Newsletter Archive – Page 6

Digital Literacy and Citizenship in the Classroom

In our rapidly evolving digital world, it’s crucial that students develop strong digital literacy and digital citizenship skills. From navigating the internet safely to understanding the capabilities of artificial intelligence, our students need guidance to become responsible and informed digital citizens. That’s why incorporating Common Sense Media’s free educator resources is such a valuable opportunity for all educators.

Common Sense Media provides ready-made lesson plans and lesson collections tackling a wide range of relevant digital topics like digital security, managing digital distractions, and understanding AI. By creating a free account, teachers gain access to these amazing materials designed to build digital literacy in an engaging way. As educators, we have the chance to empower our students with the knowledge and skills required to thrive online. Bring Common Sense Media’s lessons into your classroom to prepare your students for success in our digital age with confidence.

lesson collection on digital well-being — Digital-well being lessons are available across grade levels.

lesson collection for elementary device advice — Lessons to foster device use in the classroom.

Range of lessons for 10th grade — Digital citizenship lessons can fit in a variety of subject areas.

March Madness for your Classroom

The fun surrounding college basketball’s March Madness can be translated to your classroom content. By using the bracket students can discuss and compare ideas. One tool, Flippity, stands out as a great option for customizing your own bracket for classroom use.

See Eric Curts’s blog post for step-by-step directions for set up and ideas for how you might use it in different content areas.

If you like the ideas of students discussing and ranking concepts, but don’t want to get swept up in March Madness, you can check out Eric’s Tier List activity and template.

March Canvas Updates

March 16, 2024 Canvas is releasing two welcome updates!

New Quizzes Item Analysis: Fill In the Blank Data now provides additional information on specific question types for instructors to evaluate student responses and provide appropriate intervention. Previously, if you had multiple blanks or dropdowns you would not get stats on all the blanks. Now you will be able to get data for each blank. See image below.

Multiple gradebook filter options can be applied at once.

Video walkthrough:

Canvas

Canvas Discussions Redesign Coming this Summer

This summer, Canvas is rolling out a redesign of the Discussions feature to provide a more modern, accessible, and user-friendly experience. While the core functionality of Discussions will remain intact, the new redesign brings a host of exciting enhancements.

What’s New in the Discussions Redesign?

Cleaner, more accessible UI with improved screen reader capabilities
Flexible viewing options including inline view and split view
Reply reporting with notifications for instructors
Quoting functionality to make referencing easier
Improved search with text highlighting
Support for full and partial anonymity in graded discussions—this functionality is currently turned off for P-CCS until Canvas adds a moderation feature
Additional sorting and filtering options

The goal is to facilitate better peer-to-peer interaction and collaboration through a modernized discussion forum experience. Popular existing features like posting before seeing replies, marking posts read/unread, group discussions, peer reviews, and rubric support will continue to be available.

While some may be apprehensive about the changes, Canvas emphasizes that no current functionality is going away. The redesign aims to elevate the overall discussion experience by adding conveniences like quote replies, anonymous postings, and a more intuitive design.

So get ready to embrace the future of Canvas Discussions coming your way this summer! The refreshed interface and new capabilities will foster more engaging discourse for students and instructors alike.

Find more information here: 2024_Canvas-Discussions-Redesign_Data-Sheet.pdf – Google Drive

Canvas

Heads up Google users, Google is changing the look of the sign-in page:

What’s the same

The steps to sign in haven’t changed. You enter the same information you usually do, like your email address and password.
You use your account to sign in securely to the same Google services as before.

Why the page changed

The new sign-in page has a better layout for all screen types, which includes large and wide screens. The sign-in page adjusts to your screen’s size.

Where the change happened

The new sign-in page shows up on:

Computers
Phones
Tablets

You can find it when you sign in to a Google app or a Google service on a browser, like Chrome.

If you use an older version of a browser, you may still find the old sign-in page.

How to help keep your account secure

To take extra steps to strengthen your account’s security:

Do a Security Checkup to review security settings and activity.
Visit the Safety Center to find out about online security and privacy tools.

If you sign in on a device that’s not yours, learn how to browse in private to help protect your account.

New Student & Family Canvas Orientation

In an effort to better help new students and families understand how to use Canvas, we have created a Student and Family Canvas Orientation. We plan to link it in several places throughout our public-facing websites. For now, it is conveniently linked in the “Help” area in Canvas.

There is a family module and student module. They contain walkthroughs in several formats (video, interactive tutorial, and linked guides).

students orientation modules — Module for Students

Individuals don’t need to be be logged into view the course, so you can also share the link directly. Please feel free to spread the word to anyone who would benefit from this resource. We will update this blog post when we add the link in other places.

Are your MiStar Grades & Assignments Visible?

We have gotten a few reports from students and families that MiStar grades and assignments aren’t visible for certain classes. Perhaps your turned off visibility at the end of the semester or have new semester courses, please take a moment to check that you have the correct setting turned on. You will want to “Share Assignment Information With Those Permitted Access.”

mistar grade settings

Please submit a tech ticket if you have questions.

Canvas February Updates

There are several updates coming to Canvas on February 17.

Calendar: Did you know you can set up appointment groups for students to sign up to meet with you? Coming February 17, you can also allow Observers to sign up for Appointment Groups.

New Quizzes updates include:
- If you utilize Classic Quizzes for practice quizzes you’ll be able to migrate them to New Quizzes. When migrated, the settings for a practice quiz will automatically be enabled (worth 0 points and set to NOT display in the gradebook).

- New Quizzes has recently increased the speed of analytics for your quiz and now they are adding the option to export the data as a CSV.
- There will also be answer frequency summary tables available for Multiple Choice, Multiple Answer, and True or False question types.

Go to Canvas’s Relase Notes for more information on these updates.

[How-To] Connect to the P-CCS Wi-Fi Network

For STAFF

If you have a personal device and would like to connect it to a district wireless network, please connect it to the PCCSK12-Staff network using your network account credentials. Your network account is the same one used to login to any district desktop or laptop (not Google/Chromebooks). If you do not remember your account information, please submit a tech request.

Disclaimers

District Chromebooks will automatically connect to the PCCSK12-Devices network.
Devices such as AppleTV and Chromecast will need to be authorized by the tech department first. Please fill out this form if you would like to have one connected.
Home and personal assistant devices such as Google Home/Nest (Google Assistant), Amazon Echo (Alexa), and Apple HomePod (Siri) are not allowed on the district network. Personal assistant services built into personal smartphones are unaffected.
In most areas we only offer a 5 GHz WiFi network. If your device only supports 2.4 GHz you will not be able to connect.

For STUDENTS (BYOD)

If you have a personal device and would like to connect it to a district wireless network, please connect it to the PCCSK12-Students network. When prompted for a username and password, use your network logon credentials (username without @pccsk12.com at the end) to connect. Please note that student usernames and passwords will not work on the PCCSK12-Staff network or any other network.

Disclaimers

In most areas we only offer a 5 GHz WiFi network. If your device only supports 2.4 GHz you will not be able to connect.

Please see the following device-specific guides for connecting to the network.

If you have a personal device and would like to connect it to a district wireless network, please connect it to the PCCSK12-Students network. When prompted for a username and password, use your network logon credentials (username without @pccsk12.com at the end) to connect. Please note that student usernames and passwords will not work on the PCCSK12-Staff network or any other network.

Instructions for Chrome OS (Chromebooks)

Click on your picture icon in the bottom right-hand corner

Click on your current WiFi Connection to bring up the list of available network then select PCCSK12-Students if you are a student, and PCCSK12-Staff if you are a district staff member.

Fill in the following fields as seen in the screenshot to the left. Make sure to use your username (P-CCS Google email address for students, network account for staff) in the “Identity” field

EAP Method: PEAP
Phase 2 authentication: Automatic
Server CA certificate: Do not check
Identity: (Your username)
Password: (Your Password)

Push Connect when finished

Instructions for iPadOS and iOS (iPad and iPhone)

Find the Settings App on your device and open it.

Tap on Wi-Fi, and then tap on the PCCSK12-Students if you are a student, and PCCSK12-Staff if you are a district staff member in the list of Wi-Fi networks

When prompted for a username and password, use your network logon credentials (username without @pccsk12.com at the end for students, network account for staff) to connect.

*Example:
Username: izcough872
Password: learnpow

Tap the Trust button when you see this window

You should see a check mark in the Wi-Fi list at the top that confirms you are connected.

Instructions for Android devices

Find the Settings App on your Android device then Tap on Network & Settings or on Wi-Fi. (The layout of the settings may differ with different types of Android devices)

Tap on the PCCSK12-Students if you are a student, and PCCSK12-Staff if you are a district staff member in the list of Wi-Fi networks. Use the following settings:

EAP Method: PEAP
Phase 2 authentication: None orMSCHAPV2
CA certificate: Do Not Validate or Trust on First Use
Domain: PCCSK12.com
Identity: (same as laptop login username)
Anonymous identity: leave blank
Password: (current laptop login password)

Instructions for Windows 10

Look for WiFi icon in the bottom right-hand corner of your desktop either by clicking directly on it, or looking for it with the up arrow icon.

Click WiFi Icon in system tray then click on the PCCSK12-Students if you are a student, and PCCSK12-Staff if you are a district staff member.

Click the Connect button

Fill in the following fields as seen in the screenshot to the left. Make sure to use your username (PCCS Google email address without the @pccsk12.com for students, network account for staff) in the top field and your password in the bottom field

Example Username: izcough875
Password: (Your password)
Click OK when finished

Instructions for macOS

Select the Wi-Fi Symbol in the Menu Bar.

Then choose PCCSK12-Students if you are a student, and PCCSK12-Staff if you are a district staff member.

Enter username and password, (same as your Google login without the @pccsk12.com for students, network account for staff) and select “Remember this network”

Choose the Continue button

If prompted, enter your personal Mac’s Username and Password and Select “Update Settings”

If you are prompted to update Zoom…

A new Zoom update has been recently released. For staff who might be using Zoom, especially to host meetings with students, please practice launching and hosting a Zoom meeting on your district laptop prior to video conferencing with students. If you have trouble with Zoom stating you need to update it, please do the following:

Go to the Company Portal and install Clean Zoom (This will remove all old versions of Zoom)
Wait until Clean Zoom has been installed
Go to https://zoom.us/support/download and download and install Zoom (This will install the latest version of Zoom)

Additionally, for those who don’t usually have Zoom meetings with students, that will in April, we suggest that you have students test joining your Zoom meetings prior to using them for class. Doing so will ensure that there are no issues with your Zoom meeting settings and that Zoom works correctly on student devices. Students can also test using Zoom by going to zoom.us/test.

MORE DETAILED GUIDANCE

Follow the steps below to complete the update.

Click on the Windows Start button on the bottom left of your taskbar
In the search bar, search for Company Portal and open it
1. When the Portal opens, search for Clean Zoom and install it; wait for it to be fully installed
2. Copy and paste http://zoom.us/support/download into your browser to download the new version of Zoom
3. The download should appear on the top right of your Chrome browser bar; click on the arrow and then click on the download
4. It should start downloading and indicate that it was updated successfully
5. You can confirm you are set by browsing to zoom.us/test.