Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

If you are looking for a techie way to schedule parent/teacher conferences, instead of sending home slips of paper asking parents to choose a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice, try using the free site  https://calendly.com/ .  The site (which I only use for this purpose) lets you adjust your time in whatever increments you want, as soon as parent books a spot they get an email confirmation, and then the time slot disappears so other parents can't see it.  I made a 6 minute video (above and linked HERE ) walking you through how to set up an account, create a parent/teacher calendar, what the parent sees and what you see when your times start booking up.  I shared this with our teachers but I thought it might help others as well. 

This week I have been working with several schools as they start putting together their morning news program for the school year. Almost exclusively schools are using Touchcast to produce their morning show. It is super cool free software with lots of templates and green screen capability (plus so much more...really I need to apply to become an ambassador!). The only downfall is that it is an app and software only for Apple devices (most schools have bought an iPad to record their shows...it is that good!). We have one school that just started their morning show and the person in charge (Mr. Blaine Peltier at Robert Smalls International Academy)  has done an OUTSTANDING job. I went in to see how he is doing some of his graphics and learned he has been doing them on his personal Mac at home (which, sadly, I do not have). My favorite effect on his video is the Pledge of Allegiance where he has a two video overlays with words scrolling on the screen. I was determined to figure