BrainPop’s March Teacher’s Lounge

BrainPop March 23 lounge

In honor of Women’s History Month, BrainPOP is proud to share the stories of inspirational women in the worlds of art, science, politics, education, and more—from the visionary architect Zaha Hadid to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

In March, they also celebrate Pi Day and springtime! Be sure to explore all of their collections in this issue of the Teachers’ Lounge.Screenshots below show what’s linked in the BrainPop’s March Teacher’s Lounge. Note there is now a multilingual movie player.

As a reminder, all district students, K-12 can access our paid subscription to BrainPop/BrainPop Jr via Clever at https://clever.com/in/pccs

BP 3 1BP 3 2BP 3 3

 

Canva – the Educator Must have tool!

Canva for Education is a free digital design tool in which students and teachers can create posters, websites, flyers, videos, collaborative whiteboards, documents, lesson plans, infographics, worksheets, and more! Canva works to make the process of design simplified so anyone can create!

As a P-CCS staff member or student you can access your free Canva account through the waffle. Just click on the Canva Icon!

You can also access Canva

  1. Through the Google dashboard at https://workspace.google.com/u/0/dashboard
  2. Sign in with Google on Canva’s website at https://www.canva.com/

 

Want to learn more about using Canva?

Matt Smoot, PCCS technology integration specialist, has designed 2 asynchronous Professional Developments in Canvas Catalog

Kasey Bell – Shake Up Learning – has a few blog posts (or podcast episodes if you prefer to listen!) about it too

 

Still want more? Put in a tech request for technology integration and Matt Smoot or Shannon Way are happy to help!

Read and Write Extension Update fixes Canvas Formatting Issue

Last week a blog post was sent out with information on the Read & Write extension tool causing formatting issues with Canvas. Texthelp(Read & Write) has released a hotfix to the chrome extension which fixes the formatting issue.

If you are still experiencing this formatting issue, we ask you attempt the following:

  1. Please restart your computer. By restarting the computer and reopening Chrome, the system will attempt to auto update the chrome extension. Please wait a couple of minutes before checking Canvas to see if formatting has been fixed.
  2. If Canvas still shows a formatting issue, you will need to force an update with the Read and Write extension.

This link will take you to a slide presentation that has step-by-step instructions to uninstall the chrome extension and reinstall

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vCRuv23hrPEBlyrM2g49hXtV4fr7adQpuXAXipHskpk/edit?usp=sharing

Please submit a tech ticket if you continue to have issues, or need assistance with the above instructions

Reminders for Semester 2/ Quarter 3 Canvas Courses

Publishing Canvas Courses

As a reminder, please publish your Semester 2/ Quarter 3 courses in Canvas.

  • Students only have access to Published courses.  If a course is Unpublished they will not see it on their dashboard. Please note that you if you publish a course you cannot unpublish a course after you have assigned something to a student.
  • Reminder: It is a contractual obligation to have your course published and an absent support page available to students/families.

Reminder: Customizing Your Canvas Dashboard

As the new semester has begun, some courses may look like they’re not on canvas, when really they’re just not on the Dashboard. Students and staff can all customize the dashboard to show only the courses they wish to see. To customize the teacher or student dashboard to show certain courses please see the graphic below:

Dashboard

 

 

Canvas Displaying Incorrectly? – Read for a Temporary Fix

Issue reported: Canvas displaying incorrectly!

 

 

If you’ve logged into Canvas and noticed an odd looking menu, extra spacing that shouldn’t be there, text not displaying correctly, you’re not alone. This issue is occurring due to a recent update to the Read and Write Extension from Google. Canvas and Google are working on fixing this glitch, but there is not yet a timeline on a fix.

Temporarily, to avoid display issues in Canvas, we recommend these options:

  • Staff can use the Microsoft Edge Browser instead of Chrome. When using Edge, there should be no display issues. If on a Mac, using Safari also presents no display issues.
  • Staff and students can turn off the Google Read and Write Extension when it is not needed.

How to turn off the Google Read and Write Extension: 

  1. Click on the 3 dots on the upper right of your chrome browser
  2. Select More Tools > Extensions
  3. Locate the ReadWrite extension
  4. Turn off the extension
  5. Refresh your page
  6. If you later need it, you can retrace your steps and re-enable it.

What’s new on IXL – January 2023

IXL New features

IXL has compiled a list of their top new features to help you students and staff get the most out of IXL.

Keep reading below for a roundup of releases from the past month, including video tutorials for English language arts skills, mobile support for IXL games, iPhone app support for the Real-Time Diagnostic, and more! To stay current with our latest updates, follow IXL on FacebookInstagramTwitterLinkedIn, and Pinterest.

Table of contents

Major releases

English language arts video tutorials

Lights, camera, action: English language arts video tutorials have arrived! IXL now has videos for nearly half of our pre-kindergarten and kindergarten Reading Foundations skills. These tutorials help students learn how to read in a fun, engaging, and effective way. They provide research-based direct instruction for early literacy skills like phonemic awareness, phonics, and sight words, and they align with the science of reading.

Like IXL’s math video tutorials, these videos can be accessed from the practice page of their associated skills by clicking the “Watch a tutorial” link. Check out a few examples below:

We will continue to release more pre-K and kindergarten videos in the coming months.

IXL ELA video tutorials

View Grades and Submissions for ‘Concluded’ Students in Canvas(Repost from January 2021)

This post is for teachers who do not “see” some of their students in Canvas because those students’ enrollments have ‘concluded’. Enrollments are concluded, for example, as students move from one school track to another (e.g. between Virtual and Safe Start schools). If you are unable to “see” some students, there are three areas in Canvas (via Grade or People in the Course Navigation Menu or via User Details) to do so. We recommend using the Grades option described below.

Option 1: Grades (in the Course Navigation Menu)

For concluded student enrollments, all content in the Gradebook is read only and cannot be changed. You will need to input any grades into MISTAR manually that weren’t already moved via grade passback when the student was still active.

To see the grades of students who have concluded their enrollment in your Canvas course, do the following:

Open Grades

options

concluded

view concluded

HINT: Be sure to drag the right side dividing line of the Student Name column so that you can see both the entire student name AND the label “concluded”.

The above guidance is from: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-view-grades-for-inactive-or-concluded-student/ta-p/753

Option 2: People (in the Navigation Menu)

As with the Gradebook, individual grades can also be viewed through this approach.

People

prior enrollments

prior enrollments more

 

Option 3: User Details

As with active students, you can review grades and other details of your concluded users. Please see https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-view-user-details-for-an-enrollment-in-a-course/ta-p/1216 for elaboration.