Digital Learning Day 2020 is February 27!

DLD

Join thousands of educators and students to celebrate Digital Learning Day (DLDay). Happening on February 27, innovative teachers will be fostering and inspiring incredible creativity in their students. Whether students are exploring 3d modeling, mastering coding, or leveraging digital tools to deepen their learning; innovation shines on DLDay.

But teachers and students should be innovating in every classroom, every day.

That’s why for DLDay 2020 the Alliance for Excellent Education and Future Ready Schools are highlighting school districts across the United States that are transforming teaching and learning by incorporating digital learning in every classroom, every day.

If your classroom is a place of innovation all year long, share your story using #DLDay for a chance to be featured!

Better password protections in Chrome

Chrome check passwords

Now, instead of a Chrome extension, Password Checkup is being integrated into the desktop and mobile versions of Chrome 79 — when you type your credentials into a website, if you are using at least that version of Chrome and are signed in, you will now see the warning shown below if your username and password have been compromised in a data breach on some site or app. Clicking on Check passwords will open a new window that provides insights into your password management and suggestions to change certain passwords because they are used for multiple accounts/sites, have been publicly posted, are deemed very weak, etc. Performing both a review and changing, at least the passwords of accounts you would not want to see compromised, is advised.

Chrome check passwords

Don’t have Chrome version 79 yet? You can still run an audit of your passwords by browsing to https://passwords.google.com/

Interested in reading more about this and a couple of other safety enhancements Google is implementing? — check out https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/better-password-protections/

and for a more technical review of just the password checkup, this article.

REMC ‘Playdate’ scheduled for Feb 12 at WayneRESA

REMC Playdate

PLAYDATE is an acronym for People Learning and Asking “Y“; Digital Age Teacher Exploration. And this is a new kind of conference event!

NO presenters. NO Agenda. Just PLAYing!

At PLAYDATEs educators from around the area join together for a few hours and just play.  They work together to learn about ed tech apps, programs and tools with one another.  There are no presenters, no experts and no agenda.  Simply time to play, tinker and explore all at no cost!

Michigan PLAYDATEs are sponsored by the REMC Association and hosted by local REMCs. Learn more about the concept at https://www.remc.org/professionallearning/playdate-mi/

Please note that once you click on the Registration Link, you will need to scroll through the list and register for the REMC 20 Playdate being held at Wayne RESA on February 12, 2020.

Access to Flash-based browser content ends in December, 2020

Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash has been supporting online games, content, and interactive features since 1996. But due to the changing and evolving of newer technologies other mediums such as HTML5 which are more power-efficient and faster, Flash has become less and less popular. At one point 80% of the content on the internet was Flash-based. Since 2017, that number is down to 17%. Due to this, Adobe has determined an End of Life (EOL) date of December 31st, 2020 for the plugin.

What does this mean?

Many different learning websites including sites such as Starfall and CoolMathGames were entirely Flash-based. When the announcement by Adobe was made to end Flash (plugin player support/updates and distribution), many websites started to convert their content to HTML5 and other delivery mechanisms. However, it is up to websites to make this transition. So, as you are planning different learning activities for students, please ensure that you have vetted the website to see if it relies on Flash. A way to check to see if a site uses Flash, Right-clicking on any part of a website will make a box appear with options you can click on. If you see Zoom in at the top of the box and About Adobe Flash Player at the bottom of the box, then you know that you have Flash on the website.

If the site migrates to open web standards (such as HTML5), you shouldn’t notice much difference except that you’ll no longer see prompts to run Flash on that site. If the site continues to use Flash, and you give the site permission to run Flash, it will only work through the end of 2020.

For more information please check out these articles:

https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/saying-goodbye-flash-chrome/

https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/

 

Cleaning Your Smartboard

Elementary instructional staff — Please follow these guidelines to clean your SMART Board (interactive flat panel – IFP):

You will probably want to clean your SMART Board about 1x a month (or more often if used regularly). You should clean your SMART Board while the computer is turned OFF.

If you clean your SMART Board while it and your computer are on it is recommended that you lock the screen so you don’t mess up things on your computer. Go to the blue icon with the white circle at the bottom right of your screen, control panel and then lock screen. To unlock the screen you will need to click on the unlock icon using the mouse on your computer.

Details

To clean the writing surface or screen, use Windex glass cleaner. Just spray the cleaner on a soft cloth or paper towel and wipe the screen surface. Avoid spraying the cleaner directly on the screen, since the cleaner may damage components if it runs into the edge of the screen.

Warning

Do not apply isopropyl alcohol, water or acetone to the back surface of the screen. These fluids could damage the diffusion coating, resulting in a permanent deterioration in display quality. If you do smudge this surface, wipe it carefully with an alcohol-free glass cleaner. Do not spray the cleaner directly onto the back of the screen. Spray the cleaner lightly on a cloth, and then gently dab the surface until the marks are removed.

Note

To remove permanent marker ink from the screen, use a cleaner such as Expo Board Doctor. If you have high-odor dry-erase markers (not non-scented markers), you can cover the permanent ink with the ink from a dry-erase marker, and then wipe with a soft cloth or paper towel while the ink is still wet. If any trace of the original permanent ink remains, spray a cloth with Windex glass cleaner or Expo Board cleaner and wipe the area clean.

Google for Education newsletters and Education blog

Google for education

As a reminder, about once a month Google publishes their Google for Education newsletter filled with brief news items with clickable links that might be of interest.  Check out past issues HERE and/or Sign up to have Google for Education updates, including GfE newsletters emailed directly to your inbox.

You might also want to check out Google’s Education blog.

Note, some of the product news you will see are feature enhancements only available, initially, to those participating in Google’s Early Adopter Program (EAP), or other beta Programs. As a district we have chosen to not sign up for them, and consequently not permit user access because their terms of use permit much more liberal access for Google and third parties to our student data and we take very seriously our charge to preserve and safeguard that data. We regret any inconvenience such a conservative stance might pose and are hopeful that soon piloted features are incorporated into our formal G Suite Core Services agreement which has much greater restrictions on what Google is permitted to do with our data, but until they are, otherwise appealing features will continue to remain unavailable. The good news is, as features are vetted, they often make their way from EAP et al to Core Services and are incorporated within six to nine months of initial release.

 

Doodle for Google Classroom Opportunity: Theme of Kindness!

Doodle for Google is an annual contest open to students in grades K-12. Students are invited to create their own Google Doodle for the chance to have it featured on Google.com, as well as win some great scholarships and tech packages for their schools. This year’s deadline for entries is March 13th.

Why is Google doing this contest?

Doodles are meant to surprise and delight people when they visit Google.com. Past Doodles have celebrated some of the most brilliant, talented, and passionate people throughout history. Doodle for Google offers students K-12 an opportunity to display their own artwork on Google.com.

This year’s Doodle for Google theme is:

“I SHOW KINDNESS BY…”

Friendship, smiles, thank yous, and hugs.

But kindness is so much more than just being nice. This year’s theme invites you to tell us how you show kindness. Is it by helping around your home? Volunteering in your community’s green space? Maybe it’s comforting someone who’s down, or picking up trash in the park.

However you define it, let Google know how you bring a little bit more kindness into the world. Take your ideas and bring them to life in your doodle!

ENTER A DOODLE

To check out past Doodle 4 Google winning doodles and thousands of other doodles that have been the home page for Google somewhere in the world, check out the gallery here.

Here’s an article about the 7 year old 2018 contest winner and her winning submission.

Here’s an article about the 2019 winner too.

Windows 7 EOL (End of Life) is January 14, 2020

Windows 7 EOL

This is a friendly reminder for those that use a non-district computer running Windows 7, you may be interested to learn more about what its EOL means by reading this support article from Microsoft. It’s possible you may be able to upgrade the computer to Windows 10 via this page after researching the computer’s specifications and licensing. It’s also possible you may want to consider replacing the computer with one that can more readily handle a newer and more secure operation system. Bottom line, the Windows 7 computer will continue to run, but with each passing month it will be more susceptible to compromise since no further support updates will be provided after January.

 

Educator Richard Byrne’s favorite new and updated WEB 2.0 Tools in the year that was 2019

Richard Byrne's blog posting

Educator and technologist Richard Byrne shared his 2019 picks of potentially useful Web 2.0 websites that are accessible, free, classroom appropriate and browser-based at his blog.  Interested educators may want to consider skimming his posting to learn a bit more about sites such as VidReader  (create transcripts of YouTube videos),  Canva  (online presentation, brochure, infographic creator —  teachers can get all of the pro features of Canva for free as well as Pro licensing for one class of 30 students — see this posting for more ideas), and Glide (easily turns any Google sheet into a mobile app).