Author: Mark Salzer

For those interested, there’s still time to enroll in a free REMC Virtual Course and earn 10 free SCECHs. To see a description of the courses offered and to register, visit https://mailchi.mp/71fc6deb90f9/theres-still-time-to-sign-up-for-our-free-virtual-learning-courses-3686790?e=67db2526b4

May courses begin on Monday, May 4.  The deadline for registration is Friday, May 1. Eleven courses are offered (see list below). Each course is open for three weeks and consists of two (2) one-hour “live” webinars that are recorded and available for viewing later, and eight (8) hours of resource review, assessment developments and written reflection.

• Making the Most of Your Google Classroom
• Ready Set Go 21 Things
• Engaging Students in a Personalized Classroom
• Dynamic Presentations
• Increasing Efficiency and Productivity
• OER to Support Competency-Based Education (CBE)
• Google for Learning: Using SAMR and DOK to Design Authentic Learning Opportunities
• OER: Student-Designed OER for 21st Century Learning
• Google: Applying Google Apps for Education in Chrome, Lvl 1
• Introduction to Personalized & Blended Learning for ALL Students, Level 1
• Social Media: Improve Student Critical Thinking and Collaboration, Level 2

Kaizena, another tool (apart from Read&Write for Google) for staff to provide feedback to students within various Google apps, is now installed and available for staff and student use when logged into their Google accounts.  Kaziena helps students, teachers, and administrators provide effective and relevant feedback for diverse learners. Its features include: text comments, voice comments, lessons (small micro-units of learning), and skills and rubrics.

Information and videos on getting started and using the add-on can be found at https://help.kaizena.com/en/collections/60518-kaizena-for-google-docs 

Easy to associate micro lessons, another feature of the add-on, are described at https://www.kaizena.com/features/lessons 

Below are a 2 minute overview video and one that showcases the feedback options:

As the use of online communication has increased for so many of us, here are some email safety tips/reminders in visual form.

The Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL) has composed and shared useful guidelines around supportive considerations in a successful transition to online learning.  Please browse to https://macul.org/online-learning-guidelines/ to check them out.

The Michigan Dept of Ed’s (MDE) Learning at a DISTANCE Guidance is billed as [a] largely teacher-written effort to help address the immediate needs of staff who must address the immediate needs of children – at a distance – during a pandemic.

If you have a district laptop, at some point before the school year ends, you may see a blue alert window declaring Your Windows license will expire soon; You need to activate Windows in settings. There is no need to panic.

To reset your license for another 180 days of use, when convenient within two weeks of first seeing that warning, head to any district building with your laptop. You don’t need to actually enter the building, you just need to be close enough to have the laptop connect to the district Wi-Fi. It’s even possible at some of our locations to remain in your car and still be close enough to get a signal. While remaining connected to the district Wi-Fi (either PCCSK12- Secure or PCCSK12-Staff), completely restart the laptop, then log into it and make sure it completes the log in process. Surf somewhere to confirm that you remained connected. Doing this should suffice to reset the license counter for months and you’re good to leave, mission accomplished.

If you still cannot get the alert to go away after doing the above, please submit a service ticket and our department can assist you with other steps to take.

Available soon, it will be possible to create and use multiple signatures in Gmail as well as fix images to a certain location on a page in Google Docs.

For more on creating and using multiple signatures, visit here (and check out what it looks like in the gif below).

For more on fixing images to a certain location on a page in Google Docs, visit here (and check out what it looks like below).

Springtime is finally here! For those interested, it’s time to enroll in a free REMC Virtual Course and earn 10 free SCECHs. To see a description of the courses offered and to register, visit https://www.remc.org/Core/News/Article/1337.

April 2020  Course Information
April courses begin on Monday, April 6.  The deadline for registration is Friday, April 3.  

• Assessment Tools for the Classroom
• Coding in the Classroom
• Multimedia Tools to Engage Students
• OER to Support Early Literacy
• Social Media: Professional Development through Social Media, Level 1
• Inquiry and Questioning: Igniting Student Curiosity with Technology, Level 1
• The What, Why, and How of Open Educational Resources (OER)
• Design Thinking made Practical
• Deeper Learning through Developing Master Students of Collaboration and Communication

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