That's a Wrap!: Ed Tech Teacher Advisory Team

Last Tuesday, the Ed Tech Teacher Advisory Team wrapped up their final meeting of the year. This team was composed of 25 teachers representing grades K-12, in a variety of articulation areas, including Title 1 and option schools.

Over the course of three meetings, the team learned more about the new ISTE Standards for Students and looked specifically at tech integration, tech professional learning, and tech planning throughout their schools and in our district overall. Throughout these meetings, the team had the opportunity to discuss what technology integration currently looks like throughout the district, their vision for how they hope it can look in the future, and how schools are creatively tackling challenges while also celebrating the amazing things that teachers are already doing in their classrooms. Check out some of the things the team discussed below:


We’d like to thank the Teacher Advisory Team members for all of their great thinking and focus around thoughtfully integrating technology into classrooms and schools across our district. This team was an excellent reminder of the exceptional talent and vast knowledge that the teachers in our schools have when it comes to ensuring that all of our students will be successful 21st century learners. Make sure to follow the Ed Tech Team (@JeffcoEdTech on Twitter) to learn about more opportunities like this in the future.

Teacher Spotlight - Standley Lake High School Summer Reading Program with Tanya Jensen, Digital Teacher Librarian

First year Digital Teacher Librarian, Tanya Jensen, has been collaborating with the Jefferson County Public Library (JCPL) and her English teachers to develop a website that supports summer reading at Standley Lake High School. The website functions like GoodReads, but has been created specifically for students; high schoolers can write reviews and search for titles based on genre and recommendations. In addition, the staff will participate and add their reviews to the website. The school's vision is to grow the site so that it is an easy way for students to locate books of interest, based on peer reviews. Students can also submit suggestions for books they want the library to purchase in the future.

The summer reading program has changed from giving students a list of books they have to choose from, to allowing students the freedom to select any book they want. Students that don’t know which book to choose will now have this peer-generated list of recommended books to guide them. In their English class next fall, with the support of the Digital Teacher Librarian, students will write book summaries and reviews for the website.

The kick off for the summer reading program at SLHS is during during Literacy Week, which falls from April 24th-28th. The JCPL team and Tanya are working together to introduce the students to as many books as possible in a short amount of time through a book speed dating activity. There will be tables based on genre, and the students will peruse the books for five minutes at each table to determine where their interests lie. Students will be provided with bookmarks to jot down interesting books they discovered. If students find a title they want to check out, they will be able to do so through JCPL. On Friday, April 28th, Barnes and Noble will visit the school for a mini book fair, where students will be able to purchase books that match their interests.

The staff is excited about this exciting new website, and they feel this will be a better fit for students to find books that match their interests. The JCPL summer reading program entices teens to read through the summer by awarding an Eliche's 1-day pass to the first 5,000 readers, achieving 8 hours or more. The Jefferson County high school with the most readers will receive an $800 prize.

Link to SLHS Summer Reading Website

Speed Dating with Jefferson County Public Library

5th Annual Colorado Summit Featuring Google for Education

2016 marks the 5th anniversary of the Colorado Summit featuring Google Apps for Education at Monarch High School in Louisville, Colorado. Google summits are presented by Ed Tech Team Inc. and feature sessions from leaders in educational technology from across the globe. These summits "... are high intensity two-day events that focus on deploying, integrating, and using G Suite for Education (formerly Google Apps for Education) and other Google Tools to promote student learning in K-12 and higher education." - Edtechteam.com/summits

This year's summit took place on November 5th and 6th. More than 400 educators were in attendance, with Jeffco representing over 90 of those attendees. These educators spent their weekend collaborating and learning about new and innovating ways to integrate technology into their work with students.



Jeffco was also represented as presenters at the Colorado Summit featuring Google Apps for Education!

• Becky Shorey, educator at Green Mountain High School, presented two sessions: 
• Intro to the Power of Google Forms
• Diving Deeper into Google Classroom 
• Alyssa C. Davidson, educator at Ralston Valley High School, presented two sessions: 
• Pear Deck Basics: 100% Student Engagement
• Sweeter Student Engagement with Pear Deck

The Jeffco Ed Tech department took away new and exciting learning from the Colorado Summit featuring Google Apps for Education. See the slideshow below for our top 10 takeaways.

If you are interested in attending a future Summit, check the Ed Tech Team Inc.'s Summit website for updates on exact locations, event dates, and registration information!

• Breckenridge - Spring 2017
• Colorado Springs - Summer 2017
• Boulder - Fall 2017

Even if you missed the Colorado Summit featuring Google Apps for Education, you can still experience excellent professional development and get connected with Ed Tech Team Inc.

• Join Jeffco's Google Summit Google Classroom (join code: owcx8n4)
• Online learning presented by the EdTechTeam
• Get Certified with Google 
• Check out the EdTechTeam YouTube Channel
• Apply to be a Google for Education Innovator
• Join the EdTechTeam Google+ Community
• Follow the #edtechteam hashtag and @edtechteam on Social Media

Connect Colorado with Schoology

Earlier in October, Jeffco hosted the Connect Colorado with Schoology conference at the Ed Center. There were participants from all over Colorado and over 17 school districts, including some travelers from Nebraska and Wyoming. Jeremy Friedman, founder and CEO of Schoology, was the keynote speaker and provided a great overview of the many new features Schoology has added, as well as features that are in various plans of development that will make using Schoology even more robust and efficient.



Three big takeaways for our Jeffco teachers include the following:

1. There is an optional new Assessment Management Platform (AMP) which could be purchased and used for the development of district-wide common assessments. Additionally, there are new question types associated with this platform, some of which are to become part of Jeffco Schoology in the future.
1. Shared Passage
2. Label image
3. Highlight
4. Hotspot
5. Highlight Image
6. Highlight text
7. Math short answer
8. Number line
9. Chart
2. Using Schoology for “Techquity”
1. Sarah Woodward of Collegiate Prep Academy in Denver Public Schools discussed how she used Schoology to increase student achievement at her turnaround school. A couple of the many things she uses Schoology for are to post mentor texts and Cloze-style scaffolding discussion templates in her Schoology course. Once students master the technique, the scaffold is removed from assignments. Additionally, she posts an A-B-C protocol to support students as they learn to develop rich discussion posts.

3.  Integration of Google with Schoology - Sign up for an upcoming training on November 8th at Stevens Elementary)

• Link Google Drive to assign and submit work: This is a one-time easy process to have the ability to link Google Apps within Schoology assignments, discussions, pages and quizzes. Students will also be able to link work from their Google Drive to Schoology. Having this ability increases the use of documents in Google Drive and eases the workflow between student and teacher.
• Use Google Classroom to Complement Schoology: The role of Google Classroom is to manage your Google Drive. Google Classroom handles the sharing permissions and folder management for you and your students so assignments are assigned and collected through Classroom within Schoology. Using the two together can help maintain a consistent workflow between teachers and students, while keeping your Google Drive organized.

Jefferson County Public Libraries in Partnership with Jeffco Public Schools

Are you aware that we have a unique partnership with Jefferson County Public Libraries (JCPL)? The public librarians come into our schools for parent nights, registration, back-to-school nights, book talks, and much more! They encourage our students to get signed up for a library card, which enables them to not only check out books, but also gives them full access to hundreds of databases for free! JCPL is an amazing resource for our students, parents, and staff.

Each summer, JCPL hosts a summer reading program, in which they give out coupons for free food, amusement parks, etc. They also give free books to students in our schools for reading a minimum of 8 hours over their summer break. This past summer, JCPL had a contest in which they gave a $300 reward to every preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school, and option school with the largest quantity of minutes read over the summer. The students needed to read and log their minutes-read online. Jeffco had winners in every category. The schools were presented with a check by JCPL at an all-school assembly.

Winners Include:

• Preschool: Warder
• Elementary School: Pleasant View
• Middle School: Oberon
• High School: Jefferson
• Option School: Addenbrooke Classical Academy

Congratulations to all students, staff, parents, and additional stakeholders at these schools. Your hard work certainly paid off!

We hope you check out JCPL, an invaluable resource for our students: https://jeffcolibrary.org/. Contact your local branch to see what resources they can provide you. Together we can make a huge difference in our students’ lives!

JCPL Rocks!

2016 JTSF Celebration!

This past September, teachers, digital teacher librarians, and administrators from across the district came together for a day of technology sharing and learning. Matt Flores, our Chief Academic Officer, kicked off this day of learning with a keynote talk. He spoke about the important role technology plays in the Jeffco 2020 Vision.
Various sessions were held to introduce teachers to ways to effectively integrate technology in the classroom. Various feedback from participants indicated this day was a great success and opportunity.

• "The sessions really met my needs." "I loved that it was very Google Summit-like."
• "There were so many different options."
• "Many great presenters."
• "I enjoyed having the opportunity to learn from other professionals."
• "There was so much to pick from, and it seemed to range from beginning "techies", like myself, to experienced users."

Many lucky participants won fabulous prizes! Some of these included an iPad Cart, a Chromebook cart, and a versatile device cart. Others included Chromebooks, Google Cardboard, Google Summit featuring Google for Education registrations, and other vendor goodies.

We hope to see you at our Jeffco Tech Share Fair next year!

Jeffco Tech Share Fair

It's almost here! The Jeffco Tech Share Fair is this Saturday at Arvada West HS from 8:00 am-1:00 pm. Check out the slideshow below for more details on some of the exciting sessions that will be happening.

This is just a sampling of learning opportunities that will be available. Check out our website for full details and don't forget to sign up to attend.

tinyurl.com/jtsf2016fall

Not only are we providing the gift of knowledge, we are also giving away some fabulous prizes including Chromebooks, device storage carts, registration to the GAFE Summit in Boulder, vendor swag, and much more!

2016 Jeffco Share Fair

On Saturday, January 23rd educators and members of the Jeffco community gathered at Arvada West High School to attend the annual Jeffco Tech Share Fair. It was a wonderful day full of learning, sharing, growth and fun!

The day included a message from Jeffco's Superintendent, Dan McMinimee, as well as a keynote speech by Chris Moore and Nate Ubowski, both Google Certified Educators.

Following the opening festivities, four short break-out sessions provided professional development for educators and gave teachers and students the opportunity to showcase the use of technology in their teaching and learning. Many Jeffco educators and students presented at the Share Fair. Amy Clink, 1st/2nd Grade Teacher at Molholm Elementary, presented with one of her students to showcase how they are implementing 1:1 iPad use in the elementary classroom. Additionally, Bill Heldman, Computer Science and Video Gaming Instructor at Warren Tech, along with several of his students, presented how they have built a supercomputer using small expensive Raspberry PI devices. Both of these sessions, along with several others, assisted educators in thinking differently about how students can use technology to create, innovate, and increase meaningful learning.

Educators also participated in a tech slam during lunch to provide attendees with quick and easy tech tips for instant use in the classroom or other educational settings. Additionally, Arvada West students sold pizza during lunch to raise money to support Make-A-Wish Colorado and their mission to grant wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses.

The day came to a close with a raffle which provided six lucky winners with registrations to ISTE this June (a $434 value) and another set of lucky winners won Google Cardboard devices to use in their classrooms. Attendees left the Jeffco Tech Share Fair feeling inspired and empowered to use technology to engage students in their classrooms at a new and deeper level.

Special thanks to Jeffco Tech Share Fair Coordinators: Leah Lindblom, Technology Coordinator at Arvada West High School, and John Braselton, former Jeffco Student and Custodial Assistant at Ralston Valley.

Need Ed Tech Support? Follow this link to contact us!

Keynote Speaker

Superintendent, Dan McMinimee

Ed Tech Director, Mary Beth Bazzanella

ISTE and Google Cardboard winners

Computer Science for All: Jeffco Students Prepare through Hour of Code

Collaboration, Communication, Creativity and Critical Thinking through Coding: A Showcase of Learning Across Jeffco

A Newly Released White House Initiative

The white house released a new initiative for computer science in January.  The initiative, known as "CS (computer science) for All" is designed to empower all students, from kindergarten through high school, to learn computer science and develop the skills they need to thrive in a digital economy. With the rapid shift of technology in our economy, educators and business leaders are recognizing that computer science is a now a basic skill for students to be able to persevere in the work place.

Hour of Code

Last year more than 600,000 high-paying tech jobs went unfilled in the US, due to lack of college graduates with a degree in computer science.  Hour of Code is a grassroots movement that provides students an introduction to computer science, showing that anyone can learn the basics.





Computer science provides students opportunities to be active critical thinkers and creators in real world applications- not just consumers of technology.

Through Hour of Code, Jeffco students focused on problem-solving, stamina, logic, collaboration, cooperation and perseverance.

From Jeffco Teachers...

"We focused on how working through struggles and succeeding is the sweetest kind of success." 
-Andi Johnson, Fairmount DTL

"We were invited on a HOC chat, please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O1cKfH8Vck"

- David Williams, West Jefferson Middle School

"Failing and trying again- perseverance!"  

- Angie Wagner, Devinny DTL

"This was like a tidal wave of excitement.  As soon as a few kids were introduced, they shared it with their friends and siblings...there will be no stopping them."
- Lisa Polacsek, Fremont DTL

Need Ed Tech Support? Follow this link to contact us!