#BRESA Tech Talk

September 2017 Dear Michigan Teachers, Parents, and Students: Welcome to the 2017-18 school year! As everyone heads back to school, the Michigan eLibrary (MeL) wants to remind everyone that MeL is your go-to resource! Students of all ages can go to MeL.org to find eBooks and articles to read, conduct research, prepare for high stakes tests like the SAT®, or maintain/improve basic skills. Watch our Back to School video at https://goo.gl/tXcoii . MeL provides all Michigan residents free access to quality, vetted subscription databases that can be used all year. Resources are available 24/7 and are mobile compatible. Quality resources and weblinks are organized in convenient portals. For children from birth to 5th grade, MeL Kids ( kids.mel.org ) has four centers that will help support and build basic skills such as reading and math. For the older students in grades 6 through 12, MeL Teens ( teens.mel.org ) offers a wealth of resources to not only maintain and build basi

Like many of you I was school shopping this past week and purchasing requested supplies.  One of those requested was a pack of reinforced paper.  Yep, there is such a thing.  I taught for 15 years and did not even realize this was a thing!   Apparently this is paper that has a reinforced margin surrounding the three hole punch to help it last longer.  This longer life is useful when students take notes throughout the year.   But I think if your school, like many, has devices for students and uses Google Apps for Education then I have a better way - Google Slides. The key to using Google slides to create a digital notebook is to resize the slide dimensions to 8.5 x 11 to mimic conventional paper.   This can be completed under the 'file' menu and selecting page setup.  The default size of the slides is 'widescreen 16:9' but if you select custom you can resize the slides to any size you would like. Once completed, the template is set.  Each slide that you add w