Last week I spent Thursday and Friday at Vermont Fest, the annual Technology Conference in Killington, VT. What a busy 2 days! I love this conference because it reinvigorates me and I always learn new things. I love that I get to spend time with my educational tech colleagues who do the same work as me in our schools. I even got to spend some time with a CVSU colleague! Networking is important. 

VITA-Learn is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to preparing today’s learners for the demands of tomorrow. Our mission is to promote and support the use of information technology to transform Vermont education through the provision of professional development, training and networking opportunities. You can find out more about this organization and what it can offer you by going to their website

My focus was to learn about AI in our schools. Specifically, I attended sessions on developing policy for teachers and school use as well as sessions about good tools for teachers. I also spent time looking at digital maker spaces for STEM education. I think one of my next projects will be to develop a Chatbot. 

I was very impressed by the keynote speaker on Thursday. Richard Culatta is a dynamic speaker who has written a book called Digital for Good. The premise is that we need to teach students how to use technology to be proactive and productive citizens.He takes a positive approach with his framework for preparing students. I can't wait to read his book.

Feel free to ask me more about the conference and I'm happy to share what I have learned. I will also be sharing out more specific information in my weekly blog. Have a great week.

I need your help!

Today I want to bring your attention to a tool we should all know about and ensure that our students are aware of. This Chrome extension is called Read&Write. Please make sure your studetns have the extension and are able to use it for text to speech in Google docs and the web.

Read&Write for Chrome is tool that all staff and students have access to. It allows for text to speech in Google docs, webpages, gmail and other Google products. I am strongly encouraging all teachers to check with their students to make sure this is in their toolbar to the right of the URL window. it will be a small purple puzzle piece. Once you click on the extension, a toolbar appears. Select the text you want read outloud and then press the play button. Students will need to make sure their audio is on etc. It should be pretty simple and there is always support available for you and your students. Watch the video below to see how it works.

Here is a link for a video on the fully functional tools 

As always, please feel free to contact me for more information. Please leave a comment below if you are already using this tool.

thanks,

Brucie

Today's blog is about the Securly Classroom tool. We use Securly as our main content filtering tool and now we use the Classroom features and the AI Chatbot. The big interest this year in using Classroom stems from the universal block of YouTube during the school day.

Securly Classroom allows you to monitor what your students are doing on their Chromebooks in real time. Not only can you block sites that you don't want students to go to, you can allow sites that are usually blocked (and can do it without the TechDept!)

However, there are some tips n'tricks that you should know that will make using the tools easier.

• Begin by telling your students that you are and will be using the monitoring software and that their digital world is visible to you during your class. Please don't set it to run all day; just during your class time.
• In order for the filters to work, you have to start the class. You can use the scheduling feature if your class runs class at the same time weekly. It's a bit more involved if you teach on an A/B rotation.
• You can create a class on the "fly" for Maurader/Lab time and add students so they can access materials. 
• Know that any YouTube video has to be CVSU approved (you can do that) for students to watch it. You do that in YouTube before you assign it.
• You can add YouTube sites by allowing YouTube.com on your allowed list, and it will allow all videos under YouTube.com. You don't have to add the specific video URL.

Here is a link to the Securly Classroom document that has links to the features.

Are you using Securly Classroom? Please let me know in the comments. Remember you have to click on the work comment to leave one.

Please reach out if you need support!

Welcome to my Tech Tip Tuesday Blog! It's been a while since I've done this (pre-covid) so I thought it would be a good time to come back to this work and help support all the instructional CVSU staff. My goal is to post every Tuesday about the CVSU tech tools that you have access to but might not know about these tools that support teaching and learning.

Beginning on Tuesday October 22, 2024, I will be hosting Tech Tuesday After School support sessions from 3-4pm. I will be rotating between the four Paine Mountain Schools. You will receive a certificate of attendance that you can use for re-licensure. 

What is the #1 program that you want to know more about? Please put your answer in the comment section below. You have to click on the word comment to see the input box.

These sessions will have a focus, but we can cover topics that are relevant to you and your work in the classroom. I will send out a registration form where you can add additional topics you want covered.

Here are the dates and topics until the first of the year: