If you're anything like me, and you use your SMART Board every day for every lesson, you probably wanted to scream and pull your hair out after the latest macOS Mojave update. While the pen function of SMART Board continued to work flawlessly, the touch functions failed to reconnect. Even updating all systems' software failed to fix the issue.

Thankfully, a little light Google searching uncovered an extremely easy patch to the issue. You can check out the SMART community article for full details, or simply complete the following 4 steps.

1.   Go to Apple menu > System Preferences > Security & Privacy.

2.  Click the Privacy tab, and then click Accessibility in the panel on the left.

3.   Click the lock icon and enter the administrator account user name and password if prompted. Click OK.
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4.   Select both the SMART Ink & SMARTBoardService options, and then restart the computer.

As teachers, many of us are (dare we admit it) addicted to sticky notes. The uses are endless and rarely a day goes by without recording something on sticky notes.

After using the reflection document for one week with our 8th Language Arts students, we made a few tweaks to add features and reflections that were requested by the students. We were expecting  major battle getting them to reflect, but they actually enjoy this! Don't get me wrong, it took about 3 days of direct instruction and full-class modeling and collaboration, but the quality is starting to show and the results on their learning are already present.

We worked with the students daily to get their feedback on the ease of use and functionality for their learning. We did end up tweaking a few of the sticky notes to better guide students to reflect deeply about their learning. Currently we are using the following sticky notes:

In the words of Super Educator Joe Marquez, "What we create for our classrooms does not belong to us, it belongs to education!" In his spirit, here are copies of the Sticky Note Reflection Docs we are currently using.

One of my biggest pet peeves is sitting through a meeting or training with a poorly designed Power Point or Slide deck. It doesn't capture my interest, it looks blazé, and I spend my time thinking of how unprofessional the presentation actually comes across. Now I understand that not everyone has a background in graphic design, so allow me to introduce you to SlidesCarnival. 

According to the company, "SlidesCarnival templates have all the elements you need to effectively communicate your message and impress your audience, and completely free!". The benefit of Slides Carnival is the option download the Google Slides or Powerpoint version of the slides, while those featured here are all formatted for Google Slides.

Here are a few go-to templates for classroom lessons and conference workshops, but I always suggest heading over to check out their collection of professional slide templates that are updated frequently. 

Enjoy, and get creative!

If you are a right-brain type, or middle-of-the-road-brain type, you will fall in love with the resources from Ladybug's Teacher Files. The possibilities are endless.

Trust me on this one-- forgo your Netflix binge for one Saturday and spend it exploring this site instead.

Here are two of my absolute favorites to get you started:

Here comes another callout to all of the OCD-Types out there who have been struggling with organization in Google Drive. While Google Drive's storage capacity is amazing for teachers, it also quickly becomes inundated with multiple copies of the same file--in various folders, all in different stages of edit--from year to year.
 
With this hack from computer science engineer Amit Agarwal you can finally have ONE Google Drive file and store it in multiple folder. The Bonus-- you can organize drive to meet your left-brain needs, and all every instances of the file will be auto-updated since they are essentially the same file.

​The process to ADD A FILE to multiple folders is outlined in two steps below:

The process to REMOVE A FILE from multiple folders is also completed in two simple steps:

For more in-depth instructions, or to see more tech ideas, visit Amit Agarwal's post here.

There are a few facts in the teaching realm most teachers can agree with:

1. Organizing assignment resources and instructions year-to-year is vital to teacher sanity, spare time, and the survival of trees ("Hello, Xerox Machine...").
2. Google Suite (previously Google Apps for Education) has many features to help teachers with this organization dilemma.
3. Other teacher gurus like Alice Keeler have further hacked Google Suite to make it work best for teachers.
4. Google Classroom still just doesn't have every feature that would make teachers' lives perfect.

That being said, I stumbled across a video post by teacher Tim Cavey that will save more of your sanity. Tim has hacked a super simple way to save your assignment resources and instructions on Google Classroom when you strike gold and create the perfect assignment--the assignment post where the sun shines, and birds sing, every student turns in their homework on time, someone brings you a Starbucks drink in the morning, and a choir of angels sings a heavenly chorus when they see your Google Classroom post. (Too much...?)

Check out Mr. Cavey's genius-level hack in the video below.

Anyone who follows Alice Keeler, the education technology guru, knows the power of Bitmoji for connecting and communicating with students. Bitmoji is a free mobile platform that allows your to turn yourself into a customizable cartoon avatar. With the addition of add-ons Bitmoji for iMessages, GBoard (Google's messages keyboard), and Bitmoji for Chrome, connecting with students  on a more personal level becomes even easier.

Sample Bitmoji uses in the classroom:

• Teachers can insert Bitmojis into digital student work to provide feedback
• Teachers and students can attach Bitmojis to digital communication to better convey correct emotions that may otherwise get lost or misconstrued in the digital environment
• Teachers can use Bitmojis for classroom handouts and assignments to add another level of engagement
• Students can create Bitmojis to add a layer of annotation while critical reading

Social media in education is not a new concept by any means. Schools have created social media accounts to share events with the community, remind students of the bell-schedule changes, and even start friendly spirit battles between other schools. Districts have created social media accounts for many of the same reasons and to inform communities about upcoming educational propositions and bills that require their attention. Even classroom teachers have created social media accounts to increase parent communication or to display work for a current unit of study using a unique hashtag. Social media in education is just another way to invite the community into our schools and classrooms to see what amazing things our teachers explore with our students.

The February/March 2018 edition of CTA's Educator magazine provided this wonderful resource for teachers or schools who have been tossing around the idea of using social media in an education setting. Maybe you've seen your colleague posting the innovative things happening in their classroom, or have seen a hashtag take off and become a viral sensation.

Sam Demuro, storyteller and activist for Italian American Women, explains that having an active social media presence for your school, classroom, sports team, or even the local chapter of your union "can provide quality connections and great audience engagement." However, before you decide to jump in with both feet running, she provides a few considerations.

1. "Don't do it just because everyone's doing it." Use social media because you are self-motivated to share information with a larger audience or give your classroom a voice.
2. "Pick one or two platforms and do them well." Ask your students and parents what social media platforms they use most frequently and begin there. Some of the most popular are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
3. "Think about your goals." What is the purpose for your social media account? Before you being, determine your purpose or goal for using social media. Is your goal to spread awareness,  or open lines of communication, or reach out to parents and the community? Once you have established a goal, use that as a guide to shape your content. This will ensure that you find the appropriate audience and that audience comes back for more.

 
To get started with Twitter, check out the "Education Twitter Rockstars" in the Presentations section. For more practice, you can also check out CTA's webinars and shared resources for social media skills.

Friends of OCD-Anonymous will enjoy this Google Chrome organizational tool. With all of the educational websites, blog posts, and curriculum supports teachers bookmark, your Bookmarks Bar or Other Bookmarks dropdown menu may be a cluster of goodies. It can quickly become a hassle to quickly find the on-the-fly resource for your lesson or to find them for later lesson planning.