from TCEA with and am excited to use is an app called Clips. Clips has a simple layout and it's my favorite price- free! With a few taps, you can take photos or videos and stream them together to create a short video where you can pan and zoom in on pictures, and add narration, music, filters, and stickers. Use Clips to introduce topics to your kids, or have your students create a video in Clips to explain an idea, show the steps they completed in a lab, or use pictures of a historical event you've been discussing in class for those visual learners. The possibilities are endless!

My favorite things about TCEA are learning about new techy tools and/or new ways to use some of my favorite techy tools and time with the team (especially on the Escape Bus!)

If you know me, you probably know how much I BIG HEART LOVE OneNote! My favorite session of the week was @Turner4EDU's OneNote/Breakout EDU session. I had dabbled a bit with BreakoutEDU, but I'm definitely going to spend more time with it!

One of the most valuable things about this conference is TEAM TIME! We had the opportunity to ESCAPE THE BUS. We worked together to search for clues, solved riddles, created with a 3D printer, and used Augmented Reality to learn about world leaders - all from inside a locked bus! The really good news is that we escaped ... with 1 minute, 49 seconds left! This week was such an awesome opportunity to learn with them AND laugh with them.

Have you ever tried to direct your students, fellow teachers, or anyone to a website, but the URL (address) was too long and complicated? Yellkey.com is a very easy option for simple, temporary URLs. The video below shows how easy it is ...

Reserve an #EMSTechspert

We want to help you successfully infuse technology into your classroom. We would love to train you on how to create tech infused lessons, co-teach the lessons, or even share our favorite tech tools with you!

Email your IT today to set up an appointment! (Find contact info here.)

Click the link below to check out our #EMSISDITS tutorial OneNote! Updated frequently!

Follow the team:@emsisdits

Jeni: @jlo731 | Sallee: @salleeclark | Ricky: @rickygode

Scott: @scottboiles | Bob: @bobeikenberry
Jennifer: @msprince212 | Cindy: @tuckertech

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