Updates to Interactive Achievement

There have been some changes to the Interactive Achievement Program, the program Roanoke County uses for Formative Assessment.  Luckily, the folks at IA have provided some great handouts to show how to use the updated features.  To find them, login with your IA account.  You will now need to use your whole email address as your login (your password will be the same).

Then, click on “What’s New” in the top right-hand corner.

Next, click on a topic.   A handout will open for the topic.

The ITRTs have also updated the how-to handouts for IA.  You can find them here:

Assessment Library

Assigning Tests

Creating Class Lists

Print Test Session Lists

Reporting

Starting and Ending a Test

 

Finally, don’t forget that our system pays for support from IA, and it’s available to anyone who needs it.  Just click the ? in the top right corner.

 

Read to Me


Watch on-line streaming videos of children’s books read aloud by celebrities!  Check out the Read to Me Website!

On this site, children’s storybooks are read aloud by celebrities and storytellers.  Books are available for watching  and there are even lesson plans to help you incorporate the Read-To-Me videos.  You will see such stories as Fancy Nancy, Duck Soup, Excuse Me, Chrysanthemum, and even Hooray Hose (with Sign Language).  Very cool!

 

Explore the Barrier Reef with Google Maps or Google Earth!

The newest edition to some of the fascinating resources in Google Maps/Earth, is the ability to tour the Ocean, complete with reef wildlife.  To explore some of these locations, you will be using “Street View.”  Here’s a quick video on how to use it:

Great Barrier Reef

Hawaii
There are other collections too, including the Amazon, Antarctica, Historic Italy, World Landmarks, Nasa, and much, much more.
You can visit all the collections here:
If you find anything that helps your teaching, leave a comment here and let us know!

Letters Alive

Preschool Teachers and Primary Special Education Teachers received a new program, Letters Alive, to use with their students!  It’s pretty cool.  See a video below that talks about it:

When trying to implement this program, we discovered a couple of things that may help others, so I’m sharing them here.  The most important thing we learned was that this program needs an integrated video card with lots of memory in order to work properly.  If you descide to use it, it’s very important to work with Logical Choice before purchasing anything to make sure the computers you plan to run it on will work.

If you are one of the teachers that was lucky enough to recieve a kit, here are some things that may help you out!

 Letters Alive Tips and Tricks

  •  Use your cart for Letters Alive. Keep the document camera with the cart and leave it set up.
  • Make sure mat is flat as possible (store rolled, not folded).
  • The neoprene Mat is washable (do not put in dryer).
  • You can wipe cards with damp cloth but DO NOT LAMINATE or submerge.
  • Make sure the dongle and document camera are plugged in.
  • Keep the document camera as high as possible.
  • Use training videos in the software.
  • Bring alphabet card in from the right (up high).
  • Be careful not to cover cards.
  • The program runs in Full Screen Mode.  Use Esc to exit and Alt+Enter to go back to full screen mode.

 If you are having Document Camera isses:

  • Choose Letters Alive
  • Choose Letters Alive Camera Setup
  • Make sure auto focus is unchecked

There are three different modes for Letters Alive:

Letters Alive Mode

  • Introduces Letters
  • Uppercase and Lowercase
  • Sentences

Root Word Mode

  • Sounding out letters one at a time.
  • Uppercase and Lowercase practice

T-Shirt Mode

  • This works with Letters Alive T-shirts.

Ideas for the Classroom:

There are lots of ideas for using this program in the classroom on the Logical Choice Website .  Check them out here!

Creating Your Own Discovery Education Account

Many of our teachers use  Discovery Education (United Streaming) videos on a regular basis.  Some use the generic school account, but did you know you could have your very own account?   Teachers with their own accounts can save the materials that they use in their own library – making it much easier to find next year. To create your account, you will need your school code (your ITRT knows this).  Then visit http://www.discoveryeducation.com/ .

Step 1: Click on the Passcode/New User Tab.

Step 2: Type in the school Passcode.  Your ITRT has this number.

Step 3:  Follow the prompts to set up your Discovery Education account.

 

You can also follow this webcast that Meg Swecker created:

Creating a Discovery Education Account

I’ll post more soon about using this great resource! :)