It’s October – What’s Happening?

The weather is certainly autumnal. Leaves are changing and there’s a nip in the air. We have had quite a start to the year in our journey to support schools in the new environment we find ourselves.

As a recap:

• Teams have been created for every class across K-12 with imported courses ready for use,
• classblogs, department blogs created to connect story to a wider audience,
• thousands of digital portfolios (blogFolios) have been requested and created to support ongoing reflective dialogue between student, parent and teacher,
• variety of online learning tools and apps offered to support engagement and enhancement of curricula
• lesson materials and organization of content for those engaged in Transitions, Distance and At Home

Learning connections through pro-d or group/individual video sessions encompass all tools and processes above – currently too numerous to count the numbers of sessions completed. This ongoing process can be through an individual email to our team or through the EdTech Support Desk button found on the right side of the sidebar. You’ll find some of the videos captured here: https://sd41.sharepoint.com/sites/ContinuingLearning/SitePages/Microsoft-Teams.aspx

Learning Opportunities?  

• Updates to Teams – Have you seen:
  • gallery view (3×3 grid); Together mode (7×7 grid)
  • spotlight is like pinning (will maintain your camera or others while sharing content – some have said that this helps with connecting with students)
  • add announcements across multiple Teams (you own) or courses
  • speaker names attached to Live Caption (a good idea so you know who is actually speaking)
  • increase of languages in Translator
  • Immersive Reader in more platforms
  • whiteboard adds more tools
  • breakout rooms coming
  • Wellbeing tools are being merged and are coming
• Classblogs, District blogs, websites have been moved to the Data Centre to continue telling your story
  • new Email Posts subscriber notification provides granular options to fine tune your notifications
  • new plugin to auto-compress images during upload
  • new plugins supporting variety of ways for images to display (eg. popup, slideshow, image gallery effects, flipbook)
  • fonts option
  • updating school websites with tablepress
  • digital portfolios currently supported (sd41 blogFolios updated, FreshGrade, OneNote)
• Coding and ADST
  • Minecraft for Education (online)
  • MicroBits (we have individual student kits)
  • Tynker (free version)
  • code.org
  • Hour of Code  https://hourofcode.com/ca [December 7-11]. Come join other classes around the world (from simple activities to more complex).
  • Some ADST kits are available for loan to a class (with Health & Safety protocols)
• Other areas of learning
  • Apps, apps, apps on ipads – this is a constant
  • All the Right Type – if you are keenly interested in using this, please contact Michelle MacTavish on our Team (Due to a finite number of licenses, our focus is on Grades 6/7s then other grades.)
  • AR/VR glasses (we have a finite number of glasses that we can offer given the protocols around Health & Safety)

Please let us know how we can help and support your learning.