Category: Blog

Use literature to get your students excited about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) by actively involving them in the design thinking process. Each of the titles in this resource shares a story where something was built or invented by designing, planning, gathering materials, and creating.

In addition to strengthening literacy skills, your students will develop inquiry and problem-solving skills. They will also see that with perseverance, anyone can be innovative and invent new things! Make a STEM connection to each book below by clicking on the title to get additional information: https://sites.google.com/wcresa.k12.mi.us/literatureandstem/home

We know that everyone didn’t get to attend MACUL 2019, but there are SO many awesome folks that did, and one of them curated this amazing doc full of the awesome resources provided by the session facilitators during MACUL: bit.ly/maculresourcelist

Oh, and it’s in alphabetical order for your convenience. Remember, if you want help with the implementation of any of this, don’t forget to contact your friendly local Tech Integration Specialist at tis@pccsk12.com or just submit a Service Request.

Accessing museums and works of art from around the world has become easier! Google’s amazing and ever expanding digitized arts and culture collection has created a space where your students have even more cultural artifacts at their fingertips than ever.

Take them on a field trip, explore history, and zoom in on the high-resolution images to see the brushstrokes of artwork you could only see in person! Then try out the “Experiments” feature to look at all the art in a new and unique way. Trust us when we say that this will be one of your favorite bookmarks in your arsenal of teacher resources!

Link to Google Arts & Culture

If you’re not using Flipgrid already in your classroom, we are totally flipping out on you! It’s flipping awesome and your kids are going to flipping LOVE it…but we digress.

Please check out this great blog on why Flipgrid is great, how it solves teacher troubles, and more importantly, supports your students’ learning!

Blog: “Why I am Flipping for Flipgrid”

While you’re over on Medium, be sure to browse around for more amazing topical blogs. Medium is awesome.

Get a free copy of this eBook or podcast from Shake Up Learning on digital choice boards! Blended learning has many flavors, but one thing it has in common is providing more voice and choice for students. Creating digital choice boards for your students is a great way to implement small group instruction, differentiate, and create universal design for learning and opportunity for all students.

The Teacher’s Guide to Digital Choice Boards

Get your FREE copy of The Teacher’s Guide to Digital Choice Boards here.

For EVEN MORE on blended learning, visit: https://sites.google.com/pccsk12.com/nearpod-blended-learning/blended-learning

Using games for review and/or formative assessment is a great way to make learning fun and engaging. Instead of calling on a few students during a review, every student is accountable for reviewing, practicing, and learning important information.

• Games keep student’s attention focused on review.
  
• Games allow for much easier cumulative review so students don’t forget the information you want them to know.
  
• Games create challenges for a high score or fastest completion to increase competition between students and award excellence.
  
• Games are great for bellringers, before or after a lesson presentation, and/or at the end of class.

Do you GOT GAME? Try this one!

WISC-ONLINE GAMES

The feature seems pretty easy to use. If you are accessing Gmail through the browser, after you’ve composed the email, you click the arrow next to the send button, click Scheduled send and then choose when to have it send. 

Note, if you don’t see the down arrow, log out and back into your Google account to have the feature load.

If you are accessing the service through the Gmail app, tap the three stacked dots next to the send arrow, then select Schedule send. Again, a menu will appear that lets you pick when you want the message to be sent.

If you later choose to reschedule the message, you can do that by opening the email and repeating the above steps, or you can choose to delete it.

The goal of the maker movement is to empower students to tinker, invent, create, innovate, and make their ideas take shape. Making doesn’t need to have a designated space, but it does need to foster the maker mindset of learning through doing, experimenting, and experience. It’s about creating a maker culture that provides students with open-ended challenges and opportunities to produce something, often for a purpose.

To increase STEM awareness and opportunities through project-based learning and maker activities, Wayne RESA is looking to build a 2019-2020 cohort of 24 teachers/media specialists from 12 different districts throughout Wayne County to build and/or expand the maker culture in a school. Selected sites will be awarded $3800 to purchase Maker/STEM materials and a year membership to National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). Each site will submit an application for TWO educators to be a part of our first Maker-STEM cohort. If selected, these educators must agree to be a part of the cohort and commit to participating in three face-to-face days of professional learning. Each member of the cohort will also be part of the RESA Makers network where ideas and resources can be shared. Wayne RESA Application Deadline: Friday, May 17, 2019

Wayne RESA Makers Application

The REMC Classroom Maker Ambassador Program is looking for two teachers from each REMC to be a part of the 2019-2020 cohort. Participating teachers will commit to at least ONE training and earn $400 through REMC Save to spend toward classroom maker tools, along with access to a network of peers implementing maker in the classroom. REMC Application Deadline: Friday, May 3, 2019

REMC Classroom Makers Teacher Ambassador Application

Please forward this information to anyone that you think might be interested

Please note that on May 3, 2019, the Technology Department will change the default length of time voicemails are saved within our voicemail system.

The Technology Department recently discovered that several voicemails did not reach their intended destination because the intended recipient’s voicemail box was full. Conversations with district staff revealed that many individuals use Gmail to listen to their voicemails and do not log into the voicemail system to delete their voicemails. While convenient to process voicemail within GMail, deleting a voicemail message in GMail does not also delete the voicemail from our voicemail system.

Beginning May 5, voicemails can only be saved in our voicemail system for a maximum of 30 days. Voicemails that are older than 30 days will be automatically deleted from our voicemail system. This change will help keep voicemail boxes from filling up and will restore storage capacity in those voicemail boxes that are already full. Unless a staffer has deleted them, voicemails will remain available in a staffer’s GMail account and this change will not affect any voicemail saved in GMail.

If you have any questions or believe your voicemail messages are not reaching your GMail inbox, please submit a service request that includes your room # and extension.

Tech support scams are an industry-wide issue where scammers use scare tactics to trick users into paying for unnecessary technical support services that supposedly fix contrived device, platform, or software problems.

Please browse Microsoft’s overview for how tech support scams work and what you can do if you fall prey to one!