Brr! nICE is coming!

The weather outside may be frightful, but the lineup for the NICE (Northern Illinois Computing Educators) MiniCon is delightful!

The conference schedule is now available for the 2015 NICE MiniCon taking place on Saturday, January 31, 2015 at Niles North High School in Skokie, IL. The 21st annual NICE mini-conference will feature over 50 presenters, 60+ breakout sessions, a closing keynote by 2012 Illinois Teacher of the Year Josh Stumpenhorst, and one of the best raffles around. Admission is only $5 and is payable at the door. Learn more about all of our presenters and sessions, as well as reserve your spot today at www.niceminicon.org. 

I will be presenting a session called #KidsCanCode.. I'd love to see some of you there too! 

Remind 101

With conferences coming up, are you looking for an easy way to reinforce the home-school connection? Remind101 just might be what you're looking for!

I discovered Remind 101 from a blog post on Mrs. Stanford's page. It is a quick and easy way to send students/parents a short reminder of something happening in your classroom. She says:

"Long story short you invite parents to join by text or email and what the app allows you to do is shoot a quick text/email through their server to your subscribers!! This way you don't have to give out your cell number or anything! It works just like any major companies text services... You know those text 493493 to 32098432 to receive updates about blahblahblah?? Well this is it!"

Here is how it is set up after registering:

And this is what the parents will see:

They can also sign up via email:

To send everyone who has subscribed a message, you can use their website or an app you can download from them:

You can also schedule messages for later!! Have folders due each Friday? Why not shoot a text reminding parents Thursday night to sign and return them in the morning?

Did I forget to mention:

IT'S FREE!

The only drawback is they can not respond back to the text... but maybe you don't want them to :) 

If it's something you want to try with your class, I'd suggest setting it up and then hanging a poster or flyer outside of your classroom during conferences so parents can sign up while they wait to see you! Let me know if you try it and how it works!

Parent Teacher Conferences

Have you heard? Conferences are next week! While you are probably far along in your planning and preparations, here are a couple resources I found on teacher's blogs- so whether you can use them this year or save them for next, I hope you find them helpful!

The first is a "guide" for your conference that can be used at any grade level. The freebie also includes some reminders you can send home to parents. I found it at ClassroomFreebies.com. 

The second resource is mostly primary, but could be adapted as you see fit for your grade level. It has an idea for a conference reminder, student portfolio, and a "personal report card" for students to reflect upon how they are doing. It is from a blog called What the Teacher Wants. 

And finally, for some fun, I found a new game website called Learning Games for Kids. They have a variety of games for all subject areas for preschoolers through middle school.