Weekly Lessons Learned 1/28/22

Welcome to the Technology Design Team Weekly Lessons Learned! This is a recurring feature on Friday afternoons where the Technology Design Team will share top of mind resources and learning. Each week, we will post a few key things we hope you may find useful. We look forward to sharing our learning with you. We look forward to sharing our learning with you.

Some of the content may be specific to the realities of Austin ISD though, we hope, much will be useful to viewers worldwide. The Weekly Lessons Learned Archive contains a list of topics from and links to previous updates.

How can my students and caregivers translate text on a web or BLEND page?

Google Chrome has translation tools built into the browser.
This video demonstrates how to translate text on a page.
Google also provides a written step set.
 Here is a guide to BLEND’s immersive reader function and its features.
This video demonstrates how to translate a page with Immersive Reader.

Is there approved software for students to use to create a video or screencast and turn it in to the teacher?

A new student-facing video demonstrating Screencastify has been added to the TDT YouTube channel and the video shows how students can install the extension from the Austin ISD Chrome Web Store, start a recording and then submit it to a teacher’s BLEND assignment.

How do I sync Newsela and BLEND to roster my classes?

The first thing you will need to do is to sync each BLEND (Canvas) course where you plan to use Newsela.  Why? This is needed in order for Newsela to roster your students. Watch the screencast or read the step-set below to learn how: 

• Silent Screencast: How to Sync BLEND (Canvas)/Newsela
• Step set:
  1. In a BLEND (Canvas) course where Newsela is needed, go to Settings.
  2. Once in Settings, select Navigation.
  3. In Navigation, scroll down to locate Newsela (Subscription) and drag and drop item to the top section in order for it to be viewable in the course navigation.
  4. Remember to scroll down and select the blue ‘Save’ button to save your changes.
  5. Newsela (Subscription) is now in the selected BLEND course’s navigation. 
  6. Your course MUST BE PUBLISHED before moving forward.
     Note: Newsela won’t “see” unpublished BLEND courses. 
  7. You are now ready in BLEND (Canvas) and can follow these steps in this guide to Sync Canvas Classes in Newsela.

My student is blocked in GoGuardian, but we don’t know who the teacher is. What can we do?

When teachers leave the district, their pre-scheduled GoGuardian sessions may be left active.  AISD GoGuardian Admin can solve that problem, IF we know who the teacher is.  The strategies shared in our training course help identify who the teacher is through the blocking scenes.  However, if it is just restricting the number of tabs, for example, there is no indicator showing who the teacher is.

Try creating another separate classroom and creating a separate scene. What this will do is provide a notification on the affected student’s Chromebook. The notification will be a yellow exclamation point stating which teacher is affecting the student. It may show blank as well, but it doesn’t hurt to check to see if there is another teacher listed. 

As a workaround, the active teacher running the session could apply and remove a scene and this would do a soft refresh of the scene status so the student is no longer affected by the old classroom/scene.For more details and support screenshots, check out the Troubleshooting page in the GoGuardian Training Course in BLEND, http://bit.ly/aisdgoguardian .

How can I use Minecraft with students during a curriculum lesson?

Enroll into the Austin ISD Minecraft Training and Resource course for basic training for teachers and classroom strategies. Just added this week is a new page sharing a great opportunity for a Co-Taught Live Lesson where teachers join a certified teacher in a live online lesson. Our BLEND course has a new page with registration information, links to prior Live Lessons and lesson plans.
View this new page! (must enroll in the course first: http://bit.ly/aisdminecraft)
Sorry, this is available to Austin ISD staff only.
Register now for the February 22nd Co-Taught lesson that will focus on the STAAR Category 1 Motion and Energy, and Category 2 Force, Motion and Energy. 

I received notification that the HMH Download Center is being upgraded over the next few months. What does this mean?

Don’t worry, these resources will continue to be available for instruction. You will be able to access and download these resources directly from each platform.

• Think Central users: Access your downloadable resources through your program login on Think Central.
• Holt McDougal Online users: Access your downloadable resources through your program login on Holt McDougal Online.
• Ed users: These resources will be available through Ed as PDFs or through the HMH Go app.
• eBooks that you have already downloaded into an eReader should continue to be available.
• Blueprints: This will not impact any current resources that are supplied within your Blueprinted resources.

We will share more information before the March transition date. We will also work with the vendor to ensure a seamless transition.

Look for Technology Design Team Members subbing on your campus!

The Technology Design Team is excited about assisting campuses and subbing throughout the district. For this reason, we have suspended office hours for the time being. We have enjoyed the opportunity to meet and collaborate with so many teachers in Virtual Office Hours.

Please reach out directly to your Technology Design Specialist.

If you have a technical support issue (device repair or setup, access to systems, etc), please create a ServiceNow ticket to have a technician address your concern.