ADW Ed Tech-er
Distance Learning 2020
Making the Most out of this Distance Learning Opportunity...
Dear ADW Tech Educators,
Thank you for your dedication and amazing ability to transform your curriculum into this new teaching environment. As you are utilizing all of the tech tools, keep in mind that both teachers and students may need no and low tech materials, as well. Be sure to make "office hours" and allow your staff to collaborate with you and each other. Take this time to learn new tools, get out of your comfort zone, learn with your students.
Please work closely with your staff and assist them with any distance-learning needs they may have. Please let me know if you'd like to connect with myself and/or our lead technology coaches. Be sure to join in the virtual collaboration sessions that will be announced soon. Keep communicating on a regular basis with the students and parents on homework assignments or other learning activities relating to the teachers’ areas of responsibility.
If you have ideas to share or need assistance with these strategies, please contact Vicky McCann, mccannv@adw.org, or Shannon Norris, norriss@adw.org.
Teaching Through a Pandemic: A Mindset for This Moment (Teacher Wellness)
Hundreds of teachers, many of them operating in countries where teach-from-home has been in place for weeks, weigh in on the mental approach you need to stay grounded in this difficult time.
Read the full article here
This is Emergency Remote Teaching, Not Just Online Teaching
There's a difference
By Natalie B. Milman
March 30, 2020..."During these emergencies, however, the content was already developed and lectures scheduled to launch for the entire semester. Clearly, disruption of our daily lives is not unusual, and preparedness is important, but what we are all experiencing because of COVID-19 is unprecedented.
These are not normal teaching and learning conditions. What we are experiencing now is emergency remote teaching and learning—or as some have called it, “pandemic pedagogy..."
Read the full article from Edweek here.
Resources for Students with Disabilities
- Center on Online Learning and Students with Disabilities
- Understood.org – Coronavirus: Latest Updates and Tips
- Learning Ally – if your school or individual students have an account, please keep them reading!
- Supporting Students with eLearning, IEPs, and Accessibility
- Exceptional Learner Resources by NCEA
How To Use Google Classroom
Google Classroom Help Videos
You can use the links below to open each video on YouTube, or scroll further down to watch any of the videos embedded in this blog post.
- How to Create a Classroom (3 minutes) - YouTube link
- How to Add Students (3 minutes) - YouTube link
- How to Post to the Stream (4 minutes) - YouTube link
- How to Add Materials to the Classwork Page (4 minutes) - YouTube link
- How to Create an Assignment on the Classwork Page (7 minutes) - YouTube link
- How Students Complete Assignments (5 minutes) - YouTube link
- How to Grade Assignments (5 minutes) - YouTube link
Read the World - Distance Learning Support
High-quality Sites and Apps That Are Supporting School Closures With Free Resources
National School Choice Week FREE Online Resources
42 Free Online Resources for Schools Shifting Online During Coronavirus
By: National School Choice Week Team Free Online Resources for Schools Shifting Online During CaronaVirus
Sign Up Genius to Help Overwhelmed Households Partaking in Distance Learning
Social Media Professional Learning Groups - Grow Your PLN and Supporting Distance Learning
Educator Temporary School Closure for Online Learning Group
Amazing Educational Resources Group
Twitter:
#Covid19edu
#Distancelearning
#Remotelearning
Dreamscape - Reading Game for Grades 2-8 FREE
Amazon Making Dozens of Kids Shows FREE While Students are at Home
As more people are asked to stay home due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, Amazon is making a portion of Prime Video kids and family programming free, including popular shows like Arthur, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, and more.
Starting today, 40 family and kids’ shows will be made available to stream on Prime Video for all customers, including those without Prime memberships. All people need is an Amazon account, which they can get for free by signing up on the main site. Read the full article hereFREE Online Events and Activities for Kids at Home (Common Sense Media)
"Although schools, gyms, art classes, music lessons—and, seemingly, life as we know it—are canceled, families can keep entertained and keep learning with live events and activities online.
We've compiled a list of activities ranging from drawing lessons to museum tours happening online. The best part? They're free. If you, like many of us parents here at Common Sense, are scrambling to find ways to keep your kids engaged with good media, check out our list!" - CSM
Remote Learning with Merge EDU at Home
100+ Tools for Distance Learning & Strategies for Student Engagement
With the rapid growth of preventative responses towards the COVID-19 outbreak, it seems distance learning is trend here to stay at least for the next 6-12 months. Being prepared to take your classrooms fully online can be stressful, and finding the right curriculum resources challenging when it may be your first foray into the EdTech space.
In this article, you’ll get a comprehensive list of helpful learning tools, learn common benefits and drawbacks of remote learning, and learn a few strategies for keeping students engaged while remote to help you through this challenging time.
If we missed any helpful resources along the way, please let us know and we’d be happy to add it to our list. For full list of tools and for more info click here.
Rediker & Digital Learning
Rediker's NEW online learning guides
Webinar to Support Online Learning (Admin and Educators)
Give students access to the Portal in PlusPortals
Teachers, know what you can do with your TeacherPlus Portal?
● create and share lesson plans with students and parents
● Create class pages with announcements, assignments, quizzes, discussions, files, and links.
Help your parents understand the ParentPortal better with PlusPortal Parent Interactive Guides
● uploading homework
● sending emails and messages
● accessing E-locker
PlusPortals Interactive Classroom Discussions
PlusPortals comes with a built-in discussion platform for teachers to interact with their entire classroom online. This easy-to-use feature allows teachers to post topics, include content (images, links, YouTube videos, etc.), set due dates, and manage discussion forums for one or more classes. Learn more about classroom discussions here.
Here are more resources for your school community during these challenging times. This email includes:
- Links for our ParentPlus User Guide and Interactive Guide for parents, to share with your school community.
- A link for TeacherPlus Portals Guide, for your teaching staff.
- Information about our next live PlusPortals webinar for school staff. This session is not for parents or students.
- A link to our previously recorded PlusPortals webinar, for on-demand viewing by your school staff.
- A link to our recent COVID-19 announcement.
ParentPlus User Guide and Interactive Guides
The ParentPlus Portal Web Application User Guide provides an overview of the web app and describes common tasks:
https://docs.rediker.com/guides/plusportals-parent/web/index.htm
ParentPlus Interactive Guides:
https://docs.rediker.com/interactive/parentplus.htm
TeacherPlus Portal User Guide
The TeacherPlus Portal User Guide provides teachers with instructions for using their portal to manage their classes and share information with parents and students:
https://docs.rediker.com/guides/plusportals-teacher/index.htm
Live Webinar Wednesday at 12 noon (EST): Using PlusPortals to Support Remote Classrooms and Online Learning
Join us for an overview of how PlusPortals supports remote classroom workflows with useful and easy-to-use features.
This is not a training, rather an overview of the features in PlusPortals that can support your online learning.
This webinar is for school administrators and school staff only. It is not for parents or students.
https://www.rediker.com/see-software/demos
On-Demand Recorded Webinar: Using PlusPortals to Support Remote Classrooms and Online Learning
View the previously recorded PlusPortals webinar:
Our COVID-19 Announcement:
In these difficult times, all of us at Rediker Software hope that your communities remain healthy. In the interest of promoting safe practices during the COVID-19 emergency, we will remain open to help schools transition to online learning using our array of products and tools. In addition, to keep our local community safe, Rediker Support operations are moving online.
Read the full announcement here: https://support.rediker.com/support/solutions/articles/14000110818-rediker-software-support-and-covid-19
Wakelet
Save, organize and share content from across the web!
Bookmark anything! Save your favorite content from across the web. Articles, videos, blogs, tweets, songs and more – bookmark anything you find online in two clicks. Simply click the W in your browser or right-click a link to save it straight into a collection or your bookmarks. Save open tabs! Access your Wakelet collections from any new tab. Use the new tab as a shortcut to your collections, drag and drop open tabs into your collections or save a whole session in just one click! If you’d rather not use Wakelet as your new tab screen, you can turn it off - without losing the other benefits of the browser extension. Save social media posts! See a tweet you’d like to save? Bookmark individual social media posts or add them to your collections without leaving the web page! Create your own collections here; https://wakelet.com/
A curation tool for every classroom! Using Wakelet in the classroom by Paul West. "Matt Miller recently mentioned in his Ditch That Textbook Podcast how he has started using Wakelet to quickly save those ideas and resources that he comes across on Twitter in just a few clicks (on the mobile app for Apple,Android, or the Chrome extension). This is an instant game changer as it helps you save anything with a link to a collection in the cloud, that you can then title, reorganize, add descriptions/notes, add collaborators, and share. What a time saver! But the potential for its use doesn’t stop there. (Disclaimer – before this starts to sound like a sales pitch, let me explain that there is actually no sale to pitch because Wakelet is completely FREE)
This tool really highlights the power of curation. You’ve heard of the 4 C’s (Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity) right? Well I would venture to say that to truly be a 21st Century learner you also need to have curation skills. Let’s call it the 5th C." Read his whole blog post on Wakelet here.
Academic Team
Email: norriss@adw.org
Website: adwcollaborators.weebly.com
Phone: 2026953939
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MrsMcNorris
Twitter: @TechMcNorris22