Student Testing on iPads

8/30/2017
An update to the post below.  Both iPad Apps described below are now available on your students' devices.
-BG
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For several years NWEA MAP testing has been available for iPads, but our District has continued to use desktops for the routine testing cycle.  A part of the reason has been that the NWEA MAP iPad App has not been available to download .... until now.

The NWEA Map testing application is now available on all elementary teacher iPads for a trial basis in Self Service.  It is in the 'Accounts' category.  A few clicks can quickly make it available on all elementary student iPads if the decision is made to use it.  Can we coordinate a trial basis of using the iPads instead of the desktops for MAP testing this school year?

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Iowa Tier FAST Testing may also be completed on iPads.  A different application is needed though.  It is called AIRSecureTest.  It will work in a very similar manner as the MAP testing application.  It is also available in Self Service, but only on teacher iPads for now.  This can be quickly installed on student devices if the decision is made to use it.  Click here to read more about secure browser options.  Click here to read more about FAST testing this coming school year.

Some questions keep in mind with this move:

Will the tactile nature of the iPads help increase engagement and performance on the tests for K-4 students?

How is the test-taking experience different with an iPad? Will students perform better with no mouse or keyboard?

What evidence would lead to a conclusion that we should permanently move testing to the classroom iPads?

Will this meet the needs better for some of our students who have special needs OR will this meet the needs better for all of our elementary students?

(What other consideration questions should be added to this list?)

2017 PLTW Launch Kits

If you are a K-4 science teacher, this applies to you:

Grades K-4 will be fully rolling out PLTW Launch curriculum this school year after a year of piloting and a year of some exposure at kindergarten and third grade.  These lessons align to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and also to the new Iowa computer science standards.  They also align to many math and english/language arts standards.  You may download a copy of them at this link.

All of the Launch kits needed for the upcoming school year are in.

The former music room at Bailey Park is being used as a staging area for the classroom kits.  For now, the classroom kits can stay there.  Let me know if you want any of these delivered to your classroom.

Some of kits include consumable items.  I delivered the refill kits to the computer lab in your building.  Please pick them up sometime at your convenience.  This link has a complete list of what was ordered.

Any of the lesson kits may be modified to improve on the lessons.  Some of you may have added items already.  Let me know if you need additional space or if you need another container for the kit.
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Congratulations to Brenda Price, Jeni Roadcap, and Christie Hughes for recently completing the intense 3-day Project Lead the Way (PLTW) Launch Lead Teacher training at Southeast Polk.

Read more about the Lead Teacher training at this link.

Our instructional coaches, April Gosselink, Staci Harms, and Lisa York completed this training last summer.

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Our District has received 3 different grants supporting training and teaching materials for this big project:
          -Bemis Grant
          -Governor's STEM Advisory Council Scale-Up Grant
          -Grinnell-Newburg School Foundation mini-grant
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TEACHERS:  Please log into your my.pltw.org account and make sure that your classes appear.

IF you have completed the PLTW Readiness Training then you have access to all of the course materials.  If you do not know what this is, please email me.  I will help you get started.  All K-4 science teachers will need to complete this training before getting access to the curriculum.  It is entirely online and does not take very long to complete.  For returning teachers, if you log into your account, you should see some additional support materials for this school year.


You will need to get the iPad apps for your classes downloaded to your teacher iPad.  All of the applications needed by students are available in Self-Service to download.  Please let me know if any need to be pushed out to your devices.  Self-Service is fixed now and is running great.

Please let me know if you have any questions, especially if I missed out on anything essential with this post.

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For our current Lead Teachers:

All Launch Lead Teachers credentialed before June 1, 2017, are required to take part in an online update training. This training experience provides all the tools and support needed to deliver PLTW Launch Classroom Teacher Training for teachers at their schools.

This online update training will be available on June 5 and comprises 6-8 hours of instruction. Once a Launch Lead Teacher completes this training, he or she will have access to the new PLTW Launch Classroom Teacher Training resources and be ready to lead the new training experience at their building.

The new PLTW Classroom Teacher Training is the in-depth, collaborative experience PLTW Launch Lead Teachers will deliver as they facilitate training in their school. This new experience replaces the current PLTW Building Level Readiness Training. Building Level Readiness training resources will be available until June 15, 2017.

How to access to the Launch Lead Teacher Update Training:

1. Log in to my.pltw.org
2. Select Professional Development from the Welcome menu
3. Select Catalog at the top of the page.
4. Navigate to PLTW Launch by scrolling through the displayed list, by using the search function at the top right of the page, or by using the filter tool on the left side of the page.
5. Locate Launch Lead Teacher Update Training and select View Track.
6. Select Start Track on the right side of the page.

2017 Summer Technology Hardware updates

Below is an overview of where we are at with our Summer, 2017 technology refresh.  We have 6 students and 3 staff working through the summer to get all of these devices ready for the start of the school year.

This includes Amy Harmsen,  District Technology Director Tim Nunnikhoven,  District Systems Technician  (Please welcome Tim to the District.  He comes to us from East Marshall, where he was the Tech Director) Bill Gruman, District Technology Integrationist

Please let us know if you have any questions.

High School

Student Laptop Rollout:

- 9th Graders will get their computer at the HS open house night in the media center

- 10-12th grade will get their computers during Seminar time on the first day of school.

Laptop Updates:

-8th grade laptops were moved to the high school to stay with their students.

-Senior computers have been moved to the middle school to go to 5th Grade

-There are business cards now in the laptop bags clearly displaying student names.  All students will have the 'new' laptop bags.

-There will be business cards with student computer login information for teachers to hand to students.  With very few exceptions, they have not changed from last school year.

-Essential updates will be pushed out ahead of time.  The Self-Service application is working great and will be the primary means for students to add software or install updates.

-All chargers will be labeled with asset tags the same as the laptops.

Other Updates:

-The student laptop inventory will be managed with Alexandria, the same software the library uses for books.  

-There will be a cart of iPads coming over to the high school- only a year old, available for check out through the library. 

- Vanguard Cohort iPads will be ready to pick up by next week.

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Middle School

Student Laptop Rollout:

- Details will be shared soon

Laptops Updates:

- All laptop details are the same as the high school. 

- 5th Grade students will have new computer login username/passwords

Other Updates:

-There will be a cart of iPads coming over to the middle school- only a year old- available for check-out through the library. 

-Student loaners this year will be managed out of the library.

- Vanguard Cohort iPads will be ready to pick up by next week.

-Tim Nunnikhoven's office will be in the tech room across from the art room.

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Davis Elementary

- The laptop carts have been emptied, except for three of them, which will remain with 25 computers each.  The laptop carts will be used to house the new iPads.

- There will be multiple login options on each laptop so that no two students have to share the same account.

- The new iPads will be arriving any day now.  Every iPad will be assigned to a student and labeled on the back.

- Zip ties will be installed to help hold the charging cords in place on the carts

- It seemed to work best when the bottom of the iPad slots in the carts are labeled.  We should have time to get them labeled before the start of school.  We are very open to other ideas, too, that make managing these easier.

-Apple Classroom should be up and running at the beginning of the school year.

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Bailey Park / Fairview

- The iPad carts have been wheeled to the gym at Bailey Park for the next few weeks.

- The iPad carts have been wheeled to the library at Fairview for the next few weeks.

- All student iPads have new and very improved labels.  This time they will be placed at the bottom of the iPad instead of the top to make it easier to identify when pulling off a cart.

- It seemed to work best when the bottom of the iPad slots in the carts are labeled.  We will help to label the remaining carts.

-Self-Service is running great, a big relief after it fell apart on us this past spring.  There are more than 200 applications available for students and teachers.  Let me know if there is something you need.

-Apple Classroom should be up and running at the beginning of the school year.

- This is a little off-topic, but all of the K-4 PLTW Launch lesson kits are in.  The re-fill kits will be dropped off in classrooms.  The full kits will be put together and distributed later this month.  Some planning still needs to be done to figure out where to store everything.  For now, they are in the high school shop, but will be moved within the week.

Employees

All teacher laptops should be updated to MacOS Sierra.  This is available from Apple's App Store.  If you haven't done so, this is likely the update you keep getting reminders about downloading.  Please keep your school-issued laptop and iPad updated.

There are new copiers installed throughout the District.  The 'Bob-Marley-still-be-jammin' copiers will either be sold back or used as backups.  You should be able to use them very soon.

Infinite Campus 3 Week Check

(Thanks for Mrs. Culham for these directions)

This section is if you have NOT put any grades in and are starting from scratch.  

When you create an assignment just make sure at the bottom you only click the trimester grading task and not the other three! Your screen will look like this. 

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Now those who are like me and have entered in grades already and clicked all for the the grading tasks there are a few more steps. It shouldn't be too hard though! 

First, go to your grade book and select 3 week Grade Check at the top. 

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Then you will need to click on each assignment individually. When you open up the assignment scroll down to the Grading Task Bar.  Unclick every grading task except for the 3 Week Grade Check. After you have done that hit SAVE!

You will then need to close out of the assignment and reopen it. When you have done that scroll down to the 3 Week Grade Check and unclick this box. You will get this message. 

You will want to scroll down and click the Trimester>Category and hit SAVE. 

Make sure only the trimester is selected. When you are done with that make sure you hit SAVE again at the bottom of your screen. 

Your assignment should have transferred over onto your trimester page. You can find this out at the top drop box. 

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Also to make you all aware today is the end of our first 3 weeks so our grades are going to need to be posted. Below is information on how to do this. 

How to submit grades for 3 Week Grade Checks (Would you like to know more?  Read on.)

-  In order to submit 3 week grades, just follow the steps below: 

 

1)  Open up your gradebook (Campus Instruction) and select the class that you wish to submit.

  

2)  Go to the POST GRADES (under In Progress) in red.  

3) There will be a pop-up box that appears and you want to make sure that you move the drop down menu from Trimester to 3 Week Grade Check

4)  It will then give you a "WARNING!"  But don't be scared, just click OK.  

5)  Once you click OK, it will look as if all of your grades have disappeared, but guess what?  They haven't!  Go back up to the top of your gradebook by TASK and move the drop down from 3 Week Grade Check back to Trimester and they shall reappear like magic. 

Are you having troubles getting to websites?  ....the ones that really shouldn't be blocked but seem to be.

Try this:

Open System Preferences ->  Click on Network

Click on Advanced

Click on the DNS tab

Selecting the sets of numbers one at a time, click on the -  symbol in the lower left corner to delete all of the DNS numbers in the left column.  There will probably be 3 sets of numbers there.

Click on OK

Click on Apply

Now restart your computer.

All should hopefully be better now..... Let me know if this is not the case.

-BG

K-2 Teacher Details

Grinnell-Newburg K-2 Teachers:

iPad carts will be showing up in your classrooms in the next day or two.

The iPad carts include:

  - a class list 

  - an adapter to connect any iPad to your projector

  - one named and labeled iPad in a case for each of your students

  - one teacher iPad and its case

  - a temporary login for your teacher iPad.  Reset the password on your first login.

  - charger cords for each iPad.  I may be coming back to get your extras.

  - Please feel free to re-arrange the iPads on your cart in alphabetical order or whatever you want in the cart.

  - Wheel the carts over to Specials classes as needed through the school year.  Students should be using them in many ways throughout the day

  - PLEASE keep track of the iPads in your class.  If one 'disappears', it can be tracked to get it back.  Your cart can be locked, too.

-  The cart names:  BK1 -  Bailey Park - Kindergarten - Cart 1

The student iPads: 

  - hold 16 Gb of data.

  - are labeled and already assigned to each student

  - Each student has their own Apple ID, already signed in on their iPad.  Their 4-digit password is on the asset tag (not the name label). 

  - I will share a master list of your classroom iPads/students/passcodes in a Google Doc soon.

Your Teacher iPad:

  - holds 64 Gb of data

  - includes an App called Self-Service.  Apps to download will start showing up there soon.  These can be 'pushed' to your classroom iPads... directions for that will be coming soon.

  - This iPad is not labeled yet (our labeler was borrowed)  Please label, bedazzle, or do what you need to so that your 'teacher' iPad stands out from the rest.  Do this to the case and not the iPad, please.  Please include the name of your cart on the label.

Other Related Notes:

-PLEASE let me know your roster changes when you can.  Any update given to me by Monday 8/22 will be in your cart and ready for the first day of school.  

-As the school year gets rolling, there will be a tech form you can submit for any roster changes, app requests, and more.   More details will be coming on Monday 8/23 at your building meetings.

-PK, Specials teachers, and Instructional Coaches will have iPads coming yet.  We may need to visit about how that will look.  

-There are about 2000 new and repurposed computers/iPads being rolled out in the upcoming days.  Thanks for your patience as we get the kinks worked out.  

-The Apple TV's for your room are now in, but need some set up.  They will be distributed in the first couple weeks of school.  The laptop and iPad rollouts will have a higher priority.

-Some external CD/DVD drives will be available for short checkout from your building library. Their primary purpose is for installing software or burning CD/DVD's.  They may be used to play any DVD, but if you need to do that a lot, please consider just using an inexpensive DVD player  that is not connected through your computer.

-Here is a link to download the drivers to connect your new laptop to your Smartboard (if you have one).  

Protect Your Computer

We have many new computers being issued for the upcoming 2016-2017 school year.

Grades 5-12 student will receive a  MacBook Air  Model # A1466  with a 45W MagSafe 2 power adapter.

Teachers will receive a MacBook Pro with Retina Display Model #A1502  with a 60W MagSafe 2 power adapter.  

The model numbers may be helpful as you accessorize your devices.

Good habits can help make your school-issue computer last without dings, dents, and other problems that may cost your family budget a fix-it charge.  Even with good care, accidents do sometimes happen.  Here are a few products that may help reduce problems down the road:

Does your power cord get in the way?
Here is a handy gadget that stores your power block and cord, protecting them and helping you stay neat and tidy.

Here is the $12.99  Quirky Cord Keeper that works for both computer styles.

There is a small version that can work with your iPad charger cable, too.

Does fraying have you fried? MacBook cords have been notorious for fraying at the power block.  This can be reduced by making a little loop (see picture) before wrapping the cord, but it still doesn't always prevent problem. There is a cool product called The Fray Fix that could help.  $14.99 will give you some protection at both ends of the cord.  The bright colors can make your charger easier to find, as well.

Protect your laptop from dings, dents, and scuffs in a fashionable way:

There are many models on the market.  This includes:

For the MacBook Pro 13.3" with Retina Display:

                 Kuzy makes a durable case available in many different solid colors for $19.95.

                 Get a little fancier with this model from iCasso for $19.95

MacBook Air 13"

                 Here is a case made by Mosiso, sold for $11.80

The school district issues a durable case, made by Brenthaven, with every laptop.  It includes a shoulder strap and side pocket for the charger cord.  It is the responsibility of the user to take good care of it according to the terms of the District's Acceptable Use Policy.  The products above are not endorsed or sold by the school district, but can provide a little extra piece of mind with the heavy use these great tools will get in the upcoming years.  

Please send me a note if you find any other products that you think would be beneficial.  I will add them to this list.