Category: Blog

Websites to check out

This year’s Webby Awards were announced this week. Some notable websites to check out include:

Mathigon https://mathigon.org/ a cool website filled with neat and unexpected ways to explore math.

A to Z AI https://atozofai.withgoogle.com/intl/en-US/ A-Z guide offers a series of simple, bite-sized explainers to help anyone understand what AI is, how it works and how it’s changing the world around us.

Missing the Code https://missing-code.com/ highlights the contributions of women in some areas of computer coding (note it has a couple of poor word choices)

NASA Bring Space to Students Through Virtual Learning https://www.nasa.gov/stem-at-home-for-students-k-4.html Like the name suggests….

FABRICIUS https://artsexperiments.withgoogle.com/fabricius/en Explore Fabricius, a Google Arts & Culture Lab Experiment that uses machine learning to help translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Generator Z https://generator-z.org/ Generator Z is an ideas lab that launched in 2020 for teens and afterschool providers to reimagine the future of afterschool in Southeast Michigan and Western New York.

You might also want to check out the apps they cite for recognition.

End of the Year Canvas Support – Action Required

*PLEASE NOTE: In early August, ALL MISTAR created courses will un-sync and therefore courses will be deleted off of dashboards. Please make sure you follow the directions below to ensure all work (assignments, discussions, videos, etc.) will save correctly.

With Canvas being utilized for the foreseeable future, and with the end of the year approaching, we wanted to pass along some directions on how to ensure that your course(s) and work created this year can be used for next Fall. The directions below will enable you to copy your course into a “Sandbox” type course, so when you return in the Fall, all you will need to do is import your “Sandbox” course, into your MISTAR rostered course.

Watch the less than 3-minute video below or watch it on YouTube. https://youtu.be/ibyFUeqSurY

Printable PDF directions

Optional, further back up step: For Directions on saving your course to your computer/google drive click here

PBS Learning’s Math Hacks that Measure Up

For those teaching math, consider checking out PBS’s Learning Media May newsletter which has a focus on math. See some screenshots from the newsletter below to have your interest peaked.

New Canvas Feature: PDF Assignment Annotation

Coming Saturday, 5/15/2021, an exciting update to Canvas! Instructors can now use an annotated assignment type for students. If you have a PDF that you want students to write on, you’ll be able to upload that in assignments and there will be functionality for students to mark-up and submit directly in Canvas.

A few notes to consider:

Cannot be used for Group Assignments
The teacher needs to upload the document for annotation, the students can’t upload and annotate their own
Although annotations are supported in the Canvas Student app, this specific assignment type is not currently supported for mobile devices. If instructors want students to be able to annotate a document via the mobile app, they should also use the File Uploads submission type and provide the original file in the assignment description for students to download and annotate in the app.

Interactive, Beautiful Images with Canva and Thinglink

Canva: A fantastic tool for creating graphics. The service offers teachers free premium accounts. When you sign up you will see that they have amazing templates for Education.

ThingLink: A tool that allows you to place “hot spots” on images to result in an interactive learning experience. These can be easily embedded onto your Canvas page. Click here to view an example.

Now these tools have partnered to make it even easier for you to create interactive, beautiful images that can immerse students in a topic. See below to see how a 5th grade Math teacher has used them to guide her virtual students. Click on it to go to the interactive experience.

Or see this Primary teacher from Scotland uses thinglink to guide her young students through a lesson on writing sentences.

If you are interested in learning more about how to use these tools you can read Canva’s blog post, view the webinar, or check out this creation. As always, you can reach out to your Technology Integration Specialist to get your own, personalized tutorial.

Google Apps for Primary Students

Are you wondering how you can use Google Apps with younger students? Kindergarten teachers Christine Pinto and Jessica LaBar-Twomey, who are also the authors of Innovating Play have a great blog with ideas, a spreadsheet with templates and can be followed on social media.

Below is a video of an interview with them.

FCC Emergency Broadband Benefit Program

I wanted to alert our community to a benefit program that I hope we can spread the word about to our eligible families. In the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 which was recently signed into law, Congress has specifically carved out $3.2 billion dollars to provide Emergency Broadband relief (a discount of up to $50 per month towards broadband service) to qualifying eligible households. Eligible households can also receive a one-time discount of up to $100 to purchase a laptop, desktop computer, or tablet from participating providers if they contribute more than $10 and less than $50 toward the purchase price.

As of May 12, 2021, eligible households will be able to enroll in this program to receive a monthly discount off the cost of broadband service from an approved internet service provider (American Broadband, Charter, Comcast, T-Mobile/Metro by T-Mobile, and Wow are among these ISPs). Eligible households can enroll through their approved internet service provider or by visiting https://getemergencybroadband.org.

A household is eligible if a member of the household meets one of the criteria below:

Has an income that is at or below 135% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines or participates in certain assistance programs, such as SNAP, Medicaid, or Lifeline;
Approved to receive benefits under the free and reduced-price school lunch program or the school breakfast program, including through the USDA Community Eligibility Provision in the 2019-2020 or 2020-2021 school year;
Received a Federal Pell Grant during the current award year;
Experienced a substantial loss of income due to job loss or furlough since February 29, 2020 and the household had a total income in 2020 at or below $99,000 for single filers and $198,000 for joint filers; or
Meets the eligibility criteria for a participating provider’s existing low-income or COVID-19 program.

Check out the Broadband Benefit Consumer FAQ for more information about the benefit and please continue to check this page for program updates.

Please note, the benefit program described above is different from the permanent Lifeline program, which is another benefits program some of our families qualify for and likely could benefit from — thanks for sharing news of both for their consideration.

Spring Inspiration: Get Students Creating!

Link to inspiration resources and lessons

As May approaches and we anticipate the rest of the year, it is a great time to encourage students to create to show all they have learned. There are so many unique ways for students to produce and publish something meaningful. Here are just a few tools and ideas.

WeVideo: WeVideo is a video editor built for all skill levels! When you get started, it will ask you a few questions about your comfort level with video editing and provide you with a dashboard that fits you. They have also rolled out real-time collaboration so students can work together. *WeVideo premium is available at the middle schools.

Canva: Canva is a great tool for graphic design. They offer free, premium accounts for educators. Students can learn design tips and use templates to create eye-catching posters, logos, and social media graphics. Maybe you could have students design the buttons and theme for next school year’s Canvas page. All students can access Canva via our Clever portal – https://clever.com/in/pccs.

Adobe Spark: Adobe Spark is similar to Canva, but I believe it is a great tool for walking students through a video creation process. Teachers and secondary students, when you are ready to get started with Adobe Spark, you can log in by following the instructions at http://links.pccsk12.com/adobespark.

Below is a tutorial made by students about how to make a video using Adobe Spark. https://youtu.be/UsH5-rcnSRg

Podcasts: Have students create their own podcasts. They can prepare episodes to help review material for upcoming exams or advice for next year’s class. When creating the assignment, select the submission option of “Media Recording.” For the best results, student recordings should be less than 15 minutes. If you want them to be longer, reach out for other tool recommendations.

Looking for ideas that will inspire your students? The teachers behind HyperDocs have curated some resources to get the juices flowing with recommended lessons to go with them. Click the image below to explore.

Updated Zoom app for Mac, Windows, and Linux available on/after 4/27/2021

A new version of the Zoom app will be available next week for download at https://zoom.us/download. Zoom will also be performing a staggered release for iOS and Android on applicable app stores. This update will include the release of the Immersive Views feature (see description below) and minor bug fixes.

April 26, 2021 version

New and enhanced features

Meeting/webinar features
- Immersive Views
  Recreate the feel of your class or conference room by placing video participants onto a single virtual background. Participants are automatically placed onto provided scenes, but the host can upload their own custom background and adjust the arrangements as needed. This requires client version 5.6.3 or higher and works best when using Virtual Background, but not required.

Resolved issues

Minor bug fixes
Resolved an issue for a subset of users regarding crashes when switching audio devices
Resolved an issue for a subset of users regarding an inability to end a webinar

See these articles for more info:

Mac – https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201361963
Windows – https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201361953
Android – https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201361973
iOS – https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201361943
Linux – https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/205759689

Visual Thinking with GitMind

GitMind is a great, free tool for mind maps and brainstorming. You can easily sign-up with your Google account. There are several templates ready for use and they have a category for education. Below is a video overview.

There are no ads on the page. The only “paywall” I can find is the ability to export in other formats, which you can do with “points” you earn by using the platform. You can easily share work with a link and you can add collaborators.

Ideas for Classroom Use

If you teach younger students you might not have them create their own, but you can work as a class. There are templates for the elements of a story and working with words.

Older students could create their own, there a templates for timelines and essay structures. At the year’s end students could create a mind map to review material from the entire course. You can also edit your mind map by editing or importing an outline and the program will add it to your mind map.