Instructional Tech Weekly

Newsela has granted the District access to their ELA section for the remainder of the school year. Newsela ELA provides students with the opportunity to engage with rich literary genres, topics, and projects at varying levels of text. These texts address key literacy skills and will engage students in topics they encounter by way of research, investigation, analysis, and writing. Newsela ELA is aligned to reading standards, providing curated resources and instructional to support students in building and enhancing comprehension skills.

There is a variety of content available, including over 10,000 texts that address real-world content regarding a variety of subject areas. Students practice accessing complex texts that include formative assessments, allowing teachers to identify strengths and weaknesses. The ELA collection includes curriculum complements, novel studies, projects, poetry, videos and vocabulary.

Did you know that you could make your very own BrainPop Movie? BrainPop has a Make-a-Movie section. Students and teachers can make their own movies about any subject area. BrainPop also offers storyboards as well as images and sounds to add to your very own creation. This is a creative way for students to showcase their knowledge about a topic.

Within BrainPop, teachers can create assignments that include making movies. Each movie can contain up to 20 scenes. Students use images and record their voices to share their knowledge on a topic. Students start with a question that they want answered by writing a letter in the same way that all BrainPop movies begin. BrainPop also offers examples of movies created by students.

If you want more information about how to use Make-a-Movie check out this presentation from Laura Sarago who recently shared her knowledge with teachers on how to utilize the movie making tool in BrainPop. She also created a shared folder that contains resources to help teachers get started. It includes downloaded Moby sound effects.

Google Sites is Google's website creation tool. It is easy to use and you can create a website from a template or from scratch. On your own website, you can house resources, video content, texts, images or any document that is in your Google Drive. Students can even use Sites to create portfolios. Within sites, you can create pages and your own customized theme. Here is a brief video to get you started with building your own Site.

If you already know about Sites and you looking to enhance your knowledge, take a look at this Google Slide Deck from Moises Freja. This contains tips and tricks when using Google Sites. There are some tutorials for beginners as well. The Slides also introduce Canva as a tool to build animation and designs to take your Google Site to the next level. Canva offers tutorials for educators to enhance learning.

Nearpod is an effective and engaging learning tool. It can be used when students are remote or in person. Nearpod has lessons already created that align to standards and address a variety of subject areas. Teachers can also create their own interactive lessons through Nearpod or Google Slides. If you are looking for training in Nearpod, fill out this Professional Learning form to request it.

Nearpod continues to put out a plethora of resources for teachers to use regardless of the situation in which they are teaching. Check out this new guide from Nearpod; Back to the Physical Classroom with Nearpod. There is a focus on formative assessment as well as social-emotional learning.

Recently, Screencastify added a new tool to their editing features. This new tool allows users to blur out sensitive information, PII and student faces from videos created. Check out the instructions on how to use this new Blur Tool. This will help teachers and other users be more compliant with Ed Law 2-D.

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.

Specific applications are listed, but there is also an "Other" category as well. If we cannot provide training, we may be able to contact the vendor to provide professional learning for teachers.

Education Law 2-D provides extra protections for student data and personally identifiable information (PII). Ed Law 2-D calls on educational institutions to limit the amount of PII being utilized and transmitted, especially in unprotected ways. It is the job of educators to protect student PII. Take a look at this short video on protecting student data.

It is also important to limit the amount of student PII being shared in emails and sending sensitive information via an email is not always secure. Information can be breached. There are ways to mitigate personally identifiable student information from being breached via email. First, think about using student IDs instead of names in an email. Student IDs without other information are not identifiable without using a password protected application, like eschoolplus.

Additionally, Gmail has two security features built into it. One allows the sender to identify a time when that email will expire and no longer be accessible to the recipient. The other is to utilize an SMS passcode generated to a cell phone in order to open the email. Here is a brief video on how to use these Gmail security features.

Teachers can send a password protected MS Excel file or a password protected MS Word file. This is very simple to do. Take a look at this short video on how to password protect your MS Excel files. Here is a video on how to password protect your MS Word files.

Finally, you can always use Google Docs or Google Sheets to send sensitive information that you want to secure. Make sure that the document is only shared with the intended recipient and not shared with others.

The listing of District applications can be found at this link and includes signed Parent Bill of Rights by vendors as well as other information about the application.

We have also created a guide for current applications that address their uses and similarities to other software titles. Here is Google Slide Deck that provides details on the various CSDNR Applications. In this document, you will get information on how to login, the kind of subscription we have, similar software and resources on how to use the application.

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.