We have about a thousand classrooms that have speakers installed in their ceilings and our department still occasionally finds it valuable to reiterate some points about them and promote system use in general.

First, both of the soundfield amplification systems deployed (TeachLogic at the elementary and Lightspeed at the secondary) are meant to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and spatially amplify our teachers’ voices (or teacher determined sound sources) above the ambient noise in our classrooms through speaker distribution. However, the system is designed not so a teacher should expect they will be able to hear themselves be louder, but rather that their voice should be heard at the same level further away from themselves.  Our amplification systems can help facilitate an even spread of sound (that a teacher has chosen, via a source such as a microphone or laptop) around a classroom. If you’re hearing screeching or other feedback, try dialing back your volume control — it is probably set too high.

Second, please note that classroom amplification can benefit ALL children, not just those with severe-profound hearing losses. Other groups shown to benefit from amplification include: children with minimal or unilateral hearing loss, children with transient hearing loss due to ear infections, children with ADD/ADHD, English language learners, and students in the general population!  Research studies over the last forty years uniformly have found academic (enhanced student speech perception, improved attention and comprehension, etc) and social (calmer environments, reduced teacher vocal abuse, etc) benefits from consistent and persistent system use.

Third, our soundfields are only useful when they are being used! So please have our systems on and wear/use your mics.

• iKeepSafe Data Privacy in Education Course #1: Introduction to Data Privacy in Education

• Course #2: Reviewing EdTech Products for Data Privacy

• Course #3: Data Privacy for Educational Leaders

• Course #4: Facilitating Educator Data Privacy Training

From cyberbullying to social networking, each year Safer Internet Day (held sometime in February) aims to raise awareness of emerging online issues and chooses a topic reflecting current concerns (this year it’s online identity). Safer Internet Day aims to not only create a safer internet but also a better internet, where everyone is empowered to use technology responsibly, respectfully, critically and creatively.

Safer Internet Day (SID) 2020 took place on Tuesday, 11 February 2020 with a theme of “Together for a better internet”.

Two sites for some related resources to check out are Richard Byrne’s February posting entitled Fifteen Digital Resources for K-12 and the resource search engine with language filters on SaferInternetDay.org.

Middle school and high school teachers who use Illuminate DnA can now push Illuminate DnA assessment results to their MISTAR Q Gradebooks and can now post Illuminate DnA assessments into their Google Classrooms (and receive scores back after students submit their work – and if they do the aforementioned push, can easily transfer those as grades into their gradebooks). The steps to do each are outlined below:

Push Assessment Results to MISTAR Q Gradebook

Please note: The assignment you will be assessing must be created in Q before you are able to push results to it from DnA.

Where to Start

1. Click on Assessments.
2. Under General, select View Assessments.
3. Once on the list of assessments, click on the title of the assessment you wish to push results for.

Assessments must have standards aligned to all questions and the correct performance band applied to the assessment in order to import successfully into your Q Gradebook.

 1. Select Q Gradebook Details

1. Click the Administration tab.
2. Select Push to Q Gradebook.

The following selections are conditional, working together based on the selections that have been made:

4. Select the Track.
5. Select the Class.
6. Select the Assignment you wish to push assessment results to.

 2. Select How to Push Scores

1. Confirm wish scores you want to push into your Q Gradebook.

 Overall Score

 Standard Scores or Both Overall and Standard Scores

Next Steps

To push assessment results to multiple Gradebooks, repeat the process for each individual Gradebook.

———

Posting Assessments into Google Classroom

Where to Start

1. Go to Assessments.
2. Select View Assessments.
3. Click on the title of the assessment.
4. Go to Administration > Online Testing.

Post to Google Classroom

5. Create an Assessment Administration by selecting Post to Google Classroom.

6. Enter the Start Date, or the first day the assessment is available.
7. Enter the End Date, or the last day the assessment is available.
8. Select a single or multiple Google Classroom(s) to post the assessment to.
   • This is based on your Google Classroom setup and if the email account matches your Illuminate User Account information.
9. Select Post to Google Classroom to continue.

I have a ton of Classrooms on my list! At this time, both active and inactive Google Classrooms tied to your account will show. You may want to consider a naming convention or changing the title of inactive Google Classrooms in your account.

This instantly posts the assessment into the Google Classroom(s) previously selected. Assessments set to Test in Portal or Test with Quick Code will not be available for students in their Google Classroom(s).

10. A green banner will appear to note the assessment posting a success.
11. To enable Online Testing Tools for students or change the students this assessment is to be administered to, select Edit.

The assessment has been posted to all students in your roster and will be available for students to take online through their Google Classroom accounts, based on the start and end dates previously entered.

Next Steps

Check it out! You still have access to Assessment Panel and live proctoring tools!

What’s changing

Google is updating the way multiple inboxes work in Gmail. Specifically, starting March 5, 2020, they’ll enhance multiple inboxes to support independent scrolling, a unified toolbar, and adjustable width in right-side configurations.

In addition, after the update, multiple inboxes will no longer support three-pane layouts with the preview pane (renamed “reading pane”) view. 

See the “Additional details” section below for more information on these changes.

Why it’s important

Multiple inboxes help you break out key emails, like important tasks or those from specific people, and make them visible alongside your main inbox in Gmail, in a completely customizable way.

Additional details

Split pane configurations no longer supported 
Beginning March 5, 2020, multiple inboxes with preview pane (to be renamed “reading pane”) configurations will no longer be supported.

If you currently have multiple inboxes in an unsupported configuration, you will see a notification in Gmail informing you of this upcoming change. Once this change takes effect, the preview pane will turn off if you use multiple inboxes. If you want to continue using preview pane (i.e. reading pane), you’ll need to use an inbox type other than multiple inboxes. You can do this by going to Settings > Inbox > Inbox type.

Getting started

End users: Once these changes begin rolling out, the preview pane will turn off if you use multiple inboxes. If you want to continue using the preview pane, you’ll need to use an inbox type other than multiple inboxes. You can do this by going to Settings > Inbox > Inbox type.

Selected excerpts from Google’s announcement https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2020/01/originality-reports-rubrics-ga.html

Why you’d use them

Help students turn in their best work 
Originality reports check a student’s work for matches across billions of web pages and books.  This can make it easier for instructors to evaluate the academic integrity of the student’s work and provide them constructive feedback.

Students can also use originality reports to check for missed citations or poor paraphrasing before they turn in a document. This gives them the opportunity to improve their work and learn from their mistakes before final submissions.

Enhance feedback to students with rubrics
A rubric is a scoring framework that makes it easier for educators to evaluate student assignments, set clear expectations, and provide actionable feedback.

With the new rubrics feature, educators can now:

• Create a rubric as they create an assignment.
• Reuse rubrics from previous assignments rather than creating them from scratch.
• Export and import Classroom rubrics to share with other instructors.
• Grade students work with a rubric from both the “student listing page” and Classroom’s grading view, where instructors can select rating levels as they review the assignment.

Additional details

Number of originality reports available per assignment:
Classroom instructors can enable originality reports on three assignments per class for free.

Students can run originality reports on a document three times per assignment before submitting. When students submit their work, a new originality report is created for the instructor.

Getting started

End users: 
Originality reports: Once originality reports are available in your domain, instructors can turn them on per assignment by checking the originality reports checkbox within the assignment creation process. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using originality reports.

Resources

• Classroom Help: Turn on Originality reports
• Classroom Help: Create or reuse a rubric for an assignment
• Keyword: Improve student writing with originality reports and rubrics in Classroom

Join thousands of educators and students to celebrate Digital Learning Day (DLDay). Happening on February 27, innovative teachers will be fostering and inspiring incredible creativity in their students. Whether students are exploring 3d modeling, mastering coding, or leveraging digital tools to deepen their learning; innovation shines on DLDay.

But teachers and students should be innovating in every classroom, every day.

That’s why for DLDay 2020 the Alliance for Excellent Education and Future Ready Schools are highlighting school districts across the United States that are transforming teaching and learning by incorporating digital learning in every classroom, every day.

If your classroom is a place of innovation all year long, share your story using #DLDay for a chance to be featured!

Now, instead of a Chrome extension, Password Checkup is being integrated into the desktop and mobile versions of Chrome 79 — when you type your credentials into a website, if you are using at least that version of Chrome and are signed in, you will now see the warning shown below if your username and password have been compromised in a data breach on some site or app. Clicking on Check passwords will open a new window that provides insights into your password management and suggestions to change certain passwords because they are used for multiple accounts/sites, have been publicly posted, are deemed very weak, etc. Performing both a review and changing, at least the passwords of accounts you would not want to see compromised, is advised.

Don’t have Chrome version 79 yet? You can still run an audit of your passwords by browsing to https://passwords.google.com/

Interested in reading more about this and a couple of other safety enhancements Google is implementing? — check out https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/better-password-protections/

and for a more technical review of just the password checkup, this article.

PLAYDATE is an acronym for People Learning and Asking “Y“; Digital Age Teacher Exploration. And this is a new kind of conference event!

NO presenters. NO Agenda. Just PLAYing!

At PLAYDATEs educators from around the area join together for a few hours and just play.  They work together to learn about ed tech apps, programs and tools with one another.  There are no presenters, no experts and no agenda.  Simply time to play, tinker and explore all at no cost!

Michigan PLAYDATEs are sponsored by the REMC Association and hosted by local REMCs. Learn more about the concept at https://www.remc.org/professionallearning/playdate-mi/

Please note that once you click on the Registration Link, you will need to scroll through the list and register for the REMC 20 Playdate being held at Wayne RESA on February 12, 2020.