STEAM Camp Days at ESU 8

For two days in May, students from area schools came to ESU 8 in Neligh to explore, experiment, and expand their horizons in the area of STEAM Education.  STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics and the ESU 8 Professional Development Team hosted sessions for the students to rotate through. The first morning 6th through 8th grade students participated in hands-on STEAM activities. The next morning and afternoon were held for 3rd through 5th grade students.

This year's STEAM Camp offered opportunities to interact with:

• Google Cardboard and virtual reality
• SketchUp
• Art and Constellations
• Coding with drones and Spheros 
• Electromagnetism

ESU 8 Professional Development team members can bring these same hands-on STEAM activities to your school! Simply contact one of them via email or call the ESU 8 main office.

View many photos from this year's STEAM Camp by visiting this Flickr album:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kmorrow/albums/72157666325081453

SMART Boards - Getting Started or Refresh of What's New

Whether you are just getting started using a SMART Board or have been using one for awhile and want to ensure you are taking full advantage of its features, you can benefit from the Ten Quick and Easy Tips shared in this presentation.  This was recorded informally for O'Neill Elementary teachers, but the information is pretty general and hopefully applicable to more.

View the recorded presentation here:

And access the digital handout here:
http://goo.gl/kXQFN3

Back to School with Google Education

Be sure to watch the recorded Hangout on Air from Mickie Mueller and Otis Pierce, moderators of the GEG Great Plains group, as they share Back to School updates from Google Classroom, Google Forms, and more. 

Highlights include:

Google Classroom

• Topics (can be used similar to tags, for sorting & categorizing posts)
• Default = no due date
• Preview YouTube, documents, etc. right in Classroom window
• Parent/Guardian access (you have to enable in Students tab and manually enter emails)
• Schedule a post

Google Forms

• Quizzes (MC, choose from a list, checkboxes) but no need to use Flubaroo for simple quick quizzes
• Can send feedback (including a link) with corrected quizzes
• Add pictures to answer choices on form questions

Also be sure to check out Mickie's guide to Google Classroom: 
https://sites.google.com/site/gclassroomguide/

And her Google Forms Quizzes playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPv3PEdH_agtyeg9eIQH4q_LfjnlkwBLi

NNNC's Summer Technology Institute held June 1-2, 2016

On June 1-2, 2016 NNNC sponsored their annual Summer Technology Institute.  Held at Northeast Community College's Lifelong Learning Center, the event was attended by many educators enthusiastic to start their summer vacation with more learning.

Most sessions were presented by an educator "from the trenches" sharing best practices that truly work in their classrooms and schools.  Many presenters shared links and resources from their sessions via the Sched tool.  It can still be accessed here: https://nnncsummertechnologyinstitu2016.sched.org

STI 2016 Planning Team members

View photos from the two day event by visiting the following link:
https://flickr.com/photos/37327995@N00/sets/72157669299121526

Google Classroom with West Holt teachers

On Monday, we got to spend the day with West Holt teachers training on using Google Classroom and whats new on the Mac.  There was great enthusiasm and motivation to start their year off with technology infused classrooms.
Google Classroom Training agenda

https://pixabay.com/en/photos/classroom/