New Staff Laptops FAQs
BrainPop’s March Teacher Lounge newsletter
BrainPop’s March 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.
Pics below show what’s in their March newsletter.
———–
March 2022
Dear Educators,
In celebration of Women’s History Month, BrainPOP is proud to share the stories of inspirational women in the worlds of art, science, politics, business, and more—from the visionary architect Zaha Hadid to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor!
March also means Pi Day and springtime! Be sure to explore all of our collections in this issue of the Teachers’ Lounge.
Canva February News Items
Canva (not our LMS Canvas) has a monthly newsletter that includes new feature updates and tips for getting the most out of our enterprise-level Canva for Education tools. This month’s newsletter highlights include:
———-
New Student Activity Videos
We’ve launched handy video guides to help teachers deliver activities with their students in Canva. Explore all the ways students can creatively demonstrate learning with our large range of templates – from infographics, and videos, to comic strips, and more.
Introducing Storybook Templates
Our newly launched storybook templates with character builders and resource pages are a fun, engaging, and creative way for students to create their own book! Choose a template, create characters and tell your story. VIEW TEMPLATES HERE
Video recording in Canva
Did you know you can record yourself in Canva? Explain a topic, share an update, or simply share your screen! Head over to the Videos tab and click Record Yourself to launch our editing studio. Choose to show yourself or make it a screen recording only, and apply filters and effects. Hit Record to get started.
If you want to learn more about how Canva and Canvas integrate see our previous blogpost or enroll in the asynchronous Canvas course.
Canvas Tip: New Analytics to Support Students
Did you know that New Analytics provides detailed reports about grades, activity in Canvas, and missing assignments? Take a look at the information below to learn more. This can be used to support your teaching with data and an easy way to communicate with students and families that need support.
*Credit to Nicole Pate of Del Sol Academy for the informational slides. Link to slides.
Submit a tech ticket if you have questions about this feature.
Elementary Teachers – Using IXL with Canvas
In addition to accessing IXL via Clever, we have recently integrated IXL with Canvas to provide the following functionality (and more) within Canvas courses.
Quick Launcher
Allows student to quickly access a few of the most valuable areas of IXL.com
Activity Selector
Allows teachers to create a direct links to an IXL skill, or the Diagnostic, from within Canvas
Activity Viewer/Launcher
Allows students or teachers to access an assigned IXL skill or Diagnostic
In sum, IXL’s integration with Canvas allows teachers to access IXL through Canvas and create activities using IXL skills or the Real-Time Diagnostic. Students can also access IXL through Canvas and navigate directly to certain sections of IXL, including skills or the diagnostic as selected by their teachers.
Check out the resources below to help you take full advantage of the integration features:
**Be on the look out for a synchronous, virtual training on IXL for our March 7 Professional Development day.**
(Thanks Bentley educator Kayleigh Gilo for the idea/encouragement to explore setting up this integration!)
Highlights from the February Google for Education newsletter
Here are some highlights from the latest newsletter for your consideration.
| Originality Reports Available for Google Slides Previously available for Google Docs, originality reports can now also be run in Google Slides. Originality reports are a feature that helps students and teachers detect plagiarism and can be used when submitting or receiving files in Google Classroom. |
| Register for the Teach with Chrome Series Learn about the latest in Chrome devices and Chrome OS with more than ten 30-minute sessions featuring Google experts and partners running demo-based trainings. If you can’t watch live, all sessions will be available on demand after the livestream finishes each day. |
Educator Resources |
| Join a Google Educator Group Find a Google Educator Group near you and meet educators in your area who use Google tools to foster learning in schools, classrooms, and communities. |
| Earn Your Educator Level 1 Certification Demonstrate your mastery of Google tools in the classroom with the Educator Level 1 Certification. Completing the certification earns you a badge that can help you stand out on your resume, portfolio, website, and more. |
| Celebrate Digital Learning Day with Applied Digital Skills Digital Learning Day is on Feb 22, 2022! To prepare for the big day, check out this collection of our most popular lessons amongst teachers. |
| New Black History Month Lesson from Applied Digital Skills Our new lesson ‘Create a Community My Map’ promotes student cultural awareness and activism. In this lesson, students will customize a ‘Google My Map’ that features places that are meaningful to them in their community and share it with their peers. |
Extra Credit |
| Apply to be a Google Certified Trainer Apply to be a Google Certified Trainer today and connect with other passionate educators! As a trainer, you’ll foster change and efficiency in the educator community by helping educators use Google Workspace tools in their classrooms. |
| Register for a Google for Education Security Summit Our virtual Security Summits focus on best practices to safely and securely manage your school’s online presence. We’ll explore our powerful, free security tools (DLP, Vault) and get hands-on with hero features (Investigation Tool, etc.) from our paid Workspace editions. |
| Arts & Culture: Memory of the World Discover some of the world’s most significant items of documentary heritage through the UNESCO program. Educational resources including video, a lesson plan for K-12, and an introduction for teachers are available. |
| Arts & Culture: A Brief History of Vaccines Find out about the discovery of viruses and history of vaccines. Check out videos, stories, quizzes, and insights into people who help save lives and the design of protective equipment. |
| Arts & Culture: Thai Art History Explore 70 years of Thai art through color, high res images, interviews with artists, and different materials. Find inspiration and insight into the culture and art of Thailand. |
|
Friendly Reminder: Back Up Your Files
Here’s another friendly reminder that new laptops will be distributed this spring. Be sure to save any files you wish to keep. See our original post for directions.
Wordle in the Classroom
2022 has brought on the Wordle craze. If you or your students have caught Wordle fever, you might consider how to incorporate it in the classroom. Check out the ideas below (including some math versions).
Other Wordle spinoffs to explore include:
PCEP Year-Long Courses now with Grading Periods
High School teachers of PCEP year-long courses, please be aware that Grading Periods will be set up in your Canvas courses denoting each semester.
Year-Long PCEP Courses
- Teachers will have access to make edits, give feedback, and grade assignments in Canvas for first semester until 11:59 pm on February 2, 2022. After that date, the grades will not be editable.
- Students will continue to have access to submit assignments with due dates in the first semester UNLESS YOU HAVE AN AVAILABLE UNTIL DATE OF JAN. 28 OR EARLIER. You can edit those dates in bulk by following the steps here.
Semester 2 began January 31st, 2022. You can filter your grade book to view assignments with due dates in the Semester 2 grading period by following the steps here.
The information above was also noted in our January 18, 2022 blog post.
If you have questions, please submit a tech ticket.
Zoom Features for your Virtual Classes
There have been some updates to Zoom that help facilitate online learning for teachers and students. Check them out below.
- Save Zoom recording directly to Canvas. You can now save your Zoom recordings directly to Canvas Studio to easily integrate and share with your students. It just requires a few clicks to set this up in Canvas. Video tutorial.
- Create a seating chart in Gallery View. In your account settings, you will need to enable, “Allow host to save video order.” When you are in your meeting, arrange the students as you would like while in Gallery View and click save. If it is a recurring meeting, the video order will be saved for future meetings. More information.
- Turn on Focus Mode. This mode allows you to see all the student screens, but students only see the teacher’s video. You can even set it up for your meeting to being in Focus Mode. More information OR check out this 5 minute explanatory video
- More polling and quizzing options. Zoom has expanded their polls to eight different question types and added the ability to add images. You can also set up the poll to be a quiz. More information.
- Add video to the Waiting Room. Maximize instructional time by adding a video to play while participants are in the Waiting Room. Unfortunately, this is a general setting to be applied to all your waiting room and not tied to a specific meeting. You can customize this when logged in to your web portal at www.zoom.us Video tutorial.
- Zoom Learning Center. Zoom now offers a free educational platform for all new and existing users, including on-demand courses, live trainings, and short videos designed to give you just what you need when you need it to know how to best use their service. Login at https://learning.zoom.us/
