Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Acceptable Use Policy

Welcome to the new school year! With a new year, brings new responsibilities. More homework, more reading, more independence, new technology devices. Let's go over your responsibilities as a student using technology.


The district has an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for all students and staff that use district technology resources. In fact, your parents have already agreed to and signed your AUP when they registered you for class this year. An AUP is a contract between you, your parents, and the district about how and when technology will be used. It outlines appropriate uses and consequences for using technology inappropriately.

Basically, you need to know what is expected of you. It all boils down to this:


General Guidelines

  • Do not use a computer to harm other people or their work.
  • Do not damage the computer or the network in any way.
  • Do not interfere with the operation of the network by installing any 
  • software, shareware, or freeware. Students are permitted to save 
  • their files on the network in their personal directory.
  • Do not violate copyright laws.
  • Do not view, send, or display offensive messages or pictures.
  • Do not share your password with another person.
  • Do not waste limited resources such as disk space or printing 
  • capacity.
  • Do not trespass in another’s folders, work, or files.
  • Do notify an adult immediately, if by accident, you encounter 
  • materials that violate the rules of acceptable use.
  • BE PREPARED to be held accountable for your actions and for the 
  • loss of privileges if the rules of acceptable use are violated. 

Each student should read through these guidelines and discuss them with their homeroom teacher. Here is the link to the parent/student agreement that can be signed after the classroom discussion or you may want to make your own with more specific classroom rules. 


Remember that MacBooks and iPads are school property, and on the Intermediate campus we do not allow students to go into settings and change wallpaper, screen savers, dock positions, etc. Sometimes changes are accidentally made in settings that are hard to detect and cause the computer to not work in the way that it should.

Friday, May 29, 2015

Professional Development Opportunities

Are you looking for some opportunities to earn comp time this summer, or maybe you are wanting to freshen up some technology skills over the summer? There are many opportunities for online professional development, and most of them are FREE.

Discovery Education (login required)


  • Learn the basics of searching for content and streaming or saving for later use. 
  • Integrate videos and images using MovieMaker, Photo Story, green screen, and ActivBoard. 
  • Create assignments, quizzes, and writing prompts.
  • Assign content to students

Learning.com (login required)


Google Apps for Education

Learn the basics of the Google Suite of Online Tools. 
  • Calendar
  • Chrome Browser
  • Docs Suite
  • Docs
  • Drawings
  • Drive
  • Forms
  • Gmail
  • Google Maps
  • Search
  • Sheets
  • Sites
  • Slides
  • YouTube

Renaissance Learning (AR and AR360) (create an account using your existing username and password)

Brush up on your knowledge of Reading Renaissance, monitoring reading growth and personal goal setting, or learn more about how to use AR in the classroom to encourage a culture of reading in the classroom. 
Also, look for videos on AR360 and find out how to bring more nonfiction into your students' daily reading.


Monday, May 4, 2015

May the Fourth Be With You

Today is Star Wars Day. May the fourth be with you! Get it?

Amazon has a special today on all Star Wars books on Kindle. 80% off! Remember, you do not have to have a Kindle to enjoy these books. Download the Kindle app on any device.

Don't forget to check out this site for more fun activities.