Malchow's Tech Bytes~ January 3rd, 2022

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Malchow's Tech Bytes👩🏻‍💻📰📱~ December 6th

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Malchow's Tech Bytes ~ March 8th ☘️

 Hi all! I'm excited to share that my weekly Tech Bytes is back up and running!  Thank you for being patient as I took some time away due to my dad's illness. My dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late October and mid-January we found out that continued treatment was no longer an option. With that news, my siblings and I rallied together to help take care of my dad for whatever time he had left. Unfortunately, from the time we found out until the time of his passing was less than a week. It's been a rough few months of many ups and downs as we are all learning to live in this new normal of dad not being around and helping mom to navigate unchartered territory. There has been a lot of soul searching and reflecting on the importance of family and work/life balance over the past couple of months and while my intent is not to write a novel or get too preachy, I will simply say, that life is too short... enjoy all of the moments you have with your loved ones.

With that said, I am working to get back in the swing of things and to keep the weekly newsletter and monthly EpicPals projects running. Thank you so much for sticking with my through this difficult time and for helping me to get through this time with your continued support, emails, texts and kindness! It has been soooo much appreciated!!! 

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Malchow's (Virtual Learning) Tech Bytes

Whew! What a CrAzY MONTH it has been!

 I feel like I need to say that 10 times to get my point across, but my guess is that if you're reading this, I'm likely preaching to the choir! LOL  I've been on overdrive since March 13th when I was at a regularly scheduled Apple Core PD planning day. The day seemed to start normally with a bit of talk about what was going on in the world and that nasty 5 letter word, COVID, but within an hour, normal turned into disbelief as we found out that a school closing was likely imminent. At that point, our team shifted gears and spent the remainder of our day planning for how and when we would train staff in virtual learning. From there, the wheels just kept on spinning. There have been days that I'm not sure if I'm coming or going and the amount of hours I have put in have been extraordinary. My family's spring break ski trip to Colorado was cancelled and I spent the majority of that break planning, prepping and creating for teachers, students and parents. Needless to say, my normally scheduled projects such as my weekly Tech Bytes and monthly EpicPals projects have taken a back seat, not because I wanted them to, but simply because there hasn't been a spare hour in the day to work on them. 

My hope is that things will calm down a little in the next week or two (I keep saying that, but it has to happen, right?!?) and that I will be able to find a better balance of working from home and supporting my middle school & high school sons with their remote learning while also keeping my own sanity knowing that my husband is working on the frontline as a captain for the fire department and riding the rescue squad each shift. The threat of COVID is very real for my family and although we have a plan and will cross each bridge as we get to it, the possible scenarios honestly scare the he** out of me.... 'nuf said.

So, back to that balance.... over the course of the last week, I've revamped my normal Tech Bytes to take on a new objective and that is to support my K-5 teachers with our main technology initiatives (Seesaw and Google Meet). Rather than create two newsletters, I'm going to share pieces of what I am creating for my district teachers with you. I hope there will be things that you will find useful as you also navigate these unchartered waters. 

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

~ Sara

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Using Bitmojis as Virtual Stickers for Feedback 🙂

I LOVE Bitmojis!!! 

Did you know that you can use your Bitmoji as virtual stickers in Seesaw? What a fun and easy way to leave feedback on your students' work!  There are SO many, great, kid appropriate images that you can use, and lot of new images too, like the one to the right!

View the video below to find out how to easily add these to your students' work in Seesaw!

Oh and guess what?

Side note: 

The Chrome Extension makes adding your Bitmoji SUPER DUPER easy, however, if you don't have the extension, you can still easily add your Bitmoji by saving the image to your download folder or desktop on your computer, OR by saving it to your Photos on an iPad. Then follow the same directions as the video shows, but use the upload tool on the left to bring your images onto the students' paper.