BrainPop’s March Teacher Lounge newsletter

BrainPop March newsletter

BrainPop’s March newsletter for K-12 instructional staff can be found HERE. 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.

Pics below show what’s in their March newsletter.

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March 2022

Dear Educators,

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

March also means Pi Day and springtime! Be sure to explore all of our collections in this issue of the Teachers’ Lounge.

BrainPop March newsletter pic 1 BrainPop March newsletter pic 2BrainPop March newsletter pic 3BrainPop March newsletter pic 4

Canva February News Items

Canva (not our LMS Canvas) has a monthly newsletter that includes new feature updates and tips for getting the most out of our enterprise-level Canva for Education tools. This month’s newsletter highlights include:

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New Student Activity Videos

We’ve launched handy video guides to help teachers deliver activities with their students in Canva. Explore all the ways students can creatively demonstrate learning with our large range of templates – from infographics, and videos, to comic strips, and more.Canva Videos

WATCH THEM HERE


Introducing Storybook Templates

Our newly launched storybook templates with character builders and resource pages are a fun, engaging, and creative way for students to create their own book! Choose a template, create characters and tell your story. VIEW TEMPLATES HERE

Canva Storybook


Video recording in Canva

Did you know you can record yourself in Canva? Explain a topic, share an update, or simply share your screen! Head over to the Videos tab and click Record Yourself to launch our editing studio. Choose to show yourself or make it a screen recording only, and apply filters and effects. Hit Record to get started.

LEARN MORE HERE

Canva Record


 

If you want to learn more about how Canva and Canvas integrate see our previous blogpost or enroll in the asynchronous Canvas course.

 

Elementary Teachers – Using IXL with Canvas

IXL integration with Canvas

In addition to accessing IXL via Clever, we have recently integrated IXL with Canvas to provide the following functionality (and more) within Canvas courses. 

Quick Launcher
Allows student to quickly access a few of the most valuable areas of IXL.com

Activity Selector
Allows teachers to create a direct links to an IXL skill, or the Diagnostic, from within Canvas

Activity Viewer/Launcher
Allows students or teachers to access an assigned IXL skill or Diagnostic

In sum, IXL’s integration with Canvas allows teachers to access IXL through Canvas and create activities using IXL skills or the Real-Time Diagnostic. Students can also access IXL through Canvas and navigate directly to certain sections of IXL, including skills or the diagnostic as selected by their teachers.

Check out the resources below to help you take full advantage of the integration features:

**Be on the look out for a synchronous, virtual training on IXL for our March 7 Professional Development day.**

(Thanks Bentley educator Kayleigh Gilo for the idea/encouragement to explore setting up this integration!)

Highlights from the February Google for Education newsletter

Google for Education Feb

Here are some highlights from the latest newsletter for your consideration.

REMC’s newsletter highlights & February Virtual Courses, earn 10 Free SCECHs

REMC February Courses

CS for All

CSforALL now has a monthly newsletter

Looking for ways to sharpen your skills in all things Computer Science?  Look no further than the CSforALL monthly newsletter. They offer a free subscription and the newsletter is filled with opportunities for students to engage with computer science, resources to bring computer science into your classroom and tools to engage and support learning.

READ MORE

21Things

21 Things 4 Students added to MERLOT.org

The REMC Association is pleased to share that 21 Things 4 Students was peer-reviewed by MERLOT.org and added as a link in their federated repository of learning projects. MERLOT only accepts the highest level of resources that meet a standard of high quality content, potential effectiveness as a teaching tool and ease of use.

READ MORE

2022 FEBRUARY REMC COURSES

Stay warm and learn something new! Take advantage of next month’s courses to learn new skills and tools to enhance your classroom.

February is a great time to learn in an instructor-led virtual course setting. REMC courses offer 10 free SCECHs, and are open to all Michigan school personnel.

Through the support of REMC SAVE’s vendor partners, all courses are FREE and there are no SCECH fees. You won’t want to miss out on these virtual courses that are a great way for educators to learn, connect, collaborate and grow from the convenience of their home.

Register by Friday, February 4th – Classes Begin Monday, February 7th

Check out February 2022 courses here:

Registration deadline is Friday, February 4th. You will receive a welcome email with the course login and other information prior to the start date. If you have questions or need further assistance with your registration, please contact Erin Rommeck, REMC Event Coordinator.

BrainPop’s Winter Tips

BrainPop’s Winter newsletter for K-12 instructional staff is found below.

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

Theme: Wellness and Resilience

Right now is an ideal time for educators and students to focus on skills that support mental health, teamwork, and perseverance. BrainPOP supports this need with our collection of SEL resources that offer detailed lesson plans for educators and encourage students to connect their stories to the stories of others.
BP SEL

Strategy: BrainPOP Movie Engagement

Before pressing play for the BrainPOP Movie, click ‘closed captioning’. Closed captioning encourages the class to read together, shows correct spelling, punctuation & sentence structure, and helps strengthen students’ vocabulary skills. Enjoy our playlist of BrainPOP ernels offering teaching tips and tricks in 90 seconds or less.
BP Modicifaction
BP Kernels

Explore: BrainPOP Modifications Chart

Meet various instructional needs in synchronous and asynchronous learning using the BrainPOP Modifications Chart. In Make-a-Movie students can explore on their own and create movies independently around concepts addressed after whole group instruction.
BP mods

Affordable Connectivity Program available for our families

ACP

Please share with our families information about the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), a continuation of the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) with a few changes.

  • From the FCC’s ACP website: https://www.fcc.gov/acp
    • The benefit provides a discount of up to $30 per month toward internet service for eligible households. Eligible households can also receive a one-time discount of up to $100 to purchase a laptop, desktop computer, or tablet from participating providers if they contribute more than $10 and less than $50 toward the purchase price. The Affordable Connectivity Program is limited to one monthly service discount and one device discount per household.
      • Eligibility
      • A household is eligible if a member of the household meets at least one of the criteria below:
      • Has an income that is at or below 200% of the federal poverty guidelines; or
      • Participates in certain assistance programs, such as SNAP, Medicaid, Federal Public Housing Assistance, SSI, WIC, or Lifeline;
      • Participates in Tribal specific programs, such as Bureau of Indian Affairs General Assistance, Tribal TANF, or Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations;
      • Is approved to receive benefits under the free and reduced-price school lunch program or the school breakfast program, including through the USDA Community Eligibility Provision in the 2019-2020, 2020-2021, or 2021-2022 school year;
      • Received a Federal Pell Grant during the current award year; or
      • Meets the eligibility criteria for a participating provider’s existing low-income program.
  • Let’s make sure eligible families in our community are aware of this federal subsidy that is fairly easy to sign up for. The EBB toolkit has been modified for the ACP, but still has all the printable resources needed to spread the word (in English and Spanish). Here’s the link to the ACP Toolkit website: https://www.fcc.gov/acp-consumer-outreach-toolkit.

Device Monitoring/Management Tools

Lanschool is a monitoring tool

LANSCHOOL This is a reminder that teachers in grades 2 through 8 can use LanSchool to monitor and manage the district Chromebooks their students are using.

For elementary and middle school teachers whose students use Chromebooks, the following linked directions will NOT apply to new teachers or those new to LanSchool.  If you are a new-to-the-district teacher OR if you did not install LanSchool in the past please first submit a service request asking for LanSchool so that a technician can assign you a channel to use when you run the installation: Service ticket

Please follow these directions ONLY if you have used LanSchool in the past: Click Here  While the directions have a lot of “clicks”, it should actually only take a couple of minutes to load and install.


APPLE CLASSROOM This is a reminder that teachers in lower elementary can use Apple Classroom to monitor and manage the district ipads their students are using. Please submit a service request asking for Apple Classroom training so that a technology integration specialist can further assist you: Service ticket


SECURLY HOME This is a reminder that OUR FAMILIES can now monitor/manage district take home ipads and Chromebooks internet usage by their student using SECURLY HOME. All take home participant families were emailed sign up details. There are no costs to our families to use this service. Using Securly Home, parents/guardians can monitor and restrict the content that their students can access on their district-issued devices. Here is a brief 90-second video for more information about Securly Home. Families can check out the FAQs on the Securly Home help site or submit a support ticket with Securly for further assistance.