CSDNR Instructional Tech Weekly

Common Sense Media offers digital citizenship skills so that students can fully participate in their communities and make smart choices online and in life. Their award-winning K–12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum is housed on their website and is comprised of free resources and lessons for all students. They address topics such as cyberbullying, digital footprints, online privacy and news and media literacy.

The curriculum comes with interactive activities as well as customizable materials. There are also videos, slide decks and bilingual resources. Common Sense Media has released activities to celebrate digital citizenship emphasizing one of the five CASEL competencies for social and emotional learning and its connection to digital life.

Some of the activities for older students include lessons on phishing and identify theft. It is important that students understand how to be online safely and how to keep their information private. These lessons include short quizzes, tips for families and other resources in both English and Spanish.

The District subscribes to Nearpod and its Digital Citizenship lessons for grades K-12. These lessons include topics such as keyboarding, coding, evaluating resources and staying safe online. There is a scope and sequence that includes all of the lessons Nearpod offers. There are over 250 lessons in all and the lessons meet standards for CASEL, ISTE, as well as state-level digital citizenship and literacy standards. The lessons use the Gradual Release of Responsibility and the Guided Inquiry instructional framework. Nearpod also offers an implementation guide for using the Digital Citizenship lessons in the classroom.

The Digital Citizenship lessons can be searched by topic, grade level or both. They are also aligned to New York State Computer Science and Digital Fluency Standards. Here is a link to a shared folder showing lessons that align to specific standards. The documents are organized by grade level band.

BrainPop offers a variety of resources on many subjects. Within their plethora of informational videos and materials, they address many topics pertaining to Digital Citizenship. This resource is comprised of videos, quizzes, primary sources and related readings. All of these materials can be assigned to students within the platform. The Digital Citizenship topics address cyberbullying, information privacy, copyright, malware, medial literacy and online safety to name a few. Take a look at all that BrainPop has to offer.

BrainPop also provides teachers with pacing guides and accompanying lesson plans featuring digital citizenship topics for every grade level, K through 8. They also offer an entire unit for grades 3-5 addressing digital citizenship themes. Within these lessons, there is a focus on vocabulary as well as activities to check for understanding. Students can even make their own movies to demonstrate understanding.

If you have not used BrainPop, consider exploring this application to see all that it has to offer. This resource includes animated movies that provide a creative way to explain difficult concepts to students. BrainPop also includes a variety of learning tools available to teachers and students. Within the platform, students can create their own movies and play games to foster and assess their understanding of new concepts. Teachers can create and assign their own quizzes that are aligned to a movie or a related reading.

The District also has access to BrainPop Jr., BrainPop ELL, BrainPop Spanish and BrainPop French. These applications offer the same type of activities and resources that BrainPop provides to teachers and students. There are standards-aligned lessons, which include movies, readings and activities.

The Instructional Technology Team provides ongoing professional learning. Using this new form Request for Professional Learning Form, teachers can ask for training on a variety of applications. Just fill out the form and be sure to include details about specific goals you would like addressed in the training. We will do our best to accommodate your professional learning goals.

The Integrated Social Studies/ELA Curriculum from Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES is a user-friendly curriculum created by teachers from the region for teachers throughout New York State. The site is updated yearly and the curriculum is based on the New York State Social Studies Framework adopted by the Board of Regents in 2014. This site integrates the New York State ELA and Literacy Standards with the Social Studies Framework and uses an Understanding by Design (UBD) template.

To create your individual account, click here https://www.pnwboces.org/sselanew/registration. Complete the required fields and create your password. Passwords must be at least 6 characters long and must include a special character. You will receive a confirmation email to complete the registration process. Please check your Spam folder if not received in your Inbox. Open the confirmation email and select the embedded link to confirm your new account. The link will bring you to the Sign In page. Click the Confirmation button. After you click on the Confirmation button you can use your newly created credentials to login to the Enhanced SS/ELA Curriculum.

The District has access to a new writing program for grades 6-12 called No Red Ink. No Red Ink

helps to build stronger writers through authentic writing experiences. It includes interest-based curriculum, adaptive exercises and assessments. There are four components in the application; Practice, Writing, Assessment and Standards & Tests. Practice includes skill and grammar work. The Writing section is comprised of Quick Writes and Guided Drafts. This section also includes Peer Review and Self Review. There is also a section on diagnostic assessment, which includes complete tests or items from a variety of topics.

To get started with No Red Ink, go to noredink.com and use your Google credentials to login. Choose your school to take you to the premium content. To learn more about the platform take a look at the Getting Started Section and Video, Video on Quick Writes or Diagnostic Assessments. Additionally, the Instructional Technology Team will provide training for teachers.

Ed Law 2-D requires New York State districts to carefully vet all software used and third party providers. While the law is focused on protecting student PII, it also emphasizes the cyber security of third party vendors, since public school districts have been easy targets for cyber criminals. Ransomware attacks against K-12 school districts have been on the rise. These attacks can interfere with online learning and compromise data. In some reported cases, data was stolen from schools and published online; including personal information belonging to students, staff and faculty.

Going forward, all software, free or otherwise, will need to be approved by the District. In order to be compliant with the law. We will no longer be able to allow software that has not been properly vetted for data privacy as well as cyber security. There is a process for vetting in place and it begins with filling out a Software Approval Form. Also, please take a look at the District Applications that are already approved.

The Instructional Technology Website is always being updated. Recently, the site was overhauled to feature the professional learning resources that are available to all CSDNR faculty and staff. Last spring, the Team began vetting and creating resources to help educators learn how to use software applications. The resources include step-by-step videos as well as Google Slide Decks. There are also Google Docs and PDFs. Over the last year, we have added many resources to this collection.