“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” -Kurt Vonnegut

EDITION SISD Students Do the Robot Teams from 6 SISD elementary campuses, JFS, & AJB competed in the TCEA Area 13 Robotics competition in Austin on January 17.

More than 60 SISD students left Seguin bright and early the morning of January 17th to travel to Austin for the Texas Computer Education Association Area 13 robotics competition. The kids’ buses were followed by a remarkable caravan of supporters, including parents, teachers, and administrators.

For the vast majority, this was the first experience at a robotics competition. TCEA robotics consists of 2 events. Arena pits teams against one another to put their robots through a series of challenges on a large, wooden arena. Invention challenges students to construct an invention

February 2015 Seguin Independent School District Digital Learning Services

Weinert 5th Graders Build Shakeybots & STEM Skills!

Weinert students had a blast applying the engineering design process as they built “shakeybots” during an interactive video connection with the Ft. Worth Museum of Science and History in December. If interested in opportunities like this for your students, contact your TC, librarian, or Randy Rodgers.

SISD Students Do the Robot

Mobile Device Photo Competition! When? Tech Fair, May 9; entries due April 3

Theme: Imagine

Awards for students in PK-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12 and teachers/staff!

Images must be taken on a cell phone, iPad, or similar mobile device—no traditional film/digital cameras.

Participants may enter up to 3 images.

Images can be digitally edited, color, or black & white

Email medium-to-high resolution entries with photographer’s full name, grade, and device used for the photo to photocontest@seguin.k12.tx.us

(continued from page 1) Both competitions use Lego EV3 robotics sets and the

same basic goals for all teams, but the approaches

teams take are as unique as the competitors themselves.

Robotics challenges involve huge amounts of planning,

trial-and-error, and creative problem-solving, all while

under the spotlight and pressure of a competition.

Arena teams compete for 2 hectic minutes, then return

to the pits to hurriedly make modifications and

adjustments before their next attempt. Invention competitors must show and

explain their invention before a panel of judges and be

prepared to answer any and all questions they may

have.

Besides just being incredibly fun, robotics

promotes or teaches students critical modern-day skills,

such as collaboration, problem identification and

solving, communication, persistence, and creativity. It

is also rich in math, science, and even

language arts (reading, writing,

and speaking).

For the

record, all teams did very

well, getting higher scores as the rounds went on.

Saegert had 2 teams in the top 4, with Team 3

earning a bronze medal in Arena. Congrats to all of

the students for creating a legacy as SISD’s first competitive robotics engineers!

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Little Library Sightings in Seguin?

On a blustery afternoon in mid-January, a group of roughly 25 folks gathered in a Seguin neighborhood to dedicate the city’s newest library. This library, on Lone Oak Street on the north side of town, didn’t cost millions, and neither will its collection. Rather, the new library is the latest among thousands of “Little Free Libraries” popping up around the country. The Little Free Library on Lone Oak is the product of work by local community members who want to promote reading and literacy in Seguin. In November, Patlan librarian Sarah Hall initiated a conversation with several

fellow Seguinians (I am thinking about trademarking that term.) about the possibility of bringing LFL to Seguin. She got a very enthusiastic response from several groups, including the TLU library and Seguin Public Library board. In very short order, he result was that the first of several planned Little Free Libraries was dedicated on January 13. The rules for Little Free Libraries are simple. Visitors may either take books or leave books. There is not requirement that a book be returned after being read, although doing so does help foster the program’s goals and support its spirit. A caretaker monitors the content and ensures the LFL is being kept in good shape. Currently, there are firm plans in the works to have Little Free Libraries in

at least 6 more Seguin locations, with another half dozen or more in the early planning stages. If you are interested in having a LFL in your neighborhood, helping with construction, donating books, or would just like to find one and grab a few books, contact your campus librarian or visit and like Seguin’s Little Free Libraries Facebook page.

Better (Than) PowerPoint Here are some tools that make PowerPoint more power-packed or offer improved alternatives to doing yet another PowerPoint.

• Slideshare – Upload your PowerPoints to the cloud to share with a global audience. Visitors can comment or leave questions, download presentations, or embed them into other websites.

• eMaze – Very cool, new presentation tool that offers some AMAZING 3D presentation options, such as displaying “slides” as works of art in a 3D art gallery tour. Like Slideshare, presentations are online & viewable by a worldwide audience.

• Haiku Deck – Beautiful, simple-to-make online slide shows. Also has a free companion app for creating on tablets. Best part may be the image tool, which accesses public domain images from across the web—less worrying about copyright issues.

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Welcome to the New Guy: Nolbert Garcia, District Technologist February brings another new team member to SISD Technology: Nolbert Garcia. Nolbert comes to Seguin from AirUp and, previously, Citigroup, where he worked in the help desk. He currently serves in his 15th year in the US Army Reserve. He is married to a NBISD 3rd grade science teacher and has a 16-year old daughter and 7-year old son. He is pumped to be in Seguin, so be sure to welcome him when he is on your campus! STaR Chart—Crushed It! Can you say 100%? Huge, giant thanks to every single one of you who completed this year’s STaR Chart technology assessment—you are awesome! Summer Tech Conference Stay tuned for news about the SISD Summer Technology Conference. Construction at the high school will be shuffling

things a bit, but news and presenter applications will be coming as soon as details are firmed up.

Make plans to join the Seguin ISD community at IMAGINE, the 2015 Technology & Innovation

Celebration, May 9 at Jim Barnes Middle School!