Waffle Bytes

Have you seen Science Journal by Google?  If not, you may want to! The free app (which works on Android, iOS, and "most Chromebooks" according to the site) puts a plethora of sensors on your device - in one app.  Well worth checking out! A great place to start is the Getting Started with Science Journal site Here is a 2 minutes video on how to record data with the sensors -

Information about donations provided by MDE:  Many students and families have been impacted by the wildfires in California. The California Department of Education have offered the following information if you are able to offer donations: Financial donations are urgently needed right now. Individuals or organizations can visit https://www.nvcf.org/fund/ butte-county-schools-fire- relief-fund/  to donate now. The Butte County Office of Education created this Schools Fire Relief Fund to provide a one-stop location where individuals or organizations can provide support. At this link, donors can either specify a specific district or use (such as textbooks, clothes, etc.) for the funds, or make an open donation. Please do not send items (such as clothes, toys, backpacks, etc.) and encourage others not to send these items, unless they are specifically requested. If you are looking for resources to teach about wildfires generally, or to discuss the Camp Fire specifically...

The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) has a wealth of STEM resources that can be made available to educators. How? Become a CAP Aerospace Education Members (AEM) ! Learn more about the benefits to you from the  Aerospace  Education Member Program Flyer , which include: curriculum resources that can be modified to your specific needs provision of materials from the STEM Kit Program (you may request 1 each year of membership - list is on 2nd page of above flyer) eligibility for $250 CAP AEM grants (awarded in September and March each year) eligibility to participate in the Aerospace Connections in Education (ACE) Program  eligibility to participate in the Aerospace Education Excellence (AEX) Program AEMs are also eligible to take a free Teacher Orientation Program (TOP) Flight in one of MIWG's Cessna 172/!82 Aircraft with a highly qualified CAP Pilot who has received special training for such Educator Orientation flights. Cost? A one-time $35.00 Membership Fee Annua...

Are you a Google Classroom user?  Tynker is hosting a free webinar series to demonstrate how you can easily teach coding with more than 35 coding activities for students.  From the Tynker website - How to Lead an Hour of Code with Google Classroom Join over 200,000 teachers from around the world to celebrate Computer Science and demystify coding. Students have spent more than 600 MILLION hours over the past few years participating in #HourOfCode activities. Have your class join the celebration.  Free Webinar:  Make your hour of code amazing! This year, we’re offering a tailored PD just for teachers who use Google for Education products including Chromebooks, G Suite for Education, and/or Google Classroom.  In this session you will: See how easy it is to teach coding using Tynker and Google tools Preview many of Tynker’s 35+ coding activities for students See how to publish and share student hour of code projects Register Now! When?  ...

The Library of Congress has a beta crowdsourcing project happening - anyone can "[v]olunteer to uncover our shared history and make documents more searchable for everyone." Currently, volunteers can help transcribe (digitize) five different campaigns: Branch Rickey: Changing the Game , Civil War Soldiers: Disabled But Not Disheartened , Clara Barton: Angel of the Battlefield , Letters to Lincoln , and Mary Church Terrell: Advocate for African Americans and Women . When you select a campaign, you will be able to see how much of the campaign is complete, how much is in progress, and the number of people contributing- If you click into a campaign's items, you will see the individual pages along with a notation underneath it telling if it is complete, awaiting review, or still needs to be transcribed - If you select a document/page, you see the scanned document on the left, and a window on the right where you can transcribe the writing on the page - Afte...

From the Michigan Department of Natural Resources: On Nov. 14, second- through fourth-grade students across the state will join in a one-day adventure designed to teach them about the importance of white-tailed deer. This day, fondly called “Deer Camp,” is full of fun activities for all school subjects. Once you register, you’ll receive a packet of activities that you can do throughout the day (or pick a few if you are limited on time). The activities cover a variety of subjects, including science, math, English, gym and art. You also will get a PowerPoint presentation as an optional aid to guide discussions. Deer Camp is designed for second through fourth grades, but all educators are welcome to participate! Please be aware that you may need to modify lessons and activities if you are using the materials with younger or older students. If you would like to participate, please register by Nov. 13. Register for Deer Camp curriculum  ► Explore additional DN...

From Liz Breed of the MeL Team -  Supporting Michigan Libraries - November 1, 2018 Where Did the Teen Portal Go? With 23 eResources just for Teens, there is a wealth of content available for research, homework help and more! Accessing these eResources is made simpler by using the Subject search on the eResources page. Visit MeL.org and click on eResources in the navigation menu at the top of the page. Once you are there, click on the "All Subjects" drop down menu and scroll down until you see "Teens (23)". Scroll down to see the full list. Using the "All Subjects" search tool is the best way to find groups of related eResources and is similar to the portals that used to be part of MeL. This is part of our efforts to respond to the way that people were actually using the Teen portal according to Google Analytics statistics. Over half of visitors to the Teen portal homepage left almost immediately for the eResources page. Of t...

This week I presented at the Michigan School Counselors Association fall conference.  One of the sessions I co-led with CACC Counselor Terri Tchorzynski on being more efficient when using Google Apps.  One of the examples we provided was how a senior course audit template could be utilized in place of a paper-pencil audit (which a majority of counselors in our state still use...). Several thought this should be shared wider, but before I do I need to give a few caveats: Credit has to be given to @waffleta (yes, my husband) - he created the initial senior audit I started with, this is it refined and generalized...along with directions.   If this is something you find worthwhile, you may find out if your SIS can do something similar!  Many of them can, and you can save yourself even MORE time as the course catalog is already in there :-) Finally, if you need to add rows for additional courses, you will need to understand how to set up data validation that u...