Meeting the ISTE NETS Technology Standards – Using the PowerUp School Planner

The PowerUp School Planner is an interactive tool to help your school document your technology implementation plans. The tool is organized into five tasks—all aligned to the ISTE Essential Conditions necessary for creating rich technology-supported learning environments for your students and teachers.
How can you use the School Planner?

Just getting started with technology implementation? 
Our Planner guides you through: Working as a Leadership Team, Gathering Data to Drive Decision Making, Forming a Shared Vision and Setting Goals, Providing Professional Development, and Providing Access to Technology Support. Each task features examples, resources, and prompts to help you think through implementing technology and best practices.

Implementing technology, but getting stuck? 
Use our PowerUp Roadmap to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses in your current technology implementation efforts. What are you doing already? What areas need attention? Then jump to the relevant section in the School Planner to find targeted suggestions and resources to help you move forward!

Want to make sure that technology changes are sustained over the long term? 
The School Planner tool takes you through each major phase of implementation, from Planning, Implementing and on to Sustaining your work. Find suggestions, resources and guidance to help ensure that the changes you make in your building today will carry on.

Meeting ISTE NETS Tech Standards for Students? PowerUp Can Help!

Is your school focusing on the ISTE National Educational Technology Standards (NETS)? Looking for ways to help your students meet technology standards? We've put together some of our free resources on teaching with technology to help get you started:

1. Standard: Creativity and Innovation
• Technology info brief: Using Multimedia to Support Reading Instruction
• Technology info brief: Virtual Manipulatives
2. Standard: Communication and Collaboration
• Technology info brief: Writing for the Web: Using Blogs and Wikis to Support Literacy
• Technology info brief: Text Messaging
• Math Strategy: Interacting with Peers
3. Standard: Research and Information Fluency
• Technology info brief: Supporting Reading in Social Studies
• Technology info brief: Teach your students to use reference materials with Embedded Supports
4. Standard: Critical Thinking, Problems Solving, and Decision Making
• Reading Strategy: Self-Questioning
• Reading Strategy: Summarizing
• Math Strategy: Organizing
5. Standard: Digital Citizenship
• Technology info brief: Teaching Students About Online Safety

Should You Be Teaching Your Students How to Code?

What does it mean for your students to be computer literate?

Is it enough for our students to simply know how to use a computer, or should they be able to also ”get under the hood?”  Educators across the country and around the globe are beginning to teach children the basics of coding, beginning as early as first grade.  Many in the field believe that coding is set to become this generation’s critical literacy—the same way the “three R’s” transformed education in the last century.

Coding has obvious applications in mathematics –students can learn important skills identified in the Common Core State Standards– representation, reasoning and communication. Because the process is often collaborative, it can be a great way to incorporate interacting with peers around solving a problem. The process of testing, de-bugging, and problem solving a program can also encourage students to use precise language in their mathematics learning.

Beyond building your students’ math skills, working with common computer coding programs can be a great way to incorporate more Universal Design for Learning principles into your instruction, Use a program like MIT’s Scratch to help your students create their own unique ways of representing information or telling a story. Have your students plan, draft, and revise a narrative that they then turn into a video game!

Here are some links to get you started:

• Hackasaurus: http://hackasaurus.org/en-US/educators/
• CodeAcademy After School: http://www.codecademy.com/afterschool
• Scratch: http://scratch.mit.edu/
• Alice: http://alice.org/

More Pi Day Fun – Host a Pi Battle!

Ready for your Pi Battle? Memorize the digits of Pi with these free apps for iOS and Android:

• Pi Trainer App on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.piday.android.pitrainer
• Learn Pi Free App: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/learn-pi-free/id518465060?mt=8

Happy Pi Day!

Pi Day is just around the corner! It’s a fun and exciting way to engage your students with mathematics and the world around them—with technology. There are a number of great resources and ideas online for celebrating Pi Day, from the silly to the serious.  Many of these resources are excellent ways to help your students interact with math outside the boundaries of a typical math class. In addition to measuring, cutting up, and eating pie, check out some of these other fun activities:

• Start with a history lesson with “A Brief History of π."
• Check out the “Pi Searcher” tool for searching the first 200 million digits of Pi. Have students enter different strings of numbers (birthdays, phone numbers, etc.) to see what they come up with. Have students collaborate with peers and think aloud about what the results might mean. What are the odds that your phone number would show up in Pi? What about fewer digits? 
• Consider following “The Pi Searcher” on Google Plus to see all their Pi-related posts and updates. Tongue-in-cheek and fun discussions of Pi.
• Explore multiple representations of Pi. What does Pi look like if represented by colors and shapes? What would Pi sound like? Using visual representations and models can be a great way to help your students grasp information, plus these tools are fun to play with!
• Use simulations and virtual tools that explore some of the many fascinating discoveries related to Pi. One cool one to check out: Buffon’s Needle Simulation.
• More virtual manipulatives and lessons can be found on the NCTM Illuminations website. 
• View the Pi Day Webquest!

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Meeting the Common Core Standards with Technology: Bring History Lessons to Life

The Common Core Standards represent a shift in the way we teach reading and writing, both in ELA classes and in content-area classes (history, science, and technical subjects). The standards in K-5 and 6-12 both focus heavily on building rich knowledge through reading content-area nonfiction. Standards focus on reading, writing, and speaking that is grounded in textual evidence; they encourage regular practice with complex texts and academic vocabulary. Use of web-based tools, interactives, online primary sources, and other technology tools can be a great way to immerse your students in history, and to build vocabulary and comprehension!

Now, with so many technology options, history, a subject of our forefathers, does not have to be taught in the same way as it was to our grandfathers. With online primary resources and web-based interactives, history lessons like those on the Civil War come alive with this photojournalism lesson plan. Teachers and students alike will find the Civil War Timeline helpful in detailing the Civil War from various points of view, including detailed accounts  from soldiers of the Civil War, as well as digital maps. Teach students about the role of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglas, and the Gettysburg Address.

Views from the battle field of Gettysburg, July 1st, 2d, and 3d, 1863 : General Hospital, near Gettysburg, PA.

Students can also learn from an interactive version of the Gettysburg Address which is highlighted digital copy of the original document. Students can use the interactive to zoom in on key passages or listen to the whole Address and read along. Help struggling readers to visualize what they are reading by first giving them some context. Further ensure comprehension by having students write a letter to Abraham Lincoln. Browse through photos from the Civil War on an interactive whiteboard.


Another great resource can be found in this history of immigration lesson plan from the Library of Congress. Explore the Immigration interactive with your class; there is something here for every level with detailed descriptions of immigrants from different cultures, vocabulary, and even interviews with immigrants from the 20th -21st centuries. This is a great way to support reading in Social Studies. Even better, there is an interactive tool for educators on the site that will let you know which Common Core Standards align with your activity! Also, have fun with your class by looking through the Great American Potluck, discussing the significance, and maybe even trying out a recipe!

Three Free Apps You Can Use in Your Classroom Today: More Common Core

If our last list of free Common Core Standards Apps filled you with delight, be sure to check out the ones below, which are sure to make your life easier!

• Kendall Hunt Common Core Math is designed to implement CCSS in the Kendall Hunt district but can be utilized in all classrooms to look at K-12 math standards. This app is particularly helpful in student observations, as observations can be shared via email or tracked with the handy Timeline.
• BrainNook @ School Allows teachers to set assignments, track learning and progress, and is mapped to correspond to CCSS for grades 1-5 in math and language arts. There is also a complementary student app which allows students practice math and language arts.
• Excelegrade permits teachers to create Common Core-based assessments from an easy to use question bank. The tests are customizable, with digital or hard-copy administration, and the app features automatic grading, tracking, and reports for 6-8^th grade.