Don't Lose Your Dongle!

My crafty, art teacher background comes in handy quite often. This time, it's helped me to come up with a way to keep my bluetooth dongles from being lost and/or forgotten after being plugged into a student chromebook! 

My littleBits code kits have a bluetooth dongle that needs to be plugged into the students' machines in order to function correctly. Well, despite numerous reminders and attempts at attention-getting signage, students would still leave the room with the dongle still plugged in. Other devices utilizing "dongle" technology include wireless mice, the keyboard for the Kano computer kit, and pretty much anything else that works wirelessly and needs an adapter to connect. 

By the way, I could totally call this a bluetooth adapter, but the word "dongle" is wayyyy more fun. And I teach middle school, so that's where my humor is at. Dongle it is then! 

So... I had some extra yarn lying around from the time I tried to crochet some Dot and Dash hats, so I decided to repurpose the leftovers into chunky tassels that I could attach to each individual dongle. I'm (pretty) sure no one will walk out of the room with a giant purple and gray yarn tassel attached to their chromebook... fingers crossed! 

Making a yarn tassel is fairly simple. I used a tutorial graphic found on Pinterest, much like this one below, to guide me:

via craftberry bush blog

Now, depending on the shape and size of your dongles, you may or may not be able to attach your tassel to it by simply tying. Mine are fairly small, so I utilized a combination of tying and hot glue to create a strong attachment between the two: 

It's basically a blob of hot glue over the yarn knot and around the plastic. You know, super fancy. Just be careful to leave the metal USB plug part intact with enough room so that it still plugs in completely.

Ta da! It's now infinitely more difficult to lose these babies! If you're feeling extra, try customizing your tassels to your school colors or create a color-coding system for your devices. Enjoy!

- Mrs L.

How I Use Pinterest Boards for Professional Development

I've been using Pinterest personally for years now... to save images of pretty homes, recipes, fashion, shopping wishlists, and the like. You probably have, too.

But it recently dawned on me that a Pinterest account - a "professional" Pinterest account, devoted solely to teaching - could be incredibly valuable for saving and organizing all of the great articles, websites, and resources that I access all of the time for teaching. It's also an awesome starting point for brainstorming new ideas and lesson plans, especially when it comes to using new technology and tools. Why re-invent the wheel if there are already a TON of awesome ideas to use as launching pads for using our class' Spheros, or Makey Makeys out there (and, for the record, there are!)?

Ok, some of you are probably thinking "uh, I've been doing this for AGES already..." in which case, sorry that I'm tardy to the party! One of my professional goals for the future is to move into an instructional tech coaching position, and I think that having all of my resources saved to different boards, organized by subject matter, makes information and idea gathering SO much easier! Even if I'm not currently teaching math, having a whole board of relevant resources about teaching math makes life easier in the future if I need to help out in that area and brainstorm some ideas. I'm not operating out of a total vacuum.

As I've mentioned before in previous posts, one of my passions in education is learning spaces and design for learning. Pinterest is a HUGE wealth of resources about this very topic! I love how simple it can be to find current content on the subject, as well as links to places to buy equipment, or DIYs to "hack" your own classroom space.

Check out my board on this topic here:



I'm also working on boards for specific subject areas: Math, ELA, Science, etc... and (as a former art teacher) I'm making sure to include "elective" areas, too! I've also got boards going for tech- and maker-space-related topics like tech tools, coding, LEGO, and video production.

Now, when I need to quickly come up with some ideas, I can reference a board that I've already been saving ideas and tips to in order to speed up the brainstorming process!

If you're on Pinterest, be sure to head on over and give me a follow so that I can find and follow you back! I'd love to swap ideas and inspiration with you!

-Mrs. L.