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