Educational Technology

Ever wonder how Google folders are organized? 🙄 💻 Here is a quick tip about organizing your drive. If you don't already know, when you organize your folders you can organize them by special symbols, then numbers, then letters. Many people know this already. Therefore, they name their most important folders 001, 002, and so forth. What you might not know is that emojis actually come before all of these. They act as symbols and come before numbers. So, if you wanted to name (or rename) a folder with an emoji you can! It's really easy.  Go to getemoji.com and find the emoji you really want.  Highlight it and copy it. Go back to your drive and find the folder that you'd like to be renamed. Create a folder to be named or Double click the folder so it can be renamed. Paste in that emoji at the beginning of the folder name. N ow th at emoji will bump that folder up to the number one spot in front of all the numbers. 🤯 From here you can defini

Let's start off by saying "I love my job." I am an instructional guide, coach, resource, and trouble shooter for many teachers for whom I admire on a daily basis. They have a hard job and recent technology, social media, and culture paradigm shifts have made that job even more challenging. And my job is to assist them in their job. So, my job is cushy next theirs... But, I find myself in a technology rut. I find that GSuite for Education updates and the latest edtech are blase. I find that following the latest technology ed on twitter is tedious. Is it time to reinvent the wheel  again? Or to tackle a new challenge ? Blog about some new way of infusing technology into the classroom ? I watch wonderful technology specialists continue to post good works and grow as leaders. I am envious and congratulatory at the sa me time. I am in a work rut and want to get out of it. I rec ently read "4 Ways to Bounce Back from a Work Rut (No Matter How Long You've Been

This past June (2019) as a part of an Educational Leadership class, I read  an interesting article  about how colleges are handing out scholarships to students to participate in their ESports programs. According to  Scholarships.com , more than 30 U.S. colleges and universities are offering substantial scholarships for gamers. As a result, I believed that if I could provide a new avenue at my high school for an under-served population, I should give it my best to start an ESports program. ESports Benefits Sense of Community  Character Development Scholarship Opportunities Embodies ISTE Standards Increase Achievement STEM Engagement I did some research and found two high school gaming platforms: the ESports High School League (EHSL) and Play Versus ( PlayVS ). I also found out that my state had just approved ESports as an official "activity" through the  Virginia High School League  (VHSL) and they were using PlayVS as a supported platform. I created an ac