Instructional Tech

The Canvas gradebook allows you to create quick email lists of students who don’t complete an assignment or score below a certain threshold. You can do the same but at the course level by total grade instead of assignment by assignment. In this example, we’ll send a message to students with a score below a 65% (failing). In your Canvas course, click on New Analytics in the left-hand menu. It’s probably toward the bottom of the screen. This page loads weekly activity in the course by default. Use the arrow at the top to change to Course Grade. This screen...

There are a couple of different ways you can organize your classes in Seesaw. One is by utilizing the unique classes already created through your PowerSchool accounts like Math and Reading. The other way is to use folders inside of one class or you can use of combination of the two. Once inside a class, Seesaw allows you to create folders for student work and activities. This is helpful for grouping student tutorials, anchor charts, or larger topic based materials. Teacher and student work can also be sorted into leveled activities for students based on reading or math level, English...

As we wrap week one of being an online school, the biggest concern we’re hearing from teachers is that boundaries are much more difficult to define and keep. I’m going to touch on that tension and where it comes from and then give some practical tips you can use to set and maintain healthy boundaries for online teaching. The Conflict Working from home introduces a number of conflicting obligations to the work day. Prep and grading aside, our own kids are working at home, we have to contact students or parents individually, and we need to make sure we’re available...

Our new reality has started and we’re in eLearning for the long haul! Fear not, though. Instructional Tech and Tech Services are here to help everyone. In this post, we’re going to look at some ways to manage problem solving while we all practice social distancing. If an issue arises during eLearning (and they will), we suggest using the following problem solving steps. Using these steps before going to a member of the instructional technology team or technology department helps ensure that we have enough time to handle the new issues that come up each day. Remember, your building technology ambassador is...

While students are away we want to give them a sense of normalcy and routine where it make sense. Having a way for students and parents to hear and see their teacher is a great way to build lasting relationships and create more engaging and authentic learning experience. There are many different ways of using videos with your students while they are away. No matter what type of video you choose to make, remember to keep them short. Below are suggestions for ways to create and share different types of videos. Seesaw Recordings (elementary) Seesaw has a built in recorder...

Okay, so it’s not quite a bracket but you have to admit the title is catchy. This spring our PD website is overflowing with options for Elkhart teachers! The Ambassadors have been working on several options to carry on the energy from the secondary institute on February 6th and to prepare for our next eLearning Day on April 1st, which will be the first eLearning day for the elementaries. (Seriously, it’s on April 1st, this is not an early joke.) We’re going to try a few new methods for offering PD that makes it easier on you to attend and...

It’s cold outside, but Canvas has some ?? updates this month that we wanted to briefly outline. The updates this month provide two new tools that you can try out in our courses started today. Direct Share Sharing materials between courses is tricky. You can either set up a shared, empty course that holds materials. Any teacher in that course can then import those materials into their own class. The downside is that you now have another course to manage in Canvas. Starting today, there is an option called Direct Share. This option allows you to either copy materials between...

We have more PD available online than ever before. There are some bite-sized courses you can work through individually as well as some YouTube livestreams that were recorded. We’re starting to use real-time video conferencing with Google Meet for in-person PD regardless of where you are physically. With all of these links, how do you find those places later? The PD website is the driver for finding your online course links. Here are two ways you can find the link to your online PD. Method 1: The Welcome Email After registering for an online course or session, you should receive...

My calendar drives my life. It helps me budget time and gets me where I need to be during the day. It’s typically a tab I have open on my computer and it is on my phone home screen for quick access. Along with calendar events, I rely on Google’s notifications to snap me out of the zone when a meeting is coming up. Since I move around the district, 10 minutes (the default) often isn’t enough. You can set default notifications in your Google calendar so you’re not constantly changing settings when you’re creating meetings. Notification Settings If you...

It’s been a while since we’ve sent an update of upcoming professional development available. Here’s a list of the currently scheduled workshops for November and December 2019. You can sign up for all PD options on the PD website. November Date/Time Title Location Weds 11/20 @ 2:50 – 3:20 ECS Staff Site Overview Online Fri 11/22 @ 9:00 – 10:30 SIOP Module 3 Make Up PLC at the Admin Building Tues 11/26 @ 12:00 – 4:00 CPI Refresher Course PLC at the Admin Building December Date/Time Title Location Tues, 12/10, 7:30 – 3:00 CPI Full Training PLC at the Admin...

Here’s another quick tip for sharing documents from Google. This trick works with any Google item (Docs, Sheets, etc) and is similar to the fast-copy trick. View Only Sharing When you share a doc as view only, the viewer still sees the entire editor. This takes up screen space, takes longer to load, and it can confuse people who don’t use Google docs often because they can’t edit anything. They can still request edit access, which is nice in case you meant to give them edit access but forgot. Share Without the Editor You can make a quick change to...

Our first eLearning day is coming up on September 30th (remember, this is secondary only). To help you get ready, the Technology Ambassadors worked hard to get a huge document of samples put together. You can use an activity as-is or modify the idea for your class. Remember, these aren’t prescriptive. They’re meant to be samples of how to prepare an activity that is active and available offline. Each sample has links to helpdesk articles and other helpful resources to help get you prepared. If you have questions, reach out to one of your building Ambassadors or contact the Instructional...

We’re gearing up for a lot of projects this year and we wanted to start by updating our list of Tech Ambassadors for each building in the district. There are some new faces and they’re eager and ready to start supporting you in the classroom. School Name Email Beardsley Kimberly Williams kwilliams@elkhart.k12.in.us Beck Sondra Flora sflora@elkhart.k12.in.us Bristol Kristi Haithcox khaithcox@elkhart.k12.in.us Central Neil Bahbah nbahbah@elkhart.k12.in.us Central Amy Stine astine@elkhart.k12.in.us Central Tanisha Miller tdmiller@elkhart.k12.in.us Central Laura Stauffer lstauffer@elkhart.k12.in.us Central Jennifer Higley jrhigley@elkhart.k12.in.us Cleveland Jayme Iannarelli jdiannarelli@elkhart.k12.in.us Daly Laura Reverman lcreverman@elkhart.k12.in.us EACC Traci Pankratz tpankratz@elkhart.k12.in.us Eastwood Billie Jo Etchason bjetchason@elkhart.k12.in.us Elkhart Academy Jennifer...