Welcome!

OnAirEd was created to share our school's process for using Google Hangouts On Air (HOA) to broadcast our morning announcements. My name is Elizabeth Mistretta. This is my first year as Evendale Elementary's principal. Before I became a principal, I was the assistant principal at Evendale for three years and a fourth grade teacher for six. I have always enjoyed discovering ways to make learning more engaging and my work more efficient using technology.


Our school has gone through a great deal of change this year. We started full day kindergarten, rezoned and received 100+ new students, and hired fifteen new teachers. In addition, I took on the role of principal and hired a new assistant principal. To accommodate full day kindergarten and the rezoning, two additions to total five new classrooms were constructed.

Once the new classrooms were ready to receive students, we discovered that cable was not included in the construction. My predecessor had delivered the morning announcements on a cable channel, and the absence of cable in the new classrooms left me with a problem to solve. How could we connect with all students each day in a way that is engaging and personalized? Going back to the PA system was not an option for us. It was not how I wanted to start the school year with my new staff and students. Our school had become accustomed to viewing the show each morning and we were not going back. This left us with only one option: figuring out how to deliver the Morning Show online.

I enlisted the help of our school's assigned instructional technology resource teacher (ITRT), +Jennifer Arey to help and we got to work! It has been a bumpy road to get to where we are today, (and the bumps will continue) but the results have been worth it. In subsequent posts, I will show you how to get your own Morning Show up and running using HOA. I will share our process and why it is what works for us right now. I'll also share other ways we are using Google Apps for Education and other technologies to connect with and engage our students, their families and the community. Please feel free to contact me with questions or ideas. Thanks for reading!