Author: Mark Salzer

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

Strategy: BrainPOP Movie Engagement

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.

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.

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.

BrainPop’s January 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 some of what’s in their latest newsletter.

— One of 2021’s Webby Awards in the Education category honoree’s National Geographic’s MapMaker empowers learners to explore Earth’s interconnected systems through a collection of curated basemaps, data layers, and annotation tools.

— The Blue Marine Foundation’s The Sea We Breathe is an interactive online project that won an FWA (Favorite Website Award of the month) earlier this year. Dive into 3 immersive underwater journeys and discover why a healthy ocean means a healthy planet.

— Perhaps for some lower elementary students using the interactive flat panels, this story of a little bird crossing the river that also won an FWA.

— Fingerspelling.xyz uses Hand Tracking & Machine Learning to help teach the ABCs in American Sign Language. Created together with the American Society for Deaf Children (also an FWA noted site).

— Google’s Internet Saathi project highlights stories of women breaking cycles of inequality (FWA cited).

— Solve artistic jigsaw puzzles together with family and friends in this Google Arts and Culture experiment 

PHOTOS ONLINE — The following are just some of the sites that house collections of photos from the past year. One or more might serve as a conversation starter in your learning environment.

The Guardian’s best photographs of 2021 – and the stories behind them 

AlJazeera’s 2021 In Pictures: The best photos from around the world

TIME’s Top 100 Photos of 2021

My Modern Met’s Best of 2021: Top 50 Photographs From Around the World

National Geographic’s top photos and stories from 2021

25 of 2021 NORTHERN LIGHTS PHOTOS

By logging into our SMART system’s web interface at https://smart.resa.net/ staff can view their eEmployee information, including payroll and attendance and soon be able to input certain health information. An earlier blog post noted that as of this past July, two factor authentication was being enforced (see https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WtHg2tbpkhZRPFg4UJVOITZByKxgUnCN/view?usp=sharing for guidance).

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The information below is meant to assist THOSE STAFF who HAVE NOT logged into SMARTweb before.

Register as a First Time User

To sign on to eEmployee, log into: http://smart.resa.net.
The first time you login, you will need to register. Click the “Register if you haven’t already” link.

The following screen will come up. Start typing our district name (Plymouth-Canton) in the District box and select our district from the list that comes up. Then, enter your birth date and either the last four digits of your Social Security Number OR your Employee ID number and click Confirm.

After you click confirm, the screen below will come up to set your password. The Password Policy set by our district will be shown. Key in your password twice and click Reset.

Forgot Password??
Employees
From the login screen, fill in your User Name and District (start typing our district name in the District box and select our district from the list) and then click on “Forgot Your
Password.

You will then be prompted to set a password. The Password Policy requirements for our district will be listed. After keying in your password and confirming it, click reset.

Forgot Username??
From the login screen, fill in our District (start typing our district name in the District box and select our district from the list) and then click on “Forgot Your Username.”

The following screen will come up. Start typing our district name in the District box and select our district from the list that comes up. Then, enter your birth date and either
the last four digits of your Social Security Number OR your Employee ID number and click Confirm.

The Ditch That Textbook Digital Summit hosted by Matt Miller promises valuable knowledge from top innovators AND tips you can implement immediately. All videos — more than 70 — will be available in December and early January. Like any other conference, when it’s over, it’s over and the videos will disappear. Speaker videos last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. They’re practical and inspirational, from hand-picked education leaders. Each video is accompanied by a PDF notes page summarizing the message. Download the notes, share, and keep them as long as you want.

To get a flavor for what might be shared, check out some past Ditch Summit Sketchnotes created by Jen Giffen (@virtualgiff) below: