Help Close the Digital Divide – please let families know about the Affordable Connectivity Program

ACP

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.)

A random handful of websites that might be helpful

Useful Sites

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

qrtoon.com

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.

QR Code

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.

https://time.is/

You can mostly find this information with a quick Google search, but this is a fun site to bookmark. It gives you the exact time wherever you are in the world. You can also see and search for world cities.
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ClipDrop: Create professional product visuals
ClipDrop will allow you to take a picture of something, remove the background around that object, and then paste it into the app you are working with on your laptop. Watch the video to see it in action!
clipdrop.co
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Toy Theater Teacher Tools
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.
toytheater.com
Toy Theater
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Insanely Useful Websites
The internet is a weird and wonderful place, and most of us are only scratching the surface or what is out there. Visit this site to discover ‘insanely useful’ websites you didn’t even know existed.
www.insanelyusefulwebsites.com

Useful websites

Zoom resources

Zoom Teaching Tools

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).

Zoom Learning Center for Education

New Features with Clever!

Clever is a customizable portal for teachers and districts to curate a list of links for easy access for students. When you customize a Teacher Page for your classes, your students will be able to find all of the resources they need in one place! Log in at https://clever.com/in/pccs

NEW FEATURES

This year, to help you stay organized with your shared resources, when you log in to Clever, you will see 3 new tabs: My Teacher Pages, District Page, and Shared with Me. All district-added resources will appear on the District Page. Any favorited resources or resources that you add will appear on My Teacher Pages. And any teacher pages shared with you will sppear on the Shared with me Page.

 

And, just in case you need a quick reminder, here’s a guide to help you create a Teacher Page. Additional resources can be found at tech.pccsk12.com/clever or from Clever Academy.

Also, want to hear about how other teachers are using Teacher Pages? Hear from Rosemary and Shawna.

Action Required: Publish Your 22-23 Courses

Please note that each teacher must manually publish the course(s) they want to be visible to students.

Publishing your course only takes one click! From the Course Card on your Dashboard, click “Publish” (see screenshot below).
click publish on the course card on the dashboard

Alternatively, you can open the course home page and click the “Publish” button on the right side of the screen (see screenshot below).

 

Rest assured, students will not be able to access the course until the term start date. You can verify this under the course Settings (and adjust if desired).

shows start date and setting to restrict access

As a reminder, your courses in MISTAR have been auto-populated in Canvas and auto-rostered with students. These are the course(s) you should publish and actively use with students. Any manually created courses should either be copied or cross-listed with your auto-populated courses. You can also cross-list multiple sections of the same course following the instructions provided in one of our previous posts.

Canvas Open Office Hours

We are happy to offer Canvas Open Office Hours. Please feel free to pop into the Zoom on Wednesday afternoon (August 31 from 12:00-2:00 PM) to get your Canvas questions answered. Your three district Technology Integration Specialists will be on hand to support you.

Topics might include:

Use this link to add it to your calendar and the Zoom link. We hope to see you Wednesday!

Canvas Course Templates

Your Canvas Course Template is here! As you may have read in our previous communication, your Technology Integration Specialists have created a template for Canvas that you will see as soon as you open any Canvas courses that sync with MiStar for this year. We hope it will take one thing off your long to-do lists.

A communication was sent on 8/23/22 about how to customize it and add your content from previous years. Those resources can be found on our website: https://tech.pccsk12.com/canvas-lms/canvas-course-templates/

If you prefer your own materials or want to import content from previous years, please follow these directions. https://links.pccsk12.com/import

Please submit a ticket if you have any questions.

 

Looking for Your 21-22 Courses?

Looking for your 21-22 courses? Rest assured, they may not be on your dashboard, but they are still there. If you navigate to https://pccsk12.instructure.com/courses and scroll to the bottom of the page, you’ll see such courses under “Past Enrollments.”

You can also access your past courses via the Global Navigation Menu:

directions to get to all courses

Past enrollments (such courses) are in read-only format. If you would like to make some edits and updates to your course(s) for current or future usage do the following. Click on the course under Past Enrollments, go to Settings on the Course Navigation Menu and click the “Copy this Course” button.

location of copy course button

When you are ready to import your course material into (one or more of) your 22-23 course(s), follow these directions. https://links.pccsk12.com/import

If you have any questions or can’t locate your 21-22 courses, please submit a tech ticket.

Time to Consider Cross-listing

time to consider cross-listing

As we approach the new school year, those of you who are teaching multiple sections of the same course might consider cross-listing in Canvas. Cross-listing allows you to move section enrollments from individual courses and combine them into one course. This feature is helpful for instructors who teach several sections of the same course and only want to manage course data in one location. So if you are a teacher that has multiple sections of one course or an elementary specialist that has many different sections, cross listing may be a great option for you and a big time saver. However, this action should only be done before a semester starts. Canvas recommends it be done before a course is published. If it is done after a course is published and notably student work has been submitted, that student work will be lost. Review the slideshow below carefully to help you decide if you want to do it. 

Please review this slideshow carefully to review the pros and cons. The slideshow also walks you through the steps to cross-list your courses. Please note that teachers have the ability to cross-list courses but do not have the option to de-crosslist. To de-crosslist sections or for further assistance with cross-listing, submit a tech ticket.

 

Google Assignments Update: Option to Use Canvas Speedgrader

Google has announced a much-welcome update for Google Assignments in Canvas. Teachers will now have the option to use the Canvas SpeedGrader for submitted Google Assignments. Take a look at the chart to see the potential features of each option.

image of text table of feature options

The use of Google Assignments in Canvas is highly encouraged because you can assign personalized files to students, instead of forcing students to make their own copy (which can lead to students having multiple copies in their Drive and losing track of the correct version). Teachers can also see students’ in-progress work and use originality reports (5 per course). With all of these perks, some teachers did not use Google Assignments because they wanted to be able to use the Canvas Speedgrader and now you can! This feature should  be visible by August 19, 2022. Have a quick look below:

gif of Canvas speedgrader option

Resources: