EdTech Newsletter

We are excited to announce STEM Fest and CTE Showcase are merging starting this school year. Please join us for the first STEM2Career Expo on Wednesday, March 26th from 5:00pm - 7:00pm at Vista High School. This Expo will showcase authentic STEM experiences students are having at all sites TK-12th grades, highlight the amazing CTE pathways we have at our different high schools as well as offer a STEM Challenge: Catapults for all grades (English Flyer, Spanish Flyer). Here is the Google Form link for students to sign up, a QR code is on the flyer. We are also inviting businesses our students intern at to spread the word on possible future internship opportunities. This event is intended for all VUSD families and the Vista Community. For more information reach out to someone on the team: Robert Crowell, Rick McCurdy, Taresa McSpadden and Craig Gastauer. Save The Date Flyers.

Mid-year assessments for iReady, MAPS and Capti open on January 8th and close on February 12th. If you need more information about these assessment platforms, user guides have been created for you: MAP User Guide , iReady User Guide, Capti User Guide.

Even better, teachers can participate in the 12 Days of Creativity Challenge for a chance to win Adobe beanies for their entire class! Complete the activities, share your favorites, and submit your entry by February 21st. Don't miss out on this festive opportunity to inspire creativity and win big.

Here’s what else is new:

• The Edit National Competition: Challenge students to create their own news stories with this exciting video competition from NBCU and Adobe.
• Class Galleries: Easily set up student galleries to showcase their work and inspire peer learning.

Check out the December Newsletter here.

Every Child Deserves to Thrive! Now that all teachers and students in VUSD have Thrively, students can become more self-aware and self-managing as they learn their strengths and weaknesses. Two of the most difficult skills for students to develop are metacognition and developing positive relationships with all students in their class. In this Thrively blog, teachers can engage students in activities throughout the year that might support the development of their metacognitive ability (students thinking about their own thinking) as well as provide them with potential questions / prompts to learn how to get to know peers around them so that they can make more positive connections with their classmates.

As our students move into their careers, there’s a good chance they will need to create websites or contribute to them for their workplaces, personal businesses, or passion projects. So teaching them how to do this well while they are in school is time well spent. The creators of the website-building platform Wix have created Wix Tomorrow, a free suite of resources designed to teach middle and high school students how to create their own websites. It includes lesson plans, activities, templates, and classroom management solutions that allow you to monitor student work and give feedback as they go.

If you teach elementary math and you’re looking for some good, interesting activities for your students, Sembl is a great place to look. It offers a free curated collection of high-interest math activities from reputable creators, allowing teachers to filter tasks by topic and create personalized playlists. This is an excellent resource for teachers using the Thinking Classrooms approach!

We have finished our on demand training sessions and all videos can be found on this document. If you have any website questions or need help setting something up, please put in an IT Service Request and under Issue Type select Website. If you need more support, please add that to the IT Service Request and we can schedule a time to come and support you in person or through a Zoom meeting. If you are a site webmaster and not sure what your job tasks are, please work with your site admin to discuss what is expected of you in regards to edits and updates.

The front homepage of websites should be clean and organized. While we understand you want the most important information front and center, we can make some adjustments to keep that information organized and clean. One way to do this is create a “post” element in your news section and update any flyers as posts. If you want your S’More newsletters to be on the front page, please embed those in the News section as well so parents have full access. When embedding a S’More, be sure you don’t just add the embed element, this doesn't allow parents to access the entire webpage from their phones. They get stuck on just the newsletter.

All webmasters have access to the “training” portion on the FinalSite admin login. There are short clips that are extremely helpful, check it out! As a reminder, your login is single sign-on, the password is the same as your email.

Student Invite Emails were sent on 09/05/2024 to all Secondary Schools (6-12)

StudentSquare is an easy to use and secure communication tool for students and staff.

What you can do with StudentSquare:

● Receive messages from school by email, text or mobile app.

● Send messages to your teachers and staff at school.

● Stay in the loop regarding late start days, extracurricular activities,

and class projects.

● Subscribe to calendars, RSVP to events, complete forms, use sign-up

sheets and participate in groups.

Learn to use StudentSquare
Introduction to StudentSquare English

Introduction to StudentSquare Spanish

There are a variety of parent and staff resources to ensure an effective launch at each school.

Parents—Getting Started Video

ParentSquare Resumen - Espanol

ParentSquare Resources

Getting Started - Teachers

Sign up for a webinar

Pre-recorded webinars

Self Paced Training Course

Here is a video and documentation on Creating a Group.

Staff members received an account activation email for their ParentSquare account during the last week of school.

If Ed Specialists and Counselors need access, please contact your administrator.

Training courses that can be accessed here.

Middle schools and some elementary schools are using iReady assessments, while other elementary schools are using MAP assessment. Please see the list of MAP and iReady schools below.

Teachers and students access iReady on ClassLink, and administrators use login.i-ready.com. Teachers and students access MAP on ClassLink, and administrators use teach.mapnwea.org.

The assessment windows are available on the Elementary Assessment Calendar and the Secondary Assessment Calendar. Staff may record support needs on the MAP and iReady Troubleshooting Document.

• MAP schools: Bobier, Casita, Foothill Oak, Grapevine, Hannalei, Monte Vista, THE Leadership Academy, VAPA.

• iReady schools: Alamosa Park, Breeze Hill, Empresa, Lake, Maryland, Mission Meadows, Madison MS, Roosevelt MS, VIDA, Vista Magnet MS

i-Ready Resources: i-Ready How to Teacher Video, i-Ready How to Administrator, i-Ready Central, Find a Book based on Lexile, AR Level vs Lexile

MAP Resources: Teacher Toolkit, Resource Center

All Vista Unified staff and students have access to Adobe Express for Education. Adobe Express enables students in all grade levels and subject areas to quickly create unique graphics, design custom web pages, record and edit video presentations, and more.

Students can even make animations using the animate-from-audio tool.

Go to: express.adobe.com/a/vistausd.org

To get started, log in and check out a few templates!

Benchmark Universe Login

https://vistausd.benchmarkuniverse.com/

Username: vistausd_edu

Password: password

If you are a rostered teacher and cannot access your Benchmark account, please email Taresa McSpadden.

Benchmark’s contract with Heidi Songs has expired. They did not extend it, therefore there are no longer Heidi Songs in Benchmark online. There are other HFW, Phonics and Letter videos and songs provided though.

If you plan to sync your grades between Canvas and Aeries in the Spring Semester or Term, remember that gradebooks in Aeries SHOULD NOT be linked to each other. Linking the gradebooks in Aeries can cause syncing issues for cross-listed classes. It is best to complete all of your grading via Canvas and then sync to Aeries, rather than doing grading in both locations. If you have an assignment that is completed on paper in class, it can still be added to the Canvas gradebook by creating a “no submission” or placeholder assignment.

Please watch this video that explains how to create placeholder or no submission assignments on Canvas.

You can access ClassLink on the website or through the VUSD folder on your bookmarks bar.

(For Teachers)

Quick Cards Training Video

Quick Start Guide: A student must login one time in order for QuickCards to generate if they are new to the district.

Changing student passwords and Quick Cards

How to Doc

Troubleshooting Doc

How to add an app in ClassLink

If you have any questions, please contact the IT Department Monday - Friday from 8:00am - 3:30pm at servicedesk@vistausd.org or 760-726-2170 extension 92500.

The IT service request can help with technology set up (printers, monitors, etc) and account support. Go to your Class Link and select IT Service Request if you need support.

If you are locked out of your district account/can't remember your password, contact IT-Service Desk. You can call ext 92500 from any district phone or email them servicedesk@vistausd.org.

TOSAs

Taresa McSpadden (Elementary) ext 92117

Craig Gastauer (Secondary) ext 92116

Contact: ZenDesk Service Request

Visit our website: https://www.vistausd.org/departments/businessservices/information-technology/educational-technology

Email: edtech@vistausd.org