We were fortunate to host Brian Buffington, Director of Instructional Technology at Pioneer RESA.
Brian joined us October 16th & 18th at the Hall County Instructional Support Center to work with us on Creating with Chromebooks.
Brian shared a Google Doc with the group which contained our agenda:
Hall County School District offers many ways to learn about Canvas by Instructure, our learning management system (LMS).
Five iterations of face-to-face training:
Each iteration offers Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced training. Each training contains activities directed by an expert from Canvas and the training contains activities that show participant competence.
Beginning – Course Basics, Canvas Commons, Course Settings, Modules, Creating Content/Accessibility, Communication Tools, Assignments
Intermediate – Assessment Tools, Outcomes and Rubrics, Group Work & Collaboration, Gradebook and Speedgrader.
PREREQ
Advanced – Agenda to Include: managing assessments, group work and collaboration – Google and Office, mastery paths, getting starter with Badgr.
PREREQ
Online, Asynchronous Beginners Canvas course. Each month this course offers a way to work through the content on your own. See your BLaST leader for a reminder of how to sign-up in Catalog for a course as needed.
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You can watch videos or sign up for future, live webinars. These webinars have one expert who shows you what to do in Canvas and one Canvas expert who runs the chat window answering your questions.
You need to Authorize this, much like you did the first time you used Google within Canvas.
Make sure once you are logged in to look through the Learning Library and Training Calendar (below). Your My Learning section is a listing of the sessions you have signed up for, with an option to reschedule.
Ther remain many ways for educators in our district to learn about Canvas.
Follow this blog for more information and to keep up on the latest face-to-face training on our calendar.
NewsELA is a district subscription which focuses on 3-12 grades. NewsELA combines real-time assessments with leveled content from daily news sources and nonfiction publishers, Newsela makes reading to learn relevant, interesting, and effective regardless of interest or ability. Access is via a tile on LaunchPoint for both teachers and students. Class rosters are pulled in from Infinite Campus, or you can group students into “Classes,”
For beginners, consider an Onboarding Workshop. Our “login method” is Clever/ClassLink:
If you want a start-up walkthrough, consider NewsELA Educator’s Center. You will want to know that under “Set up Classes” we use Clever. This would be ideal to share in your PLC.
Consider becoming a NewsELA Certified Educator either on your own or in a certification course eLearning runs in June.
Watch for redelivery from colleagues who attend training sessions at the district level. Make sure your Blended Learning Support Team (BLaST) members and/or leader knows you are interested in future training on NewsELA. Stay tuned for a webinar offering the second semester!
Your BLaST leader will also have the bit.ly session resource files shared at each out our recent training:
These links were shared in the session and then shared to the BLaST leaders in Teams.
Do not wait for a full class set of Chromebooks. Blended Learning strategies encourage you to use the station rotation model when you have less than a 1:1 classroom. NewsELA would be a perfect station!
Ask your local BLaST leader for resources shared at the session – the link to which was shared via Microsoft Teams to them.
In our 4th year of Blended Learning June offerings, we are excited to offer Hall County teachers access to professional learning around the most effective tools to use in a blended learning setting. Online offerings open May 30th and blended offerings start the first face-to-face training day.
All face-to-face training is at the Hall County Instructional Support Center, 2750 Atlanta Highway, Gainesville, GA 30504.
*teachers are not eligible to participate in certifications if they already hold that certification.
Canvas Foundational Courses: K-12 Hall County Teachers, 90 spots, $450 paid for completion
Blended format: Leveled to current Canvas instructor experience, this training provides one day of face-to-face training with a Canvas Trainer. To complete the course, finish two days worth of learning, submissions, peer reviews, and assessments online.
*BrainPOP Certification: K-8 Hall County Teachers, 50 spots, $300 paid for completion
Blended format: This training provides one day of face-to-face training with BrainPop. To complete the course, finish one more day online.
*ThingLink Certified Educator Certification: K-12 Hall County Teachers,
20 spots, $150 paid for completion
Online format:
Submit to ThingLink before June 14th.
*Nearpod Certified Educator Certification: K-12 Hall County Teachers, 20 spots, $150 paid for completion
Online format:
Submit to Nearpod before June 14th.
*NewELA Certified Educator Certification: K-12 Hall County Teachers, 20 spots, $150 paid for completion
Online format:
Submit to NewsELA before June 14th.
*FlipGrid Certified Educator (Level 1 & 2) Certification: K-12 Hall County Teachers, 20 spots, $150 paid for completion
Online format:
Submit to FlipGrid before June 14th.
*teachers are not eligible to participate in certifications if they already hold that certification.
For all those teachers already using Remind in their classroom, congratulations on the upgrade!
Hall County Schools has purchased a district license for Remind, formerly Remind101. This provides existing users using their Hall County email address Premium Features. Look for integration with Canvas LMS in August!
Make your own copy of this presentation.
Blended Learning Support Team leaders at each school received training on the administrator’s dashboard.
BLaST leaders were encouraged to form a school plan for communication this Spring with the school leadership.
School BLaST & Administrator Training Resources:
UPDATE for 19-20 School Year:
Brief 30-minute train-the-trainer refresher webinar for BLaST leaders/school Admin or leadership on Remind:
K-5: August 2nd at 9 & 11 AM, 12 & 2 PM 30-minute sessions for a train-the-trainer model/school as a refresher on Remind.
6-12: August 1st at 9&11 AM, 1&3 PM 30-minute sessions for a train-the-trainer model/school as a refresher on Remind.
Check with your Principal on the new handle or username for your school this school year!