Instructional Tech Weekly

IXL has just introduced a new feature that offers additional Spanish support for a collection of key math skills in grades 3-6. To enable the extended Spanish support, login to your IXL account.

Click on the arrow next to your name in the top right corner and select Profile & Settings. Scroll down to the Settings and you will see Enable Spanish Language Support. Your students will appear. You can choose all students or just a select few. Then click Submit to save the changes.

Students will notice an icon next to skills that have Spanish supports. Students will be able to toggle back and forth between English and Spanish translations.

IXL has given the entire District access to its ELA platform. It has a multitude of skills to address ELA standards. Check out the entirety for your grade level. IXL ELA addresses comprehensions, writing, grammar and vocabulary skills, aligning to New York Next Generation ELA Standards.

If you are looking for more information on IXL? Check out their live webinar schedule. IXL also offers a variety of resources to be able to use their application more effectively in both ELA and Math.

If you have not used Newsela in a while, it has added some new features. Newsela now offers a Good News section. They also have many Informational Articles that address a variety of science and social studies topics. Don't forget they offer an Opinion Section as well as Pros and Cons. Newsela also offers famous speeches and primary sources. You can access Inaugural speeches including the most recent one. There are also texts in Spanish and texts at five different lexile levels.

Newsela also offers the Teachers Lounge, which is dedicated to sharing ideas and lessons created by users. Check out Last Minute Lessons, which is a weekly section in the Teachers Lounge. This section provides early access to articles so that teachers can include current events in their lessons. Take a look at this Newsela video explaining this approach. You will also be able to find actual lesson plans created by teachers. Take a look at this lesson plan created by Stella Hernandez.

Kami is a tool that allows teachers to upload a variety of documents such as pdfs, Google Slides and Docs to be used with students. Kami integrates with Google Classroom and teachers can assign Kami activities through the Classroom. Students get a copy of the assignment and can take notes, highlight text, make audio, video and written comments on the Kami assignment. In Kami, students can use the immersive reader feature to have the text read aloud. Take a look at this short video on how to get started in Kami.

You can use any pdf in Kami. Newsela articles can be downloaded as pdfs very easily. Try using a Newsela article in Kami to allow students to highlight and annotate.

Have you thought about using Zoom Registration for your classes? Here is a short video on how to utilize this feature in Zoom. It is easy to use and you can even ask students questions prior to your class meeting. You can always get a report on who attended your class whether you use the registration feature or not.

All new software must be compliant with Ed Law 2-D. This law requires software vendors to have more stringent privacy policies to protect student privacy and data. If you are looking for a new software title, check out the privacy policy. Use EducationFramework.com to see how the software is rated. Everyone in the District has access to Education Framework by using your Google Credentials.

There are also ways that teachers can protect student data during virtual and classroom settings.

Ways to protect student data include:

• Make sure during screen shares that student data is not shown.
• Do not use software applications that require student logins that have not been vetted by the district.
• Do not share student login information, especially if their username includes student IDs
• Take a look at this short video on protecting student data

If you are looking to procure new software, you need to fill out the Software Recommendation Form. To speed up the process, remember to take a look at EducationFramework.com for compliance with Ed Law 2-D.