AI Task Force Update - Student-Facing AI Tools for TODAY!

This year, our AI (Artificial Intelligence) Task Force—made up of Grades 3–12 teachers, instructional coaches, building leaders, and district staff—has been exploring student-facing AI tools that pair well with Brisk, our teacher-facing AI tool.

After months of research, pilots, and conversations, we’re excited to introduce two tools we believe have real potential to improve teaching and learning. All staff and students can access both tools TODAY!

🤿 Snorkl

Snorkl helps students get real-time feedback on their thinking in math and writing. Students write or draw their responses while verbally explaining their thinking, and Snorkl gives instant, standards-aligned feedback on what’s working and where to revise. Teachers can guide the process and review student progress, but students stay in the driver’s seat—reflecting, revising, and improving at their own pace and with as many tries as it takes.

You can learn more about Snorkl, including how to get started, here.

🤖 Brisk for Students

Brisk for Students builds upon the existing teacher-facing tools found in the Brisk Chrome extension to give students in-the-moment support with conventions, organization, clarity, and more in their writing. It’s like a coach sitting beside them, offering nudges and suggestions as they write. Teachers stay in control of the prompts and feedback focus, aligning it with specific learning goals and gaining visibility into how students use the AI bot for support.

You can learn more about Brisk, including how to get started, here.

We are ready for all staff and students to access these tools next school year in 2025–26. We will continue to explore new AI tools as they emerge and mature. 

Residency Checks Begin in April 2025

The Student Information Services Team will be working on Residency checks in early April 2025. 

Thomson Reuters CLEAR is a software tool that helps the district research and investigate data that has been provided by parents/guardians to the District. This system is used by law enforcement, school districts, and other organizations to prevent fraud. 

Notifications will be sent to families who do not pass the electronic verification process prior to the opening of 2025–26 Online Registration.

Barrington 220 Boundary Map

. 

Barrington 220 Managed Apple IDs

Barrington 220 will soon be providing managed Apple IDs for use by staff and students. Your Apple ID is the key to accessing additional Apple services, especially the Collaboration features among key apps such as Pages, Keynote, and Numbers.

These new Apple IDs will be tied to staff and student district email addresses. We are aware that staff and students have used their Barrington 220 email address to create personal Apple IDs, and Apple has a process to address these situations that we will roll out in the coming weeks.

There are some key differences between managed Apple IDs and personal Apple IDs:

Feature	Personal Apple ID	Managed Apple ID
Who Creates It?	User	School/District Tech Team
iCloud Storage	5GB free (+ paid options)	50GB free
Device Access	Any Apple device	School-managed devices
App Store Purchases	Allowed	Not allowed
Apple Music	Yes	No
Find My Device	Yes	No
Family Sharing	Yes	No
Collaboration	Yes, with iCloud Drive	Yes, within school network
Password Control	User-managed	School-managed

Managed Apple IDs enhance data security, provide centralized app and service management, and enable collaboration for staff and students in Apple apps such as Pages, Keynote, and Numbers.

More details will soon be shared with staff and students regarding our managed Apple IDs, including how staff and students can update their personal Apple ID if it currently uses a district email address.

Stay tuned…

New iPad and MacBook Air Devices Coming Soon!

The Board of Education voted on March 31, 2025, to enter new leases to update Barrington 220’s iPad devices and MacBook Air laptops for staff and students. These devices will continue to support our district’s One to World program that provides iPad devices to all students, allowing access to real-world learning experiences while supporting our mission to empower personal excellence in every learner. The new leases follow the district’s lease cycles established back in 2019 where we keep our iPad devices for 3 years and laptops for 4 years.

Over time, the Tech & Innovation Department has learned that the lease cycles we use represent a “sweet spot” in allowing our students and staff to use current technology, maintain strong asset recovery pricing, and allow the Tech Team to efficiently support a fewer number of devices. Notably:

• Our devices are fully supported by Apple and are able to run the most current operating systems (including mission-critical security updates).
• Students and staff are able to use new hardware-dependent features within a predictable timeframe.
• All students and staff devices have access to the same devices and features.
• Asset recovery (sell-back pricing) has returned approximately 25% of the original device cost back to the district budget when we sell our used devices to third-party services at the end of our leases.

The 2025–26 school year represents the first time in the past decade where both of our major leases (iPad and laptop) are renewed at the same time. While this timing challenges the Tech Team to swap all our devices within a few months, we will provide a detailed plan to complete the implementations soon after the delivery and setup of our new devices. 

The specifications for our new devices are as follows:

iPad

• A16 processor (Generation 11)
• Silver, 11-inch display, Wi-Fi, 128GB storage
• iPad Accessories
• STM Dux Plus Case for iPad A16 (red, includes Logitech Crayon/Apple Pencil storage)
• Logitech Crayon for iPad (USB-C)

MacBook Air

• M4 processor
• Silver, 13.6-inch display
• 10-core CPU/8-core GPU, 16GB unified memory, 256GB SSD storage

"Let's Try It!" Classroom Update - Notebook LM in Grade 3

We introduced “Let’s Try It!” classrooms in this newsletter and blog last month to promote and support environments where students and teachers feel safe to explore and experiment with new ideas.

Grade 3 teacher Michelle Kulwin and instructional coach Jen Parisi jumped right in—trying out Notebook LM, a free tool from Google (currently restricted to staff) that uses AI to help users generate insights, ask questions, and summarize content from connected resources like YouTube videos, Google Docs, etc. It’s designed to support deeper thinking, reflection, and planning.

Michelle and Jen uploaded student essays along with standards and a rubric, then prompted Notebook LM to generate feedback—one essay at a time. With a single click, they used the Audio Overview feature to create 5–6 minute audio tracks for each student group. The tracks feature two AI-generated voices offering detailed, thoughtful commentary on their shared writing. 

💡 What happened next?

• Students locked in.
• They paused, re-listened, and reflected.
• They revised their essays—using the feedback in meaningful ways.

It was a powerful example of how the right tool can deliver timely, meaningful feedback that helps students grow as writers.

Thank you to Michelle Kulwin and Jen Parisi for stepping up to be the first "Let's Try It!" classroom. 

Who's next?

To get started or propose your own "Let's Try It!" classroom idea, please email me at jjrobinson@barrington220.org.

Let's try it!

Technology Support Bits and Bytes

A "bit" is the smallest unit in computing, representing a single binary value, whereas a "byte" comprises 8 bits. In this tech support context, a bit is a single support idea, while a byte includes a few more details to enhance your technology-use experience.

Bit: Reboot Your Computer Often

The longer you go between reboots (restarting your computer), the more likely it is that your computer's OS or a computer application will begin misbehaving. So please, reboot your computer weekly to keep things running smoothly. To reboot, pull down the Apple menu in the upper-left corner of the screen and select Restart...

Bit: Back Up Your Data

You never know when that cup of coffee might end up seeping between the keys on your keyboard and into the delicate circuitry of your laptop making it unusable. Make sure you're keeping your important files on your Google Drive so should you need to recover from such a catastrophe, the pain can be kept to a minimum.

Bit: Update Your Computer

The more often you update your computer, the less time each update takes, so don't procrastinate. Update your computer as soon as a new update becomes available and avoid the annoying reminders—or the dreaded locking of your computer.

Byte: Use Your Browser for Video Conferencing

There are several options for video conferencing—Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Webex Meetings—just to name a few. Barrington 220 staff are licensed to use Zoom for creating meetings. When you join a Zoom meeting you can use the Zoom client on your computer or iPad since the district offers that software in Self Service and helps you keep it up-to-date. 

When someone else sets up a meeting using one of the other options, you need to use your browser to join the meeting. Please don't try to download software for Teams or Webex, etc.—simply join the meeting in your browser, which is the quickest and easiest way to join. You may continue to use the Zoom client for Zoom meetings.

Infinite Campus Messenger 2.0 Last Call for Training

We will be wrapping up our final trainings on Infinite Campus Messenger 2.0 in April 2025. Please reach out to Linda Ryan, lryan@barrington220.org if you are still in need of training. Access to Messenger 1.0 will end in June 2025 as Campus retires Messenger 1.0.