Sunday, December 2, 2018

👩🏻‍💻 Malchow's Tech Bytes~ Dec 2nd

It's Hour of Code Week! Take some time this week to introduce your students to the excitement of coding!!! Lots of resources this week that you can implement even if your own knowledge base is limited.
Malchow's Tech Bytes~ Dec 2nd

Saturday, December 1, 2018

📚 'Tis the Season for EpicPals 🎄🎁


Our December EpicPals primary and intermediate collections are ready and waiting for you. 

Are you new to EpicPals? If so, head over to the #EpicPals page at the top of the blog for additional information to get you started!
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Bobbi and I are excited to be bringing you #EpicPals for a 4th straight year! We'll continue to offer you a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts each month which can be read on Epic along with a coordinating Padlet board for each book!

 Padlet has some phenomenal updates which allows you to draw, take pictures, leave an audio or video post right in the app or online by simply clicking the 3 vertical dots on the sticky note!  Each of our boards has a reminder of this posted for students to refer to. We encourage you to share one or several of these new upgrades with your students to allow them to take more ownership of their posts. 

As always, encourage your students to read others' posts and if they like their post, have them click on the heart at the bottom of the sticky note or leave a comment if comments are turned on. Being reflective and having an authentic reason to like something is a great first step towards leaving meaningful and authentic feedback. 

We encourage you to have conversations with your students on what constitutes a good post and how to be a good digital citizen when working online. You can find several resources to help you with these conversations on this previous blog post

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If you have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to Bobbi or myself. You can find both of us on Twitter- @smalchow (primary boards) and @bhopteacher (intermediate boards)

Saturday, November 3, 2018

EpicPals November 🦃

Click image or link below to access the printable Google Doc

Our November EpicPals primary and intermediate collections 
are ready and waiting for you. 

Are you new to EpicPals? If so, head over to the #EpicPals page at the top of the blog for additional information to get you started!
-------------------------------

Bobbi and I are excited to be bringing you #EpicPals for a 4th straight year! We'll continue to offer you a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts each month which can be read on Epic along with a coordinating Padlet board for each book!

 Padlet has some phenomenal updates which allows you to draw, take pictures, leave an audio or video post right in the app or online by simply clicking the 3 vertical dots on the sticky note!  Each of our boards has a reminder of this posted for students to refer to. We encourage you to share one or several of these new upgrades with your students to allow them to take more ownership of their posts. 

As always, encourage your students to read others' posts and if they like their post, have them click on the heart at the bottom of the sticky note or leave a comment if comments are turned on. Being reflective and having an authentic reason to like something is a great first step towards leaving meaningful and authentic feedback. 

We encourage you to have conversations with your students on what constitutes a good post and how to be a good digital citizen when working online. You can find several resources to help you with these conversations on this previous blog post

***************************************
If you have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to Bobbi or myself. You can find both of us on Twitter- @smalchow (primary boards) and @bhopteacher (intermediate boards)

Saturday, September 29, 2018

EpicPals October ~ 🎃


Our Back to School, October EpicPals primary and intermediate collections are ready and waiting for you. 

Are you new to EpicPals? If so, head over to the #EpicPals page at the top of the blog for additional information to get you started!
-------------------------------

Bobbi and I are excited to be bringing you #EpicPals for a 4th straight year! We'll continue to offer you a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts each month which can be read on Epic along with a coordinating Padlet board for each book!

 Padlet has some phenomenal updates which allows you to draw, take pictures, leave an audio or video post right in the app or online by simply clicking the 3 vertical dots on the sticky note!  Each of our boards has a reminder of this posted for students to refer to. We encourage you to share one or several of these new upgrades with your students to allow them to take more ownership of their posts. 

As always, encourage your students to read others' posts and if they like their post, have them click on the heart at the bottom of the sticky note or leave a comment if comments are turned on. Being reflective and having an authentic reason to like something is a great first step towards leaving meaningful and authentic feedback. 

We encourage you to have conversations with your students on what constitutes a good post and how to be a good digital citizen when working online. You can find several resources to help you with these conversations on this previous blog post

***************************************
If you have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to Bobbi or myself. You can find both of us on Twitter- @smalchow (primary boards) and @bhopteacher (intermediate boards)

Monday, September 24, 2018

Brain Breaks with Guided Access

Guided access is a fantastic accessibility feature that can benefit a variety of students as it locks students into one app. This can be a life saver for those students with focus issues or who are a bit impulsive and end up in places they shouldn't be. One of the features that I love is that you can also set a time limit. This is a great way to give students time on the iPad for brain breaks not only in an approved app but for a set period of time. You can even set it up to play a sound when time is up or speak a reminder when time is almost up.

Interested in trying it out? Here are directions that will work on iOs11 and iOs12. Click the image below to access the image.

 Click image to access

Sunday, September 23, 2018

Malchow's Tech Bytes~ Sept 24th

Malchow's Tech Bytes~ Sept 24
I've been encountering some issues with the blog for the past few weeks and am working with tech support to hopefully have them fixed SOON! 

If you are unable to click on the image to get to slidedeck, please type in this shortcut to get there: bit.ly/malchowstechbytes2018

Sunday, September 9, 2018

Malchow's Tech Bytes ~ Sept 10th

Malchow's Tech Bytes~ Sept 10th
In the event that the image above is not hyperlinked, please go to bit.ly/malchowstechbytes2018
Thanks! Sorry for any inconvenience. There seems to be a little hiccup with the blog this week.

Saturday, September 1, 2018

👩🏻‍💻 Malchow's Tech Bytes ~ Sept 2nd

Looking for ideas for the beginning of the year? This week's Tech Bytes newsletter brings you a variety of activities and resources that will help you incorporate the 4Cs! Click the image below to access the newsletter. 

Malchow's Tech Bytes~ Sept 2nd

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Back to School with EpicPals!


Our Back to School, September EpicPals primary and intermediate collections are ready and waiting for you. 


Are you new to EpicPals? If so, head over to the #EpicPals page at the top of the blog for additional information to get you started!
-------------------------------

Bobbi and I are excited to be bringing you #EpicPals for a 4th straight year! We'll continue to offer you a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts each month which can be read on Epic along with a coordinating Padlet board for each book!

The Good news and Bad news.....

Good News~  Padlet has some phenomenal updates which will allow your students to draw, take pictures, leave an audio or video post right in the app or online by simply clicking the 3 vertical dots on the sticky note!  We encourage you to share one or several of these new upgrades with your students to allow them to take more ownership of their posts. 

As always, encourage your students to read others' posts and if they like their post, have them click on the heart at the bottom of the sticky note or leave a comment if comments are turned on. Being reflective and having an authentic reason to like something is a great first step towards leaving meaningful and authentic feedback. 

Bad News~ Last year the EpicPals primary board began to incorporate FlipGrid, unfortunately, with the changes Flipgrid implemented at the beginning of August, we will not be able to use Flipgrid with our youngers due to privacy upgrades which won't allow me to easily open the boards to anyone under 16. 

We encourage you to have conversations with your students on what constitutes a good post and how to be a good digital citizen when working online. You can find several resources to help you with these conversations on this previous blog post

***************************************
If you have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to Bobbi or myself. You can find both of us on Twitter- @smalchow (primary boards) and @bhopteacher (intermediate boards)

Thursday, August 23, 2018

👩🏻‍💻 Welcome Back to Malchow's Tech Bytes 🚌

Malchow's Tech Bytes is back for year two!! I'm excited to continue this weekly newsletter and hope that you'll find it beneficial as you look for new tips, tricks and integration ideas.

Each week I'll post an image and link to the Tech Bytes slide deck here on the blog, as well as on my Twitter feed, @smalchow. You can also subscribe by filling out the Google form below and I'll send a link direct to your email each week. Most items will be suited to anyone, but on occasion there will be a resource specific to my district such as this week's network login posters.

Click on the image to view the slide with clickable links.

Interested in having Tech Bytes delivered right to your inbox?


Sunday, August 19, 2018

Heading Back to School with Seesaw

Hard to believe that the school year is once again just around the corner! Seems like every year around mid-August, teachers everywhere are saying those exact same words and every year summer seems to go by faster and faster!!! 



I've had a crazy busy summer, crazier than any other, which is why the blog has been dormant for the past few months! I'll be blogging about those experiences in the coming weeks. In the meantime though, my brain is beginning to make the switch to thinking about the beginning of the school year and I've been working on a few resources, with many more to come! 

I know some of you are already back in school so hopefully you will find these resources helpful as you start your year off!

Our district is now in our second year of Seesaw for Schools implementation and as such most of our students have been exposured to Seesaw. I wanted to find a way for students to jump back into Seesaw at the beginning of the year while reviewing the Seesaw tools in an engaging and meaningful way. The Seesaw challenge below is what I came up with. This challenge give students the opportunity to share a little about themselves, their summer vacation, goals they have for the year and more by using each of Seesaw's built-in tools. It also gives students a chance to go through the class feed and to leave comments for their peers. 
bit.ly/SeesawStudentChallenge
Here's the link to the template, bit.ly/SeesawStudentChallenge if you are interested in using it with your students. Once you click on the link, click on Use Template and it will be saved to your Google Drive and you can modify the challenge to fit your needs.

And here's one more...
I always did a "Find Someone Who..." activity at the beginning of the year with my first graders as a way for them to get up and get moving, practice their social skills, and get to know each other a bit better as well. If your classroom is 1:1 you may enjoy the Seesaw Activity below that I created. You can find this activity in the Seesaw Library or you can simply click the Save Activity button below to save this to your own activity library.





I hope you find one or both of these activities helpful as you begin the year!!



Monday, May 28, 2018

😎 Malchow's Tech Bytes ~ May 29th 😎

Hard to believe that another school year is coming to a close!! This week you'll find the final edition of this year's Tech Bytes newsletter. Thank you to all that have supported me in this endeavor and who have provided feedback along the way. This "project" has certainly become a labor of love and one that has helped me grow as a connected educator in addition to increasing my bag of tricks, tips and resources as well.
Have a wonderful summer everyone and if you happen to be going to ISTE- let me know!
Malchow's Tech Bytes~ May 29th, 2018

Sunday, May 20, 2018

Malchow's Tech Bytes~ May 21st 💻

This week's Tech Bytes includes some newly released BreakoutEdu games for the end-of-the-year. I've also included 4 of my favorite Chrome Extensions. These are just a few of my favorites, so stay tuned next year to see what other goodies there are waiting for you.
On a side note, next week will be the last installment of Tech Bytes for this school year.
Tech Bytes~ Vol 34 ~ May 21-25

Sunday, May 13, 2018

💻 Malchow's Tech Bytes~ May 14th 💻

Malchow's Tech Bytes, Vol 33 ~ May 14
This week's newsletter has several end-of-the-year resources for those of you that are nearing the end of the year. We still have several weeks left so you'll find a few more end of the year activities scattered over the next couple of newsletters.
Click on the image below to access this week's Tech Bytes newsletter. Remember that all items that have a pointing finger image are clickable. 

Saturday, May 5, 2018

☀️ Malchow's Tech Bytes~ Vol 32 ☀️

I think Spring has finally sprung here in Wisconsin! Hard to believe we had 3 feet of new snow just 3 weeks ago and the past few days have now been in the 70s, sunny and gorgeous....and... the snow is finally gone! The weather has definitely been interesting to say the least. Speaking of weather, there's a great resource this week from Tim Brice at NOAA- be sure to take a peek and provide your students with a fantastic collaboration opportunity!!!


Malchow's Tech Bytes~ Volume 32~ May 7th



Interested in having Tech Bytes delivered right to your inbox? 
Fill out the form below.

Monday, April 30, 2018

🌷🌸 May Flowers are Bloomin' with EpicPals! 🌷🌸


Our May EpicPals primary and intermediate collections
 are ready and waiting for you. 



Check it out~ 


This month's Read-to-Me Flipgrid/Padlet selection is a Splat the Cat book about ice cream! Who doesn't love Splat the Cat? Students will have the opporunity to draw their favorite ice cream on the Padlet board or leave a video post on Flipgrid about their favorite flavor and how many ice cream cones they think they can eat. 




New this month~  Padlet has some phenomenal updates which will allow your students to draw, take pictures, leave an audio or video post right in the app/online simply by clicking the 3 vertical dots on their post! I encourage you to share one or several of these new upgrades with your students to allow them to take more ownership of their posts. 

As always, encourage your students to read others' posts and if they like their post, have them click on the heart at the bottom of the sticky note or leave a comment if comments are turned on. Being reflective and having an authentic reason to like something is a great first step towards leaving meaningful and authentic feedback. 

We encourage you to have conversations with your students on what constitutes a good post and how to be a good digital citizen when working online. You can find several resources to help you with these conversations on this previous blog post

***************************************
If you ever have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. You can find both of us on Twitter- @smalchow (primary boards) and @bhopteacher (intermediate boards)
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New to EpicPals and need some additional information? If so, head on over the the
 #EpicPals page at the top of the blog for additional information.

Sunday, April 29, 2018

Tech Bytes Vol. 31~ Global Collaboration 🌎

Hi all! Are you looking to connect your class globally? You'll find several resources to help you out this week! Global learning opportunities aren't just fun, they allow your students to learn from others while connecting to an authentic audience and building empathy and understanding!! Global learning doesn't have to be complicated... come see for yourself!!!


Malchow's Tech Bytes, Volume 31~ April 30-May 4th

Sunday, April 15, 2018

🌎 Tech Bytes ~ April 16th -20th 🌎

This week's Tech Bytes has several resources for Earth Day that incorporate the 4Cs~ Creation, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, and Content Consumption!



14+" of snow since early Saturday morning in NE Wisconsin and it's STILL snowing! Another 12-15" coming over next 24 hrs! Ugh! 
Literally feeling like this:

The view out my front door Saturday morning~
14" of fresh snow~ poor Beamer!


The view out my front door Sunday afternoon
after an additional 7" of snow fell and it's still snowing!

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Tech Bytes~ April 3-6

Ahhh... spring break is over and we're ready to jump in and finish the year out strong... despite the 7-12" of snow 🌨❄️ we are forecasted to get over the next 24 hours! Who knows... maybe we'll be able to extend our ski season just a bit longer! ⛷🎿 Fingers crossed! 

With that wishful thinking, here is this week's Tech Bytes. Remember, anything with a pointing finger is clickable once you are in the slidedeck. 

Interested in having Tech Bytes delivered right to your inbox? Fill out the form below.



Thursday, March 29, 2018

☔️ April Showers Brings #EpicPals Awesomeness! 📱📚

Our April EpicPals primary and intermediate collections
 are ready and waiting for you. 



Check it out~ 

 Decorah Eagle Webcam
Decorah Eagle Webcam
This month's Read-to-Me Flipgrid/Padlet selection is about Bald Eagles and includes a link to the Decorah, Iowa Eagle webcam. If you've not seen this site before, it's a MUST see. What a great way to bring the outdoors into your classroom!





New this month~  Padlet has some phenomenal updates which will allow your students to draw, take pictures, leave an audio or video post right in the app/online simply by clicking the 3 vertical dots on their post! I encourage you to share one or several of these new upgrades with your students to allow them to take more ownership of their posts. 

Also new this month~  I have also turned on comments this month on the Patterns in the City book in hopes of having students have a more authentic audience. Students will be able to share a picture of a pattern that they found in their classroom and also leave a comment under others' posts about the pattern that they see. I've left a sample on the board for you to share with your students. 

As always, encourage your students to read others' posts and if they like their post, have them click on the heart at the bottom of the sticky note. Being reflective and having an authentic reason to like something is a great first step towards leaving meaningful and authentic feedback. 

We encourage you to have conversations with your students on what constitutes a good post and how to be a good digital citizen when working online. You can find several resources to help you with these conversations on this previous blog post

***************************************
If you ever have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. You can find both of us on Twitter- @smalchow (primary boards) and @bhopteacher (intermediate boards)
-------------------------------
New to EpicPals and need some additional information? If so, head on over the the
 #EpicPals page at the top of the blog for additional information.