Aim to Be Awesome, Not Perfect

In my role as an Instructional Technology Specialist, I try to provide professional development and helpful hints in a variety of ways. One way I reach my staff is a weekly Tech Treats newsletter. This method can take a while.  At first, very few people read it, partly because it was buried in a principal's weekly memo. But it is catching on - especially as teachers learned they could bookmark it like a website and refer back to it as needed. It isn't at 100% - I don't think it ever will be - but it is enough that I will keep doing it. Want to make one for your staff?  Here are my tips: It's a Google Slide, because  It's easy to format  I add the newest slide at the beginning  It's easy for teachers to search to find previous pages It can be bookmarked  Put "need to know" stuff in there, especially action items with deadlines Include information for a variety of technology comfort levels Include new fun things - for Thanksgiving and C...

I get asked a lot about any tips or tricks that I use to be productive in my role as an Instructional Technology Specialist. I made a list and tried to group them... but it was hard to categorize some - so those are the ones I included. I use tons of keyboard shortcuts. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, and Ctrl+Z (the undo shortcut) are some of my favorites, as is Ctrl+Shift+V (paste without formatting). My favorite is probably Ctrl+Shift+T, because I am constantly closing a tab and then realizing I need it again - and this opens it right back up! I have two extensions that I love and use all the time: Anyone can view by Alice Keeler  - makes my life so easy with the one-click change of sharing settings; and  Keep  - this is where I store all my to do lists and my 'for later' stuff My Favorites Bar - no (or very little) words Like it?  Here are instructions on how to do it. If you are in a GSuite school, learn how to use the c...

While at ISTE last week, I heard this quite a few times - ‘they use Microsoft Office in business, so that’s what we should be using in schools’. On the airplane home, multiple people around me are working on their laptops, and most working in PowerPoint. After a few minutes of watching them, and thinking about what I heard at ISTE, here is my two cents.... I prefer Google products - which is obvious based on my Google certifications. But if tomorrow we switched to Office 365, would I be unable to do my job? Would I still be able to support teachers and demonstrate how to use technology in the classroom? The answer is yes. It doesn’t matter which is used - Microsoft Office or GSuite Apps - the skills are interchangeable. If we switched, I would still use Slides/PowerPoint to create my weekly Tech Tips newsletter. Students can still create fake Instagram posts or BookSnaps in Powerpoint, just like they do in Slides. Case in point - let’s say I teach a statistics class and my stu...