Building Community – Week 02

CN Area Elementary Teaching Team:

Week 02 (Aug 24 – Aug 28)

Weekly Giggles:           Q: How do we know that the ocean is friendly?

                                         A: It waves!

YouTube Content. If you want instant notifications about videos that post to my YouTube channel, feel free to subscribe and click the bell. Those two together will notify YouTube that you want email updates when new content comes out. I posted five videos last week. I spent all of Saturday working on those. That will not be my norm. You can find those videos HERE.

Need kids to upload content to Google Classroom (PDF, picture, handwritten work, video, whatever), use the three different Google Classroom videos below. They are directed to kids. Need a digital whiteboard of sorts or a document camera? Use the pink videos below. I show you the drawing features in Microsoft Word. You can add pictures, coins, maps, math ideas, tables, PDF’s, images of your textbook or consumables right into Microsoft Word. And, the drawing tools let you highlight, write, draw, or annotate right on those bits. It’s perfect for Zoom!!

Not everyone reads these emails. Sometimes I solve problems by saying: “In my email this week…,” “In my most recent YouTube video…,” “In my blog post from last week….” If you ever see anything that you think is awesome, please let your team or another grade level on sight know. They might not read this. Your insight will give them courage to try something new.

Building Community Online. You have been granted the task of building community online. How does one do such a thing? Pocketful of Primary had some great ideas. You can find those HERE.

Piper Movie. Shout out to Ludie Olenchalk (Copper Hills) for this sweet video. It’s short. It’s worth your time. Share it with your students. Use it as a conversation starter. Let it build community with your team in a Zoom (it might not be whitelisted). You’ll be glad you watched it. Thanks, Ludie! LINK HERE

Classroomscreen.com. This tool recently went through some HUGE updates. Shout out to Kelli Muirheid (Riverview) for noticing those updates. Check it out to see if this works for you. You can create an account with Google and save your hard work.  You can now save screens. If you need a tool to record your thoughts, show a clock, choose a random number, or post talking ideas, then feel free to use a tool like this. I would share this in my Zoom session if needed. Both image captures came from HERE.

Zoom How To. Are you stuck? Need more help? Try the CIA website for additional help. They have an entire page designed to help you with Zoom questions. LINK HERE

Documents to share. Here are some PDF’s you can share with your classes if needed. If they need help with email, iReady, Benchmark, Clever Badges, Google Classroom, or any other online tools, these may help them navigate the road in. CLICK HERE 

Free video software. Because we have Adobe Creative Cloud on our computers, we have access to free video software. The EASIEST video production software might be Adobe Rush. Check out this tutorial to see if you think this would be helpful for you. Only explore this if you think it is delightful for you. You will never use all of the software out there; I don’t. Use what blesses you. VIDEO LINK HERE.

Kindly,
Melissa Culver

Getting Started – Week 01

 CN Area Elementary Teaching Team:

Week 01 (Aug 17 – Aug 21)

Weekly Giggles:            Q: What is fast, loud and crunchy?

A: A rocket chip!

Documents to share. Sharing this again in case you lost it. Here are some PDF’s you can with your classes if needed. If they need help with email, iReady, Benchmark, Clever Badges, Google Classroom, or any other online tools, these may help them navigate the road in. CLICK HERE 

Zoom Breakouts. Shout out to Shirley Hales (Fugman) for sharing this video with her team. If you choose to employ the breakout session model in your classroom, here is a how-to video to make that happen. VIDEO LINK HERE

Whitelist a video on YouTube. There is a NEW policy for whitelisting YouTube content. What is this? If you share a video with your students and your students say, “The link does not work!” There are two things to remember:
        1) Have your students sign into YouTube. Yes. They just click the Sign In button and authenticate with their CUSD account: mickeymouse001@cusdstudent.com and their CUSD password.

        2) If they do this and the video does not work, check to see if the district has it on the YouTube Admin Whitelist. To do this, head to THIS LINK HERE.

ZOOM links. As you consider child safety, please consider dropping your Zoom link into the Clever Teacher Page. And, as an added layer of safety, consider updating that link every two weeks. They may use mom’s iphone, dad’s ipad, sister’s computer. Those links can get stored in these various devices over time. In order to add this to your Clever Teacher Page, watch this video. Your Clever Teacher Page is customizable. You name it. And, you can drop your picture in where you see the owl. VIDEO LINK HERE

Lastly, you can also drop multiple Zoom links in there. RSP, you can add an RSP Zoom in there. Speech, you can add a Speech link in there. Or, if you differentiate instruction, you can share a Teacher 1, Teacher 2, or Teacher 3 link.

We are off to a great start, team! Keep up the great work.

Kindly,
Melissa Culver

Getting Ready – Week 00

 CN Area Elementary Teaching Team:

***Please forward to our new staff members.***

Week 00 (Aug 10 – Aug 14)

Weekly Giggles:        Q: What musical instrument is found in the bathroom?

                                    A: A tuba toothpaste.

 Zoom Attendance. As you take attendance each day, please know that you can do this easily in Zoom. There is a spot where you can download who was in attendance. The document tells you when each person arrived in the session. And, the document states when each person left the session. In order to figure out how to do that, use THIS LINK HERE.

Two screens in your classroom. VIDEO LINK HERE. When teaching from your classroom, I feel that it's delightful to have the students on one screen and teaching content on the other. Using this attached video, you can see how to move the Zoom Student Gallery view over to your Screenbeam. This will give you the opportunity to teach from your computer screen and monitor the children at the same time. Thank you to Karena Cantrell who designed this tutorial (Tech Coach for CUSD).

Weekly Planning Document. In my First Week of Distance Learning video, I modeled a sample PDF for students/families. As you provide weekly instruction, it may be helpful for families to know all the expectations of the week. As parents, day care personnel, aunt, or uncle help children with at-home learning strategies, a document of this nature would be helpful for parents. And, sometimes there are 3, 4, 5, or more children at home. LINK TO DOCUMENT

Student Passwords. We are not recommending that any teacher go in and establish new passwords for any of the children. This process would take over an hour and a half. Normally, this is the process that some would use. However, now that we're in the distance learning scenario, we are leaving it up to the parents to set new passwords for their children.

If any family comes to your site to borrow a laptop, that is the perfect time to reset a password. The teacher would go into the portal and click the reset password button. While the child is there, that new password will get set up.

The default password looks like this:
NAME: Elizabeth Yorkshire
STUDENT ID: 80987676
DEFAULT PASSWORD: Ey80987676
        1) The E in Elizabeth becomes the first character (uppercase). 
        2) The “y” in Yorkshire becomes the second character (lowercase).
        3) And, her entire student ID number finishes that temporary password.

In your parent letter and on your website, this video will teach parents how to do this on their own.  LINK HERE

As a reminder, the steps for resetting passwords are located below in the video.
portal.cusd.com

THIS VIDEO will walk you through that process.  Start at the 7:00 mark.

Are you trying to use Speakers with Zoom? Is it not working? Here’s the solution.  Thanks to Cody Stairs for this:

Try creating a Zoom meeting or join a test meeting here https://zoom.us/test

Join with or without video
Join with computer audio
You may see the next screenshot when joining, if not click the audio icon on the lower left

Select “Test speaker and Microphone”.

If you are hearing your computer audio over the speakers but not Zoom audio, you can choose “Same as System”. If not, try the different options available.

Seesaw videos. Seesaw has a YouTube channel.  You can see if any of these work for you: LINK HERE. I have not checked to see if any of these videos direct parents/students to login via Clever. I would recommend that our students use Clever to access Seesaw. If you wish, you can also add Seesaw to your Teacher Page in Clever (video tutorial here). Totally not necessary, but available to you, if needed.  

And, CUSD has videos as well.  SEE THIS LINK

Together, we’ve got this!

Kindly,
Melissa Culver

Distance Learning Support Tools – Institute Week

 CN Area Elementary Teaching Team:

Institute Week (Aug 10 – Aug 14)

Weekly Giggles:        Q: What kind of tree fits in your hand?

                                A: A palm tree!

Welcome back, Clovis Unified. Wahooo!!!

Introduction Letter. As you think about how you will interact with your students/families, for the first time, here is a model to consider. There are several details to share with your families. If I showed you a map of Paris, could you easily navigate the roads with skill? Maybe. Maybe not. Your website is natural to you because you made it. For others, it’s like a map of Paris: lots of information all over the place. They won’t know where to go. I recommend an intro letter. Here is a template to consider. Download. Adjust. Work your magic. Make it yours. LINK HERE

Note: Send this to parents via email. Do not put this on Google Classroom (as a first path of communication). Families do not know what your class code is yet. You can reshare this on Google Classroom. But don’t make Google Classroom the first time you share this. Your website is fine, but now do families know how to get to your website?

CUSD Online Training. Several teachers from CUSD offered their insight into how to maneuver some of the terrain ahead. If you missed any of those sessions, they are available HERE.

Use the drop-down menu in Technology to locate exactly what you want.

For example, there’s an entire page devoted to Zoom. Attendance? HERE’S THE LINK to the teaching video that shows you how to download reports that show who was in class. No head counting or name-calling needed. That report shows when the kids entered and left.

And, here are the go-to details that may be essential to student success. Your students will have tech questions. Do you know where to direct them for answers? Parents will ask you tech questions. Do you know how to help them? This video will answer those questions for you. CLICK HERE

FCOE Online Training. The videos will be published on the FCOE website later this week. If you missed any of those sessions, I recommend that you watch a few. To save time, you can always speed up the video content. More content in less time. LINK HERE

Curriculum Instruction & Accountability. Debbie Para sent out a video the other day from CI&A. Did you know that resources are being constructed for you right now to support Benchmark? They are designing resources so the children can interact with online documents to support instruction you are doing in the classroom.  To find out how to locate those resources, please CLICK HERE.

As you update your website, remember that I have a host of student support content on YouTube. You can easily add those teaching videos to your website to support student learning. Parents will benefit from these as well.
    1) Reset Student Password
    2) Getting to Clever
    3) Log into Google Classroom for the first time
    4) Multiple Users on Clever
    5) Clear the Cache
    6) Benchmark on an iPad
    7) iReady on an iPad
    8) Fresno County Library – check out ebooks
    9) Unblock Flash Player

Do I need to buy a camera to record teaching sessions of myself? No. You do not. I have used my iPhone to upload video of myself directly to YouTube. It works perfectly. And, those videos are unlisted. You cannot find them. For collegiate coursework, I want my fellow students to hear my thoughts, but the whole world doesn’t need the intro to that assignment. So, you can keep that content unlisted in this pathway.

Second, you also have a camera in your computer.  Use the find tool. Type “camera” in the search box.

Choose the camera:

Select video as your option.  Then record yourself. Locate that file in your computer when done, and publish as you see fit.

Loom or Screencastify? Screencastify may want you to pay for more service. Please know that Loom (as of today) is totally free to educators. So, if you want free, head to Loom. Honestly, I really, really like Loom. There might be a tiny learning curve, but it’s easy to maneuver.

Image credits: www.loom.com

Free Loom training. CLICK HERE.

Kindly,
Melissa Culver

Getting Started This Year – Week 00

CN Area Elementary Teaching Team:

Week 00 (Aug 03 – Aug 07)

Weekly Giggles:                Q: What do you call a shoe made from a banana?

                                            A: A slipper.

Yes, it is still vacation. You can totally ignore this. It is not important at all. If you are curious or interested, then feel free to explore the content in this email/blog.

Online Training. For those of you who signed up for online training, be sure those dates/times are in your calendar this week. Log into that training a few minutes early to be sure you get in on time. For any training that you miss, there will be video links posted the week of August 10. You can go online and watch those videos later. The CUSD training link is HERE: bit.ly/CUSDOnlineLearningResources. That URL is CASE SENSITIVE. Be sure that any capital letters are capitals when you type that URL into your navigation bar. I do not have the FCOE (Fresno County Office of Education) video link yet.

Curriculum Instruction & Accountability. Debbie Para sent out a video the other day from CI&A. Did you know that resources are being constructed for you right now to support Benchmark? They are designing resources so the children can interact with online documents to support instruction you are doing in the classroom.  To find out how to locate those resources, please CLICK HERE.

Introduction Letter. As you think about how you will interact with your students/families, for the first time, here is a model to consider. There are several details to share with your families. If I showed you a map of Paris, could you easily navigate the roads with skill? Maybe. Maybe not. Your website is natural to you because you made it. For others, it’s like a map of Paris: lots of information all over the place. They won’t know where to go. I recommend an intro letter. Here is a template to consider. Download. Adjust. Work your magic. Make it yours. LINK HERE

Note: Send this to parents via email. Do not put this on Google Classroom (as a first path of communication). Families do not know what your class code is yet. You can reshare this on Google Classroom. But don’t make Google Classroom the first time you share this. Your website is fine, but do families know how to get to your website?

Distance Learning Video. Shout out to Kristin Brewer for finding this gem of a video. If you are nervous about the How, What, and Why of teaching in a distance learning environment, this is helpful pedagogy. New system. New processes. New strategies. And what does it all look like? VIDEO LINK HERE

Stylus and other teaching tools. Some of our computers come with a stylus. It depends on the computer you requested at your last refresh. Check to see if you already have one.  If you have one, it is located here on the side of your computer:

And, if you are interested in other support tools, check out THIS VIDEO. In this video, I show you the tools I use, and I explain why I use them. One of them you already have at home (or more). Don’t spend money, if you can avoid it. Talk to your site about funds that are available for things like this.

Can I use my doc camera with a projector? Some computers work with our document cameras and some do not. Here is a PDF that will walk you through the steps to see if your computer will work with a document camera.  PDF LINK HERE

I was on the Fugman campus for four hours last week trying to configure a classroom for effective distance learning techniques. After all of that investigation/practice, I came to this conclusion:
       1) Take pictures of the book content.
       2) Email that to yourself with the iCloud Link option (or use the power cord as a transfer cable).
       3) Drop it into a Word document.
       4) Use the Draw options to write on the screen (if needed).

Adobe also has features to edit a PDF, depending on the version you have. You can evaluate to see if it is a helpful teaching tool for you. I have Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. Mine has advanced features.

Not everyone uses the same practices. If the document camera works for you, please use it! When we tested it out, we used another computer as a “student computer” and the quality was not to our satisfaction. If you can get it to work in your demo sessions and you are satisfied with the quality, please use that strategy.

I am here to serve you. Reach out with questions. Together, we got this!

Okay, head back to more great books, ice cream, and time by the pool.

Kindly,
Melissa Culver