EdTechTeam Kentucky Summit

Louisville Collegiate School

At the KYste 2014 conference we learned about a wonderful upcoming event.  If you are interested in using Google in your classroom this would be great opportunity to learn a lot about the tool.  See below for their information. 

This high intensity two day event focuses on deploying, integrating, and using Google Apps for Education and other Google Tools to promote student learning in K-12 and higher education. The program features Google Certified Teachers, Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers, practicing administrators, solution providers, Google engineers, and representatives from the Google education teams. 

 November 8 & 9, 2014.

 

Register now to send teachers, administrators, tech directors, library media specialists, tech support staff, CTOs, and anyone who is interested in finding out more about leveraging Google Apps for Education to support student learning.

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Sessions include two keynote presentations, a demo slam competition, and a closing capstone session - plus two full days of informative breakouts, cutting-edge demonstrations, and hands-on workshops led by experienced and knowledgeable professional developers.

• Deployment & Management of Google Apps
• Google Apps Scripts
• Google Apps for Education Certification
• Chromebooks in Education
• YouTube for Schools
• Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Calendar, Gmail power tips, and... even more!

All presenters are Google Certified Teachers, Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers, Google Employees, or teachers with local success stories!  

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Open to attendees from around the globe, this summit offers unique and cost-effective advantages for all participants:

• FREE parking and WiFi
• Early bird registration for only $249
• Continental breakfast and lunch with networking time each day.
• Direct access to Google employees and world-class educational technology leaders.

Google in the classroom

I attended the KYste2014 conference in Lexington yesterday and came back feeling like Google has so much potential in the classroom, we should definitely be using it more!   I plan to have a PD session on Google but in the meantime, I wanted to highlight some of what I learned at the conference.  First, I had heard of Google Classroom, read reviews, and was not impressed when it initially came out three months ago.  However, it seems Google has taken some of the criticism to heart and made it much more robust in the past few months.  The Google representative made a point emphasizing that it is not an LMS.  For our purposes it functions as an LMS and for comparison I think it can be best understand as an LMS.  One of the coolest features of Google Classroom is that it has the ability to digitally copy work you want to submit to your students.  So, once you have a digital classroom set up and you want to distribute an assignment you simply press a button and each student gets a copy of the assignment.  You can imagine how simple it would be to have a paperless classroom!  Here are two other tidbits that have to do with Google drive that I think would be a great addition to any teachers' repertoire of tools.   Would you like to have a rubric on your assignment so the students know what you were looking for?  Goobric is a Chrome extension that allows you to put such a rubric on each assignment you create.  What about student work, Google Take Out allows students who maybe graduating to pack up their files and take them with them!  There are lots of uses for Google and in the next few months I will explore some of these features so I can introduce them in a Tech Tuesday session.   Lastly, I am not quite sure how I feel about this piece of news but the Google representative did say that Google would be increasing drive space to 5TB.  That is HUGE!

KySTE Fall Training Event

Digital Transformation in partnership with the University of Kentucky

October 21, 2014
8:30 am – 4:00 pm
Lexington Convention Center – Lexington, KY

Who should attend:

• School Administrators in 1:1 BYOD Districts or Currently Considering
• CIOs/DTCs (KySTE New CIO Workshop is part of the event)
• District/School Technical Support Personnel
• Instructional Technologists Teachers in Districts currently implementing 1:1/BYOD

 Registration Information

• Register online
• Pdf registration form
• Fee and payment information 

• General Information
  
• Join KySTE
• Conference Agenda and Sessions
• Conference location, parking, and hotel Information

Shellshock

Here is a message from our network administrator: A recently discovered bug, "Shellshock", that has the potential to affect Mac operating systems Lion through Mavericks.  According to Apple, the bug should only affect users who have made configuration changes to advanced UNIX services.  Most people, then, are not at high risk.

 

Apple should be releasing a patch via Software Update soon, and that is when I advise you to apply it.  It is currently available from their Support site, if you want to go ahead and install the patch. 

1. For Mavericks users, click here.
2. For Mountain Lion users, click here.
3. For Lion users, click here.

Vulnerbility - Update your browsers

A vulnerability has been discovered in Chrome and Firefox browsers that could allow security certificates to be forged.  This could allow traffic expected to be encrypted to be exposed.  If you use Chrome or Firefox, make sure it is up to date, as well as any plugins, especially Java and Flash Player.

 

Please refer to this link for more info on the vulnerability.  Please refer to these links for more info on updating your browser:  Chrome and Firefox.

 

If you are having problems installing your updates, come see me.

 

Free Adobe on-line class

The Adobe Youth Voices: Create Change online course is designed to prepare educators to lead youth media making for creative skill development and social change.

Cost:  Free
Time expectation: 4 hours per week (32 hours total)
Duration: September 21st- November 30th
Credit:  Certificate upon completion 

Free hands-on Vernier workshops

Hands-on Vernier workshops coming to your area, and seats are still available.

• Data-Collection Workshop in Evansville, IN

  • Monday, October 6, 2014
  • 4:00 - 8:00 PM
  • Courtyard by Marriott
    8105 E Walnut Street
    Evansville, IN 47715
  • Details and registration »

• Data-Collection Workshop in Louisville, KY

  • Wednesday, October 8, 2014
  • 4:00 - 8:00 PM
  • Hilton Garden Inn Louisville Airport
    2735 Crittenden Drive
    Louisville, KY 40209
  • Details and registration »

• Data-Collection Workshop in Lexington, KY

  • Thursday, October 9, 2014
  • 4:00 - 8:00 PM
  • Embassy Suites Lexington
    1801 Newtown Pike
    Lexington, KY 40511
  • Details and registration »