Author: Mark Salzer

We continue to populate new apps in Clever https://clever.com/in/pccs and have recently added CommonLit.

CommonLit is a nonprofit education technology organization working to support all students with reading, writing, communication, and problem-solving skills. The CommonLit Literacy Model is built on a foundation of over 2,000 high-quality free reading passages for grades 3-12, complimented by aligned interim assessments, growth oriented goals, and expert led teacher development. Teachers can assign Mini Units (short, self-paced thematic units for grades 5-12) and Text Sets (relevant reading passages from a variety of genres). Their blog for teachers reviews much more.

Check out the quick start guide for teachers, quick start guide for students, and the quick start guide for parents.

Are you a teacher that wants to set up your Clever classes on CommonLit? Scroll down to the subheader that most accurately describes you below:

1. I have never used CommonLit before.
2. I have a CommonLit account.

Directions: I have never used CommonLit before.

Once you click on the CommonLit icon in your Clever Portal, you’ll be brought to the screen below.

Since you’re new to CommonLit, select “No, not yet.” After asking you a few follow-up questions, we will create a new CommonLit account for you with all of your Clever classes and students.

You and your students will now be able to log in to CommonLit using Clever by clicking the CommonLit logo on your Clever dashboard, or by choosing “Log in with Clever” from CommonLit’s Login page. Plus, now Clever will regularly update your classes if any students are added or removed at any point throughout the school year.

Now that you’re all set up, do you want to learn more about how to use CommonLit? Check out this great video tour of CommonLit and our resources.

Directions: I have a CommonLit account.

Once you click on the CommonLit icon in your Clever Portal, you’ll be brought to the screen below.

Since you already have a CommonLit account, select “Yes, sign me in!”

We’ll then ask you to log in to your CommonLit account.

After logging in, we’ll import your classes and students from Clever into your CommonLit account.

You and your students will now be able to log in to CommonLit using Clever by clicking the CommonLit logo on your Clever dashboard, or by choosing “Log in with Clever” from CommonLit’s Login page. Plus, now Clever will regularly update your classes if any students are added or removed at any point throughout the school year.

Now that you’re all set up, do you want to learn more about how to use CommonLit Digital? Check out this great video tour of CommonLit and our digital resources.

Interested is some Zoom screen sharing tips? Check out this video for topics including: keyboard shortcuts (Alt+S) for sharing your Zoom screen, how to optimize Zoom screen sharing for video, how to share only a section of your Zoom screen, how to poll your Zoom participants, how to annotate your shared Zoom screen, and how to stop participants from annotating in Zoom.

 

In case your Google apps launcher (waffle) isn’t available or doesn’t show the app icons you were expecting, please consider browsing to your Google apps dashboard https://gsuite.google.com/dashboard instead or log in directly to the specific app, such as the three shown below, with the urls below.

CANVAS — https://pccsk12.instructure.com

 FRONTLINE —  https://login.frontlineeducation.com/sso/plymouthcanton 

   ZOOM — https://pccsk12.zoom.us/signin   OR   https://zoom.us/signin and click Sign in with Google

While not in the apps launcher, another app that some staff have asked for the URL is

RUBICON ATLAS — https://pccsk12.rubiconatlas.org/Atlas/Authentication/View/Login?idp=5 

We will have this information and more app links:  Browse to the DIGITAL TEACHING HUB and bookmark that site for future reference.

We expect a change sometime today to our district Zoom account that will likely “break” the urls of any meetings that were scheduled, but hadn’t yet occurred, prior to the change. The domain url we have been assigned will be changed from https://pccsk12-com.zoom.us to https://pccsk12.zoom.us. After that change happens, it is our understanding that “upcoming” meetings will likely need to be rescheduled and invites / postings about them, updated to reflect their new meeting urls. The Technology Department regrets any inconvenience that this url change may cause.

Adobe has assembled resources and learning opportunities to help educators engage remote students through online learning. Check it out at https://edex.adobe.com/distance-learning

Some of their resources include:

K-12 projects — https://edex.adobe.com/distance-learning/k-12-projects

Social Justice projects — https://edex.adobe.com/social-justice

resources for young learners — https://edex.adobe.com/young-learners

resources for welbeing — https://edex.adobe.com/distance-learning/wellbeing-for-educators

One of the main tools they reference is Adobe Spark, its suite of tools for helping users create visual content. Spark enables non-graphics experts to design professional-looking graphics, mix text and images and create animated videos simply and quickly. As a reminder, all P-CCS staff and secondary students have access to Adobe Spark for Education, a premium, yet free, version of Spark which is made available to schools and colleges.

Spark supports live collaboration through the web. It comes in multiple languages, including French, Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese.  Adobe has added or will soon be adding project commenting; real-time, synchronous co-editing; mobile project sharing; and “support for multiple brands” for users who participate in more than one team.

Note, there is a Canvas integration.  To create Spark assignments in Canvas, check out https://helpx.adobe.com/enterprise/using/canvas-integration.html#educators // students to complete a Spark assignment in Canvas would want to check out https://helpx.adobe.com/enterprise/using/canvas-integration.html#students.

When you are ready to get started with Adobe Spark, you can log in by following the instructions at http://links.pccsk12.com/adobespark.  For a quick tutorial on how to use Adobe Spark, we encourage you to watch this tutorial video from Richard Byrne. You may also want to look at Adobe’s Spark Edu guide. 

John Sowash is a former HS biology teacher and principal who helps teachers use technology to improve instruction. A few links he has posted on his blog https://www.chrmbook.com/blog/ are shared below along with his commentary.

1. ​Link to a specific portion of a webpage – Google released a handy Chrome Extension that makes it easy to point someone to a specific portion of a web page. It even highlights the text you want to emphasize!
2. ​The Anywhere School 2020 – Google is planning a special back-to-school event in mid August. Details are sparse, but they claim it will be awesome! RSVP to attend (free).
3. ​The best ELA tools for your classroom – in this blog post [John] shares his favorite web-based ELA tools for helping students become strong readers and writers.
4. ​Turning paper assignments into digital activities – Assignments that were designed for printing, don’t always translate well into digital activities. Here’s a look at how [John] redesigned a paper assignment into a remote learning activity.
5. ​25 Novel Hyperdocs – Karly Moura (@KarlyMoura) shared her collection of ELA hyperdocs over on the Ditch that Textbook blog. If you are doing a novel study, this is an awesome resource!

 

Simplek12 offers each week free access to various of their popular 30 minute webinars one of which is Using Zoom Video Conferencing Tools for Student Engagement. Some folks may want to check it out as it covers…. ** How to start taking your online learning experiences to the next level with Zoom ** Directions on using breakout rooms, the whiteboard tool, and digital annotation ** Tips on using Zoom in a way that allows for enhanced student engagement

Tuesday | July 28, 2020 5 pm – 5:30 pm

Thursday | July 30, 2020  10:30 – 11:00 am   OR  12:00 – 12:30 pm