Thursday, December 1, 2016

UPDate for November 28-Dec 2nd
PowerTeacher - You probably have noticed the window shuts down very quickly (10 minutes or less) when inactive. I have asked MCS IT to see if this is a MCS or DPI policy. If this is an MCS policy, we will ask that time-out to take place in a greater increment (30 - 45 minutes) to allow you to do your work more between logins. If this is a DPI policy we may be stuck.

3D Printing - 3D printing has a home in your club or course. A student from the Fishing Club (Johnson, Moore, & Allred) asked he can design and print lures. Two kids asked if they can design and print a scale Ziggurat for a class project (if you don’t know what that is, ask your local World History teacher). Ms Murphy asked if we can 3d print some dreidels for when she teaches world religions.

The point is that the interest is already here. The process of 3d printing will expand the technical, design, engineering, and mathematical skills of the students. If the lesson is designed well by we the teachers, the students will have to deeply understand the elements being examined for creation.

3D printers are rare in schools right now. Mr Simon has a 3D printer (he was way out in front of this) in the UPStart room but I will be happy to request to borrow an additional traveling printer from PHS, SMS, others if we have  project to make. If we really show we will use these we can find a grant or beg for more of our own.

Wizer.com - Wizer allows you to produce good looking worksheets with embeded elements including YouTube video and formative assessments including matching, fill in the blanks, short answer and several more.
  • items with a definitive answer are graded automatically
  • Wizer supports “assign to students” > Google Classroom option
  • There are tons of lessons already created by your peers

Examples: (click the course below)


Keeping the UPHS Family Informed - As you know we are re-thinking how to communicate all the academics, arts, community service, and sports going on at UPHS. It is a bigger undertaking than I thought initially. We need to find a way to communicate some info with staff, other information with students, and still other information with the parents and community. It needs to be reliable and timely and preferably catered to the audience. I’m not convinced there is a silver bullet to be found but if you have ideas put them out there. If your group, club or team already has a way to communicate with parents and community on Twitter or Facebook, may I know the Twitter Handle or FB page name to promote it? The rest of us can benefit from seeing what works for you already.