Technology Memo #3

1. Staff Development – Tomorrow’s staff development is on peer mediation and Thinking Maps. Click on the link to register. Also today is the last day to sign-up for last week’s session if you attended in order to receive credit. You must do this even if you put your name and employee number on the attendance sheet.

Elliott 09-10 Staff Meeting Classroom Management and Student with Special Needs	9/2/2009	3:00PM-4:30PM
Elliott 09-10 Staff Development Peer Mediation and Thinking Maps	9/9/2009	3:00PM-4:30PM

2. Elliott Website Teacher Info – Let’s let our parents and community get to know us a little better. In the past we have had our high schools, colleges, and grad school information on the Elliott webpage, but I want more. This is a Facebook/Twitter world we live in, let’s create that connection. I attached a questionnaire to fill out at your convenience. I will post the information as soon as I receive it. I’ll follow-up in a couple of weeks.

3. Twitter – Speaking of Twitter, did you know that Irving ISD has a Twitter page? I know! I too have always wondered what our coordinators eat for breakfast. Now I know that Gayla Lawrence is a Captain Crunch girl. Well…Irving ISD’s Twitter page isn’t quite like that. There are announcements posted about current events and issues. Three weeks ago Irving ISD tweeted about free immunizations for children at Irving Mall. How great is that? I have been following IISD’s Twitter page since this summer and it is far more interesting than I thought it would be. We want our community to follow Twitter, so we must set the example. Here is the link to Irving ISD’s Twitter page: http://twitter.com/IrvingISD Directions for following it are attached.

But Mike, what is Twitter and what in the world is a tweet? Thank you random-person-who-is-not-real for your question, Twitter is a forum for conveying information to a mass audience on real-time basis. It’s like sending a text message to the world.

4. Parent Connection – A link for parents to sign-up for Parent Connection is posted on the front of our website. Feel free to include my e-mail in your newsletter if parents need helping signing-up. Parents who signed-up last year are already granted access. Make sure that you are submitting at least one or two grades per week.

5. E-mail Signature Episode II – Teachers are known to work from home on occasion. Who knew, right? Well, you might have noticed that your e-mail signature is not the same when you log-in from home as it is when you’re at work. Use the attached directions for creating your e-mail signature for your Outlook Web Access account.

6. Calendars – Are you missing dates on your calendar? Follow the steps in the attachment to get your personal calendar up to date with campus calendar.

7. Website of the Week – Elliott Spanish Websites Links for Students – I started a Spanish links page for student and I ran into two problems. One problem is that I never taught in the bilingual classroom and I do not have a lot of links. So please send me more links! Another problem is my Spanish is not grammatically great, so please send me descriptions of Spanish websites. We have 6 Spanish websites here, let’s see if we can have 16 by the next Technology Memo!