NCEA 2016

Finally it is sunny San Diego! I am here for the NCEA (National Catholic Educators Association) conference.

Presenting two topics- Microsoft OneNote and Nearpod. OneNote was today and in 1 hour and 15 min I hope I convinced people to give OneNote a chance. I am a heavy Google Drive user. Edmodo is my best friend and I love to use so many different tools. So I can honestly sit/stand here and say I am not married to any one tool to use. BUT I have found the OneNote is a supersized resource to use for organizing your life, especially that of a teacher. The ability to put it ALL in one place is the big bonus to using OneNote. For anyone that is trying to find my presentation you should see a tab at the top with the title of the presentation. When you go to the page you will see the presentation as a TACKK (be sure to check out tackk.com).

Tomorrow will be a session on Nearpod and I am co-presenting. Nearpod is pretty awesome too and I think I have talked about this one also.

Digital Citizenship

One of the goals this year in our diocese is for our schools to become a "Certified Digital Citizenship School" through Common Sense Media. I started the program two weeks ago with my students. I ended up purchasing the Nearpod curriculum for grades 3-5 and 6-8. For the most part I am pleased with the Nearpod lessons. Some are a little less engaging than others but I appreciate not having to create the lessons. It has saved a tremendous amount of time. The cost was more than I had hoped for but again, a HUGE time saver. They are currently $49.99 for a bundle of 15 lessons and end of unit assessments. A chunk of change but I doubt that I would have had the time to do all the work that went into creating these lessons.
To change up the classes I am also using Digital Passport (free) for grades 3 and 4. This has some fun and engaging activities that cover five topics:

• Communication
• Privacy
• Cyber bullying
• Searching
• Creative Credit

I did not have time to do a full lesson with some 8th graders so they explored Digital Compass (free). This takes students through scenarios and based on their choices the game story can go different directions. It also covers a variety of Digital Citizenship topics. My students were engaged and thought the characters were silly but fun.

All of these items, the Nearpod lessons, Digital Passport and Digital Compass, are available through Common Sense Media. I think we have met our requirements for our certification. I'll need to go through my check list, fill out the forms and do some finally things before we can submit our application. Even though we may be done with the minimum requirements, I plan on using more of the curriculum because of the importance of the information.

The digital world is a great place but our students need the tools to navigate it safely.