School is almost out! Which products and services made a difference in your district this year? From hardware to software, online resources to facilities solutions, books to classroom materials, and beyond, District Administration wants to know what you think!

Nominate a Product.

Based on your choices, District Administration will announce the Readers' Choice Top 100 Products in the December 2013 issue.

And how is it different than the Creative Suite? Adobe announced at its annual MAX conference that the Adobe Creative Suite, currently at version CS6, has run its course, and from now on updates and licensing for applications that used to be part of the Creative Suite will from now on be through Creative Cloud only.

Most people hear “cloud” and assume that you’re going to be working on cloud-based online applications, but that’s not the case.  The “Cloud” part of Creative Cloud is more about licensing, updating, and sharing than it is about actually using the applications.  You’ll still install Photoshop, Illustrator, or whatever applications you want to use, on your computer like before, but now you’ll have a subscription to Creative Cloud to allow you to keep using it.

Watch this video to learn more.

Gain the knowledge to create a variety of diagrams to share information about organizational systems, resources, and processes with this Visio 2010 online training series. You’ll learn about Visio’s interface, including the ribbon; stencils and shapes; and setting document properties. You’ll also learn how to work with pages, backgrounds and layers. Lastly, we will demonstrate how to create an organization chart and flowchart.

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) presented the 2013 CODiE Awards in education technology on Monday, May 6, during SIIA’s annual Ed Tech Industry Summit. Atomic Learning’s Tech Skills Training Plus solution was named Best Postsecondary Learning Solution in its entry category, as well as Best Postsecondary Solution and Best Education Solution.

SIIA’s 2013 CODiE Award winners show that innovation and growth is alive in many areas of the educational technology industry,” said Karen Billings, vice president for the education division at SIIA. “Among these 28 visionary winners, you’ll find many of the most exciting ed tech products and services out there.”

In this online training series, you will learn about the following new features in Blackboard Service Pack 12: Global Navigation for a unified view of courses; enhanced calendar, test and discussion forum options; Retention Center for managing at-risk students and Video Anywhere for incorporating rich multimedia in courses.

In this online tutorial series, you’ll learn all the basics of using Outlook 2013 as your e-mail program. You will also learn about all the new and exciting new features such as tools that will help make the time you spend reading your email much more efficient, how to check for social networking updates without ever leaving Outlook and even how to check the latest weather forecast. You will also learn about these other Outlook elements: calendars and scheduling, contacts, notes, tasks, to-do lists and even how to print messages and attachments.

This online training series will take you step-by-step through the features of Moodle 2.4 to understand and make the most of Moodle's advanced features. Starting with basic features like how to log in and find your way around to how to add course materials and interactive exercises. You'll learn how to display your resources to optimum effect and how to engage your learners with embedded multimedia. Discover how Moodle can grade work automatically for you and how you can provide feedback on submitted assignments. You'll be able to decide exactly how and when your learners can access your activities and benefit from very powerful logs to track progress through the course you set up. You'll finish the series by learning how to save and reuse everything you've created on Moodle.

In this online training series, you will learn how to write SQL statements that enable you to query databases.  The series will start with basic queries showing how to display data within a database and then move to more complex queries involving multiple tables. The training also covers many of the SQL functions that allow you to manipulate the data within the database. Upon completion of this series you will be thoroughly versed in SQL and writing queries for your database.

On April 24th, it will be easier to find what you're looking for on our site. Watch this overview video to take a virtual tour and remember to keep sending us your feedback as we continue to make our site better for our users.

In this online training series from Atomic Learning, we will learn how to insert a video and audio file into a slide from a file on your computer and from an online source in PowerPoint 2013. From how trim a video and audio clip to exploring the audio and video tools' contextual tabs, this training series we show you how to get the most out of the media controls in this program.

We are proud and excited to share that the Atomic Integrate solution was named a Cool Tool Award Finalist in the 2013 EdTech Digest Awards.

Atomic Integrate offers a cost-effective professional development, technology integration and support solution that empowers educators to effectively utilize technology to impact student achievement. Research shows students achieve 3% growth in math and reading when taught by teachers who utilize Atomic Learning.

To see the full list of EdTech Digest Awards, click here.

In this online training series, you will learn how to insert a picture into a slide from a file on your computer and from an online source in PowerPoint 2013. From how to crop and resize pictures on a slide to using the corrections and color tools, you will explore various picture editing features as well as how to create a photo album and learn to share it.

With all the mobile initiatives happening out there, we want to learn from your experience. Mobile Mondays will pose a common question your peers might ask when considering a mobile initiative in their school or district. Here is today’s question, talk amongst yourselves.

How are you using mobile devices in the math classroom?

 

 

In conjunction with Autism Awareness Month, we're excited to announce a new self-paced Atomic Catalyst course entitled "Technology across the Autism Spectrum."

From documenting and analyzing behavior to developing social skills, technology can play a huge roll in assisting students with ASD to thrive at school, home, and in the community. This course will cover tools and strategies you can use to help with communication, self-regulation, collaborative behavior analysis across environments, and bringing social stories to life. Many of the tools discussed can be applied to mobile technology, such as iPads, so students have social skill support no matter where they go.

$150.00 | Webinars scheduled monthly on Wednesday or Thursday, 6 pm-7 pm CST

Register today to save yourself a seat! The course will open for activity June 3rd and you can complete coursework at your convenience.

You asked. We listened. Soon, it will be easier to find what you're looking for on our site. Watch for changes later this spring and keep sending us your feedback as we continue to make our site better for our users.

In this online training series, you will learn how to determine the needs and create the structure of a form in Microsoft Word 2013. From adding numerous content controls to exploring the legacy and ActiveX control features, you will learn how to protect the form, create a form template, and how to distribute the form.

Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has recently started publishing a series of posts on different mushrooming learning concepts. The below graphic is from one of these posts, it outlines the 7 most powerful idea shifts in learning today. Enjoy!

Looking for tech integration projects for your classroom? Here is a sampling from a  variety of subject areas:

Social Studies:

Water Works! – Google™ Earth software

Health;  Mathematics:

What’s for Breakfast? – using spreadsheets

Life & Career Skills:

Cyberbully? No way, Not me – social networking

Science:

In this online training series, we will learn how to use shapes and SmartArt in PowerPoint 2013. Using the selection and visibility pane, we will insert, resize and add effects to shapes along with adding text to shapes. We will work with SmartArt graphics, including how to insert them into a presentation as well as how to modify and format the graphics.

In this series of online training tutorials, we'll cover a variety of ways to set, control and check that data entered into Microsoft Excel 2013 is valid. From creating error messages to checking data, this series will cover how to get the most out of the data validation functions in Excel.

In this online training series, we will learn how to use animations and the animations pane in Microsoft PowerPoint 2013. From how to apply animations to recording and adding narration to a presentation, this training series will cover everything you need to know to add animation and transition effects and even sound to your PowerPoint slides.

This online training series will help you save time and effort by teaching you the ins and outs of the most common formulas used in Microsoft Excel 2013.

With all the mobile initiatives happening out there, we want to learn from your experience. Mobile Mondays will pose a common question your peers might ask when considering a mobile initiative in their school or district. Here is today’s question, talk amongst yourselves.

What have you done to support students (or staff) that are not technology savvy?