Tue, Sept. 12, 2023

Penney Matos

Centennial HS's Digital Learning Coach

Penney Matos taught elementary and middle school for 13 years before transitioning to instructional technology classroom support at Centennial HS.

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For Everyone!

Leave PCs ON!

We're in a new age! The FISD Tech Department is now asking everyone to leave all PC computers ON overnight! Please leave them on so if updates are pushed out, your computer will receive them. It's a good idea to reboot at least once per week, if not prompted to reboot before then.

Yes, turn off the projector. Leave the computer on.

Lock Your Computer

Any time you walk away from your PC (classroom projector, office desktop, etc), lock it for security purposes! This will keep others out of your email, Google Drive, eSchool, Canvas, etc. <Windows> + L

Digital Learning Today: September 2023

The first edition of this school year’s Digital Learning Today with the High School Digital Learning Coaches is available and ready for you to dive in! In this newsletter, you will find a lot of exciting things, including:

🦩Round up of the PD By the Pool - Find everything you need from Kami to Canva to AI!

*Bonus - These webinars can count towards your exchange hours*

🤖AI and Curriculum - Where is your plagiarism meter?

🌎Future Ready strategies & resources for communication

💻Canvas Rubrics - The what, the why, & the how.

Take a look, click around! Your DLCs are ready to answer your questions, support, and coach you.

YouTube Embedded Videos (Update)

If you receive an error with embedded videos, it's due to the 18+ settings made by the creator, even if the videos are approved for FISD. This is happening to most (if not all) districts. A work around is right click the video and open the link in a new tab until it's fixed.

Testing Chromebook Cart clarification

As clarification about reserving the Testing Chromebook Carts for FISD testing...

FISD Testing = TIA pre/post assessments, Eduphoria snapshots, GT evaluation, ESL evaluation, STAAR/EOC
Limit: 1 cart per teacher (each teacher reserves their own cart, carts can be shared with the team)
1 Cart = 15 Chromebooks
Cart is for students who do NOT already have an FISD Chromebook
Students use their 1 for All touchscreen Chromebook, if they have one
If more than 15 students in a single period do NOT have an FISD Chromebook, look to borrow from someone else on your team or get with Penney Matos and/or Rachael Lopez for options

FYI - Students without FISD Chromebooks by grade level (as of 08/28/23):

Freshman - 56 students (10.6%)
Sophomores - 79 students (15.2%)
Juniors - 139 students (26.5%)
Seniors - 86 students (17.2%)

Please encourage all students to participate in the 1 for All program!

In the Know...

Approved Staff/Student Applications/Websites

Protecting our students' data is a top priority. In order to streamline communication for our FISD Approved Applications website this document was created. Hopefully, this will answer some misconceptions. If you have any questions please reach out.

Teacher Dual-Monitor Workstations

🥁Drum roll, please!.... Dual-monitor workstations are being set up! When finished, there will be 3 stations in the North Workroom (above library) and 2 stations in the South Workroom (above offices); 5 stations total. Each workstation includes 2 chairs (for collaboration), 1 PC with a wired mouse and keyboard, and 2 monitors. Feel free to use these with your team and/or individually during your conference periods!

When finished, Sign Off! Don't Shut Down. Reboot weekly.

News and Noteworthy EdTech

Titan AI Highlight

ChatGPT

Physics & IPC teacher and Coach Jeremy Smith has found ChatGPT useful in brainstorming lesson plans and ideas.
English teacher Lisa Snyder had ChatGPT write a bad essay that her students revised.
Theatre teacher Darius Moore has used ChatGPT to get resources and gain insight into some areas of filmmaking that he was not familiar with.

Share your experiences with ChatGPT and other AI resources through this form!