Barrington 220 Adds Epic School Plus to Our Lineup

Recently, elementary students and teachers may have noticed a change in the number of books students can access in the digital reading app Epic. This change is the result of a restructuring of access made by the company behind the popular digital reading platform.

We are happy to announce that Barrington 220 has added Epic School Plus as our newest digital reading subscription. With this new subscription, elementary students gain access to all 40,000 Epic titles. In addition, this access is no longer restricted to during-school hours. Students can now access their school-managed Epic account on nights and weekends. Students can also download books from Epic to read when they are offline. 

There are many books from Epic that are part of our elementary social studies curriculum, and access to these resources should be restored shortly. We anticipate that Epic School Plus will be in place early in the week of December 11, 2023. Look for an email with instructions for upgrading your access. 

Cybersecurity Awareness in Barrington 220

For the past three months, Barrington 220 has been engaged in a new cybersecurity awareness training initiative for our staff. Reflecting on our past 90 days, I'm delighted to report that Barrington 220 is leading the way! Our performance surpasses that of other school districts utilizing the same training program.

The escalation of cybersecurity attacks on US-based school districts underscores the importance of vigilance, especially considering that a significant number of these incidents originate from deceptive email messages. Barrington 220's ongoing email training program is strategically designed to empower individuals to discern which email messages warrant a response and which should be promptly deleted and/or reported as potential phishing threats.

Should you and your colleagues express interest in additional cybersecurity awareness presentations, kindly coordinate with your principal and/or department chair, and the Department of Technology and Innovation will gladly accommodate your request.

In the event that you come across phishing email messages, simply label them as "phishing" within your email browser, and our Tech Support team will automatically receive notifications along with all the essential details. Your proactive involvement plays a crucial role in maintaining the security of our digital environment.

New MacBook Air Operating System Adds New Features

In October 2023 Apple released the latest version of the Mac operating system, macOS Sonoma (version 14). Sonoma offers several new features that will make the user experience on your district-assigned MacBook Air even better. Of course we all love new features, but more importantly, with every new version of an operating system comes new security enhancements. 

Our systems and our Tech Support Team will help you update your computer to the latest version of all operating systems so our district's devices are up-to-date, and old operating systems, which may not contain the latest security enhancements, are phased out.

To upgrade your computer to macOS Sonoma, we've created a How-To article that provides step-by-step instructions on the upgrade process. Click here to view the article:

Upgrade to macOS Sonoma Using the Software Update Tool

The upgrade could take 30–45 minutes to install so please make sure you give yourself enough time to complete the install.

Once you've completed the upgrade, we recommend checking out the links below to get some information on some of the new features in Sonoma, as well as how to enable or disable the ones you want or don't want. 

All the best macOS Sonoma tips and tricks you need to know

macOS Sonoma - 16 TIPS & TRICKS!

Bust the Post-Thanksgiving Slump by Injecting Classroom Creativity

With Thanksgiving behind us, many people may have a fresh memory of the lethargic, sleepy, sluggish feeling that comes after a big meal. Let's face it, the period between Thanksgiving and winter break can feel a lot like that post-meal slump. Students can be antsy, motivation wanes, and even some teachers can find themselves stuck in a rut. But before you resign yourself to weeks of rote learning and low energy, consider injecting a little creativity into your daily routine as a spark that reignites the flame of engagement in your classroom to carry both you and your students to winter break with renewed energy and excitement.

Many teachers balk at the idea of creative projects this time of year. For one, you may be experiencing a "content crunch" in which you have too little time to finish a unit of study before the extended break. In addition, the idea of a busy, weeks-long project just doesn’t make sense right now. Forget about the elaborate, time-consuming projects you envision taking home to grade over your holiday break. Instead, think small, quick, and impactful. Here are eight ways to inject a burst of creativity into your lessons without adding extra workload to your plate:

1. Interactive Storytelling with Keynote: Ditch static presentations and turn your students into digital storytellers. Using Keynote's animation features and audio recording tools, they can craft engaging narratives with voiceovers, music, and dynamic visuals that will breathe new life into a presentation. Instead of using class time to deliver a teacher-led presentation, give the Keynote file to your students and let them engage with the material and personalize their learning. 
2. Mind Mapping with Jam Board or Freeform: Brainstorming doesn't have to be boring. With Jam Board (Google) and Freeform (Apple), students can collaborate on mind maps in real time, adding text, images, and even scanned images to create personalized learning resources and visualize complex concepts.
3. Interactive Maps with Keynote: The Logitech Crayon allows students to annotate maps and images directly on the iPad, adding pins, drawings, shapes, and voiceovers to personalize their learning and create interactive quizzes, historical timelines, or virtual treasure hunts. History students can use Magic Move in Keynote to demonstrate movements in key battles and migration patterns or create moving graphs and stories. 
4. Music Composition with GarageBand: GarageBand provides a variety of virtual instruments and sound effects, letting students compose original music, record podcasts, or experiment with sound design for their projects. Allow students to add a soundtrack to a digital project or create music that fits their confidence in their knowledge. High school students reviewing for finals? Let them make sound effects for review games. Using the Loops feature, it only takes a few minutes and almost no musical skill to create professional-sounding soundtracks. 
5. Collaborative Art with Jam Board: Jam Board allows for simultaneous drawing and sketching, both physically and virtually. Students can brainstorm ideas, create mind maps, or collaborate on collaborative digital art projects.
6. Interactive Presentations with Keynote Live: Turn presentations into interactive experiences. Keynote Live allows students to present their work in real-time to a broader audience, incorporating annotations, questions, and feedback directly on the slides for a dynamic and engaging learning environment.
7. Sketchnoting and Visual Thinking with Notes: Elevate note-taking by encouraging students to use the drawing tools in the Notes app or Keynote to create visual summaries of key concepts, sketch diagrams, or design characters for their stories, enhancing their learning and understanding through visual representation.
8. Video Reports with Clips: Instead of writing a traditional report, students can create a video trailer or review using the Clips app. This allows them to be more creative and engaging while still demonstrating their understanding of the topic.

These are just a few ideas to get you started. Remember, the goal is to inject short bursts of creativity into your existing curriculum, not add to your workload. By incorporating these quick and easy strategies, you can help your students and yourself overcome the post-Thanksgiving slump and recapture the energy in the push to winter break.

Widgets on the Desktop in macOS Sonoma

As soon as you are able to update your district-assigned MacBook Air laptop to macOS version 14, also known as "Sonoma," you will have access to all the operating system’s new features. One new feature you might find useful in the classroom is Widgets that are available all the time on the macOS Desktop in Sonoma.

Widgets are small, specific-feature apps that give you information or can perform a task with just one click. My favorite Widget is Weather, but I also use the Clock widget for 1-click access to timers, the Notes widget to get quick access to notes from my Notes app, and a few others.

After updating to macOS Sonoma, setting up Widgets on your Desktop is easy. Just click the time in the upper-tight corner of your Desktop screen, and then click Edit Widgets at the bottom of the Notification Center. You can still add Widgets in the Notification Center, but now you can drag them on to your Desktop and see them all the time. 

The Widgets you add on the Desktop appear dimmed and out of the way until you click them to interact with them. For example:

• Add a Clock widget and click it once to set a timer.
• Add a News widget to see headlines on a curricular topic and click a story to open it.
• Add a Weather widget for Barrington and/or the village where you live to see the current weather conditions and click it to see the extended forecast and more information.
• Add a Notes widget with a to-do list and click it once to access the note.

If the Apple ID you are using on your district-assigned laptop is also being used on your district-assigned iPad (and/or other devices), the selection of Widgets you can choose will allow you to see information across all your devices. 

To learn more about Widgets in macOS Sonoma using Apple’s resources, check out this Apple Support article:

Use widgets on your Mac desktop

If you want to learn more about using the Notification Center (also mentioned in this article), check out this resource from Apple:

Use Notification Center on Mac