Welcome to the new PCCS Tech Website and Blog!

Welcome to the new PCCS Tech blog!  We are excited to announce a new way of getting important tech updates and a new way of searching for resources that you have access to. Now, instead of a long newsletter quarterly, a curated collection of blog posts will come to your Gmail inbox each week! We hope this is a more digestible and more immediate way of disseminating information from the Tech Department.

Based on your feedback, we also made a new Tech website that is easy for you to navigate and more responsive to your needs: https://tech.pccsk12.com

One thing you’ll notice right away is the streamlined look of the site. We’d like to think that the most important feature of the website is the Resources Page.  The most exciting part is how easy it is to search for resources based on your particular needs. So, you can search by grade level, device type, Danielson Domain, or subject, helping you narrow down the resources you have available to you as subscribed to by the district, or other resources that are free!  This will be easier than a Google search!

Furthermore, you will be auto-subscribed to our blog and website update that will be tailored to your grade level, so you don’t see the information you don’t need, thus saving you time…and who couldn’t use more time?

Google Removes Apps from Chrome Web Store

If you haven’t noticed already, Google Apps are no longer available in the Chrome Web Store. Google has phased them out and has had plans to soon announce Progressive Web Apps (PWAs).  PWAs will function just like apps on your desktop with icons that can be launched from your desktop just like a conventional program or app.  More on this to come, but in the meantime, the only way to get a Chrome Web App is through a direct link from a software provider’s website or via a link that is still present in your already added Chrome Apps Launcher.  To read more, click here.

Discovery Education Streaming Alternatives

At the end of the 2017-2018 school year, we relayed messaging from Wayne RESA that we would be the benefactors of a free version of Discovery Streaming via REMC of Michigan. Unfortunately, the information relayed to us was incorrect, and we recently learned that only the Health content will be available with our new login. Since we did not seek budget approval for a Discovery Streaming subscription based on this info, we will not have access to Discovery Streaming any longer. But we have GREAT news!

There are MANY great alternatives to Discovery Streaming and we have curated some of the best right here:

PBS Learning Media – Teacher
PBS Learning Media – Student
WatchKnowLearn
YouTube
Khan Academy


If you are using YouTube, we would highly recommend using ViewPure to show videos to your students. The link for the YouTube video can be placed in ViewPure and that link can be either viewed whole class or sent out via Google Classroom or other Learning Management System such as Edmodo, Moodle, or Seesaw for your students’ viewing safety.

IPEVO Software Changes for Middle School Staff

Please note that IPEVO Presenter, the software currently installed on your HP ProBook is legacy software that is no longer supported with updates or fixes. IPEVO has since released a new software “IPEVO Visualizer” for our document cameras that is more optimized. IPEVO Visualizer works with all of our document cameras and is available for download here.

To learn more about the new features, including streaming to YouTube Live, see this documentation: https://www.ipevo.com/ipevo_presenter