Don’t Forget About Clever

This is a friendly reminder that you and your students have single sign-on (SSO) into many important district resources in your personalized Clever Portal. Over time, P-CCS will continue to Log in at https://clever.com/in/pccs – make sure to bookmark this – and start saving time.

Aside from SSO for you and your students, and as the district moves forward using Clever for easy access to all of our digital resources, you will find additional benefits from using Clever with your students. Resources include now in clever: Brainpop and Brainpop Jr. IXL, Code.org, and many more. Also, remember that you can create your own bookmarks for your students similar to Symbaloo in Clever.

As always, if you have any questions, please put in a tech request or email tis@pccsk12.com

 

 

Video Making Resources for Home Learning

The following resources will help you connect with your students using video. Please look for an email from the Tech Integration Team with more about how to connect with students at home. These resources will get you started.

YouTube Help Center

Flipgrid: info.flipgrid.com

Communicate and collaborate with a group of people through video. Can send links through already established communication platforms (Email, etc.) *Here are some examples of how Flipgrid can be used.*(Can be accessed when free account has been created)

Screencastify: www.screencastify.com

This app allows you to upload video to Google Drive, distribute the link via email or other established platform. The free version of Screencastify has a 5 minute limit, autosaves to Google Drive to be easily shared there or it can be easily uploaded to YouTube. Due to COVID-19, Screencastify premium is free for all users. Use this doc to set up premium account. One of the notable features of the premium service is no time limit for recordings. But please keep best practices in mind and try to limit videos to 10-13 minutes at a max.

A Beginner’s Guide to Screencastify for Educators (and others too)

Google Teach From Home Resource

Teaching from home is going to require a different approach in these unprecedented times. The good news is that these tech skills are not just for a pandemic, but will actually be really valuable in and out of our classrooms for our students, and can help support learning even when our classroom routine returns to a normal school day. Please be sure to follow this link for an amazing resource Google has built to help us through these challenging times: https://teachfromhome.google/intl/en/

A couple of upcoming GSuite features to note

GSuite updates

Available soon, it will be possible to create and use multiple signatures in Gmail as well as fix images to a certain location on a page in Google Docs.

For more on creating and using multiple signatures, visit here (and check out what it looks like in the gif below).

use multiple signatures in Gmail

 

For more on fixing images to a certain location on a page in Google Docs, visit here (and check out what it looks like below).

Fixed image in Google Doc
Fixed image in a Google doc

Registration now open for free virtual courses offered by REMC in April

Springtime is finally here! For those interested, it’s time to enroll in a free REMC Virtual Course and earn 10 free SCECHs. To see a description of the courses offered and to register, visit https://www.remc.org/Core/News/Article/1337.

April 2020  Course Information
April courses begin on Monday, April 6.  The deadline for registration is Friday, April 3.  

A word about our classroom soundfield systems

sample soundfield install

We have about a thousand classrooms that have speakers installed in their ceilings and our department still occasionally finds it valuable to reiterate some points about them and promote system use in general.

First, both of the soundfield amplification systems deployed (TeachLogic at the elementary and Lightspeed at the secondary) are meant to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and spatially amplify our teachers’ voices (or teacher determined sound sources) above the ambient noise in our classrooms through speaker distribution. However, the system is designed not so a teacher should expect they will be able to hear themselves be louder, but rather that their voice should be heard at the same level further away from themselves Our amplification systems can help facilitate an even spread of sound (that a teacher has chosen, via a source such as a microphone or laptop) around a classroom. If you’re hearing screeching or other feedback, try dialing back your volume control — it is probably set too high.

Second, please note that classroom amplification can benefit ALL children, not just those with severe-profound hearing losses. Other groups shown to benefit from amplification include: children with minimal or unilateral hearing loss, children with transient hearing loss due to ear infections, children with ADD/ADHD, English language learners, and students in the general population!  Research studies over the last forty years uniformly have found academic (enhanced student speech perception, improved attention and comprehension, etc) and social (calmer environments, reduced teacher vocal abuse, etc) benefits from consistent and persistent system use.

Third, our soundfields are only useful when they are being used! So please have our systems on and wear/use your mics.

 

Sound field explained

iKeepSafe – Free Student Data Privacy Online Courses for Educators

iKeepSafe Courses
The Michigan Department of Education has partnered with EduPaths, Michigan’s FREE online professional development portal for educators, and the Internet Keep Safe Coalition (iKeepSafe) to bring four online courses centered around student data privacy to Michigan Educators. The courses cover the necessary information all educators must know in order to keep student data safe in an increasingly digital learning environment, including educators’ legal requirements related to student data privacy.
The iKeepSafe courses are 30 minutes each and self-paced, allowing educators to enroll and complete the courses at a convenient time and place. FREE SCECHs are also available for the courses through EduPaths.
All Michigan educators can create a free account on EduPaths and access the courses at the links below: