REMC December free PD opportunities

Give yourself the gift of learning during the holiday season with a REMC course

Treat yourself to a REMC December course! Our professional learning is the best way to beat the winter blues and enhance your classroom learning in the new year. This month, our courses include tips to help struggling readers, ways to improve critical thinking through coding and how to lead a culture of change in your school …just to name a few.

Registration deadline is Thursday, December 1st, each course begins on Monday, December 5th. Through the support of REMC SAVE’s vendor partners, all courses are FREE and there are no SCECH fees. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn, connect, collaborate and grow with REMC courses.

Check out December courses:

Register by Thursday, December 1st. You will receive a welcome email with the course login and other information prior to the course start date. If you have questions or need further assistance with your course registration, please click here.

BrainPop’s December Teacher’s Lounge

Highlights in the BrainPop’s December Teacher’s Lounge

Kick off Computer Science Education Week and Hour of Code on December 5 with movies and learning activities–including coding projects–to inspire students in these essential 21st-century skills.
Calling all teachers! Learn ways to integrate Hour of Code into your instructional plans — no coding experience required! Join us for BrainPOP Connect on December 5 for free, live virtual programming to kick off CSEdWeek.
Explore wintry topics to help teach your students how different creatures (including humans!) adapt and celebrate the change in season.

PCCSK12-Staff wireless network change to occur December 5th

In the advent of increased cybersecurity threats to educational institutions and at the insistence of our firewall support team, the P-CCS Technology Department will be adjusting access permissions for devices connected to the PCCSK12-Staff wireless network. This network was established so that staff could connect their personally-owned devices to our district network. P-CCS does not own or manage these devices, therefore, we have limited ability to monitor or protect them from digital and online threats. By restricting the access of personally-owned devices to internal network resources, we can significantly reduce the chances of potential equipment and data compromise.

Starting December 5, 2022, devices connected to the PCCSK12-Staff network will only be able to access the internet; access to internal network resources, such as network drives and printers, will no longer be permitted. Network drives and printers will only be accessible to district-owned devices on the PCCSK12-Devices or PCCSK12-Secure networks. We recognize that this may be an inconvenience for some, but it is a necessary step to help secure our district network equipment and data.

If you are impacted by this change and need assistance with accessing internal network resources, such as network drives and printers, from your district-owned device, please submit a service ticket.

Highlights from the November Google for Education newsletter

Check out Google for Edu’s latest monthly newsletter HERE. Some highlights are noted below.

National Disability Awareness Month
October is National Disability Awareness Month, a time for us to highlight helpful innovation for and with people with disabilities. We’re highlighting updates to features that are built into ChromeOS and Workspace to help students learn in the way that works for them, and helpful apps and extensions from Texthelp and SnapType.

Give Thanks with Applied Digital Skills
Teachers – celebrate Thanksgiving with the Applied Digital Skills lesson Show Appreciation with Google Slides. In this lesson, students express appreciation for someone by creating a digital card using Google Slides.

Arts & Culture: South African Creativity
“I Am Because You Are” is a celebration of South African creativity, community and craft. Learn about customs and rituals, take virtual tours of museums, discover early art and explore decorative crafts.

Learn with Google Arts & Culture
The learning pages on Google Arts & Culture have had a refresh, with new content, menus for each subject page and a new lesson plans / resources page. For inspiration and some cool, expert content check out Learn with GA&C now.

Looking for past issues of the Google for Education newsletter? Find them below, and sign up to hear from Google for Education.

Another random handful of websites that might be helpful

In no particular order, here is another smattering of websites that instructional staff might find have a use case…

Magic Eraser – this photo editing website magically removes unwanted objects from a photo. It’s surprisingly effective! Free to use if you don’t need high-resolution images.
Google Trend Halloween Predictions – Google Trends is a fascinating resource for observing local, national, and global trends. If you teach psychology, statistics, or government, this is a resource you should check out for use in your classroom!
Easy accent marks – This simple Chrome extension makes it easier to access non-standard keyboard characters for Spanish, French, German, and hundreds of other languages.
Editing audio from a Chromebook – There are a number of audio editing options on a Chromebook, including 123apps.com (basic editing) and Twisted Wave (intermediate editing).
Wordwall – Even their free plan allows you to make numerous custom activities for your classroom. Quizzes, match ups, word games, and much more. It’s another way to create teaching resources, BUT also you get access to masses of shared content from other educators across the globe in the community section.

Zoom Breakout Room features and the mmhmm app

Here are a few Zoom BREAKOUT ROOM reminders, a recent feature add AND an app that works within Zoom to possibly make it more engaging….

As the host of a meeting, you can still communicate and share information with participants from the main session even after you have assigned and moved participants to breakout rooms. This includes sharing your screen, sending a message, or broadcasting your mic audio to all open rooms. See this help guide to learn how to broadcast your microphone audio to all breakout rooms in a meeting. This setting is controlled separately from the broadcast message option.

The adjustment is now meeting hosts can view activity statuses of participants in breakout rooms (e.g. share screen, reactions).

If you’re a regular Zoom user, especially if working with students, and looking to enhance how you are seen in it, consider signing up for a free-to-educators premium mmhmm account (premium for 12 months, then reverts to basic version). The mmhmm app works with Zoom and lets you choose from a variety of virtual backgrounds or add your presentation slides as your background. There are also a variety of special effects that let you grow, shrink or turn yourself invisible.

from https://www.mmhmm.app/blog/mmhmm-premium-is-free-for-students-and-educators-for :

How to register as an educator (or high school student)

1. If you’re new to mmhmm, download the app and create an account. (it’s now available on Macs and Windows – and there’s even a web version.)

2. Once you have an account, or if you’ve already signed up, go to account.mmhmm.app/education and log in to your account with your e-mail and password.

3. To verify your eligibility, add your school e-mail address and tell us what you do.

4. Verify your e-mail by following the link we send.

5. Approvals can take up to five business days to complete. Once approved, your account will reflect the additional 12 months of Premium.

A couple of videos on how you might use the app.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1qhjEcpDjs

REMC November free PD opportunities

REMC courses offer educators new ways to engage students and enhance classroom learning from the convenience of their home. Their professional learning offers something for everyone – from those interested in a new skill to those looking to strengthen student achievement and engagement through the use of technology integration.

Registration deadline is Thursday, November 3rd, each course begins on Monday, November 7th. Through the support of REMC SAVE’s vendor partners, all courses are FREE and there are no SCECH fees. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn, connect, collaborate and grow with REMC courses.

Check out November 2022 courses here:

Register by Thursday, November 3rd. You will receive a welcome email with the course login and other information prior to the course start date. If you have questions or need further assistance with your course registration, please click here.

BrainPop’s Blog

BrainPop’s blog offers classroom teaching strategies, stories from fellow educators, and product updates. [Note, there is a subscribe box if you want to have posts emailed to your inbox.]

Below are some recently highlighted posts – click on any to read the full post:

BrainPop’s October Teacher Lounge Newsletter

BrainPop’s October newsletter for K-12 instructional staff can be found HERE. 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.

Some highlights;

— Digital Citizenship offerings

— Native Americans offerings

— Assigning BrainPOP learning activities is easier than ever!
Click Assign from your Teacher Dashboard to quickly create differentiated learning experiences for all of your students.

ACTION REQUIRED: Turn on Google 2-Factor Authentication by this FRIDAY

ALL P-CCS Staff must turn on two-factor authentication by this Friday, September 30, 2022 for their district Google account.
If you do not turn on two-factor authentication by Friday September 30, you will no longer be able to log in to your P-CCS’s Google workspace (Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, etc.) beginning October 1, 2022.

Directions on how to manually turn on two factor authentication

[If you aren’t sure if it is set up, log out of your district Google account and log back in. If you don’t see the notice to enroll, you’re all set. Alternatively, go to your profile and click on manage google account. From there, on the left hand side click on security. Scroll down to where it says signing into google and it will tell you whether 2-FA is either on or off.]

Staff don’t need to use their cell phones and personal phone numbers, although that’s certainly a choice. A telephone alternative, backup codes, can be used if someone prefers to not use a phone, or when one might not be available. Backup codes come in sets of ten you can generate at any time when you are already logged in to your account, which can then be printed or saved in a secure place. For how to obtain and use backup codes check out this support article.

You can establish multiple verification methods (for example, set up two or more phone numbers that can be called back as well as have the option to use backup codes). Staff can choose to use one or more district telephone numbers they have access to at work AND backup codes so that when they are in their classrooms and offices, they can opt to be called on those district lines (instead of a text, they’d click to have a phone call provide their code) and when they’re not able to answer their district phone, such as when they are away, they can opt to use a backup code (you need to have downloaded them ahead of time) if they are asked to authenticate.

Please refer to this previous blog post for even more information regarding two factor authentication.

Author: Mark Salzer

Looking for past issues of the Google for Education newsletter? Find them below, and sign up to hear from Google for Education.

2022 Newsletters

2021 Newsletters

How to register as an educator (or high school student)