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.
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.
What tutorials are available to help students learn and navigate BLEND and other AISD instructional technology?
- Family Technology Resources page
- Examples of Google Submissions in BLEND
- BLEND Submissions YouTube Playlist
- Austin ISD Videos: Essential How-Tos for Students at the Beginning of the Year
- A student-facing YouTube BLEND playlist
Argh! Most of my students can access the website we are using except for just one or two. What should I check to help them?
- This may be an issue where the student(s) have disabled cookies for this site (or all websites). While on the desired site, check to see if there is a “lock” icon on the right side of the student’s address bar of the Chrome browser. If so, have the student click on it and they should be able to change the settings to “Always allow ______ to set cookies” (as shown in the image below).
This idea is shared from Christy Cochran, amazing Murchison MS librarian:
Did you know you can post URLs to BLEND assignments in the Notes sections in Frontline?
Linking assignments in Frontline will allow Students and Parents to click on the link which takes them directly to the matching BLEND assignment. This is a great way to make it easy for students to reduce the number of missing assignments.
This can actually happen in two ways:
BLEND: Assignment is already built in your BLEND Course but now creating matching Frontline assignment
- FRONTLINE –> Maintain Teacher Gradebook Category –> Teacher Gradebook Assignment
- When you create your assignment in Frontline, create an assignment for one class and add a class note with the URL to the BLEND assignment
- Once the note is saved, copy the assignment to your other classes.
- Students and parents will now see the link to the assignment when checking grades.
FRONTLINE: Assignment created in Frontline before it was built in BLEND
- FRONTLINE –> Enter Teacher Grading –> select class –> select grade box for individual student
- For each student who is missing assignment, you can click on the grade box and then Notes at the bottom of the screen
- Copy and paste the URL from the BLEND assignment into the notes box. Be sure to check the NO button to make the note visible to students and parents
- Repeat the process for each student missing the assignment
What are some upcoming professional learning sessions?
- Google Professional Learning Sessions
- All AISD staff are able to sign up.
- Spaced is limited so reserve your spot soon.
The Technology Design Team would love to hear from you!
Please reach out to your Technology Design Specialist if you would like a thought partner or support on your blended learning implementation.
Our team has been restructured for the 22-23 school year.
View a list of the current members of the Technology Design Team and the campuses each supports.
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.
Connect. Design. Learn 