Vermont Fest 2019

The website for Vermont Fest (the annual Vermont educational technology conference) is now live at  https://vtfest.vita-learn.org/.  

Keynote speakers this year are Dan Ryder and Nathan Lang-Read. Here are their bios taken from the Vt Fest site:

"Dan Ryder has taught for 20 years at Mt. Blue Campus in Farmington, Maine. He is the co-author 2017’s Intention: Critical Creativity in the Classroom (EdTechTeam Press). Dan has presented his work on critical creativity, empathy fueled problem solving, and the improviser’s mindset at numerous conferences and workshops, including SXSWedu and Stanford d.School’s K12 Summit."

"Dr. Nathan Lang-Raad, author, speaker, and Chief Education Officer at WeVideo, will share his experience at NASA, as a STEM administrator, as a curriculum director working with instructional coaches, and as a classroom teacher as we all work together to map the future of #vted – with intention

Applications for presentations are still being accepted!

Are you doing something innovative in the classroom that you'd like to share with educators across Vermont (and beyond)?  I'd love to help you submit a proposal to present at the conference.

Using screencasting for feedback

Do you ever wish you could just talk through and annotate student work to provide feedback (rather than all that writing)?  Well, you can.  I made a short video on how to use Screencastify to do just that.  Screencastify is a Chrome extension that should already be installed for you (if not, it only takes a minute).

Check it out here and please let me know how I can help you get started.

https://youtu.be/5-_SDyn9Tdw

UDL with VoiceThread webinar

VoiceThread has great applications for UDL (Universal Design for Learning).   I just saw this announcement for a training that might be of interest.  Here's the blurb from VoiceThread:

"Participants will learn how VoiceThread can help educators provide multiple means of engagement, representation, action and expression for their courses. Participants will learn how to use VoiceThread’s multi-modal communication platform, the new closed captioning features, and VoiceThread Universal to design accessible lessons."

I'd also be happy to help anyone get started with VoiceThread.  As a reminder (and for new people), we have premium accounts for all teachers and students.

Help site for Google Classroom

I'm developing a help site for Google Classroom at CVU. Check it out here. I'll be adding to it as more questions and ideas come in.

Simplifying web pages for easier reading

Often, the clutter surrounding news articles online makes for a distracting experience.  One nice solution to this is Read & Write for Google.  I've written before about other helpful functionality of this tool; this time, let's look at "Simplify Page."  By clicking on the icon, you go from this...

...to this:

Here's a 30-second screencast showing how it works:

 All CVSD students already have Read & Write installed.  Adults can add the extension, then see me for how to get a premium account for free.