Help kids unlock the power of Easter!

"For kids, understanding the true reason for Easter can be challenging. But the Bible App for Kids can help, making it easy and fun.

Each Easter story, from “A Goodbye Meal” to “A Happy Sunday!” includes fun activities and interactive images that will help kids understand Jesus’ death and resurrection.

This Holy Week, the week leading to Resurrection Sunday, is the perfect time to start discussing Easter with the children in your life."

from YouVersion website

Digital Tools for School Libraries and Media Centers

"Librarians and media specialists often don't get enough credit for creating safe spaces that inspire students and make them feel part of a community. Libraries have always been places of innovation, and those of you at their helm have been some of the first to embrace technology. We've created a list that can help you sift through all the tech options out there to stay at the forefront of your craft and to make your learning commons a central hub of information and culture in your school. Once you've checked out these apps, games, and websites, take a look at our Digital Citizenship curriculum for lessons that help students use technology responsibly to learn, create, and participate."

Common Sense Media: Digital Tools for school libraries and media centers

Student Voice Infused Assessment Conferencing

"This past week I wrote my report cards.

You know that feeling, right?

It’s tediously time consuming.

It’s crunching the calculator.

It’s void of student voice.

And it’s horrible on my mental health (let alone my students’).  

But this time it was different.  This time I made one small change that, as it turns out, has changed everything.  Just one small difference in how my reports cards are written altered how my students feel about assessment, how they define success in our classroom, and how they set goals for themselves moving forward."

Read the full post at Trevor MacKenzies Blog

Photo by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash

Balancing Screen Time at Home for Kids

At SFS, we strive to help our students develop each of the learner profiles. Balance is understanding the importance of intellectual, physical and emotional balance to achieve personal well-being for yourself and others.

Our students are navigating a digital world and both teachers and parents are wondering how can we help our students balance their screen use, game time and social media? Here is some helpful information and tools to help your child develop balance in their own life.

Recommendations for Screen Usage from American Academy of Pediatrics

• For ages 2 to 5 years, limit screen use to 1 hour per day of high-quality programs. Parents should co-view media with children to help them understand what they are seeing and how it applies to the world around them.

• For children ages 6 and older, place consistent limits on the time spent using media and the types of media. Parents should make sure that media does not take the place of adequate sleep, physical activity and other behaviors essential to health.

• Designate media-free times together, such as dinner or driving, as well as media-free locations at home, such as bedrooms.

• Have ongoing communication about online citizenship and safety, including treating others with respect online and offline.

Source: Huffpost

Image source: Children's Hospital of Orange County

Which media is appropriate for my child?

Not sure if that new game is right for your child? Wondering about the content in the latest Marvel movie? Check out Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping kids thrive in the world of media and technology. They provide independent ratings and reviews for almost everything kids want to watch, read, play and learn. Parents also give reviews as well as children.

What tools are available to help me set limits on my child's device?

• Use parental controls on your child's iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch
• Set up parental controls on a Mac
• Top 4 ways to set parental controls in Android for kids
• Qustodio: Can help manage PC, works on all devices

Creating a Family Media Plan

Media should work for you and work within your family values and parenting style. When media is used thoughtfully and appropriately, media can enhance daily life. But when used inappropriately or without thought, media can displace many important activities such as face-to-face interaction, family-time, outdoor-play, exercise, unplugged downtime & sleep.

By creating a Personalized Family Media Use Plan, you can be aware of when you are using media to achieve your purpose. The tool below will help you to think about media, creating a family plan of rules that are in line with your family’s values.

Click on Family Media Plan Tool to create your own family's plan.

Source: Healthychildren.org

Printable Version of Family Media Agreement from Common Sense Media

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10 Trends for 2019

Each year Core Education highlight what will be the trends in education for the year. This is not a gimmick, highlighting the latest tech toy but a focus on what are important issues and directions education is going. Because Core is a New Zealand company it has a NZ flavour but the trends highlighted have a global impact.
Very interesting reading particularly the one on Wellbeing.

Trends of 2019

"We have been featuring these Trends for over ten years; focusing in particular on the trends and influences shaping how we live, work and learn - brought about by the increasing use of technology in our modern world.

This year we have tried to create a focus within the Ten Trends on the impact of change on society, communities and individuals and go further than simply explain this as something that is inevitably going to occur. Instead, we provide provocations that question the value of the change, and implications for us as humans - now and into the future. We hope you enjoy the read."

Core Education website

Trends of 2019

Bring Lessons to life with video

Bring lessons to life with video.

Clips is a free app for iPhone and iPad that makes it easy to create expressive videos that are unique, informative and fun. Watch the video

Learn to use Clips. We’ve created a new collection of tips and idea starters to help you introduce Clips into your lessons. Explore the new Clips collection

Watch real teacher videos. Check out these Clips videos to see how Apple Distinguished Educators around the world use Clips to support learning across grades and subjects. Visit the collection

See how an Apple Teacher uses Clips to bring literature to life. Jamie Clark is integrating Clips in his Year 12 writing class as they explore dystopian authors. Read about his recent project to help students improve the quality of their work. Learn more

Bring video to your lessons and assignments. Teach your students fun and easy skills to share ideas and learning through film with the Everyone Can Create Video guide. And, in the Everyone Can Create Teacher Guide, you'll find dozens of ideas on how to bring video into lessons and assignments in any subject. Download the Video project guide Download the Teacher Guide