Cowboy Courier
April 16, 2020
Happy Thursday, everyone! I hope you have had a successful week and your families are happy and doing well. My own kids are settling in nicely to the homeschooling life. Well, this weird, isolated version of homeschool at least. I am actually a little nervous that they are getting too comfortable. They are DEFINITELY going back to school the very first day the school opens.
I have been told by Hannah's 5th grade teacher that she can be "chatty". That's a lie. She talks CONSTANTLY!! Like, even if no one is listening and even while she appears to be busy on her laptop. Carter's favorite phrase is , "Mom, you've gotta watch this." Luckily, he only says that half a bazillion times a day so its not that distracting. I am hiding in my own home from my own kids sometimes. Ha! Ha! But seriously, I am enjoying this extra time with them, but we will all welcome some normal back as well.
I hear that the Governor should be conducting a news conference Friday. It is anticipated that he makes a decision about the status of the school closure through the remainder of the year. You might want to tune in. Once we know what that will look like, we will begin to make more certain plans about our end of year procedures.
Stay well! You are doing a great job for your students.
Amber
Student Teacher Requests
Kindness Rocks
I hope everyone is staying safe and dry today! The online CREED course is starting a new project we would love everyone to participate in. We found “The Kindness Rocks Project” online and are starting our own modified version for the kids in the campus CREED course.
The idea of the project is to paint rocks with inspirational quotes/sayings and then leave them for someone else. We are also going to create Kindness Cards (since we don’t all have access to a bunch of rocks). I know I have scrapbook paper I can actually put to good use here... Regular paper is great too! If you want to take a picture of your rock, card, or dropping it off we’d love to share it.
We’d love to kick off the project with rocks and cards created by our amazing staff! We’d like to put pictures on FB and # other media. We can also share these in the CREED course.
I loved the picture collage our electives team made and put in FB. This really got us thinking about what else we could do.
If you are able to make a card or paint a rock, you can send me a picture. I will add it to the Canvas Course if you are not enrolled. If you have FB, you can add it to our post we are going to make this week (as soon as we have some finished). If you need inspiring quotes let me n ow—I found a few :)
Thank you in advance for joining us with this project!!
Bad Weather Day on 4/27
Please plan for a 4 day week.
Grab and Go Meals Updated
How to be safe on ZOOM
UPDATE: The district has lifted restrictions on Zoom with students, so you might hear that from colleagues at other schools. CMS is staying on WebEx. This is in an effort to be consistent for families. I have approved a couple of very specific instances when we will use Zoom, but those are due to functionality/features unique to Zoom rather than personal preference.
Please stay on WebEx unless we have had a specific conversation about your circumstance.
Zoom is to be used for adult meetings only. While we aren't using Zoom with students, it is still important that you use the available safety features.
When you share your meeting link on social media or other public forums, that makes your event …extremely public. ANYONE with the link can join your meeting.
Avoid using your Personal Meeting ID (PMI) to host public events. Your PMI is basically one continuous meeting and you don’t want randoms crashing your personal virtual space after the party’s over.
Familiarize yourself with Zoom’s settings and features so you understand how to protect your virtual space when you need to. For example, the Waiting Room is an unbelievably helpful feature for hosts to control who comes and goes.
HERE is full article with other helpful tips.
WebEx-Email from Lauren
Hey guys!
I wanted to get this information to you now so you can play with it before next week (if you want to).
First, here are two documents that outline almost all of the information in the videos (other than student join information). Thank you to Paige Rogers at Boyd for creating these!
- MISD Best Practices for WebEx Meetings – These are very detailed instructions with links to everything you could ever need (unless they change something).
- Student WebEx Instructions – These are detailed instructions for STUDENTS if you want to share the link in your Canvas modules. These are taken from the Best Practices document with a couple of changes for our students. I’ve also attached a student-friendly “WebEx Meetings Quick Start Guide” you are welcome to share in your Canvas courses, as well.
Second, here is a link to three videos (created by the MRS at Dowell) that walk through it with you. Please go in order (they are numbered 1, 2, 3) so it makes the most sense. EVERYTHING you see in the video is pretty much explained in the above Best Practices document and the links for everything you see in the video are in that document as well (e.g. downloading the WebEx Productivity tools, link to your dashboard, etc.).
Third and most important are the differences between WebEx and Zoom that you need to be aware of:
1. You will use a personal room for WebEx Meetings and NOT a scheduled room with a LOOOOOONGG URL and password. That url to your personal room DOES NOT change so you can put that link in your weekly Canvas modules and it will never change. Just tell them what time to show up to the meeting and you’re set.
2. You MUST set up the security preferences EVERY TIME YOU START A MEETING!!! PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU START YOUR MEETING ABOUT 5 MINUTES EARLY AND SET THESE PREFERENCES. Then, you can let students into the meeting.
3. Sometimes there are glitches!! I had things sometimes not work even though I know the preferences were set up. So if you have an issue, just end the meeting and try again or have the student exit the meeting and come back in. I noticed some issues with the chat feature, the video option on a phone, and a few other things. Just be patient, stay calm, and remember that you can always end the meeting early and try again later.
Hopefully all of this will help you get started with WebEx over the next week. If you need help, please feel free to reach out and I will help you navigate this new tool. If anything changes or is updated, I will let you know.
Tech Support
Staff Support
· MISD Staff should enter a Help Request when they need assistance - even when working from home. Click here for Help Request System
· Technology staff will continue to check submitted help requests and try to help staff remotely when possible.
· If MISD Staff need Help Desk support, we prefer that they submit an email to support@mckinneyisd.net with a detailed description of their problem, including their campus location.
· If MISD Staff do need to call the Help Desk at 469-302-4048, please leave a detailed message including a return number. Because we are trying to limit exposure to Technology staff, we are responding to emails and voicemails only at this time.
· We will strive to correct issues over the phone when possible. At times, we may ask users to allow us to remote control their computers.
· MISD staff MUST MAKE AN APPOINTMENT with the Help Desk during the school closure for issues not resolved by phone or remote session. Appointments will only be made between the hours of 8:30am and 3:30pm Monday through Friday.
· We ask that you attend your appointment alone if at all possible. This way we avoid as much contact as possible.
Student Support (effective Monday, 4/6/2020)
· If a student needs help during this time or needs a laptop for distance learning, we ask that they email StudentHelp@mckinneyisd.net. This is for 1:1 High School students and any K-8 students that received a loaner via one of the deployments or need one. Students should email their name, student id, campus, telephone number and a detailed description of the problem/request.
· Technology Staff will strive to support the students over the phone or by remote control.
· If a student needs to be physically present to take care of their issue, whether that is for repair, replacement or issuing a loaner, AN APPOINTMENT MUST BE MADE WITH TECHNOLOGY.Please email studenthelp@mckinneyisd.net. Appointments will only be made between the hours of 8:30am to 3:30pm Monday through Friday. The student will be assigned a time to come toRON POE STADIUM TICKET BOOTH to meet with a technician.
· Please attend your appointment alone if at all possible. Friends and parents will be asked to wait in the car or away from the ticket booth while the student is at his appointment.
· For Parent HAC accounts, where they don’t know their username and/or password, please send or forward those emails to hacsupport@mckinneyisd.net. Please include the student's home campus.
Grading Procedures
High school credit courses...I know you are waiting for more info from me...I have a Zoom tomorrow that should give us guidance.
Counselor News
Students/Parents -
Below is a link to a form that is a request to speak to a counselor. The information provided will allow us to better help you. Although our “meetings” with students will look different during this time, we want you to know that we are available during the school day to communicate with students as needed.
Link to form:
https://forms.gle/EXYh6JGV5rAQaFNW7
If, for some reason, you are unable to access or fill out the form, please email us directly.
Tana Hoover -Students with last names starting with A-G – thoover@mckinneyisd.net
Christal Helm- Students with last names starting with H-O- chelm@mckinneyisd.net
Courtney Starnes- Students with last names starting with P-Z- cstarnes@mckinneyisd.net
CREED Course
The link for enrollment is below.
Campus Celebrations!
I still encourage you to use this link! While we are all isolated I know everyone would love some good news in their inbox.
If you sent a shout-out and I haven't share it, please let me know. I am still perfecting my system of keeping up with these.
Kudos!
Hi Mrs. Govan,
Hope you enjoyed the weekend, and we hope you and your family are still healthy and feeling well.
I had the opportunity to sit with (my son) during his ELAR home learning this week (Tuesday thru Friday), and I thoroughly enjoyed it. You do a great job in your videos with the kiddos, and I particularly appreciated how you challenged the kiddos to "lean into" this current situation by writing about it and researching it, as opposed to turning a blind eye. My favorite part was during the Thursday lesson, when your son walked into the house from work, right behind you....truly struck a chord for us, as I work from home and am still trying to figure out this "kids at home while I work" thing. Hilarious!
I was going through (my son's) assignments one last time this evening, and it appears he didn't finish the final assignment; on Thursday afternoon, he and I researched a picture, an article and a video for him to submit w/ explanation. Friday was his 13th birthday, and his attention was diverted from submitting the work. We are sorry about that, and we'll make sure that is priority #1 tomorrow morning. We're still trying to get in our New Routine during all of this.
Again, thanks so much. I've enjoyed being your "Senior Student" this week.
-Happy Parent
Hi Mrs. Govan-
Hope you are doing well and staying healthy!!
I wanted to let you know that, as one of your "Senior Learners" during this school-from-home period, I'm enjoying your lessons. It's really giving me good insight into, quite frankly, why he gets so anxious re: ELAR. Today, for instance, some of the questions you asked re: the Honest Poem were GREAT questions. He doesn't "think like that," in the sense of analyzing a piece of literature and needing to verbalize poem attitude, poet's intent, etc. This challenges him to think differently, which is always scary, and I am starting to see that this may be a major reason that he is so hesitant/resistant to doing some of the things that he is asked to do in ELAR. Candidly, I think this is fantastic for him. The ability that I have during these weeks to sit beside him, watch him, help him and put puzzle pieces together will definitely have a productive impact on him moving forward.
Just wanted to share that with you. Hope you're having a great week, and we look forward to tomorrow's lesson!
Thanks,
Happy Parent