DMS Band Weekly Newsletter
Week 4 - 8/31-9/4
Be sure to scroll down and find Dr. Nichols update on school re-entry as well as your weekly agendas for band!
Welcome to the DMS Band!
Don't forget to check below for daily schedules and Weekly Agendas. :)
What we've found this week:
- We have been experimenting with creating more things into actual "assignments" and "assessments" in schoology in an effort to get them to show up on your calendar and assignement views, however - since our class is a performance based yearlong elective band class (so different from many classes!) we find that we can't do this for everything we want to do. So, PLEASE make sure to check the weekly agenda and daily folders EVERY day. You cannot JUST use the calendar view to see all the work for each day, you must open the weekly agenda.
- Your kids REALLY need to write down their schedules, at least their live WebEx times. Have they made a schedule yet? Email us for help with this. info@dmsbands.org
- You guys can check iNow and stay caught up with assignments in the gradebook. iNow can be accessed through the madison city or discovery webpages, but also can be clicked in our Virtual Classroom on the band schoology page.
- Please allow us a few days to get grades in - remember that our classes are almost twice the size for every block and we have about 285 band students total. We appreciate your patience!
- If you ever have a question that you can't find the answer to on our schoology page, folders, agenda or virtual classroom - please feel free to email us! We are happy to help. Almost every single task we've posted so far has a how-to or help video we recorded with it.
- Lastly - JOIN THE WEBEX on Tues/Thurs! When students do this, everything gets done and submitted correcty! When the kids sleep in or don't log in, they have questions that we already answered many times in the WebEx, because they aren't going back and watching the recordings either! Please help them log in on time!!!!
We will be formulating a plan for getting instruments to kids now that we have a more tentative plan for the semester in terms of when students will be back in the building. We truly appreciate your patience in this matter.
Also - we finally have access to SmartMusic!!! Yay!! We will get kids logged in this week.
Tech Help
- Make sure before school starts each day that your student is logged into their Madison City account IN GOOGLE CHROME as well as IN SCHOOLOGY itself. Do not try to access assignments through the parent account or a sibling account. Do not be logged into Chrome (top right in the gray panel) through a sibling account, parent account or personal Gmail account. It must always be the student's madison city email address.
- Please check your weekly agenda and make sure you did everything for the day.
- We suggest making a schedule - and attending the live sessions on time. These are where new material will be taught, and assignments that may have many steps will be gone over. We are finding that very few students are actually going back and watching the 30 min videos to make up the live session. These students who do NOT watch the lives are the ones who are making repeated mistakes and clicks.
- We like the Schoology app - it seems friendly enough. Give it a try.
- Students: Try messaging teachers through the schoology app. We are getting lots of emails from parents, admin, other teachers, central office, etc. Student troubleshooting can be done through schoology. We are happy to jump into our WebEx rooms during student support to help you!
- When opening an assignment, clicking "submit assignment" initially on the right hand side will THEN prompt you to attach something or create something. Some students are afraid to click submit before they've attached anything, but don't worry - there is a second turn in button to push. We think that first button should be called "attach" or "create" or something because submit seems deceiving...
If you don't have an instrument - Please DO NOT go get an instrument until we give further instruction/direction. Thanks!!
Check out Dr. Nichols latest announcement here:
Wait, what is SmartMusic?
Music to play:
SmartMusic should be up and running this week!! We will go over logins together as a class.
We will be working from the Tradition of Excellence books in class, but these will be found in SmartMusic this year.
If you want to go ahead and get one, the beginners use the RED, level 1 book and this year the CONCERT and SYMPHONIC classes will both start in the BLUE, level 2 book. These can be purchased at local music stores or on Amazon. Not a requirement for all to have one in person, since we will all have access to Smart Music.
Con/Sym students can also grab the Rubank Advanced Method off of Amazon for a few bucks so you can start practicing your All State Band music!! All State requirements can be found by clicking the music stand in our virtual classroom.
Check out Beginning Band boot camp if you are a beginner who already has his/her instrument in hand!
Fundraising Updates - Fall 2020
This year, for somewhat obvious reasons, we won't be having the sheet fundraiser as soon as usual, we will push it off for a few weeks.
We will need to solidify our DMS Band Booster team/organization and get parent volunteers plugged in as usual. If anyone is interested in helping with fundraisers, please email us! :)
All that to say - for those of you who are not new to the DMS band program we still have our sheet fundraiser website up and running from this summer. I actually opted to leave this website open until December so technically y'all can order bedsheets right now!
Here is our bed sheet sale website:
https://goalfundingdirect.com/discoverymiddleschool/
Please check it out and grab some sheets if you're in need!
Check out our DMS Yearbook Challenge for this week!
Quick Poll - Would you want one of these shirts? Click the poll below!
Contact Us!
Email: info@dmsbands.org
Website: www.dmsbands.org
Location: 1304 Hughes Road, Madison, AL, USA
Phone: 256-837-3735
Facebook: facebook.com/DMSBand
Twitter: @WeAreDMSBand