Just out, the October newsletter offers details on 10 free virtual courses, Teaching Strategies for Virtual and Blended Learning Environments webinars and their FREE TOOLKIT: Election + Media Literacy

Two highlights are pasted below:

FREE WEBINARS: TEACHING STRATEGIES FOR VIRTUAL AND BLENDED LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

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FREE COURSES: WE’VE ADDED YOUR FAVORITE REMC COURSES TO NOVEMBER’S VIRTUAL COURSES LIST!

Google continues to add to its Arts and Culture site offerings https://artsandculture.google.com/

To celebrate World Tourism Day, Google Arts & Culture partnered with UNWTO so that, despite the current restrictions, educators and students can experience different cultures, from the safety of your desk. AR, StreetView tours, videos, and exhibits bring the world to you. Check it out HERE!

The first ever retrospective of this 15th Century Italian female artist at the National Gallery, London. Watch videos, painting tours and exhibits to find out about the life story, work, and heritage of a pioneering woman. Check it out HERE!

Please see the following documentation and video to understand how MISTAR and Canvas work together:

Click HERE for a step by step click doc. [Thanks to Erica Powell for these materials!]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMMztnnTexE

Google’s collaboration tool, Chat, was enabled for staff last month.

To learn more about using it via chat.google.com please see this support document.  

To learn more about using Google Chat in Gmail, please see this support document. 

For an overview of its features, please see this support document. 

For more on the consolidation, visit this support document.

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Staff have the following access: Chat // Google Chat is included in Gmail and works everywhere. Classic Hangouts works on web.

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Students have the following access:

elementary — Classic Hangouts only // Classic Hangouts is included in Gmail and works everywhere. All Chat clients are turned off.

middle — Classic Hangouts only // Classic Hangouts is included in Gmail and works everywhere. All Chat clients are turned off.

PCEP/Starkweather — Chat and classic Hangouts // Classic Hangouts is included in Gmail and works everywhere. Chat also works everywhere except Gmail

For future reference, these web pages report the current operational status and, in service interruptions/outages, restoration details for…

• BrainPop
• Canvas
• Clever
• District services
• DRC (MSTEP, WIDA)
• Google Apps
• Illuminate DnA
• MISTAR
• NWEA
• Seesaw
• Zoom

Some of the above listed services have free email alert notifications that you can subscribe to — ours is one of them http://links.pccsk12.com/techstatusnotify

Monarch – MISTAR Teacher Tools Training available September 2020 through January 2021.

You are invited to transform your use of MISTAR-Q by participating in Monarch, an online learning experience focused on the teacher tools and applications in MISTAR-Q.

As a participant, you will complete activities designed to increase your skill and knowledge of teacher apps such as Class Attendance, Grade Book, Seating Chart, generating reports, and more.

Working online from any device at your own time and pace, you will have until the end of January 2021 to complete the learning activities. As you finish missions and levels, you will earn digital badges in recognition of your learning. You may even want to create a friendly competition in your building/department!

Monarch is especially beneficial for teachers new to MISTAR-Q, and seasoned teachers will also benefit from participating. Technology integrators, technology coaches, paraprofessionals, intern teachers, secretaries, and building administrators may also participate to better understand and support the applications used by teachers.

Registration is open and on-going. This course is free. Register and start learning here.

 

Access over 5000+ Math, Social Studies and Science concepts (and free digital textbooks) that have been enriched by multiple modalities (text, video, assessment, and more) and add ’em to an existing Canvas course.

CK-12 is another tool that’s just been linked in Canvas to help staff find and assign high quality, free, teacher-created, and vetted STEM content without ever leaving Canvas.

To explore and/or sign up for a free teacher account visit https://www.ck12.org/teacher/ 

Here are two help desk articles for those interested:

How to CREATE CK-12 assignments in Canvas

How to COMPLETE CK-12 assignments in Canvas

For those unfamiliar with CK-12, consider checking out Common Sense Education’s review of the service.

 

Teachers planning to use Illuminate for testing should consider using QUICK CODE rostering for ONLINE TESTING. The Test in Portal process sometimes misses students due to schedule changes etc in the nightly refresh.

QUICK CODE Roster is the best way to give an online test in DnA. Quick Code gives the test administrator a seven digit code and a link that can be shared to students to take the test online virtually without accessing their DnA student portal.  The student will need to enter their student ID, the seven digit quick code, confirm their name and ID, take the assessment online, finish, and their results will automatically save in their portal.  This can be used for item bank, manual/hybrid, and flexible assessments.

Please check out the Illuminate University online video resource for DnA online testing administration using QUICK CODE Roster for a nice overview:

U351 – Online Testing Start to Finish Quick Code Roster

 

During the online testing administration, the teacher has the ability to live proctor the exam (unless it’s a new item bank exam; live proctoring is coming in the near future for new item bank assessments. ) For details, check out this training video:

U351- Live Proctoring & Monitoring Student Progress

 

Also, here’s a resource line for online testing using quick code roster:

https://support.illuminateed.com/hc/en-us/articles/223955208-online-testing-setup-using-a-quick-code

 

For other online testing resources, please check out Get Started with Online Testing as there are other topics you may want to check out.

Google’s collaboration tool, Chat, has been enabled for staff.

To learn more about using it via chat.google.com please see this support document.  

To learn more about using Google Chat in Gmail, please see this support document. 

For an overview of its features, please see this support document.