2020-2021 Course Clean Up

Please make sure your 2020-2021 courses are closed. We have heard from a few students and parents that are still seeing their 2020-2021 courses. You’ll want to ensure your courses are closed or unpublished.

Navigate to https://pccsk12.instructure.com/courses or click on the “Courses” icon on the Course Navigation Menu and click “All Courses” You’ll see a list of your courses that are still published.

If you notice any from the 2020-2021 school year in your current enrollments you will need to take action.
If you see 20-21 published courses under Past Enrollments, that is as it should be and no action is required.

You may be able to open the course and click “Unpublish.” If you are unable to do that, please submit a tech ticket.

Also keep in mind that any manually-created courses like a counseling group, club, or media center course should be closed out if they are no longer needed. Or students that have moved up to a new building level should be removed from the course.

These closed courses will still be accessible in a view-only format to students in “Past Enrollments.”

Canvas

Introducing: TIS Monday Coffee Chats

In late August, the P-CCS Canvas Best Practices were published. https://tech.pccsk12.com/canvas-best-practices/

To help you carry out these practices, the Technology Integration Specialists plan to offer brief (20-25 minutes) sessions before school on Monday mornings. We will provide a rationale for the practice, a quick tutorial, and examples when appropriate. Be sure to bring your favorite morning beverage!

Start Times (feel free to attend at a time that works best for you):

High School: 7:00 am Add to Calendar
Middle School: 7:45 am Add to Calendar
Elementary: 8:15 am Add to Calendar

Topics:

September 13: Simplify Course Navigation
September 20: Create a Welcoming, Informative Home Page
September 27: Provide Clear Guidance for Absent Students
October 4: Post Assignments Online, via Canvas
October 11: Use Announcement Weekly
October 18: Use Modules to Organize and Distribute Content

Canvas

Action Required: Publish Your Canvas Course(s)

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).

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

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

Two Key Highlights from Zoom’s August Releases

New and Enhanced Features

Focus Mode: In Focus Mode, only the host can see participants’ videos and profile pictures. You can start Focus Mode from the “More” menu on the toolbar of the desktop client. This setting is available at the account, group, or user level setting pages. To use Focus Mode, you must have desktop client version 5.7.3 or higher for Windows or macOS.
Authentication exception for single instance of recurring meeting: If only authenticated users are allowed to join the meeting, account owners and admins can allow authentication exceptions for a single instance of a recurring meeting to allow guests to join the meeting. This feature can be enabled in the Meetings > Security Web Portal settings.

Focus Mode

Focus Mode does just that – it helps keep people focused in a Zoom meeting. Designed with educators in mind, Focus Mode places meeting participants in a view where they are only able to see themselves, the host/co-hosts, and the content they are sharing. In this view, hosts and co-hosts can also choose to view participants in gallery view, enabling them to see all participants simultaneously.

Don’t forget to download the latest version of Zoom to access these features and more.

REMC Back-to-School Learning 📅 Register for September Virtual Courses, earn 10 Free SCECHs

Passing along news from REMC: 2021 SEPTEMBER REMC Virtual Courses
Kick off the school year with new skills and tools to engage students.
Earn up to 10 Free SCECHs

Take advantage of September’s Virtual Courses for all your back-to-school needs. It’s a great time to learn a new skill in an instructor-led virtual course setting. Each course offers 10 free SCECHs, registration deadline is Friday, September 3rd.

The REMC Virtual Courses offer an easy, convenient way for teachers to connect and collaborate from the convenience of their home. The Virtual Courses are free, offer free 10 SCECHs when completed, and are open to all Michigan school personnel. There are no SCECH fees because REMC SAVE’s vendor partners provide support for all REMC professional learning opportunities.

Register by Friday September 3rd – Classes Begin September 6th.

If you have questions or need further assistance with your course registration, please contact Erin Rommeck, REMC Event Coordinator.

Two-factor authentication now required for MISTAR access

As shared in an earlier newsletter posting, due to enhanced cybersecurity insurance requirements in response to the dramatic rise in cyber-attacks, districts now have to ensure that staff pass two-factor authentication to gain access to personally identifiable data (PII), including student data, in two MISTAR applications (Q and Student Scan).

Upon logging in, each staff user will be required to retrieve and enter a system generated six-digit number.
The number will be emailed to their email address and will come from noreply@resa.net with subject MISTAR-Q Login Code.
If logging into the mobile app and notifications for the app are activated on the device, the number may also be received via push notification.
Staff will need to authenticate only once per day (as opposed to each login throughout the day) using the same browser and same device. Each browser or device will require authentication each day access is attempted.
Each initial login attempt will generate an email of a different six (6) digit code and the most recently emailed code will be the only code that will work to successfully log in.

NOTE: since the Student Connection and Parent Connection applications accessed by our students and parents ARE NOT required to have two factor authentication at this time, our district has decided to NOT MAKE that a requirement for successful login for those account holders.

BrainPop subscription renewed for entire district’s access

Just a reminder that BrainPop (and at the elementary level, BrainPop JR) are available digital resources for all of our elementary, middle and high school students. Log in is via Clever (clever.com/in/pccs).

Their latest newsletter offers the following:

Get started with setting up your class(es).

Visit your Teacher Dashboard to create an assignment.

New! Invite co-teachers to collaborate in BrainPOP.

See all we offer with BrainPOP 101.

Canvas Support Office Hours

We hope you had a relaxing and rejuvenating summer break. As you work on getting your Canvas course(s) up and running, we want to offer you support. On Wednesday afternoon (September 1) we will offer office hours via Zoom from 12:30-3:30 pm. Add to your calendar.

If you are looking for other forms of support, the Help option on the Course Navigation Menu has several great options. See the image below.

You can also schedule a one-on-one coaching session with a Canvas representative, also known as a Panda Pro. https://tech.pccsk12.com/panda-pros-coaching/

Canvas

District Overdrive subscription with Sora renewed

The online Sora app was designed around the modern student reading experience. This app, developed and curated by Overdrive, empowers students to discover and enjoy ebooks and audiobooks, for both leisure and class-assigned reading. ALL STUDENTS in all of our district’s schools AND ALL STAFF can log into our Sora page using their Google Accounts at http://links.pccsk12.com/sora and begin checking out ebooks!

Once logged in, students and staff are able to “borrow” ebooks and audiobooks from a selection of thousands of titles available in their school, district and/or Wayne county library collections. Check out this 2 minute video for how to access the app via the Google apps launcher (aka waffle) as well as how to add a library collection (only need to do that once per year).

P-CCS Canvas Best Practices

As we enter our second year with Canvas as our district’s learning management system, it’s important to continue to have it serve as the digital centerpiece for our classrooms. In an effort to foster a more uniform experience for our students and families, staff are encouraged to construct and maintain their Canvas courses bearing in mind these P-CCS Canvas Best Practices.

If you have questions or would like assistance implementing any of these practices, please consider attending a “WorkLab” session on Thursday, August 26 during Canvas Camp or one of the Canvas Q & A sessions on either Thursday, August 26th or Monday, August 30th.

Finally, know your friendly, district Technology Integration Specialists will also plan sessions for each of these items during the first six weeks of school (and sessions will be recorded and posted) as embracing these best practices will help our students.

Canvas