[2:45] good evening and welcome to another in a series of supporting parents in hybrid and digital [2:50] learning in edina public schools this is a series of zoom video conferences [2:56] in an effort to assist our parents navigating the technology and the hybrid and distance that's [3:04] occurring in this year 2020 2021. before we get underway i want to point [3:11] out that uh we are going to do a presentation but there is absolutely an opportunity for you to ask [3:17] questions and to do that we've created a form that we'd like you to fill out to enter your [3:22] questions the form is listed here on the main page the url for that is http [3:28] colon slash slash bit period l y slash capital e [3:35] capital p capital s capital p a r e n t 20. [3:41] absolutely submit your questions and if there's time at the end we'll answer those questions and we'll keep this [3:47] open so that you can ask questions later on as well how about some introductions again [4:00] my name is steve buettner i'm the director of media and technology and joining me this evening is sean hi my name is [4:07] john beverson and i'm the elementary digital learning specialist for edina public schools [4:12] and mike hi i'm michael walker secondary digital learning specialist for edina [4:20] what will we cover this evening we'll do a review of digital learning at a [4:26] digital learning has been a strong component of our learning for a number of years now [4:31] and with covid and the hybrid and distance learning we've increased the use of technology [4:37] and so we just want to make sure we review our tools and understand how technology is being used when appropriate [4:45] we'll go a little bit deeper into the technology tools your child will use with your teachers your teachers will use with their [4:51] child's and also the tools that the teachers will use with you [4:58] we'll discuss some of the communications methods and best practices and expectations for communication [5:06] we'll review what are the expectations on instructions and provide you a resource where you can access that [5:11] as well as review schedules we'll discuss technology support and [5:17] instructional support and for time permitting we will look at [5:24] questions and how we can continue to support you [5:31] well let's jump in with one of the most important tools that you and your child will be using and that is the edina [5:36] apps edit apps or the portal like we like to call it is a single sign-on [5:42] tool that we use to aggregate most of the tools that you will use or your child will use [5:47] in the educational ecosystem accessed by both all our staff students [5:54] and parents it works on any browser as well as on a browser on a smartphone and just a [6:02] hint the parent's username is their last name period first name let me show you what it looks [6:08] like [6:14] i'm at the portal logon page right now and the url is portal.dynascool there's also a link [6:22] on our main website at www.editaschools.org in the upper right hand corner you click [6:28] on that you'll be brought to this page you'll log in using your username and password [6:35] and you'll be presented a series of icons these icons represent applications that [6:40] we use in instruction or in support and are they represent the best of breed of [6:47] applications for the district [6:54] let's go into detail with those right now the first one is our lms or schoology and we'll go into a lot of [7:00] detail with that the next is infinite campus which we like to call our historical record [7:06] this is our official student information system where we input information like attendance [7:12] schedules free uh the service meals that your [7:18] students purchase transportation information transcripts when your child gets older [7:24] we pride ourselves on having good technology but sometimes technology fails and when it does we post that on our tech status page so [7:32] that you can monitor technology issues and information our learner's edge is a great tool that [7:39] is a dashboard for parents to take a historical look at their child's assessment information and other [7:46] critical information about their child's academic growth and we know it's confusing between [7:51] schoology and campus and when to use which program so we've created an faq that [7:57] explains in greater detail the difference between campus and schoology and why you'd use which program [8:03] this fall you did your instructional decision using the my info update tool and that's there it's a [8:09] great place to change contact information and you may use that later on in the fall and then we've just recently [8:17] added the instructional dashboard link which gets you to the instructional dashboard that i'll talk about [8:23] later in this presentation i want to bring your attention to the corner with the icon [8:30] in the upper right hand corner of the screen which is where you can reset your password and we encourage you [8:35] to reset your password so it's something you'll remember a recovery email by default that is [8:43] empty and so you need to add an email address to the system when you do that [8:48] if you forget your password and use the forgot password link an email will be sent to you with a link [8:54] on how to reset your password again you need to add an email in the set recovery email system before that [9:01] will work [9:15] so again here are the parents icons and here is what the student sees and [9:20] you'll notice that it looks different and it's important that you realize when you use the portal we [9:26] recommend you log in with your username and password and that you don't share your username and password with your child [9:32] the reason for that is many of these applications are user specific which means that information that's [9:38] accessible is based on a user so as a parent will see different information than a student [9:44] and students will see more applications because many of these applications are what we call third-party [9:50] applications that are used by the teacher to provide additional instructional activities or [9:55] assignments to your student that they do in those applications then the information flows back to the teacher [10:02] so you'll see different icons for your student as you [10:09] our key learning tools are see-saw which is grades k-2 that's application we'll go into [10:17] much more detail in a moment schoology which is grades 3 through 12 [10:23] google meets which is our video conferencing tool tool and then google apps for education [10:29] which is the collaboration tool an email for certain students that they'll use [10:34] throughout their experience in edina public schools [10:40] those first two tools or seesaw and schoology are what are called learning management [10:47] systems or lms systems for short they are kind of a virtual classroom so [10:53] they're the digital classroom and as parents you will have a window into that [10:58] virtual classroom you won't be able to see all the information because of data privacy [11:04] but you'll be able to see some information and to be able to interact get information from your teacher be [11:10] able to track your true your child's progress academically both applications can be accessed via a [11:17] browser or the website or via an app and so there is an ios and android app [11:22] that you can use that you sign up for announcements which we'll talk about in [11:27] a later slide our video conferencing tool is google [11:34] meet it's a great tool and it fits very well in our dyna apps ecosystem when your child logs [11:42] on using their dyna apps username and password it's very easy for them to get links to [11:47] join meets and will be accepted automatically into meets if they're not using their dyna apps [11:54] username and password they may not get admitted into google meets and so again it's important that [11:59] they log on to the computer or to the browser with their dyna apps username and password google meets works [12:06] on any computer and also has an android and ios app so that you can access it not only from a [12:12] computer chromebook or ipad but also can people put on a smartphone as well [12:19] google meets has the added advantage that it has the ability to join a google meet via a telephone number [12:27] this may be useful in the future if a teacher schedules a google meet with you and you need to join you're not at a [12:35] computer or a smartphone you can simply dial the telephone number and be bridged into the conference [12:41] via audio we're asking you to help your child understand some proper etiquette around [12:48] video conferencing such as when they join a video conference they mute their microphone and that they mute [12:54] their video and determine when they want to turn on their video camera they don't have to turn it on but [13:00] sometimes it's good for them to see other students as well as have students see them [13:06] the google meets are a walled garden and so they are managed by our edina apps ecosystem so [13:12] we control who can join meets and who cannot we have a set of instructions [13:18] linked on this slide and this slide will be posted to the instructional dashboard later on for you to access [13:27] i'd like to turn it over to sean we'll talk about some communications and what to expect [13:35] thanks steve so we're going to start with a high level view and we're going to get closer and closer to the classroom so as you see here this [13:42] is the edina elementary hybrid model we have split the cohorts by alphabet [13:48] so the first half of the alphabet will be at school in person during monday on monday and [13:54] tuesday and the second half of the alphabet will be in school during thursday and friday there will be a [14:01] combination of activities for students regardless of where they're sitting if they're at home they will have times [14:08] that they connect with their classroom and other independent practices if they're in school they'll be working with their teacher [14:15] directly and will have time to connect with students at home through google meet as well wednesday is reserved for our [14:22] teachers to do collaboration continue their own professional learning as a response to [14:29] this emergency and develop their own skill sets in doing school in a completely different way [14:35] wednesdays will have independent activities and there will be other activities posted from specialists and the other teachers that [14:41] your child would normally work with [14:52] so now a little bit more detail about what it might look like so sample in person daily schedule will be similar to what [14:59] you would experience during a regular school year there will be a morning meeting there'll be literacy and math workshops [15:05] you'll so your child will still have lunch and have recess to get outside and have some fun [15:10] and then still have access to their specialists art music viad and our media specialists [15:17] at home it will look different there will be opportunities to connect with the classroom during the day [15:24] either for short sessions based on sel or social emotional learning [15:30] literacy and math instruction there will also be times where the teacher connects and communicates [15:36] directly with students the independent work will be available [15:41] in seesaw or schoology on those days where students are not at school and you can see they [15:47] will also have access to their specialists with asynchronous work on wednesdays [15:52] as well [15:58] and now even more detail this is an example of what a schedule might look like [16:04] for your child during this school year so you can see very similar to what we normally would [16:09] experience the day is broken down into different time periods and there are different activities for their [16:16] different time periods one thing that you'll note on this is this is an a day schedule with b day kids being at [16:23] home on thursday and friday and so you'll note that the teacher is already planning to have possible live [16:29] sessions around the different content areas with students this will continue to be developed as we [16:35] become more familiar with the hybrid situation we will have a daily message for students available regardless of where [16:42] you are and there will like i said be times to connect with the class while at home we consider they're really [16:48] sort of three learning settings we have in-person sessions independent sessions and small group [16:55] sessions so the in-person sessions in school are familiar to what you already know this is the times where they'll be [17:02] socially distanced but in the classroom but in-person sessions from home will be connected through a google meet [17:10] independent sessions will occur in both places at home and at school and those resources to [17:16] support the at home sessions will be on seesaw or schoology and in those programs will be a variety [17:23] of support materials and activities for the students to interact with and there will be small group sessions [17:30] even though we'll have the cohorts split into groups we know that there will be times that cooperative groups across [17:36] the cohorts will be useful and so there will be times this year in which small groups of students get [17:42] together some being on google meets and some being at school [17:51] now to talk a little bit about seesaw seesaw can seesaw is an incredibly useful platform [17:58] for the young students so our students kindergarten first and second grade have access to seesaw [18:04] i'm going to go over some of the features in the actual app itself but first i want to clarify some things [18:09] that can be a little bit confusing so the first thing i'll say is that the district is providing ipads [18:16] to students in kindergarten first and second grade the district provided ipads require no [18:23] apple id and are controlled or monitored or up kept [18:28] by the district even at a distance those ipads will come pre-installed with the number of apps that the students will [18:34] use this year including the class app in seesaw the class app is the student's [18:41] connection to the teacher at school you will receive if you [18:46] haven't already received already you will receive a paper handout with two qr codes on that handout [18:53] the qr codes are both student-facing qr codes one is for the edina portal [18:59] and the other is the home link learning code for the class app in seesaw when you [19:06] scan that qr code using the class app your student will be connected and will [19:12] have a private connection with the teacher in order to share activities back and forth [19:17] the activities that your child completes in seesaw will be viewable by the teacher and [19:22] co-teachers and not other students in the class the teacher may choose to elevate some [19:28] work as examples or exemplary examples for the purpose of sharing with [19:35] the class but by default work will be private between the teacher and the student the family app [19:43] is the parent connection to the teacher and the classroom to see what is going on [19:48] in seesaw you cannot download this family app onto the district provided ipad [19:53] but you can download it on other devices you can download it on your smartphone android and ios and you can access it [20:01] through a web browser your teacher will be emailing home a qr code or login information for the family [20:09] app if you haven't already received it received it in the next couple days [20:16] so let's get a little closer to what the experience in seesaw will look like for a student [20:23] so here we are we're logged in as a student into a kindergarten class and under the activity tabs you can see [20:30] that our teachers are already preparing materials for your child you can see the different [20:36] activities that are available and you can see by looking at the activities tab on the right hand side [20:42] that there are actually six activities posted there these activities are short practice [20:47] sessions on how to use the seesaw app you'll also notice below the activities [20:53] there are three filters to do in progress and done this is an addition to seesaw this year to [21:00] help manage the workflow of what work is being done what has been submitted [21:06] and what is in progress i'd also like to point out the inbox next to the activities tab where [21:14] is where the teacher can send messages to the students and also to families so the family app [21:20] has a act excuse me has an inbox as well and so the teacher can communicate [21:26] directly with families through the seesaw app on the left side you see the activity [21:32] and what is included in the activity is a set of instructions provided by the teacher including audio instructions to help [21:40] support our emerging readers the students will just click that green add a response button [21:46] and then they will be taken to the creation page in seesaw which is the next slide [21:55] so this is what it looks like in seesaw when a student is creating an activity [22:02] you'll note uh the annotations are mine i wanted to highlight that at the top of the activity they're still the [22:07] instructions so they can get back to the instructions on the left hand side there's a microphone and a camera so that students [22:15] can actually record audio and video submissions to help as they develop their typing and writing [22:20] skills and then included in this particular example is a video that the teacher has added to [22:28] this platform to add even more directions about what to do [22:33] and then below that are the actual creation tools the pencil marker the fancy magic marker but you'll [22:40] experience all of those things this school year [22:47] starting in third grade our students through 12th grade our students begin to [22:53] use schoology our main platform for learning in the district [22:58] when a student logs in this is what they will see in a classroom in schoology so you'll [23:04] note that there's a folder there for mr mccarthy's homeroom and under that folder is a specialists [23:10] folder those folders will contain the materials from the specialists for [23:16] students under the homeroom folder is a collection of other folders that have that are [23:22] organized either by week or by subject area on the right hand side one of the handy [23:28] features of schoology is the upcoming events you can see here mr mccarthy has already [23:35] started to highlight some of the students birthdays coming up by using the calendar feature [23:40] in schoology in addition to that if there were assignments with [23:45] due dates upcoming those would be listed on this right side as well if a student happens to miss a due date [23:52] it will be there as well and it will be noted that it is late [23:58] now let's look at what is inside one of those folders so here is an assignment folder [24:05] so we have um the instructions at the top of the page with directions from the teacher below [24:12] that is a link for additional resources this one happens to be a slide deck that the teacher used to explain or launch the [24:19] lesson in this particular example there is also a video resource that's a tutorial and then also a quick [24:27] assessment which is a quiz that in many cases is a self-grading quick [24:32] check so that the student can get immediate feedback about their progress in that particular [24:37] assignment and then below that there is the discussion forum and in this particular case [24:43] the teacher is using that so that students can post questions and answer each other's questions as a [24:50] parent you have access to a view of all of this information as well [24:55] in order to maintain data privacy you can only see your own child's submissions so you [25:00] won't be able to see other student submissions in the various areas in schoology but you can see [25:07] and track your own child's work [25:16] thanks sean for that overview of the lms's so what will instruction look like well [25:21] it'll look a little bit different for each of your children just like education in general looks a [25:26] little bit different but we will make sure that we're doing our utmost to support all of our children to that end we have [25:33] provided a nice website which provides a little more detail about our instructional program again [25:40] that website can be found on the portal by going to the instructional dashboard [25:46] take you to this website here this website here was developed to help assist our families [25:52] with information about the 2020 2021 school year particular academics [26:00] as well as additional information that will be pertinent this year such as the learning models that we [26:05] discussed earlier uh this fall are safe practices uh to ensure that [26:11] your children are safe in our schools and our staff are doing all to make sure that we are staying safe [26:19] to our covent monitoring and isolation practices which are governed by the minnesota department of health in the [26:24] cdc transportation information food service or nutritional services information [26:32] mental health and wellness athletics and activities and an faq and there's a link for [26:38] technology which i'll talk a little bit more in a moment let's jump into the [26:44] elementary academics program the first thing i'd like to do is remind [26:50] parents and students that we hope and expect that each child is taking the [26:55] covet cell street screening protocol every day this will ensure that our schools stay [27:01] safe and covet free throughout the school year [27:06] in our academic talk about our elementary hybrid model our elementary eva model what it would [27:14] look for our grade level programs our first week at a glance and then what it looks [27:21] like going forward in subsequent weeks with additional information [27:26] around hybrid logistics eva logistics and learning descriptors you'll also see [27:33] that at the bottom of this page is additional technology support check back to this website often because [27:40] we'll be adding additional information on these pages when it becomes relevant [27:46] and ready to release [27:59] mike do you want to go over setting up uh notifications in schoology yeah so for our third through fifth [28:06] grade parents you may be interested in getting information from schoology [28:11] through notifications and so if you log in as a parent this is the view that you're going to [28:16] have initially and in that view you'll see your name in the top if you click on the arrow next to your [28:23] name and go down to settings and steve will navigate this [28:30] we go to settings and here you will see the notifications tab and this is where [28:37] if you want to get a course update maybe the teacher is posting an announcement and you want to make sure that you're [28:42] monitoring to support your child you can turn that on you can turn on other [28:48] options and you have some pretty good granularity and all the different things you can get notifications [28:53] from along with the school update notifications which are down here at the [28:58] bottom the other thing that you can do in [29:04] notifications is actually set up your phone for this and there's a link there on the right hand side [29:10] that steve is pointing to that helps with that when you are a parent and you want to [29:15] see what your kid can how your kid's doing you can select one of your children [29:22] and what i usually recommend is that you click on the enrollments link up in the top right [29:28] under groups there and that will show you this view now for your elementary students you're probably [29:33] going to only have the one course maybe a cup another but that one course will be the main [29:40] course that you would go into to view things note that the grades in schoology [29:46] for secondary students that is their official gradebook and their current progress for our students in elementary that is [29:54] merely a record-keeping tool for us our teachers and is not reflective of [30:00] the overall final grade in any of their classes so if you have one of your students [30:06] selected and you go down to the settings for them this is where you can set up [30:13] notifications and if you do it for one of your children it will do it for all [30:18] so here you can turn on these daily or weekly digest notifications and what that will [30:24] do is it will email you an overall update of what your child has done during the week within schoology [30:30] assignments completed any feedback they've received on that as well as any overdue assignments that [30:36] they may have you can set it up as it says daily or weekly [30:41] a lot of our parents like to choose friday evenings maybe five o'clock so that they can check in and make sure [30:47] that the student has work completed prior to the weekend if they have any activities they'd like to do [30:54] you can make sure they have their assignments done before that you can also as steve pointed to their [31:00] turn on or off the notifications if an assignment is overdue [31:05] and you'll receive that notification [31:16] thanks mike [31:22] support so we we know that there'll be more increased use of technology this year by [31:28] your child and we've used technology for a number of years in the district but we are [31:34] going to leverage technology much more this year we want to make sure that technology is not impeding your child's [31:39] learning or success to that end we have established i.t support or technical support for [31:46] our staff our students and our families there's two modes to get support one is [31:51] from the telephone call at 952-848-4915 [31:57] and we staff that during business hours from seven to five pm monday through friday simply a phone [32:04] call away the other option is to email support edina schools dot org [32:10] with your issue or concern and then we will create what's called a ticket that ticket will be distributed to the [32:17] proper person to answer the question please note that oftentimes a telephone [32:23] what starts as a telephone call for it support or technical support may be turned into a support ticket [32:30] because the issue can't be phone and we need to have an expert call you back or work with you to [32:36] get additional information to solve your problem so please be patient with us [32:42] if as a parent you're having trouble with your username and password for the portal please email parentportal [32:48] edinaschools.org in addition to the technology support we [32:53] will also also be providing device support so your child has an option to get a [33:00] device from the district k through 2 ipad 3 through 5 a [33:05] chromebook and we believe that those devices are going to serve their purposes very well and have proven to be very [33:12] durable and a great asset in learning but sometimes that technology might break [33:17] down or might be having issues again if you're having issues or your child's having issue with their device please [33:24] email support edina schools dot org provide us some detail of what is going on and a student [33:31] information as much as possible like a student number would be helpful or the school the child attends [33:37] and that will help us in assisting and identifying the issue if we deem that that device needs to be [33:43] brought in for repair we will schedule a swap of the device either at the [33:49] edit community center or your child's school and then we will get that device back [33:54] we'll provide your child with a loaner device and we'll repair that device if [34:00] damage or the device isn't working due to neglect there is a thirty dollar technology field that we charge to get [34:08] the devices repaired again that information is stored on that [34:13] technology icon on the instructional dashboard [34:18] well we reached the end of our presentation but we sure parents have questions and so now we'll [34:24] ask see if there's any questions mike yeah steve so we have one question [34:29] so far from a concord parent they have a third grader who is transitioning now from see-saw to [34:36] schoology and wondered if there was a plan for students to receive at-school training to work with with [34:43] schoology this year yeah that's a great question so our teachers are working very hard to make [34:50] sure that there are lots of materials prepared to help your child make that transition [34:56] if you're in hybrid you have the advantage of being in school and so there will be small short practice sessions and then for our [35:03] eva students that are in third grade we will be sure to provide additional support to help you the [35:10] family and the kids navigate that new system this will be a growth process and so we [35:16] won't be relying a hundred percent on all of the features right at the beginning of the school year but we will [35:22] grow into the use of that uh platform for third graders recognizing the change [35:29] in platform that they will experience [35:36] other questions mike there that is the only question that we've received so far but [35:43] if you do get other questions uh have other questions that come up please you can use that link and we will [35:50] be sure to get back to you via email to support you thanks mike any closing [35:55] thoughts sean this just this that this is uh absolutely a [36:01] very peculiar school year not the way that any of us would uh prefer to do this work to get to work with your [36:10] child or work with you the family our family home uh school partnership is going to [36:15] be more important this year than ever and so we want you to know that we are here [36:21] uh to help support you as you do this work my name is sean beverson i'm available through email [36:27] and then as steve has already described we also have the help desk system for you and i can see a few more [36:34] questions have actually come in i'll come back to it yeah yeah so let's [36:40] take a look at these so uh one question from concord i cannot [36:45] find the edina apps and i'll reach out to you uh through email to make sure that you're finding that but edina apps [36:51] really is just the name of our ecosystem that are the district approved tools and [36:58] so one of the processes that we go through is we review the data privacy and [37:05] the different data retention policies for the different services so [37:10] when they reach a when they meet the level of standard that edina public schools has [37:16] and we choose to adopt that tool see saw as an example google docs is an [37:21] example google slideshows all of those things make up our ecosystem that we call [37:28] edina apps so if you're able to log into the portal you are actually logged into the edina [37:34] apps and then one more question sean is where can we find our kids usernames and [37:40] passwords for all the udina public schools apps i'd like to be able to [37:46] access apps from a device other than the school provided ipad [37:52] so that's a great question we are sending home if you haven't already received the username and password for your kids [38:00] to be able to access the portal that same username and password one of the advantages that we have that steve [38:06] uh is a little maybe too humble to highlight is we've actually worked really hard to make this a single sign-on system [38:13] as much as is possible so when you log into the portal with that username and [38:19] password provided on the piece of paper then you are logged into edina apps if [38:24] you click an icon in that portal in most cases not all but in most cases [38:29] you will be passed through that service seamlessly and so while we do have many services [38:36] as steve called it the best in breed for our students and teachers we work really hard to make sure that [38:43] one username and password will be the gateway to all of those different services [38:49] yep great question and then one more just came in is there any way to turn on notifications in seesaw [38:55] or is that only needed in schoology great that is a very good question and so the way to do it in seesaw is for [39:02] you to get that family app set up in seesaw so as i mentioned your teachers will be emailing you [39:08] access to the family app through a separate qr code that will give you access [39:14] to seesaw and then the notifications in seesaw are actually contained within that app [39:23] all right well great thank you very much thanks sean thanks mike and we'll be posting this video on [39:30] our youtube channel and then we'll post the slide deck on our instructional dashboard thank you all and have a great evening [39:36] thank you very much thanks for coming everybody [39:44] you