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What : Discovery Education: Instructional Strategies for the Digital Learner When : Jan. 31, 8:15-2:30 Where : Kalamazoo RESA Service Center, Portage Presenter :  Discovery Ed DEN Star Expert Cost : FREE Included : 5 SCECHS (also Free) and Lunch Link to register and more information:   Click Here   space is limited so sign-up now. Contact Tina Tribu ( tina.tribu@kresa.org ) with questions.

Teachers - I would highly recommend checking out Toontastic if you are looking for an app for students to tell their stories.  It is a free Google product, and works on most mobile devices.  From the site: "Toontastic 3D is a playful storytelling app that scaffolds the creative writing process and empowers kids to create their own animated cartoons. While Toontastic was not specifically designed for schools, we have heard from a lot of educators over the years that they love how the app sparks their students’ imaginations and uses the Story Arc to help frame their writing. Their students use the app for creating everything from book reports to news broadcasts and foreign language skills."  Best of all are the following features of it: Kids do NOT need accounts Stories are stored locally There are NO ads or in-app purchases - you get the full app for free It works offline, so your younger kiddos can use it without being connected to the Internet

Shared by Andrew Shauver, Instructional Technology Coach at Ingham ISD, check out this FREE PD Opportunity! Register now  to reserve your spot to The Summit! a day of learning, collaboration, & fun! Capital Area Educators Summit WHEN Wed., Aug. 1st, 8:30am-3:30pm WHERE 160 Snow Road Lansing, MI MORE INFORMATION Waverly High School Get Directions LEARN, COLLABORATE, CELEBRATE! Collaborate  with your peers to share fresh ideas for  motivating  and engaging your students so they have a deeper understanding of the content. We have some of the best educators in our state, so let's learn from each other! Our goal is to give local educators the TIME and a SPACE to share innovative teaching strategies so we can encourage all our students to be CREATORS! Presentation Topics Include:   Student engagement strategies Literacy-specific strategies Improving student presentations Connection...

The new semester of MCLS MeL Databases classes is now open for enrollment. These classes are held monthly August through November and all are half-hour webinars. Michigan libraries across the state work very hard every day to make meaningful, positive impacts in their communities.  Take a look and  sign up now  for the upcoming webinars! https://store.mcls.org/   The webinars are topical and range from school resources, to history, business, and more. They are taught by subject specialist Michigan library staff. The semester kicks-off August 29 at 3:30pm with Back to School with MeL. That class is followed up on September 26 with MeL Small Business Resources. All classes in this series are free and open to all Michigan library staff, educators, and other interested users. These webinars are recorded and made available on-demand anytime on the MCLS website. Additionally, provided are slides from the webinars and hyperlinked documents which ...

Are you looking to implement some digital literacy into your curriculum?  If you teach middle and/or high school students, you may want to check out the Applied Digital Skills site (formerly or part of CS First).  They have free curriculum lessons for teachers focused on a variety of different skills. Some examples:

The Michigan Open Book Project is a multi-year project to provide Michigan social studies teachers with OER (Open Educational Resources) textbooks that can be downloaded, modified, and used in their classrooms.  These are FREE resources (as licensed under Creative Commons) that you can modify to best meet your needs!  From the site: "A simple math problem:  T+D+TE=MOBP T = Textbooks - your district spends thousands of dollars on them, but they were written for other states and by the time they make it to you, they're already out of date. D = Devices - your district is getting more devices every year.  Perhaps an update to the aging computer lab.  Perhaps a mobile lab of tablets to check out for your classroom.  Maybe you're going 1:1.  Whatever the scenario, more devices are making their way into Michigan schools each year. TE = Teacher Empowerment - The best teachers know their content and know ho...

The second of three Library 2017 mini-conferences: "Digital Literacy & Fake News," will be held online (and for free) on Thursday, June 1st , from 3:00 - 6:00 pm EDT . This event is being organized in partnership with futurist Bryan Alexander, who will serve as moderator for the opening panel and as the closing keynote speaker. Invited panelists and presenters will look deeply at the foundational relationship of libraries and librarians to media, information, and digital literacy. All library professionals, employers, LIS students, and educators to provide input and participate this event. To read more about the event and register for free visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ library-2017-digital-literacy- fake-news-registration- 33684268554?mc_eid=98c3c6561d& mc_cid=045b575b46 The School of Information at San José State University is the founding conference sponsor, and this event is being held in collaboration with...

From Brandy Archer at MeL - some great resources that you may find useful: Greetings, Below are links to great Open Educational Resources (FREE).  Some of these (Word Generation) I have shared before.  Keep scrolling down and you will even see some quick mindfulness activities to help students focus. SERP MEDIA Open Educational Resources for Public Use . Visit the SERP Media Website . LITERACY : WordGen Weekly . Visit the WordGen Weekly Website . WordGen Weekly (the “original” Word Generation program) is a supplementary curricular resource that offers a series of discussable dilemmas designed to promote academic language and other academic practices prioritized in the 21st century learning standards. The program is unique in its cross-disciplinary design, giving teachers of ELA, science, social studies, and math the chance to collaborate on the shared goal of helping students use aca...