Week Ahead: Aug. 30-Sept. 3

Such a great week!  Curriculum Night was a huge success; student attendance is incredibly high, and great learning is happening every day.  We have 3 days this coming week …let’s make them great!

Here is what’s up next week:

Sunday, Aug. 29
*Happy Birthday Matthew Francis

Monday, Aug. 30
VS A-D

Tuesday, Aug. 31
VS E-H
9:30-10:15 SST

Wednesday, Sept. 1
Wellness / Consolidation
11:00 All missing work flags entered into PowerTeacher grade book
3:15-4:30 Divisional Mtg: Schoology Focus

Thursday, Sept. 2
No School – Vietnamese National Day

Friday, Sept. 3
No School – Vietnamese National Day
*Happy Birthday Nguyen Do!

Upcoming (on the radar)

• Sept. 17: MS Movie Night
• Sept. 23: Early Dismissal
• Oct. 13: End of Quarter 1
• Oct. 14 and 15: Parent Teacher Conferences

Missing Work Flags: Due to issues with the transfer of information from Schoology to PowerTeacher grade book, all missing work flags need to be entered into PowerTeacher grade book NOT Schoology.  Without the missing work flags appearing in PowerTeacher, we cannot run our reports to assist with tracking of at-risk students.  We need all teachers to go into PowerTeacher grade book and add the missing work flags for all assignments. Please do this by Wednesday at 11am.

Feedback from Students regarding Breakout Rooms: In this week’s survey, students were asked about how breakout rooms are going.  Many indicated awkward silences and difficulty in getting conversations going.  Comments also included difficulty talking with people they don’t know.  This made me wonder what kind of intentional scaffolding of conversation and collaboration skills we could add to support them.  Let’s share strategies that have been working.

Subs in Virtual School:  We have a system set up for illnesses and absences during Virtual School.

As a teacher: Full details are in the MS Faculty Handbook; short version:

• Text sub line if between 4pm-6:30am; message Thao if between 6:30am-4pm.
• Same basic items need to be included in text but include course code for Schoology and add sub as an alt host (if possible; if not, then we will send a new Zoom to students)

SSIS Cares:  As you saw from Catriona’s recent email, the school is partnering up with the charity From Saigon to Saigon who make food and essential care packages to people in desperate need during COVID. Here is a presentation summarizing their amazing work.

If you want a glimpse into the thinking of our ES students, check out this  FlipGrid page.     You could also post positive messages, artwork, songs, poems (basically anything!) for the Saigon community during this time.

From ICT:  Kindly help us confirm the technology equipment check out to you.  Please navigate to CAS and follow the directions below.  If there are errors in the equipment list please email ict@ssis.edu.vn and we will update the equipment list accordingly. [see D Perkin’s email for more details]

In the past, some student projects have required posting content to Youtube.  If this impacts you please speak with your division level technology coach and they will assist you in finding alternative ways for students to share video content.

From Daniel Mendes:

Google Groups – The Tech department has identified that some Vietnam Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) are blocking some of Google’s services, most importantly for many of you is Google Groups.  If you use Hapara’s email group to contact your students this will not work right now.  We will update you when this changes.

Zoom Update – New update 5.7.6.  It’s only a 0.0.1 increase but there are new features and in my experience, it can make the difference in having connectivity issues.

Shared Drive – We are working in the background to migrate all MS-related (MS Team Drives, MS Curriculum,  drives into one ‘MS Division’ Shared Drive.  In the next few days, we will be letting you know when I move your curriculum folders and where they have been placed.  There will be no broken links as Google maintains these links even moved within the Google.  However, we will do our best to limit the number of permission issues.  Please send me a Google Chat if you need immediate access.

Schoology

cK-12 Integrated within Schoology.  This non-profit organization is creating and curating online curriculum resources for teachers to use and it is now connected to Schoology.  It has a progression tool that helps teachers plan their curriculum and the best part is that any assignments or activities you assign can be passed back to Schoology.  See me if you need support on this.  Thank you Thomas Lupton and Jake West for recommending we integrate this wonderful resource.

Respondus Lockdown Browser – (coming soon) – we are setting up and trialing a 2-month secure browser platform that integrates with Schoology so that you can administer tests and ensure students are only seeing the test.  Please let me know if you would like to try this application.  There is some installation that is required.

Comprehensive Assignment and Gradebook workflow guide is being worked on now and we will have a workflow that explains all the different variables and scenarios that you are experiencing when assigning activities and assignments.

Student Submission issues – Students are having difficulty submitting the assignments.  There are three reasons we know of right now:

1. Students not having their Google Drive Resource App configured properly.  (Pink band at the top of the app). Tell students to go to the Schoology Boot Camp on their Advisory page and review the instructions to fix this issue.
2. Students not able to see their assignment that was distributed through Schoology’s Assignment App.  Have the students click on the link above the Edit button to be able to re-connect their account to Schoology.  
3. Students have multiple accounts connected to one browser profile. Ask students to open a new tab and go to https://google.com and click on their profile picture in the top right of the screen. Have them sign out of all accounts and sign in only to their SSIS school account. Here’s an example:

________________________________________________

Log in to CAS

https://cas.ssis.edu.vn/