Updates
So we have a few things to share with you and your teachers!
Free things:
If you haven’t already check out the Teacher Page: bit.ly/jcpsteacher AND it is also hooked up to the
STAFF page of our homepage “Learning@Home for Teachers”
There you will find the following:
- Templates for 10 Day Plan
- A Padlet of Resources (tons of information here - free resources for lesson design, information on read alouds, virtual tours, etc) here is direct link: padlet.com/amystanley/jcpscoronavirus
- A link to a Resource Page - that has help documents for 6 tools: Google Slides, Hyperdocs, Screencastify, YouTube, Google Classroom and Google Meet
- A Calendar of Support Sessions that are being offered by the CIA team for all teachers
Also Vendors have offered their resources for free for the rest of the year:
- DiscoveryEd - reconnected to your Google account - just be signed in to your JCPS account and visit google.discoveryeducation.com (or on the online connections page) - all kids and teachers are hooked up if you find someone missing just let me know by sending their name/email to Amy Stanley
- Nearpod - all teachers have a pro account - go to Nearpod.com click sign in and use Google (if yours doesn’t work - let me know) Nearpod owns Flocabulary so that should work the same way.
- K-8 BrainPop is being synced with Clever - look in Homebase to find the Clever app and you will see Brainpop has been added
- MyOn - Free book access - go to the Student Online connections page - username and password are “read”
- Several others are listed on the padlet mentioned above under the “Free Offers column” including Plasma Games, Screencastify and Newsela
Tech Tips:
- Be cautious and encourage teachers to be cautious to introduce NEW tools. It can be overwhelming to the student and their parents. If at all possible continue to communicate the way you have always communicated: Remind, ClassDoJo, SeeSaw, Email, Google Classroom, etc. Don’t throw in something new if possible. (Be mindful of the SPAM issue shared in our last blog.)
- Recording - Google Meets - just a reminder - you should not record just chatting, and checking in with students, recordings should be of instruction only and should be cautiously shared if shared at all. Be careful about Meeting with a single student - just as at school this is for your safety.
- Social Media - remember the Social Media Guidelines apply. All public platforms - Instagram, Facebook, etc require 13 or older so Elementary and Middle using these platforms should be public and geared towards parents NOT students.
- We are still waiting for the Meet ending feature that was advertised on 3/20/2020 so it is ultra important that Digital Citizenship is emphasized with students every time a Meet is created and links to Meets should be guardly shared (within minutes of the start and taken down after) If you have students who are not using the tools appropriate, it should be addressed just as it would be in a face to face - a conversation with student/parent, etc.
- If you can go to meet.google.com and click on the speech bubble to provide feedback and share your needs with Google if they hear from enough of us hopefully they will work faster to get us a better solution.
- K-3 - istation was not renewed by the state so the ipractice will be removed this afternoon from the Family Resources page.