PISD Technology News!: October 2015

Friday, October 30, 2015

Kahoot Ghost Mode 10/30/15

Kahoot Ghost Mode

Kahoot has a relatively new feature that allows students to play in "Ghost Mode".

Students can play against previous games to review and try to beat their previous score.
Also, students can play from home as part of a review.
Send the link to parents so students can practice at home.

Watch this video to learn more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p8TRQPGf50

Learn more from these sites:

Likes and Mentions in WebMail 10/30/15

Coming in early 2016....

Over the last several years, social networks have changed the way we communicate. In our personal lives, we show our approval by “Liking” a friend’s status update on Facebook and we “@Mention” others in a Twitter post to call attention to it. In our workplace, these same social concepts became popular through enterprise social tools such as Yammer. Today we’re taking the next step and introducing Like and @Mention to workplace email in Outlook on the web.

Likes — bubbles up the best ideas

Mentions—highlights the individual

Veteran's Day Resources 10/30/15

Veteran's Day - November 11, 2015

Teacher/Student Resources:

https://www.teachervision.com/veterans-day/teacher-resources/6674.html

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/collection/veterans-day

Veteran's Day Quiz
http://quizzes.familyeducation.com/other-holidays/veterans-day/veterans-day-quiz.html

Military Conflicts in US History
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0931831.html

Friday, October 23, 2015

DreamBox Learning Handouts and Resources 10/23/15

DreamBox Learning (K-2nd Grade)

Math intervention program to help build skills in younger students. Available in English and Spanish.

Website - https://play.dreambox.com/

Handouts and Resources -
https://pasadenaisdorg.sharepoint.com/sites/InstructionalTechnology/handouts/Shared%20Documents/Dream%20Box%20Learning

Think Through Math - Moving Students 10/23/15

Teachers and Think Through Math Campus Administrators can no longer move students between campuses or districts within TTM. They can only move the students to different classes within a campus.

So, how are students moved from campus to campus?

And what do you do when a student arrives from another district?

When one of your students has a schedule change within the campus:
Follow normal protocol for moving these students. (instructions attached)

When you have a student move in from another school within our district:

Email support@thinkthroughmath.com with the following information

· the student’s name
· student ID number
· student TSDS number
· campus, class and teacher name in TTM that the student should be moved to

When you have a student move in from another school from outside our district:

The campus will need to create a new account for the student.

Student records in TTM will no longer travel between districts.

DreamBox - Can I Insert My Student's Picture? 10/23/15

DreamBox Learning Avatars Replaced with Student Pictures - Can this be done?

Question - Is it possible to have the students' and teachers' faces added to the picture username and picture password pages in DreamBox Learning?

Answer - Not at this time. This may change in the future, but this option is not available in DreamBox right now.

Websites of the Week! Celebrating Arthur! 10/23/15

Friday, October 9, 2015

Pearson Envision Student Passwords 10/09/15

Pearson Envision Math - Student Passwords
K-4th Grade Math

Students have been assigned usernames and passwords for Pearson Envision Math. Problem - the student password is the same as their PISD-assigned password (which isn't very easy to type for most students). It is the following pattern:

First Initial (uppercase) + Last Initial (lowercase) + birthdate (mmddyyyy)

So, the common question is....

Question:
Can the teacher change the student's password for Pearson Envision Math?
And, if the teacher changes the students PISD-assigned network password to something easier to type, will this change the Pearson student password? And will it "stick"? Or, because this information is auto-updated each night, will the password revert back to the previous one?

Answer:
Yes the teacher can change the password. And yes, it will "stick". The Pearson password will remain the network password (whether the teacher changes it or not). Since the nightly auto-upload feeds off the actual real-time network password, if the teacher changes it to something easier to type, Pearson will require that easier password, as well.

What does this mean for the teacher and student?

Pearson is the only Electronic Online Resource that assigns the password as the student's PISD network password.
Changing the network password in the Account Request Management System (ARMS) in the portal would change the student password in Pearson.
IMPORTANT NOTE - This would also change the student password for logging into the computer and into Office 365.
Although most of K-4th grade students are not logging into the computer or Office 365, this is important to note and to discuss with teachers so it doesn't affect how students are logging into other things.
To promote consistency, the teacher might consider changing the password to "pw" + Student ID (which is the password used for things like Istation, Think Central, Accelerated Reader, Learning.com, Think Through Math, etc.

Websites of the Week! 10/09/15