MISTAR Release 3.9.1 Highlights

Mistar Q

The latest release of our student information system (SIS) MISTAR includes the following updates:

  1. Main Page Enrollment Widget: With this release, the procedure that is used to build the Main Page Enrollment Widget has been updated to include a count for ‘Other’ for students who are neither ‘M’ nor ‘F’. The new field is now visible in the Widget Editor.

MISTAR 1

  1. In Student Profile, when the phone icon in the banner is clicked (1) and ‘Show Student Contacts’ detail is displayed:
  • The Contact PIN now displays in the detail shown (2)
  • It is now possible to choose to also include email addresses for the Student, Counselor, or Advisor when clicking an email link for a Contact. This setting will be remembered when navigating from one student to another (3).

MISTAR 2

 

  1. The Student Pronoun field was added to the Roster tab–If a student has pronouns added to MISTAR they will appear in the student pronoun field in the Roster Tab.
  2. Mass Email will now check and warn if the user is attaching a file too large to upload.  

MISTAR 4

 

  1. Parents and Guardians can now retrieve their PIN and reset their Password from the login page of Parent Connection:

MISTAR 5

Highlights from the March Google for Education newsletter

Women in Culture

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

A growing number of BrainPOP Movies Now have “Pause Points”

BrainPOP has launched Pause Points in their top 50 movies with more coming soon! These grade-leveled, standards-aligned question sets are embedded into the BrainPOP movie experience for more scaffolding and active learning across the curriculum.

Read their latest blog article to discover 3 Effective Ways to Use Pause Points in Daily Instruction.

With the addition of Pause Points, students now have new opportunities to stop, think, and express their ideas about what they’re learning on BrainPOP—making movie-viewing a truly interactive experience in your classroom.

What Are Pause Points?

Pause Points are questions and prompts that activate students’ background knowledge, while build subject-specific vocabulary. Every Pause Point scaffolds concepts and skills within a topic that align to grade-level standards. Formats include:

  • Multiple Choice: Check for understanding while practicing standardized test-type questions.
  • Open-Ended: Type, speak, or draw responses.
  • Reflection Points: Prompts provide additional information or summarize key ideas to support understanding.

 

BrainPOP Pause Points

Free Illuminate DnA Professional Development Sessions for SY 2021-2022

Illuminate DnA PD courses

For those interested in furthering your DnA knowledge and skills, all of the training sessions offered are free of charge and most are virtual.

Please click on the link to view and register for the following Illuminate DnA virtual PD sessions (the descriptions of a few are shown below) and there are still more offered that aren’t listed below:

  • Creating and Administering Assessments in Illuminate DnA
    • This hands-on session will teach participants who to create and administer various types of assessments available in Illuminate DnA including Skills Assessments, Flexible Assessments, Item-Bank Assessments, online testing, and paper/pencil testing.
  • Creating Summary Assessments & Custom Reports for Beginner
  • Creating the Individual Reading Improvement Plan (IRIPs) and Other Form Letters
    • Illuminate DnA provides powerful tools to support literacy assessments and data analysis. In this session, participants will explore the 3rd grade reading legislation and consider methods for tracking and reporting early literacy data using the form letter option with their district’s existing IRIP letter. Participants can also bring other letters or forms they wish to pre-populate using the data stored in DnA. Multiple resources will be shared along with time for hands-on exploration.
  • DnA Tips and Tricks
    • This hands-on session will focus on how to quickly navigate Illuminate DnA, access help guides and training videos, locate students, student profiles, and more.
  • Effective Use of Reports & Data in Illuminate to Support Continuous Improvement
  • Illuminate DnA Open Lab AM and PM Sessions

Some recent Zoom updates

Zoom Updates

Customise Zoom waiting room with video – Hosts can add a video when customizing the appearance of the waiting room in the web portal. Participants in the waiting room can view the video while waiting for the host to admit them into the meeting.

Updates to the Zoom Windows Desktop Client

Meeting/Webinar Features

  • Enable Blur Background during a meeting – Users can quickly blur their backgrounds during a meeting, without needing to access their Zoom client settings. The Blur My Background option is available from the start/stop video menu in the main toolbar, the 3-dot menu on the user’s video tile, and by clicking anywhere on your video image. The option is also available on the self-preview screen before the user enters a meeting. This option is available for Windows and macOS.
  • Manage breakout rooms after launch – The host or co-host that launched the breakout rooms, as well as the original host, can now rename, create, and remove rooms while they are in use. To adjust breakout rooms while they are open, this option must be enabled for your account by Zoom and turned on in your Breakout Room settings. All meeting participants must also be running version 5.9.3 or higher. Learn more about managing breakout rooms on the Zoom Support Site.

New Staff Laptops FAQs

FAQs for laptops

We have added a section in our FAQ page to address questions surrounding the new laptops. As the school year continues, we plan to offer responses to other frequently asked questions we hear within this same site.

Visit our FAQs Page

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.