Category: Blog

Nearpod is an award winning interactive lesson delivery platform that allows seamless delivery of online, student paced, and teacher-led instruction. Consider it for one of the tools in your online instruction.  Starting this week, Nearpod is also offering expanded live webinars almost on an hourly basis via this link: https://nearpod.com/blog/resources/

All P-CCS instructional staff can sign in to Nearpod with the Google Single Sign On button on the Nearpod site. Through June 2020 district instructional staff have access to their platform and premium features.

What exactly IS Nearpod? Watch the introductory video to get a sense of what teachers can do with it.

You will also find other resources on the Nearpod YouTube channel to help you with it. Keep in mind that you can also contact your Tech Integration Specialists to help get you up and running by signing up for our office hours: https://calendly.com/tis-pccs/15min

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkA8nxy7SZc&list=PL09U3vv6UoGTzzuc-DXm5tLtpY5flISZG

The Discovery Experience platform is packed with over 190,000 assignable, editable activities and resources for K-12, based on core curriculum concepts and popular topics in math, science, social studies, ELA, and health. Whether you’re looking for fun videos, interactive activities, or complete, ready-to-use lesson plans, Discovery Education Experience has everything teachers want and students need to enhance virtual learning.

P-CCS instructional staff now have full access to the entire platform of resources for home learning through June 30, 2020. Teachers can also create student accounts and add them to classes using the Classroom Manager.

Instructional staff: to login, visit the sign in page, and enter your district Google credentials. https://google.discoveryeducation.com

After logging in, check out the Professional Learning Center’s step-by-step guides: https://teachers.discoveryeducation.com/learn-lead/step-by-step-guides/streaming/

You might also want to check out Discovery Education’s resources that support virtual learning on their recently-launched Discovery Education Virtual Learning site. https://www.discoveryeducation.com/virtual-learning/

John R. Sowash is a former HS biology teacher and principal who helps teachers use technology to improve instruction. You can pick up a copy of his book, read his blog, or invite him to come and visit your school. You can also access his GREAT tips and tutorials on YouTube.

Below is a reprint of John’s tips on teaching online:

Teaching online is very different than teaching in a traditional classroom.

Here are five quick tips to help you make the transition.

1. Embrace routine and repetition

Consistency and routine are important when teaching online.

When students understand what they are being asked to do and can confidently use the tools that are required, the quality of their work will increase.

(Routine will also simplify your lesson planning.)

Consider establishing assignments that repeat on a weekly basis.

• Monday – Reading assignment
• Tuesday – Class Discussion
• Wednesday/Thursday – Creation project
• Friday – Assessment or reflection activity

This is just an example; find a routine that works for you.

Idea: Journaling is a great weekly assignment. Google Slides is ideal for journaling because it is easily expandible (just add a new slide each day!). This blog post has a journal template and tips for setting up a weekly assignment in Google Classroom.

2. Encourage connection and discussion

Nearly everyone is locked inside their homes right now. Most of our daily connections have been lost.

Whenever possible, provide opportunities for your students to connect and share with one another.

While your lessons probably won’t be as popular as the latest TikTok trend, giving students the opportunity to connect and share will increase their motivation to complete assignments.

Here are a few ideas for building engagement into your online course:

• Encourage class discussions in Google Classroom by using the “question” feature. You might ask students to watch a movie trailer and predict the major themes in the book you are reading.
• Use Google Slides as an “exhibit hall” for student work. Each student gets one slide to display their art project, website, video, etc. Use the speaker note section to provide encouragement, feedback, and suggestions. Here’s an example from a math course.
• Enable commenting on the “stream” page so that students can post and share. These posts provide students a much-needed outlet to connect with their classmates. This video should help!

If you are allowing students to post and reply to one another, make sure you set some guidelines for the responses. These are the guidelines I used in my online course.

3. Keep it simple!

Clarity and simplicity are essential when teaching online.

Every assignment must be carefully planned, explained, and assigned.

I would also recommend that you limit the number of tools that you use in your classroom.

Trying to teach students how to use WeVideo, Desmos, Screencastify, etc will be very challenging if you didn’t use the tool before your school closed.

Strip everything down to the essentials. You can add things in later as needed.

4. Slow down…the pacing is different

Teaching online will feel like you are teaching at half-speed.

It’s not you…everyone feels this way.

Adjust your expectations to prevent frustration for you and your students.

Focus on creating engaging assignments that really focus on your core objectives.

Quality is more important than quantity when teaching online.

5. LIVE lessons are a waste of time!

Online learning provides a tremendous amount of flexibility:

• You aren’t limited to a 55 minute class period
• You don’t have to teach the same thing 2-4 times a day.
• Your students can work when it is convenient for them.

LIVE lessons delivered with Google Meet or Zoom should be used sparingly. The primary benefit of connecting in real-time is interaction.

 LIVE lessons with Zoom or Google Meet are NOT an effective use of time.

Here is a different approach:

• Pre-record your lesson using Screencastify.
• Post the video lesson to Google Classroom (you might ask a simple objective question to verify that they watched the video).
• Schedule an optional LIVE session to answer student questions related to the instructional video.
• Hold everyone accountable to the objectives covered in the lesson.

LIVE lessons eliminate the best feature of online learning – flexibility.

Check out and consider attending one or more of these upcoming free webinars offered by CDW-G on various aspects of distance learning:

With so many of us working from home and spending even more time online than ever before, it’s important to recognize the red flags of potential attacks on the security of our data and other information. Please review the following documents to understand how you can protect yourself and your data.

20 Ways to Stop Mobile Attacks

Social Engineering Red Flags

Scams unfortunately are widespread as are malware viruses. Apart from malware infecting online coronavirus maps (see this story as well as the third bullet item below), here are some items just noted by Forbes magazine to give you pause as you conduct yourself online.

• Jiri Kropac, a researcher at cybersecurity firm ESET, saw a spike of 2,500 infections from two malware strains spread by coronavirus-themed emails on Monday, according to a Forbes report, with another company, Proofpoint, saying the number of attacks so far have perhaps been the largest its ever seen set around a single theme.
• As reported by Forbes, a slew of coronavirus-based domain names have been registered that could be used to infect users with malware—addresses like coronavirus-map[.]com, coronavirus[.]app and vaccine-coronavirus[.]com.
• In particular, there have been a number of scams involving coronavirus maps that mimic the legitimate Johns Hopkins’ resource, with the program’s designer Esri commenting on the confusion saying “Whomever posted the malicious downloadable app is attempting to take advantage of the strong public interest concerning the coronavirus, but it requires the user to either download the app executable or it could be distributed by email for the user to then install onto their local Windows system.”
• Additionally, users should be mindful of phishing emails that disguise themselves as coming from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, with the latter noting that WHO emails are addressed “.int” and that “WHO does not send email from addresses ending in ‘@who[.]com’ ,‘@who[.]org’ or ‘@who-safety[.]org’.”

This is a friendly reminder that you and your students have single sign-on (SSO) into many important district resources in your personalized Clever Portal. Over time, P-CCS will continue to Log in at https://clever.com/in/pccs – make sure to bookmark this – and start saving time.

Aside from SSO for you and your students, and as the district moves forward using Clever for easy access to all of our digital resources, you will find additional benefits from using Clever with your students. Resources include now in clever: Brainpop and Brainpop Jr. IXL, Code.org, and many more. Also, remember that you can create your own bookmarks for your students similar to Symbaloo in Clever.

As always, if you have any questions, please put in a tech request or email tis@pccsk12.com

The following resources will help you connect with your students using video. Please look for an email from the Tech Integration Team with more about how to connect with students at home. These resources will get you started.

YouTube Help Center

• Create Videos, Go Live, or send links to videos through already established communication platforms like Gmail or Google Chat, or Meet.
• NOTE: Unless you create a channel, you won’t have a public presence on YouTube. Your activity is fully private. If you’d like to upload your own videos, comment on videos, or create playlists, you can create a YouTube Channel at any time.
  • Use your Google Account for YouTube
  • Upload Videos
  • Record & upload a video
  • Introduction to live streaming
  • Streaming Tips
  • Create a live stream via webcam
  • Create a live stream on Mobile

Flipgrid: info.flipgrid.com

Communicate and collaborate with a group of people through video. Can send links through already established communication platforms (Email, etc.) *Here are some examples of how Flipgrid can be used.*(Can be accessed when free account has been created)

• • How to create a Flipgrid account
  • How to create a grid
  • How to create a topic
  • How to record a video and what audience sees in Flipgrid

Screencastify: www.screencastify.com

This app allows you to upload video to Google Drive, distribute the link via email or other established platform. The free version of Screencastify has a 5 minute limit, autosaves to Google Drive to be easily shared there or it can be easily uploaded to YouTube. Due to COVID-19, Screencastify premium is free for all users. Use this doc to set up premium account. One of the notable features of the premium service is no time limit for recordings. But please keep best practices in mind and try to limit videos to 10-13 minutes at a max.

A Beginner’s Guide to Screencastify for Educators (and others too)

Teaching from home is going to require a different approach in these unprecedented times. The good news is that these tech skills are not just for a pandemic, but will actually be really valuable in and out of our classrooms for our students, and can help support learning even when our classroom routine returns to a normal school day. Please be sure to follow this link for an amazing resource Google has built to help us through these challenging times: https://teachfromhome.google/intl/en/

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).