Status Board... Status Update

In our main hallway at Lewis Elementary we have a large HDTV monitor that we have used to display photos of school actives and art work. Over the years we have used an AppleTV with a Flickr slide show to share these images, but have been looking for a way to include more information, including upcoming calendar events, and other types of information in addition to photos. Earlier in the year, I shared that Panic upgraded their Status Board app with a few new features and we had started using it with an iPad connected to the HDTV to share this information. Below is a bit of an update, and a feature request.

Our Status Board consists of the following items:

• The school calendar in list view,
• Tri-Met bus arrivals, (The #75 stops right in front of the school, this tools if from @sayo), 
• Weather information,
• The local time,
• Our school Twitter feed,
• A Twitter feed from our staff Twitter list,
• Screen shots of resent staff tweets with photos.  
• This main screen alternates with a second status board page that included larger school event photos. 

The Status Board iPad is logged into an Apple ID that was created specifically for the use with Status Board. I have shared via Apple’s Photos app a picture stream from my personal iPad that is connected to the Status Board Apple ID. To update the status board images, I simply update the shared photo stream and the images are automatically updated.

While Status Board will include Twitter feeds. It currently only provides a text list. Tweets that include images only display links to the images, but not the image. To get around this limitation, I pick out specific Tweets with images and screen capture them and include them in the photo feed. While this works, it is a bit labor intensive. I hope Panic adds the ability display Tweets with photos in a future upgrade. 

All in all I am very happy with Status Board.

Parent Teacher Conferences

This week at Lewis Elementary, we held our annual parent/teacher conferences. Fall conferences are an opportunity for families and teachers to come together and plan for the school year and set student goals. In preparation for his conferences, Mr. Hansen surveyed his students about school, and their personal goals for the year. He then shared these goals with his families during conferences.

To facilitate the collection of these goals Mr. Hansen used a Google Form and the Autocrat add-on for Google Sheets. The form made it easy to have each student enter their information using their Chromebook. Mr. Hansen then used the Autocrat add-on to populate a conference template document with each students responses to the survey form. 

Mr. Hansen then printed and the nicely formatted documents and used the goal setting sheet as a major portion of the conference. 

Autocrat is one of many fine tools developed by the The CloudLab -- a project of New Visions for Public Schools. 

Working for the weekend...

Just a typical Saturday for our Lewis staff. Ms. Rotwein and Mr Hansen drove to Seattle to attend and present at the The 8th Annual Northwest Conference on Teaching for Social Justice. Our PE teacher, Ms. Layman attended several student soccer games, and our music teacher, Mr. Jamesbarry took part in a workshop at Columbia Valley Grade School. Others were home working, getting ready for parent teacher conferences that take place this week. 

When folks mention the workload of teachers and question their commitment, I just have to shake my head. I work with a tremendously committed group of people.

Inspiring day singing, dancing, playing, and making music. pic.twitter.com/ChyF64pJu3

— Tony Jamesbarry (@tonyjamesbarry) October 17, 2015

Great #effort “under pressure” Field next to #Lane MS. pic.twitter.com/G9yv9qz3oR

— MeriwetherLewisPE (@GymJumpRun) October 17, 2015

Record breaking attendance at the best education conference! So much great work being shared. pic.twitter.com/TgfPvzKUl2

— Mark Hansen (@LewisRoom24) October 17, 2015

Cardboard Challenge at Lewis

Cardboard Arcade day with Mr. Hansen, Ms. Elissia, & Ms. Kennedy's classrooms...

"Cardboard Arcade day with Mr. Hansen, Ms. Elissia, & Ms. Kennedy's classrooms..."

A few years back I shared with my staff the story of Caine's Arcade. Caine's Arcade is a short film that tells the story of a boy named Caine and how he built a cardboard arcade in the front of his dad's auto parts store in Los Angeles. It is a very uplifting little film that celebrates creativity and the human spirit.

The film led to the annual Global Cardboard Challenge Day and this has inspired several of my teachers to take part in this annual celebration by having a Cardboard Challenge day of our own. This week students from Mr. Hansen, Ms. Elissa, and Ms. Kennedy's classrooms spent time planning cardboard arcade games, and then on Wednesday afternoon the classrooms came together in the cafeteria to create their games. 

Cardboard Arcade day with Mr. Hansen, Ms. Elissia, & Ms. Kennedy's classrooms... #twitter

"Cardboard Arcade day with Mr. Hansen, Ms. Elissia, & Ms. Kennedy's classrooms... #twitter"

With the help of parent volunteers, the students created their games and then spent time doing a gallery walk and then actually getting an opportunity to play the games. 

You can see more of their handy work on Twitter.

Mr. Hansen @lewisroom24
Ms. Elissa Dingus @epdingus
Ms. Kennedy @pamelakennedy17