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 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
— 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.
[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.
The REMC Association is excited to introduce a new educator resource: Power Up Teaching and Learning. Power Up Teaching and Learning is created to help professionals “power up” their common teaching practices using educational technology and includes guiding questions, learning activities, ideas and resources.
Do you want to meet the needs of EVERY student in your classroom while making it manageable for you? The REMC Association is partnering with the Modern Classrooms Project to bring you the Student-Centered Learning Across Michigan (SLAM) project. This project will support teachers, in any subject area, grade level or school, as they implement three core, research-based practices that have been proven to impact student and teacher outcomes.
As some of you may be aware, the Los Angeles Unified School district was recently the victim of a cyber security attack which left several of their systems unusable for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident in the education sector. The FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have been issuing warnings that several ransomware organizations are specifically targeting the educational sector due to the vast amount of personally identifiable information (PII) available in the EDU space and the fact that the EDU space typically is the ‘lowest hanging fruit’ in the cyber world. Indeed, in 2021, U.S. schools lost $3.56 billion to ransomware attacks, and saw two educational institutions “shut down for good,” said Aaron Sandeen, CEO at Cyber Security Works (CSW).
While the Technology department does our best to reduce our “attack surface” and mitigate against attacks, it is also imperative that staff remain vigilant. Cyber criminals will attempt to compromise staff credentials to get “a foot in the door”. The most common method of obtaining credentials is through phishing attacks. As a reminder, phishing is when a malicious actor attempts to trick you, the user, to divulge personal information, such as passwords or financial information. Unfortunately phishing campaigns are becoming more and more convincing as time goes on. Malicious actors are becoming quite efficient at perfectly replicating emails to look like they are coming from legitimate sources such as Amazon, Netflix, Apple, etc.
Pictured below are some tips to identify phishing emails. Feel free to save or even print and hang it in your room/office as a daily reminder for you and our students on how to stay vigilant against someone out to take advantage of you:
Another method malicious actors use is pop-up messages while you are browsing the web. They will typically tell you that your computer is compromised and that you NEED to contact them for remediation. Please remember that NOBODY – not P-CCS Technology, Microsoft, Apple, etc. will ever display a pop-up on your computer asking for you to contact them. These are ALWAYS a scam. Here is an example of such a scam:
If you believe you have been the victim of a phishing attack, please submit a service ticket as soon as possible. We will not pass judgment as everybody makes mistakes. Our priority is to safeguard student/staff data and secure district resources such as the impacted technology equipment. Without knowledge, we cannot take the necessary steps to protect student and staff data from being exfiltrated and sold on the dark web.
Below are some additional resources to help protect yourself from cyber criminals:
PayPal – Learn About Fake Messages
CISA – 4 steps for online safety
Ready.gov – Prepare yourself for cybersecurity attacks
Thank you for doing your part,
P-CCS Technology Department
The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was established by Congress to help lower-income families afford reliable, high-speed internet. It’s part of the Federal Communications Commission’s mission to ensure that all people, regardless of their income, can access the internet services and computer technology that are essential to our modern world.
The ACP used to be a temporary program called the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB). In 2022, Congress made it permanent and renamed it the Affordable Connectivity Program. It provides eligible households with a discount on internet services and devices.
Please consider sharing www.GetMyInternet.org with families at your school so they can learn more and apply if interested. (Anyone who’s eligible for free and reduced-price lunch qualifies.)
In no particular order, here is another smattering of websites that instructional staff might find have a use case…
If you want to add a little pizazz to your QR codes, simply check out this site, use the Web App, and upload a photo! Four+ artsy styles to choose from.
Help Students Visualize Concepts and Content with Icons
Icons are more than just simple graphics. They help us understand things about the world around us, but without words. Think of common warning and caution signs. Our brains can decipher these symbols in a more meaningful way. The Noun Project just released some awesome FREE teacher templates….as well as helpful collections. Free accounts can download high quality transparent PNGs with attribution.
|
These interactive teaching tools and virtual manipulatives are ideal for interactive displays or touch screen devices. There are dozens to choose from and they are all free.
|
For those using Zoom, you might want to check out some of their curated resources for ideas and more.
Their Zoom Teaching Tools site reviews a series of Zoom tools combined with pedagogical strategies for you to incorporate into your existing lesson plans. These are designed to work at any graded level. Lesson plan templates can also be found there.
Their Educator’s Guide to Using Zoom in the Classroom covers how to get started with Zoom and find tips and resources for engaging parents and students. It’s worth at least a skimming even if you think you are familiar with Zoom as they concisely provide an overview of some of their newest features.
Their Parent & Student’s Guide to Using Zoom for Learning is just that. Some families and students might appreciate being shared this helpful guide.
Zoom’s Learning Center for Education offers recorded training sessions on some of their features (see screenshot below).
In no particular order, here are a few websites that instructional staff might find have a use case…
|
Discover CocoMaterial, the Open Source hand-drawn illustration library with 2300+ images. Simply customize & download, or just download them as they are. The illustrations in Cocomaterian are under CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license so no credit is required.
|
|
Ribbet.ai brings together a lot of those AI photo imaging tools in one place. It lets you remove backgrounds, remove objects, and apply a variety of stylized filters.
|
|
Radiooooo – The Musical Time Machine. This interesting tool lets you listen to music from different periods of time from countries all over the world. It’s a really interesting cultural experience.
|
|
This has all kinds of actions that you can perform on a file of your choice. Convert, compress, annotate, split, rotate, and more. A great one-stop-shop for things you do to digital files.
|
From 3 am EST on August 26 to 3 am EST on August 27, the first 300 eligible K-12 Canva for Education teachers in each school district in the U.S. can access a US$25 poster print voucher to print classroom posters, while supplies last. All info here: https://www.canva.com/
Their $25 credit can cover up to three custom posters, depending on size and paper type. See also this blog post on more details of your Canva for Education account – all instructional staff have such an account.
