In today’s world, teaching kids about digital citizenship is essential. When we equip them with the skills to think critically and navigate online spaces on their own, that’s how they really grow. Digital Citizenship Week began October 16th, and while the week is almost over, consider still bringing these themes into your curriculum over the weeks ahead. Supplement your instruction with BrainPOP’s timely content, tools, and resources.
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
See everything IXL has added since school started back up! Read on to find out what’s new on IXL this fall including new units of the Takeoff curriculum, assessment data on the teacher dashboard, filtering for courses and more!
Summary of some key releases in the screenshot below:
Takeoff by IXL Math™ provides everything 2nd-5th grade teachers need for their daily math instruction, personalized to meet the needs of each student, including:
Detailed day-by-day lesson plans
Differentiated support and enrichment resources
Print and online learning activities
Built-in unit assessments with personalized next steps
Teachers can now find all of their assessment-related information in one place from the Teacher Dashboard! Under the new “Assessment” tab in the middle of the dashboard, teachers have three new sections covering:
Diagnostic levels: displays students’ overall math and ELA Real-Time-Diagnostic levels, and links to the Diagnostic Overview report.
Screener levels: displays the results of a class’ most recent Screener, and links to the Screener Levels report.
Upcoming assessment windows: displays upcoming universal screener and Diagnostic Snapshot windows scheduled by an administrator.
Filter courses in Teacher Analytics
Teachers can now filter their reports to view all students within a course! Courses are groups of students in IXL who are rostered in different classes, but are working on the same material. For middle and high school teachers who teach multiple classes of the same course, this will allow them to filter across class periods.
Teachers can click the “Students” filter at the top-left of each report to filter by their classes or courses. Once they select a course, they will only see data in the report for students who are in roster classes that are associated with that course.
Suggestion stars on the Student Usage report
The Student Usage report now displays the gold suggestion star next to a skill if the student practiced it while it was suggested! This update makes it easier for teachers to ensure that their most prioritized skills are being practiced.
Skill plan updates and new skills
New math skills
We’ve released a handful of new math skills, including new calculus skills:
We’ve expanded our popular Learn to Read skill plans to now include Pre-Kindergarten! Tailored for our youngest learners, the Pre-K Learn to Read plan focuses on nurturing essential skills such as letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and beginning phonics, providing a strong foundation for Kindergarten readiness.
New textbook skill plans
This release we added the following textbook skill plans:
We now have over 2,700 math and ELA videos on IXL.com! We’ve added 24 new phonics videos, 40 new reading foundations videos, and 4 new middle school ELA videos. With this release, we now have videos covering about 50% of the “reading foundations” skills in grades 2-3. These videos cover topics such as:
We’ve also added 335 new math videos across grade 2 through Algebra 2. This release covers more than half of the skills for both grade 2 and Algebra 2. Video topics include:
We’ve expanded our Spanish-language support to include a handful of new skills covering grade 2 through Algebra 1. These newly supported skills include:
We have added the ELA skill “Identify the purpose of a text” to our international editions (CA, AU, NZ, UK, IE, IN, ZA); this skill was previously only available in the US. This skill allows students in grades 2-3 to practice reading for the author’s purpose (to persuade, inform, or entertain) by interacting with engaging graphic elements. These include book pages, newspaper articles, web pages, and more.
Canvas recently hosted two webinars on Canvas New Quizzes.
One webinar covers the basics for new users. You can review the outline here and the actual recording here.
A second webinar, customized for existing users, skipped the basics and highlighted updates and outstanding questions. You can review the outline here and the actual recording here.
Registration is open for the next session of Monarch running now through December 18, 2023
Monarch will be offered twice this academic year:
Session One: Now through Dec 18, 2023
Session Two: Jan 22 through May 13, 2024
Teachers are invited to transform their use of MISTAR-Q by participating in Monarch, an asynchronous online learning experience. Monarch is especially beneficial for teachers new to MISTAR.
Complete activities designed to increase your skill and knowledge of MISTAR teacher apps including Class Attendance, Grade Book, Seating Chart, generating reports, and more.
Working online at your pace, you will progress through four levels of activities. SCECHs are available: complete levels 1-2 to earn 7 hours, levels 1-3 to earn 11 hours, or levels 1-4 to earn 13 hours.
This course is free. Please register only if you fully intend to participate as there is high demand for this course.
Register here — After registering, watch for emails with details on how to get started.
Something youmaywant to mark on yourcalendars. At around 2:20 PM on Wednesday, October4th, every TV, radio, and cell phone is going to sound an alert with a “unique tone and vibration.” If we had to guess (the article does not say) we’d say this will happen regardless of if the phone is on Do Not Disturb or silent mode. For middle school staff, if you‘re teaching at that time you might want to ask your students to turn their phones completely off before the test begins.
As part of our ongoing commitment to bolstering the online safety and security of our school community, the Technology team would like to share some important updates regarding our efforts to combat email phishing threats.
First, let’s acknowledge the gravity of the issue at hand. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, it’s predicted that a new organization will fall victim to ransomware every 11 seconds. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported that phishing is the most common type of cybercrime, and its frequency increases year after year. It’s not just large organizations that are at risk; schools and educational institutions are increasingly being targeted. The average cost of a phishing attack for a medium-sized company is estimated to exceed $1.6 million. These statistics underscore the significance of recognizing and preventing phishing attacks. On average, our email filter captures 10,000 phishing emails a day, with an unidentified amount slipping through the cracks.
This school year, we are partnering with KnowBe4 to introduce simulated phishing campaigns. These periodic campaigns are designed to give us a realistic experience of phishing attempts, helping us gauge our collective ability to detect and counteract such threats. The primary goal is to offer everyone an opportunity to practice and hone their skills in identifying and reporting suspicious emails in a secure setting.
It’s crucial to note that this initiative is entirely educational in nature. There will be no disciplinary repercussions stemming from interactions with these simulated campaigns. Instead, our focus will be on understanding our community’s current cybersecurity awareness levels and identifying areas where we can provide additional support.
To that end, staff members who might find themselves frequently entangled in these simulations will be offered tailored training modules. By making these resources available, we not only enhance our understanding of cyber threats and develop robust strategies to counteract them in our professional environment but also improve our awareness in our personal lives. This isn’t solely about our individual security at work; by bolstering our defenses, we collectively safeguard our schools, including our fellow staff and students, and equip ourselves with the knowledge to protect our personal digital spaces and resources as well.
Additionally, to facilitate the swift reporting of potentially harmful emails, we’ve incorporated a new feature. The “Phish Alert” button has been seamlessly integrated into the Gmail interface. For those unfamiliar, the Gmail side panel is located on the right side of your email window, typically displaying options like Calendar, Keep, and Tasks. Within this side panel, you will now find the “Phish Alert” button. Should you encounter any email that raises suspicion, simply click on this button to report it, ensuring timely measures are taken against any potential threats. Here is a screenshot for reference:
Your cooperation and active participation in these initiatives are crucial. Together, we can make our digital experience safer and more resilient. Should you have any questions or require further details, please do not hesitate to reach out to our IT department by submitting a service request.
Thank you for your understanding and commitment to creating a secure online environment for everyone.
Canva made this one-pager to get you to your favorite templates in a hurry!
The Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) put together a list of technology tools that can be used by teachers and students for accommodation, modification, and intervention. They also have a downloadable free ebook entitled 51 Fun Tech Tools and Resources for Busy Educators.
Character.ai is a fun way to chat with all kinds of characters. But I’m more intrigued with their historical people, such as Julius Caesar, Abe Lincoln, Isaac Newton and more! Give it a try. There is no login required, however, you may have to wait a couple of minutes to get in. *Scroll to the right to find “historical.” PS: I suggest using this as a teacher-centered tool, having students help you craft and ask questions in whole group situations.
Premium Features now FREE in Quizizz Basic If you’re new or a previous Quizizz user, you’ll enjoy these additional features in the FREE Basic Account. As noted in the graphic below, once logged in to Quizizz, you should see a “gift package” icon by all of these new additions. *Click on the graphic below to visit Quizizz.com and see for yourself.
Polls in Padlet
If you struggle with digital content organization and visualization, Padlet makes it simple! You create a “wall” where you can house content and interactive activities. The layout is simple and minimalistic. And Padlet just added polls! Padlet Press Release
Below are some resources called out in two of their summer newsletters:
Arts & Culture: Explore UNESCO World Heritage
For World Heritage Day, Google Arts & Culture released a new, updated destination for people to explore UNESCO World Heritage sites online, featuring hundreds of expert stories and thousands of images and videos.
Arts & Culture: Calling in our Corals
Take part in the preservation of coral reefs from your desk and learn to identify underwater sounds with marine biologists whilst contributing to vital research.
Arts & Culture: Step inside 3D exhibitions from around the world
Step into a diverse range of 3D immersive exhibitions curated by 50+ cultural institutions around the world, ranging from artist retrospectives to collections that are not publicly visible and to nature inspired galleries.
Teach CS First with help from Cobblestone and Google engineers
Our partners at Cobblestone will be livestreaming weekly lessons throughout the school year to help you teach a CS First lesson alongside Google software developers. It’s free, and lessons include ideas for both teachers and students to learn new skills!
Listed below are five recent updates that will be in place by the start of school:
Linkable headings now available in Google Docs
To improve shareability of documents, especially longer ones, we’re adding the ability to copy links to headings in Google Docs. Simply, open a Google Doc on web > add a heading (type some content and set to “Heading 1”) > right-click the heading > click the “Copy heading link” button > paste the contents.
Insert emojis into Google Sites
By the end of August, you can create more engaging content on Google Sites with the new option to insert emojis directly into text boxes and headings. Simply, create or open a Site > click any textbox and the emoji button will be visible in the toolbar > select the emoji button > choose an emoji.
Add annotations to your presentations in Google Slides
We’re introducing a feature that lets you highlight or emphasize key content while you present in Google Slides. With the new pen tool, you can circle, underline, draw connections or make quick notes directly on your presentation.
Bringing Collaborations in Canvas to Google Assignments
We’re introducing a new feature exclusively for Canvas that allows users to create a Drive item and collaborate on it with other users in the course. Today, we’re introducing a new feature exclusively for Canvas that allows users to create a Drive item and collaborate on it with other users in the course. Teachers and students can now work together on a variety of Google Drive items, including Docs, Sheets, Slides, Sites, Forms, Jamboards, and Drawing.
Use the following steps to create a collaboration in Canvas:
Sign in to Canvas > open the course > in the sidebar, click Collaborations > click + Collaboration > Google Drive (LTI 1.3). If you’re not signed in, sign in to your Google Workspace for Education account. Enter a title for your assignment > (optional) enter a description > under file type, select a Drive file type > under invite people to collaborate with you, select any LMS users for which to share the collaboration Drive file > click Create > in the opened pop-up, confirm your changes, and click Create.
Use the following steps to open a collaboration in Canvas:
Sign in to Canvas > open the course > in the sidebar, click Collaborations > click the title link for the collaboration you wish to open. Note: You can only view a collaboration if you are an instructor or were added as a collaborator. In the new tab that is opened:
Sign in to your Google Workspace for Education or Google account
If this is the first time you’re opening the collaboration, click Join
The numbers are automatically calculated next to each line in the document, and can be configurable for the entire document, a page, or a specific section. Additionally, these numbers are preserved when printing.
This feature makes it easier for you to reference specific content positions in documents, particularly when collaborating with others on long or complex content.
Journey to ancient Egypt in Return of the Cat Mummy
Students can explore ancient Egyptian beliefs, hieroglyphs, & mummies including a new game which invites users to explore and learn about the ancient Egyptian afterlife.
Play a cello inspired instrument with the help of machine learning
Viola the Bird is a way for anyone to learn about string instruments and to explore their own creativity through music. Regardless of their musical ability, users can help Viola the Bird play its cello-inspired instrument, and take a playful musical journey.
Leonardo da Vinci: Inside a genius mind
Google Arts & Culture has unveiled “Inside a Genius Mind” — the largest online retrospective dedicated to the genius of the Renaissance, showcasing his extraordinary codices alongside his artistic and scientific contributions.
Unpack Life Beyond Earth with NASA and Astrokobi
Students can hear from NASA astrobiologist Heather Graham and YT creator Astrokobi to understand what life is, where we would find it beyond Earth and what it would look like.
