PD Opportunity: Blended Learning in the Classroom

Are you looking to increase student engagement in your classroom? Do you want to effectively blend within your classroom to incorporate online elements? This free Blended Learning in the Classroom course is for all types of educators - administrators, teachers of all subjects, teachers of all levels!

Participate in this FREE 16 week opportunity to begin transforming your classroom (*optional: 61 SCECHs for a minimal fee)

As a participant, you will engage with a learning cohort in a blended course and begin developing your own blended learning environment to implement with your students.

Participants will:
• Experience active and timely practice
• Learn with a small cohort of fellow educators
• Engage in learning, application, review, and revision
• Develop blended lessons in your existing classroom
• Submit artifacts to your cohort for sharing and improving

Q: Who is this course for?

A: Any Michigan Educator

Q: How does this course meet?

A: Most activities will be completed online; there will be one face-to-face session with your instructors, and multiple virtual meetings throughout the course. Please note: You will complete introductory activities online prior to the face-to-face with your instructor.

Q: How large are the cohorts?

A: Each offering is limited to the first 20 registrants.

Q: When does the course run?

A: The course begins online January 22 and ends May 9.

Q: Where is the face-to-face offered?

A: Check out the face-to-face session choices at: http://goo.gl/mAIbsS

Q: How do I register?

A: Registration is available at: http://goo.gl/sdfgb6

Q: How much work will be required?

A: Participants will be expected to spend 4-5 online hours each week in order to be successful in the course, where artifacts will be submitted weekly. Additional time will be expected each week for implementation into/practice with your own class.

Q: What concepts will be covered?

A: Modules include pedagogy of blended learning, building community, online learning & accessibility, online assessment & evaluation, policies & preparation.

Q: Is this a self-paced course?

A: The course is NOT self-paced. Based on best practice identified by research, it is scaffolded within modules (units). There is some flexibility of when you complete items in each unit, but all work must be submitted in a timely manner.

Google Docs: Fonts for Early Elementary

Sample of search results from fonts.google.com A couple weeks ago, I was sitting in a training with a bunch of my favorite lower elementary teacher friends, and several of them were lamenting the fact that it is hard to find "good" Google fonts for the little people they work with on a daily basis. Specifically, it is a challenge to find the single story lower case a and the open 4 . This conversation, of course, sent me out on a mission to remedy this for these fantastic people. So, the next day I put on my headphones, turned up the tunes on Spotify, and dived into the website fonts.google.com . This website lists all the Google fonts available. It also allows you to type in your own letters and numbers and see them in all the various fonts. For my purpose, I typed in "abckgy 1234 This is the font." From here I could see all 877 fonts, and look specifically for the a and the 4. It was quite an adventure, and I came across a lot of really awesome font

It's time to change your password!

There are several times a year when it is important to change your password. Your password will expire every 90 days. When your windows computer informs you that your password will be expiring soon, CHANGE IT THEN! It is also always a good idea to change your password before going on break so that you do not get locked out of your computer, email or gradebook. Here is how you change your password from the school windows computers. On your Windows desktop/TEC computer , press the Alt, Ctrl and Delete buttons at the same time. Click on "Change a Password" on the menu below: Enter your username, if needed, and follow the directions on screen. If you are off site or working solely on a Chromebook , you can use the VDI (Virtual Desktop) to change your password. Simply go to vdi.portageps.org. Click "VMware Horizon HTML Access." Click "Accept." Login with your portage username (leave off the @portageps.org) and password. Click "Login." Cli

Skyward Tech Tip: Student Birthday List

Would you like to get a list of your students' birthdays from Skyward? This can be done in just a few clicks. Step 1: Login to Skyward and select the blue gradebook for the class you want to print usernames and passwords for - elementary staff, you can just select any of your gradebooks. Step 2: Go to the reports menu at the top of the screen and select Class Roster. Step 3: Choose Student Name & Student Info, then select Clone Template. Step 4: Give your new template a name, such as Birthdays. Click Save. Step 5: Select how you want the Names to Display, then UNCHECK all the boxes. Now only check Birth Date. Click Save. Step 6: Now you can select the template you just created. Click Print. Step 7: A PDF preview will open. From here you can choose to save or print. You do this by placing your curser in the bottom right corner of the screen and clicking on the picture of the disc (save) or the printer (print). This is what the report would look like:

PPS Instructional Technology

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