Teacher Handouts for Infinite Campus

Kindergarten-3rd Grade Handout

4th Grade Handout

5th-12th Grade Handout

Google now provides schools with access to their own installation of Google Apps for educational use.  DeWitt has applied for access and now has a Google Apps web portal.  The portal includes links to all of the applications including e-mail (for students too), calendars (including group calendars), documents (online spreadsheets, writer documents and presentations) and a powerful web site builder.  We've created accounts for all users, see the portal for instructions on how to log in. 

http://www.gapps.dewittschools.net/

The Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning annual conference was last week in Detroit.  Many of the speaker handouts are available for download, so if you didn't get a chance to go, check them out on the MACUL Website.  The keynote sessions and featured speakers will be posted on the REMC MiStreamnet website as streaming video any day now, check back to participate in the conference virtually.

Using funds from MACUL and MDE, I was able to attend the recent National Educational Computing Conference in San Antonio TX.  There were many informative sessions and opportunities for vendor contacts.  Please visit my notebook to read my notes from the conference as well as visit the web sites I found interesting.  Enjoy!

I recently had the opportunity to work with MACUL (Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning) to coordinate the Educational Technology Coordinators' Conference at Macomb ISD.  There were many interesting presentations, but one that was really phenomenal was Liz Kolb, a pre-service teacher trainer that was all about using cell phones in the classroom.  She gave excellent examples of web sites designed to make the most of these ever more prevalent devices.  I've posted my notes from Liz's presentation, please check them out and let me know if you'd like more information.

Many calls come in to the Technology Department from staff wanting to publish a web page. There are many options for web pages supported at DPS, the best one for you depends on the purpose of your page. To help you choose the best way to post your web page, the Tech Staff has created a sheet highlighting many of the available options along with information to make your selection process easier.

Web Page Publishing Options

For staff that are used to working with FrontPage, the new software called Kompozer is very similar (since Microsoft has discontinued FrontPage) Here are documents to help with use at DPS:

How to use Kompozer
How to use themes from the DPS network
How to upload web pages to an Edzone Account at DPS
How to get an Edzone Account at DPS

The Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning Association held their annual conference in Detroit this year, here are links to help you experience the event virtually!

MACUL Presentations-These are online handouts from the presenters themselves.

MACUL Blog-The posts on this blog were entered from the sessions themselves by people in attendance. Take a look at what actual Michigan educators thought was important at the sessions they attended.

Some of the presenters used their own websites to share their presentations, here are a few:

Patrick Crispen spoke about the many uses of Google and how to get the best results from a search. His web site contains many other presentations (just click on the Powerpoint link) as well.

Leslie Fisher presented several different sessions, the Gadgets presentation was very entertaining.

Will Richardson discussed a wide variety of topics surrounding web based technology, including Wiki's, Blogs and other Web 2.0 applications. His blog is one of the most popular learning spots for educators starting off with these technologies. Be sure to click on the videos tab of his blog to see snippets from a few of his presentations.

Jaimie Fitzpatrick from Michigan Virtual University gave a compelling talk about grant seeking and fund raising. He directed participants to the MDE Proposal Development Guide and to MSU's fundraising site for guidance.

One of the highlights of the conference was they keynote closing session by David Ollila, who is a young Marquette based businessman. His story of a checkered educational history and rise to become a very successful entrepreneur and founder of the global company VIO that manufacturers helmet cameras was inspirational. The topic of his discussion was to point out how important it is now for education in the US to step up with key skills and technology as it is now more important than ever if the US is to continue to be a dominate force in the global economy.

The DeWitt technology department is now hosting an Online Class System or OCS.  Using this system teachers can create a password protected online learning environment for their class.  Use the links below to access instructions for using OCS and to go directly to the system.

OCS Teacher Manual
Log On to OCS

Please click read more below to learn how to obtain an account for DPS-OCS