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REMC’s December Virtual Courses, earn 10 Free SCECHs

REMC December courses

2021 DECEMBER REMC COURSES

Stay warm and learn something new! Take advantage of next month’s courses to learn new skills and tools to enhance your classroom.

December is a great time to learn in an instructor-led virtual course setting. REMC courses offer 10 free SCECHs, and are open to all Michigan school personnel.

Registration deadline is Friday, November 26th. Through the support of REMC SAVE’s vendor partners, all courses are FREE and there are no SCECH fees. You won’t want to miss out on these virtual courses that are a great way for educators to learn, connect, collaborate and grow from the convenience of their home.

Register by Friday, November 26th – Classes Begin Monday, November 29th

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

November Canvas Updates

On November 20th Canvas enabled the following updates for course instructors:

  • New Quizzes
    • By clicking the 3 dots you can bypass the assignment details page and go directly to “Build” the quiz by adding questions.
      • This is helpful for when you have already set up the assignment details and just need to go in to adjust questions.

image showing option to build a quiz

    • Stimulus orientation. When you add a stimulus question (an image with questions associated with it), Canvas defaults to having the image to the right of the questions. You can now put it above the questions. This is especially helpful if you need to print the quiz for a student. https://tech.pccsk12.com/print-canvas-new-quizzes/

image showing where to change stimulus orientation

  • Text Entry Word Count
    • When working in SpeedGrader, instructors will be able to view the word count on a text entry submission.

image of word count display

If you have ideas for Canvas update and improvements, let them know by adding a post to Idea Conversations. https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Idea-Conversations/idb-p/ideas 

Canvas Assignment Submission Tutorials, and More!

In an effort to support students, teachers, and families we have created additional technology tutorials. We have put special emphasis on tutorials for various, Canvas submission types for students. We hope this will help all stakeholders as Canvas remains the best way to continue coursework when students need to be out for an extended time. Please keep in mind, the users on a the mobile app will have a different experience and should consult these guides: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Mobile-Users/gh-p/mobile

This resource is available for teachers on the Digital Teaching Hub. https://tech.pccsk12.com/canvas-lms/

It is also available for students and families on the Digital Learning Hub. https://sites.google.com/pccsk12.com/hlh/canvas

For your convenience it is embedded below.

 

Keeping YouTube Safer for our students

REMINDER: Due to the nature of YouTube, and the easy availability of inappropriate content, the Tech Department has enabled severe restrictions on YouTube for elementary students and moderate restrictions for middle school students. However, it’s easy for staff to approve content on the fly when they need to. Please note the following steps to approve content, but please remember to approve only the content that you would want students to access. 

Visit YouTube. https://www.youtube.com 

  1. Click sign in on the top right if you are not already signed into a YouTube account. 
  2. Make sure that you are signed into your district YouTube account. Click on the icon in the top right to verify. Should say managed by pccsk12.com (see pic below) 

YouTube Sign in box

 

      3. When you go to any YouTube video you will find a blue bar stating the status of the video below it. This video can be approved for our organization — when someone is signed in to YouTube — so at this point, not applicable to elementary as is. See pic below. 

approval bar   

      4. If the video was already approved you will see the remove button. Anyone can click this to also remove the video from approval. 

      5. Some videos are allowed by YouTube automatically. It will say watchable. 

      6. You can also approve a whole channel. This will allow you to approve school channels or curriculum sites, for when and if we opt for restricted mode, but permit sign in where we can then allow all white-listed videos to be accessible. 

  1. Important note: By approving or removing videos from YouTube, you are a affecting the entire district, and therefore it is important to approve videos ONLY if they are appropriate for K-12. 
  2.  All creators are now required to tell if their content is made for kids in order to comply with the Children‘s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and/or other applicable laws.   As part of a settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and NY Attorney General, YouTube is now requiring YouTube creators to set future and existing videos as made for kids OR not. Even creators who don’t make content for kids need to set their audience.  See this posting for more information https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9527654

 

P-CEP High School Grading Periods

summary of grading period information

As of November 19th, now that Quarter 1 grades have been turned in at the secondary level, Grading Periods will be in place in Canvas to reflect the closing of Q1 grades in MiStar. Students will have view-only access to first quarter course content and will be unable to submit work for assignments associated with the first quarter (Q1) since it is not the current grading period. While teachers can edit their previous term’s course content, they cannot make further adjustments in the feedback or grading of any non-current grading period submissions.

When grading periods are enabled, the due date of an assignment will determine the grading period within which the assignment will appear in the Gradebook. If no due date is set, the assignment defaults to the last (current) grading period available for the course. Therefore, if there is a quiz or assignment that a student must still complete from a past quarter, you might make a copy of that quiz/assignment, give it a due date in the current grading period, and assign it just to the few students that need it. In that case, grade passback to MiStar should be avoided and, should you want it reflected in MISTAR manually enter the grade for those students in the Q1 quiz or assignment instead (note, even if this is done, the student’s viewable-as-of November 12th report card, won’t reflect any change).

Importantly, while students will still find their definitive grades in MISTAR, this grade period demarcation will also result in a more accurate current grade average, as far as what Canvas reflects, since only the current marking period will be presented.

Please find quick overview directions and screenshots in this document.

*Please note elementary teachers — it is very conceivable that we will similarly update Canvas for courses that span grading periods too, in the coming weeks, to allow for term filtering.

Submit a ticket for more support.

REMC November newsletter

REMC newsletter

*REMC — See this month’s newsletter HERE. Some highlights are found below. Click on images to read more about it.

Conversation

Playdate

* The Regional Educational Media Center Association of Michigan promotes the transformative use of technology and provides Michigan schools with access to educational resources to help teachers increase student success.

Middle School Teachers: Transition from Quarter 1 to Quarter 2 in Canvas reflected by grading periods

summary of grading period information

As of November 10th, now that Quarter 1 grades have been turned in at the secondary level, Grading Periods will be in place in Canvas to reflect the closing of Q1 grades in MiStar. Students will have view-only access to first quarter course content and will be unable to submit work for assignments associated with the first quarter (Q1) since it is not the current grading period. While teachers can edit their previous term’s course content, they cannot make further adjustments in the feedback or grading of any non-current grading period submissions.

When grading periods are enabled, the due date of an assignment will determine the grading period within which the assignment will appear in the Gradebook. If no due date is set, the assignment defaults to the last (current) grading period available for the course. Therefore, if there is a quiz or assignment that a student must still complete from a past quarter, you might make a copy of that quiz/assignment, give it a due date in the current grading period, and assign it just to the few students that need it. In that case, grade passback to MiStar should be avoided and, should you want it reflected in MISTAR manually enter the grade for those students in the Q1 quiz or assignment instead (note, even if this is done, the student’s viewable-as-of November 12th report card, won’t reflect any change).

Importantly, while students will still find their definitive grades in MISTAR, this grade period demarcation will also result in a more accurate current grade average, as far as what Canvas reflects, since only the current marking period will be presented.

Please find quick overview directions and screenshots in this document.

Please also revisit this blog post from last November on how to extend access for students to a Canvas course past the term end date based on an interest in allowing students an additional time period to access course content or to interact with and submit coursework.

*Please note elementary and high school teachers — it is very conceivable that we will similarly update Canvas for courses that span grading periods too, in the coming weeks, to allow for term filtering.

Submit a ticket for more support.

Zoom’s Focus Mode feature

While we highlighted this feature before school began (see blog post here), we continue to get questions about how to use it so are providing more details below.

Focus mode is designed with the digital learning environment in mind, allowing students to stay attentive or work on their tasks while under supervision, without being distracted by others and their tasks. This feature gives the host and co-hosts view of all participants’ videos without other participants seeing each other. This extends into screen sharing, as the host and co-host can view and switch between each participant’s shared screen, while the participants can only view their own content. If the host finds a participant’s content should be shared with others, they can easily begin sharing the participant’s screen with others.

Besides the host, co-hosts, and participants spotlighted by the host, participants in focus mode can still see their own video but only see other participants’ names, their nonverbal feedback or reactions, and hear them when unmuted.

Prerequisites for focus mode

  • Start a meeting as the host
  • Zoom desktop client
    • Windows: version 5.7.3 or higher
    • macOS: version 5.7.3 or higher

User

To enable or disable Focus mode for your own use:

  1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
  2. In the navigation panel, click Settings.
  3. Click the Meeting tab.
  4. Under In Meeting (Advanced), click the Focus Mode toggle to enable or disable it.
  5. If a verification dialog displays, click Enable or Disable to verify the change.

How to engage focus mode as the host or co-host of a meeting:

  1. Start a meeting as the host or co-host.
  2. Click More  on the meeting toolbar.
  3. Click Start Focus Mode.
  4. Click Start to confirm, or select the Don’t ask me again check box to skip this confirmation going forward.
  5. When Focus mode begins, you and the participants are notified with a banner along the top of the video window. Additionally, the focus mode  icon is always visible in the top-left corner of the video window, next to the encryption icon, while focus mode is active.

Once Focus mode has been started, participants in focus mode will only see the video of the host, co-hosts, any participants spotlighted by the host, and their own video. They will only see other participants’ names, their nonverbal feedback or reactions, and hear them when unmuted.

Participants’ shared screens are only visible to the host and co-hosts, but the host can allow all other participants to view as well:

  1. Click the up arrow  to the right of Share Screen .
  2. In the Shared screens can be seen by section, click All participants.
  3. (Optional) To return to just host and co-hosts viewing shared content, select Host only.
    Note: These options are only available when in Focus mode.

How to end focus mode:

  1. Click More  on the meeting toolbar.
  2. Click Stop Focus Mode.

Focus mode examples

Below are examples of Focus mode in a meeting. First, what the host or co-hosts see during Focus mode, followed by what a participant would see.

Host view:

Participant view when one participant is spotlighted:

see this support article for more assistance https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360061113751-Focus-mode-

 

A handful of ed tech offerings

Ed tech tips

The 2021-22 edition of The Practical Ed Tech Handbook is a 75 page PDF that features Richard Byrne’s favorite tools, tips, and strategies for using a wide variety of educational technology tools in your classroom. It can be found at https://practicaledtech.com/free-handbook/ 

Tiny Tap is a free web service that lets you create web-based educational games or borrow from a gallery of teacher made educational and share them with students, including embedding them in Canvas if you want. Consider checking out Byrne’s post describing the service at https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2021/11/tinytap-create-your-own-educational.html

Josh Sowash’s October newsletter included