Canvas- Teacher Appreciation Week!

Happy Friday and Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

Our friends at Canvas have shared a special homepage template to say thank you to all Canvas Teachers! 

This will be a great resource to tuck away and use when you begin to plan your courses for next year!

To access the free homepage template, follow the directions found here. 

This template provides:

1. A Homepage with editable course title, course banner and "welcome" text placeholder
2. Three customizable buttons: About Your Teacher | Class Resources | Learning Modules
3. Directions on how to modify template buttons and banner
4. "Welcome to Class" student module with content page templates: "About Your Teacher" and "Class Resources"
5. Finally, the first PHS teacher reader of this post who emails Cara Gurysh will receive a special Canvas gift!

FYI: Banner on top of this post was created with Canva....I LOVE Canva

Collaboration: Great for Students and for Teachers!

May is a challenging month. Keystone testing, AP testing, field trips, dress code issues, prom drama...the list is endless.

This time of year requires team work.

Collaboration (among students and teachers) will bring success!

1. What to do?: Angela Schoettle recently developed a project for her new course, A People's History. Her unit of study was "Women's History".  Angela asked me if I could suggest any tech tools for a new project. Instead of focusing on the tech tools, we ended up collaborating on the goals of her project.

2. Keep Students Engaged: Angela's goal was to create a more student-centered unit. The image above  is a powerful visual of the type of project-based, collaborative experience she wanted to provide her students.Once we had the goals established, we selected to have students use "The New Google Sites".

3. Project Launch: To get her students set and interested in the topic, they first collaborated on an analysis of old history textbooks. After collecting books from the "book dungeon," colleagues, the library, and her personal library, Angela had students review how women were represented in textbooks from different eras. A meaningful project launch helps generate student interest in the learning goals.

4. Project: Students were, as a class, tasked with collaborating to create an improved resource regarding women's history. As a large group, they had to decide on what types of information they wanted to include (videos, primary sources, timelines) and agreed on a format for presenting the information via a New Google Website. Once they defined the overall parameters of the project, smaller groups of students collaborated on different eras of Women's History.

5. Finished project and more collaborating:  Here is a look at what the students developed. Read, Write, Think was used to create the timelines. Check out really strong examples on the 1970s, 1940s, and 1920s pages. The 1990s page is an example of the template the students created for each page.  As a collaborative teacher, Angela has shared her idea with her colleagues. At least two other teachers are going to use this basic project idea as a fresh and collaborative way to help their students (and themselves) have a meaningful end of year experience. If you have questions, about Angela's project, reach out to either one of us! We would both be happy to share (collaborate!).

21st Century Learning Night

Top 3 Reasons to Come to 21st Century Learning Night

 and 

2 Sneak Peeks!

This Friday Five is brought to you by the Thursday Three (Thank You Erin Reichert and Chris Brockman). To keep with the Five format I have added two sneak peeks! Make sure to read about Act 48 and How to register to present! Questions, see/email me (Cara), Erin, or Chris!

1.  Last year we had over 40 faculty presenters, over 800 attendees, and it is one of the top events the Curriculum Office organizes each year!  

In addition, we have raffles and door prizes for all presenters and guests!

2.  Many teachers invite students who "run" the table and to help showcase the topic.  Those students feel honored to be asked to come and share their work, as well as gaining a feeling of community.   Typically their parents feel very honored and happy to bring them on the night of the event.

In addition, have your considered signing up with another teacher?  By doing so, this allows you to take turns at the table, which allows you time to explore the other exhibits!

3.  As a spectator, you're able to get ideas to engage your students and may see something that you have "never thought of before".   

 In addition, your students (past and present) will love seeing you roaming the exhibits!   As a spectator, consider bringing your own family with you! 

4. First Sneak Peek- Jeremy Friedman and The Daily Ramble Crew

The team will be giving special tours of their new studio! See first hand how the Ramble students put together the daily show and special segments. Perhaps you will be featured on an upcoming episode! .

5. Second Sneak Peek- Ignite Talks- Brooke Burgy and the Humanities Team (Angeli, Brown, Flanagan, Russell)

Teachers and students will be showcasing students' individual research through Ignite Presentations. Brooke's 11th grade English classes prepared talks as n entry activity to their study of Anthem . Some of her students presented live and other used Screencastify to record their talks.  Humanities students are preparing to share Ignite-style presentations of their DaVinci Day Projects.

*And if all that is not enough- teachers get Act 48 hours, as well as 4 hours of pay for signing up as a presenter!  (More information in regards to these 2 items will come out in May after final teacher registrations are complete!)

If you are able to present, please fill in the form by May 1st. 

Click here for the 21st Century Learning Night website to see pictures and videos from the past, and to see some of what's in store for this year's event! Follow us on Twitter @psd_21cenlearn

Canvas Updates: Announcements

Announcements are a great way to communicate with your students in Canvas. Up until this week they have had one major drawback, not being able to differentiate announcements by section. 

Well now you can!!
Read about this and other updates to Announcements in Canvas

(Click on the images below to see them better!)

1. One Section, Two Sections or All Sections!

When creating an announcement, teachers can now designate which section they would like to view the announcement. Students will only be able to see the announcement that is sent to the section* in which they are enrolled.

* Remember you can rename your sections from the PowerSchool Coding to our period numbers. Here are the directions.

2. No Comments is the New Default.

The default setting for announcements is now set so students cannot make comments in response to an announcement. If you would like this functionality, you must activate when creating an announcement. 

3. Change your mind about comments? No Problem!

Comments can be allowed or disallowed from your announcement area of your course.

4. Profile pictures will display next to Announcement.

When you make an announcement your profile picture will post next to it. This is really nice if you co-teach a class. Students can easily see which teacher shared information. Below is a picture from Cyber PE. Roberta Simmons is the teacher, but I occasionally post announcements. You can see our two different pictures in the image below. If you haven't uploaded a profile picture give it a try. Here are directions. 

5. Announcements next year?

Just a reminder, when you copy your course from this year to next year, you won't want to copy announcements. If you do, all of your previous announcements will load at once. Instead, copy and paste announcements from a previous course shell into the new course shell if and when you need them. 

A Monday Friday Five: PowerSchool News and Canvas Users Day

Happy Monday Everyone! 

With the craziness of Friday, this post was delayed! In light of the "so wrong" forecast we just experienced, I thought the clip below might help you rebuild your trust in local meteorologists.

So Here We Go With Our Delayed Five!

1. PowerSchool GradeBook- Email Feature!

The PowerSchool GradeBook Parent email feature has been fixed. The feature will now send you a copy of the email to your pennridge.org email. This peice of this feature had been "broken." Huge thanks go to the IT team and Charlie Lainhart for helping to troubleshoot and solve this ongoing issue.  Linked here are directions on how to send emails through your PowerTeacher Gradebook.

2, 3 and 4. Bucks County IU Canvas Users Day

Staci Klemmer, Jessica Saylor and I presented about using Canvas to improve teacher workflow at the IU last Thursday. Below is our presentation. Staci and Jess did an awesome job sharing to about 100 other teachers from our area.  Check out our presentation below. Make sure to play Jess's video found on SLIDE 13. 

  


5. Volunteers!


I am looking for 3-4 volunteers to help me with a special project for an upcoming edition of the Friday Five. Email me at cgurysh@pennridge.org if you are interested!

Valentine's Friday Five- Calm: Free Mindfulness App

Calm - Free for Teachers

My original thought was to focus this Friday Five on things to love. Ideas I had included collaboration tips to "love your colleagues," device tips to "love your computer,"  and, of course, lms tips to "love Canvas."  However, writing this in the aftermath of the most recent school shooting, made it clear that an entire post about a free tool that can help us all relieve stress, build resiliency, and increase patience was far more timely. Calm is an iOS, Android, and Web App that provides individuals with guided meditation and mindfulness exercises. 

The Calm School Initiative is working to provide this powerful tool free to every teacher in the world. 

The Atlantic published this article that describes many of the benefits of mindfulness in schools. Included in the piece is a discussion of the growing body of scientific reasearch on the postive effects of mindfulness including improved attention, reduction of stress, and a growth in "capacity of compassion and empathy."

For more information on how to get your free access to this powerful tool, click here.

We will continue to keep the entire Parkland community in our thoughts. 




* I made the Valentine's graphic with Canva. Canva is an awesome and (mostly) free graphic design web tool.

Semester 2- Attention Semester Course Teachers

You may remember this image and topic from last year, but this information is worth repeating as we close out Semester One of the 2017-18 School Year! To further assist you as you begin the final semester, here is the link to the start of the year checklist which has great reminders and tips for setting up your courses.

1. Grades in your First Semester Course-  You will be able to continue to grade work and push those grades to Powerschool (if you are utilizing the grade push) until January 31. This corresponds with the grading timeline that Alice sent out. After January 31 you will have read-only access to your course material. This means you can see all of your assignments, files, discussions, student work, etc. but you can’t edit within the course. To edit the content you would need to copy it into a new course (see #2)!

2. Copy Course content to New Semester Course- If you teach the same course second semester you can easily copy all of your Semester 1 content to your new course. Here are directions on how to do this. Once again, here is the start of the year checklist which may be helpful as you set up your new semester courses.

3. Semester Course Content Next Year-  You will also be able to copy any course content from a semester course (or Year Long Courses, too) into the PowerSchool created courses you will teach next year. Don’t worry- Your work first semester will not disappear!

4. Don’t forget to Publish Your Semester Two Courses-  You must publish your second semester courses just like you did semester one. Here are directions.

5. Semester 2 Try Something New!-  Please stop in and see me in room 307 if you would like to review how you have used Canvas in semester 1 and discuss ways to expand upon your use in Semester 2.  Things to consider: collecting assignments through Canvas, Cloud-based assignments through 365 or Google, Discussions, Group Assignments, or Utilizing External Tools (Turnitin, CK12, Newsela).

Things to Consider in the New Year!

As we enter the new year, this Friday Five is 5 observations made regarding our Canvas use and a consideration for each...

1. Quizzes left open...

Each time you make a quiz you can set the Available From and To time and you can set a time limit. If you do not set these items, students may gain some unfair "advantages." For example, they could begin a quiz before you want them to and they can leave the quiz open as long as they want in order to take it "at their leisure".  For security purposes, it is a best practice to set a time limit and to take advantage of the time restrictions. (UPDATE: Please also note that you can set a password (access code) for a quiz. The password can be changed between classes. For more info, scroll down to "Set Quiz Restrictions" in the link above.) Also, refer to the October 6, 2017 Friday Five for a post on using Quiz Logs. Using and sharing this feature with students is a great deterrent.

2. Assignments that have no due dates and then...

somewhere else in Canvas (either in the daily agenda or an Event on the Calendar) there are directions telling the student to complete the assignment by a certain date. This practice creates more work for both the teacher and the student. If an Assignment has a listed due date, the course calendar automatically will have the due date and assignment details added. The assignment will show up on the student's To Do List. Also, remember that you can differentiate due dates on assignments in the Assignment settings. This will put the correct due date for each period (section) on each student's calendar based on the period s/he is in!  Want to reference the assignment on a Page, in a Module, or in an Announcement? No problem, just link the assignment to any of these features. 

3. Reluctance to collect work in Canvas...

Speegrader, speedgrader, speedgrader! If you haven't collected work in Canvas, do yourself a favor and make a New Year's resolution to try! With Speedgrader you can quickly zip through work and leave quick, specific feedback. Then by sync your assignment score to PowerSchool, you will truly improve your workflow. 

4. Missing Modules...

The Year 2 goal for Canvas use is organizing materials in Modules. Refer to the Year 2 Goals Module in the professional learning course for more details, tips, and examples. The beauty of Modules is that they allow for all the different components of Canvas and your course to be neatly organized by unit.  This not only benefits your students but also creates a great course template for you to use in the next school year.

5. Unused items left in Course Navigation...

Canvas can help you provide your students with easy access to course materials, information, and resources. Why not create a cleaner interface by hiding unused features found in Course Navigation? If you aren't using an item such as Collaborations, Chat, and Attendance (to name a few), hide them by following these directions. Also, remember my previous posts about the value of hiding Pages and Files!

The Most "Busy-Ful" Time of The Year!

It is hard to believe that it is December 1st. As we enter this busy season, here are 5 tips that may help allieviate some of the seasonal chaos...

1. Save Time by Using Automatic Time Controls in Canvas!

There are a few different ways to time items in Canvas. The most commonly used are the "Available From" settings in Assignments and Quizzes, but you can also time when Modules and Annoucments are made. 

In Announcments, select Delay Posting from Options as indicated in #3 below. This will open a screen which allows you to select a date and time for an annoucement to "go live".

You also have the capability for setting an unlock date for a Module. When creating a new module select "Lock Until" to schedule its release. 

2. Impress your students by using a different App (credit goes to...Aliza F!)

Aliza recently showed me Awwapp a "freemium" virtual whiteboard that allows teachers and students to collaboratively, or individually,  draw on their screens. Aliza was using to work one-on-one with a student who needed some additional examples to master new math concepts. She simply opened the website and started writing on her screen so the student could watch the steps to solve an equation. This app would be great to use with Screen-Cast-Matic to make video lessons! Drawings can be exported as a PDF or as an image. Super easy to use and enough free features to make it worthwhile without a paying for the premium version.  It would be great for solving math problems, brainstorming, and project planning! Check it out.

3. Check on Student Access to Canvas through Analytics

Curious about how often a student accesses your course materials? Do you want to see if a student logged-in when s/he said s/he did? Use the Canvas Context Cards to help you. Here are full directions, but in the image to the right you can see how to click to access the card through the People area of your course. From the card you can check student progress and by clicking on Analytics, you can see student log-in times. 

4. Help Quiet your Class with a Noise Visualization!

Experiment with bouncyballs.org  to help settle down a rowdy class. This free application allows the class to "see" when they are becoming too loud.

5. Fight the Winter Blues by Trying Skype in the Classroom: 

On Tuesday, December 12th The Tuesday Ten will dedicated to exploring Skype in the Classroom. Connect with teachers and experts from around the world and host a virtual event using Skype. This has really taken off in the elementary schools and more high school teachers are expressing interest.  Check out this website regarding Skype in the Classroom which is maitained by the marvelous Erin Reichert and catalogs successful Skpe events held by Pennridge teachers.To learn more come to the next Tuesday Ten (12/12 at 2:20 in 307).Be a virtual traveler through the power of Skype. 

Locations of Pennridge Skype Locations...

Three PowerSchool Tips and Two Updates Coming To Canvas

While the theme this week may seem to be GradeBook, it is really efficiency. This Friday Five will provide you with Three Tips from Linda Bealer and Erin Reichert regarding PowerSchool and Two Upcoming Changes in Canvas. Each of these items can help streamline your workflow!

1. Is your font too small in your PowerTeacher Gradebook?

To make your text larger in gradebook, simply click on View in your toolbar, and select Zoom. You may notice the comment box/text does not get bigger with this fix.  We have looked into this issue and it continues to be unresolved.  Because of this, we suggest using the magnifier tool.  To access the magnifier tool, you can click on the small magnifying glass at the top right of your browser.  Or, you can hold down the CTRL button and use the + and - keys.  (If you have a new laptop and haven't yet changed the default font of your computer, you will want to click here.)

2.  Do you know how to run reports from the Backpack for conferences and meetings?

Quick Look Up-One way to run a quick report is to follow these steps for "quick look-up". This is especially quick and helpful for a parent phone call, or a student who is wondering where they are.  In the PowerSchool home-screen, click on the backpack icon.  

Select the student, and in the Select Screens drop-down menu, click on "Quick Look Up".  There you'll see grades to date, and an overall grade for the year.

.

3. Do you know how to run reports from PowerTeacher Gradebook?

Another popular Report- Use the reports tab.  This will allow you to customize the report you'd like to run.

• Make sure you've selected the correct class.

• Choose Individual Student Report

• Select Student and customize the screen for what you're looking for

• OR choose "All Enrolled" to get a report for each student.

And for Canvas...beginning tomorrow you will be able to....

4. Duplicate Items in Modules!

Assignments, graded discussions, and pages can be duplicated within a module. The duplication option is located in the Settings menu for every supported module item. When a module item is copied, the word Copy is added to the end of the item name.

Duplicating a module item defaults the copied item to an unpublished status. This will likely save you the most time when wanting to Duplicate a Discussion so each period of a class has its own discussion thread. 

5. Explore Improvements to GradeBook in Canvas

If you would like to explore the newly enhanced Canvas Gradebook, let me know and I will enable in your course(s). This new interface allows for color-coding and additional views to sort and filter assignments. To learn more about these improvements, click here.

And lastly...enjoy your Thanksgiving Break!

Five Reasons Why Everyone Could be Using Newsela

The district recently purchased the PRO version of Newsela. Newsela is essentially a database of news articles and reading assessments that can be assigned to your classes. 

This edition of the Friday Five is dedicated to 5 reasons why you will fall in love with 

1. Canvas Integration: Newsela has been added to our Canvas account. This means that students and teachers can connect directly from their courses to Newsela creating a single sign-on experience. For teachers, this eliminates the need for you to create classes in Newsela, they are already there from Canvas. You can add an assignment in Canvas and select Newsela as the External Tool for submission.  For students, this means they do not need to make an account, remember a password, or open a new website. When students work in Newsela, they can do so right from within the Canvas interface. 

2. Engaging and Current Content: Newsela selects articles from a variety of publications and often has articles ready 24 hours after initial publication. If there is a hot topic in the news, odds are Newsela has an article about it. Below is a screenshot of what was posted on 10/27/17.

3. Many Articles are available in Spanish: If you have a native Spanish speaker in your class or are teaching Spanish, search for articles that have been translated. Not only will the articles be translated but so will the quiz questions. This will allow you to get data on native speakers' reading skills. 

4.  Text Sets: Text Sets are curated collections of articles focused on particular topics, skills, or themes. You may use sets that have been created by others or create your own. 

5. Content for Nearly Every Discipline: Teachers can search for articles in broad categories such as War and Peace, Law, or Sports. There are also libraries of collected articles  on topics including  Careers, Myths and Legends, and  Famous Speeches. No matter what subject you teach, you can use Newsela to help engage students, explore content connected to your course, and evaluate students' reading and writing skills. 

Want to learn more now?  Follow this link and sign in to watch a great overview video.

If you have  questions about using Newsela in your classes please reach out to either Keith Veverka or me, Cara Gurysh.