Ed Tech Updates - June 2015

Get Ready for Fall - Digital Citizenship Planning

To support you in the process of creating your school's digital citizenship plan, we have developed a 4-step process. Schools will complete a digital citizenship plan by Oct 31 of each school year. School DC plans are to be revised annually in the DC section of the Technology Footprint and reviewed throughout the year.

Content Filtering Action Site

The CBE has launched the Content Filtering Action Site, which allows users to quickly and easily request a URL reclassification, a school filtering level change, or access further supports. To access the site while in a school, go to contentfiltering.cbe.ab.ca or access it through the Technology Footprint.

Dragon Dictate and Dragon Naturally Speaking

As of September 2015 Dragon will no longer be offered as a system license. Licenses can still be purchased at a school level. Communication regarding this has been sent to Principals.

SMART Notebook Software

SMART Notebook 11.4 is the system-supported software for use with all SMART boards, including the new SMART 6065 flat panel board. Notebook 11.4 also remains available for home use. For home use installation information please go to http://www.cbe.ab.ca/programs/technology-for-learning/Pages/default.aspx

One license of SMART Notebook 2015 comes with each SMART 6065 board, which gives the school the option to install the software on 4 devices. Schools may use Notebook 2015 if they wish to investigate and evaluate its features and value. Client Technology Services and Learning Innovation will work alongside schools to gather Notebook 2015 feedback.

Adobe Software

The CBE has now signed the agreement with the province, for the next three years, which gives access to the entire Adobe Creative Cloud Suite and Elements versions of the software for all schools and Service Units across the system, as well as a teacher home use agreement. The student home use piece is still in negotiations.

The bundles of Adobe software will be available in the third week of September.  CBE has received the license keys and the Client Technology Services Team is now in the process of building and testing the software packages that will be needed to do the installations at schools. This is a necessary first step to ensure that the software will be usable within our network. Once the installation packages are ready, school based technology services specialists will be able to guide schools on where to find them, the choices available, and how to deploy them effectively.

The current Digital School Collection (Elements) and Adobe CS6 licenses will no longer work after July 2015, and these installations will be automatically removed.  Schools should plan for access to begin deploying the new Creative Cloud version of the software in late September, 2015.

Information  about where and how teachers can access the home use agreement for the new contract is not yet available. As soon as it is available, it will be communicated to the system.

Brightspace by D2L

In 2015-16 Brightspace will be open for business starting August 10!  This will be exciting news for our modified calendar colleagues.

Don’t forget to end-date or inactive your courses before you go home for Summer. You can find out more about how to inactivate courses in our Blog. http://www.cbeilc.info/D2L-support/course-management-inactivate-shells/

Read more about what we are working on for next year, including professional learning for August. http://www.cbeilc.info/D2L/?p=757

Questions about D2L? Email tadalton@cbe.ab.ca.

Future of Learning Classroom (Education Centre)

The Future of Learning Lab is a room in the Education Centre that houses many innovative technologies and teaching tools. School staffs can book this space to engage in professional learning in the areas of technology, maker education, design thinking, CTF, or any other topic that might benefit from a collaborative, innovative space. Teachers may also arrange to bring students to the Future of Learning Lab for field trips. Teachers and students can explore everything from 3D printing to robotics to low tech tinkering. Please contact Erin Quinn at elquinn@cbe.ab.ca to discuss booking.

last call | Design the Shift

Today is the last day to apply for our summer learning institute called Design the Shift. You can find out more information in previous blog posts, here and here. Please send this blog post to colleagues who you think may be interested - we have a few spots left!

Please contact Erin Quinn at elquinn@cbe.ab.ca if you have questions.

updates | Design the Shift

The Design Team for Design the Shift 2015 has recently met and worked out a few details around planning for Design the Shift. If you signed up for the August 10 & 11th session, we will be working with you to determine a date for our third session. Due to this, this tentative schedule may be rejigged a bit to enable you to go to your schools on August 12 with a plan of action.

Here’s a tentative description of the three days. Keep in mind that the design process is responsive so this is certainly not set in stone!

DAY 1: Design Immersion Day

The purpose of this day will be to immerse you in the design thinking process. In doing so, you will identify a problem of practice that you wish to solve through your task design. In addition, you will have gotten to know your fellow participants and established a culture of creative trust. By the end of this day, you will have an idea of a problem of practice you will solve through your task design.

DAY 2: Inspiration Day

The purpose of this day is to help you think outside the box in designing your learning experience. This day is intentionally designed to inspire creative thinking and generate ideas.

We will be taking some field trips during Day 2 to let you experience learning outside of the four walls of the classroom and gather inspiration for your task design.

By the end of this day, you will have an idea for the learning experience you will design for your students.

DAY 3: Prototyping Day

The purpose of this day will be to use all the inspiration and ideas you gathered to work out a prototype of the task you will engage your students in. By the end of this day, you will have a project plan that you will have received feedback from your colleagues about. You will feel confident in bringing this plan back to your school to try it out with your students.

Some information about support throughout the school year:

To support this work, some resources will be required to bring your idea to fruition. Support will be provided to you to do this. Though we aren’t exactly certain as to the exact nature of this support, this support could come in the form of sub release time for you to collaborate with others, or supplies for your students to use in the task. More details about this will be solidified once registration is closed. 

Registration Deadline

The deadline to sign up is Friday, June 19th. The link to sign up is here.

Questions?

Please contact Erin Quinn at elquinn@cbe.ab.ca or Tracy Dalton at tadalton@cbe.ab.ca.

We are so excited about August!

invite | Design the Shift 2.0

In Summer 2014 60+ teachers came together around the challenge: How might we use instructional design to create effective, engaging and multi-disciplinary learning opportunities for our students? Participants prototyped their projects with their students over the course of the 2014-15 school year.  You can find out more about the summer institute through this Twitter story, or by reading the teachers’ stories in our blog.

This Summer (2015) we invite you to join your colleagues in a unique professional learning experience which nurtures professional growth and enhances your creative confidence to develop and enact engaging and meaningful learning tasks. We invite teachers from all disciplines to collaborate in an effort to bring new opportunities, experiences and inspiration to students.

Details

We are offering two opportunities this summer so as to include our modified calendar teachers. Teachers may choose to attend one or the other, but attendance at one full institute is expected. We need a minimum of 10 teachers for each offering.

August 10 & 11 (Modified teachers return to work August 12)

(We will work collaboratively with this group to find a common date for a third meeting)

9:00am – 4:00pm

Education Centre

August 24, 25, 26 (Traditional teachers return to work August 27)

9:00am – 4:00pm

Education Centre

Outcomes

Each participant will:

• create a multi-disciplinary learning opportunity which invites students into a relevant and meaningful experientially focused learning task which brings fine or practical arts together with academics. Ideally this work will be taken up as part of a team.
• prototype their design with their students in the 2015-16 school year.
• document student voice in making their learning visible through documentation, reflection, sharing and engagement in the design process.
• collaborate with the Summer Institute team in gathering data through surveys, interviews and other means to provide feedback and information about the outcomes of this initiative.

Supports:

Support will be provided by:

• External Expertise and Community Partnerships
• Online and Face to Face environments to connect with your Professional Learning Networks (PLNs)
• System Facilitators for ongoing work
• Release time during the school year for collaborative meetings
• Other supports for project implementation

We hope you will join us in August.  Please let us know by filling out this form. And please pass on this information to others who you think might be interested.

If you have questions, please contact Erin Quinn elquinn@cbe.ab.ca or Tracy Dalton tadalton@cbe.ab.ca.