Tech Notes

This is a free and safe way to send text messages to students and parents without allowing for two way communication. You go in and sign up for an account. There are letters/posters to advertise the service and notify parents to sign up. They text a code to a number provided to subscribe to your texts. You then can access the site on your computer or mobile device and compose your text which is then pushed to all subscribers from the system (not your phone number.) There is no option for two way communication, these are just notifications. Also within the system you can see who has subscribed to your service and who is receiving the notifications. Very cool tool, if you need any help setting up or you have any questions let me know.

I don't know about y'all but I have so many online accounts and profiles that I use daily to manage my life and my work. I have often wished that some of these programs could communicate with one another to make my life easier. Well look no further, today I stumbled upon the coolest thing I have seen in a while. www.IFTTT.com The whole idea is that you use this website to authorize your accounts to work together for your benefit by creating custom recipes. For example, here is a shot of my recipes I created today. First if I star an email in gmail, then it will automatically make that email into a note in evernote. Also, I created a recipe to automatically tweet the title and url for any blog post in blogger. The possibilities are endless. Tell me how you are using ifttt.com 

Class Dojo is a tool teachers can use to help improve and manage behaviors in their classrooms. Through the use of a computer, laptop, phone or tablet teachers and students can track positive and negative behaviors. Students receive timely and visual feedback to help keep them on track. Documentation is then kept in real time to access at any time. It can even generate an email to parents to save teachers time in communicating a child's daily behaviors. Ask me about Class Dojo or tell me how it is working for you.

my brain that is. It really is amazing what summer time does to my brain. It's cruel really. I start off totally ready to turn everything off and just re-boot. And I have done that better this summer than any I can remember. But as always, around the end of July, it comes back in a mean way. And by 'it' I mean the can't sleep, can't turn off the thinking, super thinking, planning over drive mode.... and just a few days ago it began.  I mean sure, I spent a few days in Austin getting google-y but other than that this summer has been pure relaxation. Lots of down time with the kids, by the pool, reading for fun, enjoying my family and I enjoyed every minute of it.  But I truly live for the beginning of the school year. I always have. I love getting the fresh start year after year. I love new pencils and planners and organizing stuff. And this year my brain is in super overdrive preparing for a new position in a new district.  I don't know why but the

Skype allows for online video chat between two users. There are many ways to use skype in your classroom. Many authors offer free skype chats for your students to interview authors and sometimes read to your students, you can also chat with students in other classrooms from around the world. You can also use skype for parent conferences and your own professional development. Tell me about how you use skype in your classroom. LINKS: Authors who skype with classes for free: http://www.katemessner.com/authors-who-skype-with-classes-book-clubs-for-free/ Yellowstone National Park Rangers skype https://education.skype.com/projects/2237-yellowstone-national-park-rangers-can-skype-with-classrooms https://education.skype.com/projects/2237-yellowstone-national-park-rangers-can-skype-with-classrooms

Symbaloo is a tool that allows you to access all of your favorite bookmarks from one screen. The websites appear like small icons or apps and link you straight to your favorite websites. You can create multiple pages or 'webmixes' you can save one for yourself for your commonly used online resources, or you can create one for your students. You can even make your symbaloo page your homescreen so when students login they can access the bookmarks you have created for them. You can also run an extension in google chrome which allows you to add sites straight to your symbaloo page. It is available in the chrome app store. Check it out, and let me come help you get started. Here is a link to a symbaloo I have created with some resources. symbaloo YouTube Video

A: Why not? So I'm sure many of you (who am I kidding, no one is reading this) are wondering why I would leave a job I love, as an elementary school principal, to become an instructional technologist. Well there are many reasons, so lets just get them out there. Number 1: I had to….the district I was working in had a living requirement, that required all administrators to live inside the district. Well, I was not willing to leave my little place in the country to live in the city, so after two wonderful years, I resigned. I truly loved my job and loved being a principal and I know I will want to go back into a principalship again in the future but for now, I want to focus on my own kiddos.  Number 2:                                       Th ese guys…… I was given the opportunity to go to work in the district where I live and where my kids go to school. After spending the past ten years working to make schools better, I have new motivation to put all of that wo

So today is the magical day that I have chosen to begin this blog journey. I spent the day getting google-y at TCEA in Austin, in the first of a three day "Becoming a Google Apps For Education Certified Trainer." It was an information filled day, but lots of fun learning new google tips and tricks. I am very excited to begin this journey as an Instructional Technologist. I feel like today is my first official step in that direction. I have to say, it was a little weird to introduce myself as Courtney Stevens, District Instructional Technologist, not Courtney Stevens, Principal. But I know good things are ahead and I am super excited.