On the DL
Notes from Digital Learning and School Library Services
March 2022
Don't forget to check out our monthly Be Cyber Safe resources! This month's topic focuses on being producers and consumers of information online.
March is here and Spring is just around the corner.
This week the Digital Learning Team is headed to the NCTIES Conference along with Makerspace Leadership Teams from several schools. Look for them to return with lots of great new ideas and activities. For most of us, this is our first face-to-face conference since early 2020.
Schools have been talking budgets for the last few months. In Digital Learning, we are looking at our products up for renewal in alignment with usage data and school requests. BCS is fortunate to have access to many resource but we want to make sure we are maximizing their usage in the appropriate times, places, and contexts. Look for your school administrators to be discussing this usage with you.
Finally, some truly exciting news....after more than 2 years of planning, we will be launching high school eSports teams during the 2022-2023 school year. While rooted in video gaming, eSports includes roles other than just gamers. There are casters, statisticians, managers, and strategists. If you haven't seen esports, check out programming on Twitch or ESPN. If you haven't followed gaming in a while, check out the level of analysis in this League of Legends video. The goal of the BCS eSports Program is to harness student interests into STEM activities, future scholarships, and team skills. I would like to thank Dr. Oates for championing this effort and the BCS School Board for supporting it.
Thanks for all you do,
AD
Copyright Corner
(click the down arrow to see the response to the question)
"Permission is granted to the individual teacher who purchases one copy of this book to reproduce the student activity material for use in his or her classroom only. Reproduction of these materials for colleagues, an entire school or school system, or for commercial sale is strictly prohibited. No part of this publication may be transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher. "
There is actually quite a bit to dissect here AND the answer maybe slightly different than it may have been a year ago. Context matters. First, the person who bought this, not their teammate, not the person who took over the subject from them, but the actual person who paid for it, can use it in their classroom and can make copies FOR THEIR STUDENTS. Not everyone else. Where it gets complicated is in the last statement that bars transmission. Realistically, and digital format shared with others is transmission. However, the online classroom is now an extension of the traditional classroom and no one can argue that. Therefore, you can share with students in a closed classroom setting (ie. Google Classroom.) Can you put it in your Google Slides? Yes, but....you can't then share that slide with anyone who isn't a student rostered in your class.
School Library Spotlight
Cedar Grove is Going to Regionals!
On February 23, 2022, students from all six Brunswick County middle schools gathered on the campus of Brunswick Community College to challenge each other to a Battle of the Books!
The 2021-2022 Middle School Battle of the Books list from NCSLMA included 22 titles - many participants read ALL of them in preparation for this annual competition. These students and their awesome school library media coordinators practiced every day - some ran practice competitions with each other and even other teams across the state!
In the end, the Cedar Grove Middle School Bulldogs emerged the winners! Coached by April Rogerson, students Ava Williams, Jennifer Zheng, Bella Best, Kimber Cook, Blayden Ludlum, Gabriella Arendt, Charlotte Caison-Childs, Kevin Llanos Aguirre, Bethany Shook, Jonathon Hewett, Max Elliott, and Wesley Wilson will be represent Brunswick County Schools at the regional competition on March 22, 2022.
Way to go, Bulldogs!
Cedar Grove Middle - First Place
Fierce competition!
Leland Middle School - Second Place
Digital Learning Resources
Click on the icon above to view March's Micro-units!
Brunswick County Schools offers many micro-units to assist staff with understanding the digital resources available to them. With each micro-unit, staff earns digital learning credits, which vary depending on the unit of study. The digital learning team has released 5 updated and new micro-units this month, allowing for staff to learn the latest updates and implement the best strategies for instruction.
1B@T - Code & Go Robot Mice! (NEW)
1B@T - Getting Started with Khanacademy.org
1B@T - Introduction to Prodigy: A Math Gaming Resource NEW
1B@T - Maximizing MobyMax
To learn more about the 1B@T microunits and how YOU can sign up to complete one, click here. Questions? Please reach out to your digital learning specialist!
Google Jamboard is an amazing, interactive, collaborative digital whiteboard tool accessible to all students and staff! How can you use it? Check out samples below for some inspiration and this list.
A STREAM challenge planning guide!
A digital sketchnote template!
A review game template!
Last month we introduced you to Tinkercad. This month we want you to see how you can have students collaborating with Tinkercad!
While in Tinkercad, students can click the "share" button to add partners to their designs.
After clicking the share button, they will click the "generate new link" button. This will give students a link that they can then send to their group members.
This is a great opportunity to have students working collaboratively on the same design in Tinkercad! Students should work through the whole engineering design process together with planning, designing on paper and then designing in Tinkercad. This can help foster critical thinking, collboration and critical thinking skills. Check out this slide deck for more!
Lumio is an amazing digital resource that is provided for BCS teachers and students within the Clever portal. One outstanding way that teachers can utilize Lumio is by using it's student collaboration features.
Lumio allows teachers to choose which pages of the presentation can be set up for student collaboration, while others in the SAME lesson can be set up for view only information OR individual student practice.
With the student collaboration features, once students have joined the SYNCHRONOUS meeting, the teacher can place the students in groups of their choice for each page of the Lumio lesson.
That means that students can work with different groups on different pages within the lesson! This is a wonderful opportunity for teachers to differentiate and for students to have the ability to work with many groups of students within their classes!
Click HERE to learn more about using Lumio for student collaboration and reach out to your digital learning specialist!
Chromebook Care
Are you looking for resources to use to better prep your students for responsible Chromebook use? Do your learners need a reminder on ways to keep their Chromebook safe?
Check out the Digital Learning Chromebook 101 page!
Here, you will find family support videos and an infographic that can support your digital tools classroom management!
The team has also created a collection of Chromebook Tech Tips to help you will all of your Chromebook use needs.
At Home Learning
All At Home Learning (AHL) Videos Are Now on GoOpenNC!
AHL Lessons are a partnership between the NCDPI, PBS NC, and the Friday Institute.
Each lesson contains:
a video instructional lesson
a PDF lesson plan with a transcript
a PDF file of extension activities.
Lessons are available for grades PreK-K, 1-2, 3, and 4-5 in Literacy and Math.
You can find them HERE!
SMART Doc Software-650
Have you downloaded your SMART Doc software from the software center? Your SMART Doc 650 comes with software that can be found in the software center on your laptop. Use this software to annotate, take screenshots, use the snipping tool, record your lesson and split the screen and add files! Check out what your software can do here! Talk to your Digital Learning Specialist for more information!
WeVideo Classroom Updates!
WeVideo has updated! WeVideo now has a separate WeVideo Classroom! You can still use WeVideo as you always have, that is now called WeVideo personal. However, with WeVideo classroom you can now have easy access to all of your students and their creations! You can create assignments, view assignments and switch to student tab! You also now have lesson plans and additional resources available to you through WeVideo Classroom.
Check out these WeVideo classroom and WeVideo personal resources. WeVideo Personal Summary.
Click on the icon above to check out the revised BCS Technology Work Order Instructions!
Do you need additional tech tips? Check them out here!
Click on the icon above to check out Google Arts & Culture's digital coloring book! There are many works of art available to color digitally to provide a break brain to students!
Please click on the icon above to check out March's Creation Motivation strategies! We will release three a month to help student's create digitally in the classroom!
Be Cyber Safe Monthly Resources
