eLearning News: Instructional Staff
Vol. 1, Issue 3: April 6, 2020
*******Stay connected with tools, tips & info to support eLearning*******
Week One Reflections & Week Two Adjustments
- We have THE best teachers and leaders who prioritized human connections and it meant the world to our students and families. PLCs are connecting and communicating and individual and teacher teams throughout the county are leaning on each other for assistance and support-it has been AWESOME to see how much help you offer each other.
- We don't yet have the just-right balance of student workloads across the content areas in the K-12 system- some areas have way too much and other areas don't have near enough content.
- Families have a significant variety of circumstances they are facing and they need our support, understanding, and permission to be flexible with all the expectations while they are figuring life out.
- Everyone is highly collaborative, solution-oriented and doing the very best that they can.
Adjustments:
- Clarified directions and support in elementary courses to assist in reducing the work load and lift on families.
- Electives and some CTE courses are coming online and students will see new learning in their dashboards. We encourage ALL teachers and leaders to support families as additional courses are loaded into student accounts. We know some families felt very overwhelmed last week. It is okay to give them permission to tackle what they can. We also know some felt that it was nowhere near enough, and hopefully, the addition of the additional courses this week will help.
- ZOOM- Please access THIS DOCUMENT for updated requirements and guidelines for Zoom.
Reminders:
- A great number of resources, support tools, and information is housed in the Distance Learning OneNote. We highly suggest this be a tool you access regularly.
- Our plan includes flexibility for students and families who are still transitioning to this new model. Please do not insert zeros for missing work from last week. Many students and families are still figuring things out!
- Activities labeled as "assignments" do not have a limit on the number of attempts for students. Quizzes are set to allow THREE attempts, which allows for mastery of the content and cultivates a growth mindset when supported by teacher feedback. The opportunity to revise and resubmit work applies to all courses (regular or honors/advanced).
- A "present" status for attendance is determined by students who accessed the online course last week, regardless of how much work was completed.
- There are teams of folks here to support you! Look here for their contact info and what they can assist with.
The Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
Helping Families with No Wifi
If a parent contacts you about not having access to internet at home, please direct them to complete the survey at this link: https://bit.ly/39kf2YY. Please note that completing this survey does not guarantee that internet access will be provided.
Tech Help- Info you NEED
Technology Help Desk
- For fastest response from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm: Email TechHelp@pasco.k12.fl.us
- If you are not able to email you can call: 813-794-2859 (If all lines are busy, leave a message and we will respond as quick as possiible)
- Also, live chat is available from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm on our website at: Technology Help Desk Live Chat (you will see a green chat box in the lower right hand corner of the screen)
Distance learning schedules for singleton or special area teachers
Extension training recordings
Be sure to go to the Distance Learning OneNote under the PD and Instructional Support section for access to all the extension training recordings.
ESE Case Managers
As a result of the uncontrollable circumstances and the resulting school closures, the IEP meetings that were scheduled during the week of March 23, 2029-March 27, 2020 were unable to be held and the annual IEP was rendered out of date. ESE case managers will need to contact parents who had scheduled IEP meetings during the week of March 23, 2020- March 27, 2020 and inform parents that due to school closures the IEP meeting will be rescheduled and parents will be contacted as soon as possible to consider new potential meeting dates/times. We anticipate your future meeting will be held virtually unless otherwise specified. Procedures for virtual IEP meetings and information was shared during the extension training on march 30th, 2020. Additional information can be found in the Distance Learning OneNote and the SSPS policy and procedure guide.
Tech Tips for Teachers
Annotating Documents in the Canvas App
Click here to see a tutorial on annotating documents in the Canvas app.
How to Mark-Up a PDF
Other Tools when printing is not an option
Users can also select from any number of apps and programs for this purpose, including:
- Adobe Acrobat DC
- PDF Candy
- Screenshot and markup/paint
Elementary Teachers: SmartyAnts Webinars
For teachers who are new to SmartyAnts and have not implemented before, there have been Zoom Webinars scheduled to highlight how to access reports and monitor student learning. The sessions will provide teachers, support facilitators, coaches, and administrators with the ins and outs of using SmartyAnts. Teachers will only need to join one session, the links for teachers to join the Zoom webinars are:
Middle School Mathematics
First and foremost, thank you all for adapting to guarantee ALL Pasco students are provided a World Class Education. Please reach out to Mary Moss (mmoss@pasco.k12.fl.us) and Ben Aguilar (baguilar@pasco.k12.fl.us) if you have any questions as we adjust to supporting students virtually.
Virtual Launch
Congratulations on a successful first week!! We all know there will be a learning curve as we transition to a virtual learning platform for all Pasco students. Please give yourself these first two weeks to get familiar with the platforms and connect with students and peers. Connecting with colleagues and students during the first couple of weeks will help us build a rhythm and cadence to our work. Most importantly, give yourselves and students a ton of grace. Let us lean on each other and work together as we familiarize ourselves with virtual learning platforms.
Also, thank you for your patience. Teams worked tirelessly to create courses for ALL Pasco County students. Due to the urgency of course creations, some courses pacing may be off or you may find areas needing adjustment. We are currently addressing the content & pacing errors of 7th-grade courses. If you find any additional discrepancies please complete this survey.
High School Math Courses (A/G/A)
As you navigate through your Algebra 1, Geometry or Algebra 2 courses, you’ll notice the standards align with the work we had planned for the 4th quarter. There is a slight overlap with the end of the 3rd quarter to help with transitioning. Here are a couple of important things for you to know:
- Algebra 1 MathNation – all honors standards in the course have been covered for the year
- Algebra 1 HMH – the last 2 units are not currently addressed. We will revisit and add assignments/tasks as needed in the next couple of weeks.
- Geometry and Algebra 2 – both resources were covering the same standards in the last quarter, so only one course was developed. Some of the honors standards are not currently addressed through these modules. We will revisit and add assignments/tasks as needed in the next couple of weeks.
- MCR- We are continuing to refine this course and likely will make adjustments resulting in fewer assignments and tasks beginning in week 3-8. Please send Odalis Tavares any additional feedback you may have related to MCR.
Thank you for all your hard work during this transition. We are excited to hear/see all of the exciting things happening in your classroom. If you need help or have any questions or ideas, please reach out to Ben Aguilar (middle school) baguilar@pasco.k12.fl.us or Odalis Tavares (high school) otavares@pasco.k12.fl.us. Stay safe!
Career and Technical Education (CTE)
CTE Canvas Courses:
All CTE and Adult Education - Extension Trainings were completed on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Follow-up emails have been (or are in the process of being) sent to all participants with the meeting agenda and Zoom recording (if the recording was captured properly). I am also including a link to the Zoom Information , Meeting Agenda and CTE Resource document here for your ease of locating.
After the Extension Trainings, (and based on what our teachers told us), we have been working to add any course/resources needs into our existing Excel spreadsheet so that we could begin to work with Joanne Glen and Pam Willoughby (Pasco eSchool) to link these resources to Canvas course shells.
Late this week, we connected with Joanne Glenn and Pam Willoughby (Pasco eSchool) who are working to get each of our Canvas courses ready for teachers. To be able to get this task completed for our 800+ CTE courses, we enlisted the help of our school-based CTE administrators who will help us to link the student information from MyStudent to each teacher's Canvas course by providing us with the Canvas course # and SIS ID for each teacher's course. Once this is complete, the linkage can be made, and the course released to each teacher's MyLearning account. We are working tirelessly so that CTE Canvas courses will be ready sometime mid-week next week. (*Note: This is a slight change (for CTE courses) from the District’s target date to begin instruction for all non-core courses on Monday, April 6th. Your patience and flexibility with this process are SO appreciated as we have been working around the clock on this project since spring break. )
We thought it might be helpful for you to have a way to check the status of your CTE course(s) in the coming days as we work through each phase of the CTE Canvas course creation process. As such, please check our master document for status updates for CTE Canvas courses. (*Note: If you check this document and see a course that shouldn't be there OR a course that should be there that isn't, please know that as your school-based administrators add Canvas Course #s and SIS IDs, they will let us know if there are any course additions or deletions that need to be made.)
CTE Teacher_CANVAS_Course List 2019_2020.xlsx
The courses within the document will be color-coded using the following system:
• Green courses are those that are ready for students to begin their distance learning courses.
• Orange courses are those that have course content added and are ready for students to be
loaded.
• Yellow courses are those that have been associated with a blueprint and need "packaged"
digital courses added.
• Blue courses are those which teachers are building themselves, with a pre-loaded template.
• No color means we are waiting on the SIS and Course # to be inserted into the Excel
spreadsheet so that we can link the Canvas course to the MyStudent information.
In addition, our district-level CTE Program Administrators and PLC Leads have scheduled reoccurring weekly check-in Zoom sessions with each CTE Professional Learning Community groups so we can continue to support and provide a time for teachers to collaborate and ask any questions they may have throughout this process. While individual PLC groups may have already been sent their Zoom links to access the weekly check-in meetings, we will send out a complete, one document list of all the PLC groups with Zoom links this coming week.
Finally, as soon as we can complete the CTE Canvas Course Creation project, our team will begin to focus on developing a plan for the implementation of industry certification exams while we are in a distance learning model. Stay tuned, we will continue to keep you updated as we move forward.
Thank you for your continued patience and flexibility as we work remotely. I know this transition has not been easy, but I am in awe of the amazing people we have in Pasco County who are working tirelessly so that teachers will have what they need and therefore, students can continue their learning. Know you are a part of an incredible team and together, we will get through this. If you have questions, please contact your district-level CTE Program Administrator so they can help and support you.