Schoology NEXT 2017

So often we hire new staff and try to train them in a few short days, or not at all! Learn how to develop training courses in Schoology for any position, from a new teacher to a new secretary!

Objective: Attendees of this session will come aways with a step by step guide to constructing a training course for any type of new staff.

Looking for creative strategies to encourage and empower students to take responsibility for their own learning? Come and learn how a third grade teacher’s blended learning classroom environment has grown the knowledge, independence, and confidence of her elementary students. Participants will receive a step by step guide on how to personalize instruction for individuals so they can reach their fullest potential using Schoology.

Objectives:
1. Participants will learn how Schoology plays a central role in supporting self paced, blended learning and 21st century pedagogy.
2. Participants will collaborate with others to build similar experiences for their learning communities.
3. Participants will develop strategies for connecting with families.
4. Participants will learn tips for using Schoology in small group, large group, or collaborative group instruction.

Attendees will learn how to integrate the Schoology platform into a mastery-based classroom. We will review how to build a culture of mastery learning in your classroom and really dig into the important mindsets and thinking your students must go through to build this culture. This session focuses on student-centered learning and teaching students how to figure out the ways in which they learn best. We will dig deeper into the components of our classrooms and how Schoology completion rules, test banks, and discussions allow us to create a culture of mastery learning.• How to create a mastery learning culture in your classroom

Objectives:
• Become a coach rather than an instructor
• Encourage students to use reflection for redesigning their learning
• Create Schoology test banks with completion rules that can be used for a true assessment of mastery

For the last two years, the Parkway School District has been offering fully virtual courses to our high school students as a part of their every day schedule. Learn from our challenges and our successes while discovering the program beginnings, our approach to providing online learning opportunities for our students, and where we're going from here. 

Join Schoology Ambassadors from around the country - regular users just like you - that have found new, innovative ways to use Schoology in their classrooms, schools and districts. Objectives: The attendees will come away from this session with a number of new and innovative uses for Schoology, such as sporting teams, professional development, etc.

Connect, create, and collaborate in this interactive learning seminar grounded in the 4C’s of 21st century learning within the Schoology platform. Following this session, you will walk away with ten instructional design elements to ignite and innovate interactive design elements in your online courses.

Objectives:

• Explore & Apply Interaction Strategies via multiple modalities through embeddable content
• Design collaborative conversations for learners to interact with local or global audiences via shared discussions
• Create innovative and engaging content for learners via pages and rich text editor tools. 

There’s always something new to learn about with BrainPOP! Join us for a session covering the BrainPOP basics and highlighting all our newest features – from Make-a-Movie to Make-a-Map to game-based learning and our integration with Schoology. Discover how BrainPOP can be used to provide students feedback on formative assessments. Learn to collaborate with other teachers on common assessments and easily analyze student progress. Using tools such as Assignment Builder and Mixer, explore how teachers can accommodate assignments and assessments for all students.

Perfect for veteran users and newbies alike, this session will include best practices for engaging students and getting the most out of My BrainPOP while showing the ease of use via the Schoology integration. You’ll take home tips and tricks that make it easy to integrate all these new features.

Learn how blended learning has been served up from schools around the country. Each school and classroom has taken their own twist on how to define, implement, and assess the blended learning process. This hands-on workshop will allow participants to explore and compare the different blended learning that work. How will you create your blended learning classroom? Objectives: Blended learning has been around for the last twelve years. With four key models of blended learning schools have taken pieces and parts to create their own mixology of blended learning. There is no right or wrong way to stir together the ingredients of blended learning, it is all about how to make the program work for your school or classroom.

During this hands-on workshop the participants will watch, learn, and explore data from blended learning schools from around the country. The workshop will be set up in a Phase 1 blended learning model with Schoology as backbone of the rotations. As the participants move from mini lesson, 4C's, and independent learning they will have time to reflect on the different learning modalities, level of student engagement, define different types of blended learning models, and compare the blended learning techniques. This session is geared for all levels of blended learning educators and administrators. Come to learn how to start a blended learning classroom or reflect on how your blended learning environments compares to other classroom around the country.

Urban, Suburban, Rural, and Private School teachers that have worked with Marcia will be onsite to help answer questions, facilitate the small group discussion, and help the participants to start to create their own mixology of blended learning.

Learning Objectives:

The session Taking Blended Learning to the Next Level will start out with a whole group discussion on what is blended learning, defining blended learning, and exploring blended learning models through an interactive Pear Deck activity. Then the participants will break up into groups based on level of experience with blended learning or by grade levels.

At each of the different locations around the room, participants will be able to engage and learn from the showcased educators. After 10 minutes, a buzzer will sound and the participants will be able to move to new location within the room to talk with a new group of blended learning experts. There will be a total of three different rotations that will focus on the following objectives:

• Define the different blended and personalized learning models
• Compare and Contrast blended learning programs from around the country
• Analyze data from blended learning programs such as Schoology Quizzes 
• Construct a blended learning model that will best work in their classroom or school
• Collaborate with colleagues about blended learning while using Schoology as an LMS.

With multiple learning objectives and goals, the participants will have the chance to pick the learning path that best fits their current blended learning level of understanding or application.

Throughout the whole workshop, a backchannel using Twitter or Today’s Meet will be used to collect questions, ideas, and resources to share out with the group.

The last 10 minutes will be spent answering the large group questions and helping the participants to create a personal learning network to use after the lecture has ended.

Use all the tools in Schoology to helps students organize homework, inform parents and empower students. No more assignment notebooks to lose or be unable to read. Create the home/school communication tool you've dreamed of!

After the session, participants will have a clear understanding of how to set up and use the calendar to report homework, communicate with parents via groups and empower students to take responsibility for their organization. Examples of parent information forms, group resources and student led groups will all be shared.

Gamified Professional Development - is that even possible? YES! In order to get more buy-in from staff members, I decided to gamify my technology training sessions, but this method could work for any topic - not just technology. Take a dash of friendly team rivalry, a pinch of flipped classroom, a smidgen of whimsical storyline, and mix together within a sturdy point and badging system and you've got a recipe for success! I'll take you through my process and offer some helpful tips and tricks that you can adapt for your own means. Best of all, it can all be done right inside the Schoology platform. Games aren't just for the students!

Objectives: Attendees will come away from this session with strategies and ideas for creating gamified professional development for any variety of topics.

Learn more about our exciting new enhancements to our integrations with Google Drive. See how students and educators will now be able to more seamlessly use Google Drive while working inside of Schoology to manage grades, assignments and student submissions

Objectives:
- Introduce the new Google Drive integration improvements
- Discuss how this can be set up and leveraged in the classroom

Schoology has so many hidden "gems" - lesser known features or loved features that are being used in new ways. In this session, your Schoology Ambassadors, educators from all over the country who love Schoology, will present their favorites!

Objectives: The users will come away with new, innovative uses for common features (or learn about some lesser known features) in pages, media albums, discussion forums, quizzes, etc.

Schoology is a multi-faceted, multi-functional tool that allows for incredibly engaging learning opportunities for learners when educators have the needed skill set to craft and deliver quality content. By utilizing all of the internal and external tools and applications available to Schoology users, educators can build unique, accessible content directly into their course-requiring less clicks and yielding more learning opportunities. In this session we will explore the many capabilities of the insert content tools, embeddable 3rd party tools that expand the capabilities of the Schoology platform, and uniquely engaging learning applications available in the Schoology App store. Come together with like-minded colleagues to learn and collaborate on building beautiful, creative, engaging content for your learners that work across all devices, that are aligned and pinned to learning objectives, and that are focused on providing data that can help educators inform their instruction.

Objectives: Attendees will come away from this sessions with:

1. A strong understanding of the capabilities and functionality of the insert content tool. 
2. Ideas for how to embed exciting 3rd party tools like Padlet, Nearpod, Go Formative, Ed Puzzle, and more into their Schoology course for unique learning and assessment opportunities. 
3. Several immediately usable curricular items i.e. newly designed discussions, revised interactive one-pagers with the page tool, and assessments that are interactive, engaging, and focussed on providing feedback for incorrect answers as well as providing data to instructors.

How are school-wide projects managed at your school? There are many advantages to organizing and coordinating school projects with Schoology courses. Transparent timelines, open discussions, shared resources, and a central knowledge base, are just a few of the ways a Schoology course can serve as a project management portal. Attendees will dive into an existing, authentic project to get first-hand impressions of the blended, collaborative environment. Attendees will apply project-based learning principles as they storyboard and create their own project management course. The big picture payoff comes when adults transfer their project-based learning experiences to their classrooms; transforming pedagogy through experiential learning.

Objectives: Attendees will come away from this session with

1. a deeper understanding of PBL principles (ISTE-S 1, 3, 4)
2. practical ideas for supporting PBL practices within Schoology (ISTE-S 4, 5) 
3. a working template for a project management course (ISTE-S 4, 5) 
4. hands-on experience working in a blended, collaborative environment.

Schoology is for elementary students too! Schoology offers a variety of features that can be used to reach all K-6 elementary learners! Come hear how the Lee’s Summit School District introduced Schoology to its 18 elementary schools and supported teacher and student use. The behind the scenes work and keys to successful implementation will be shared along with real examples of what learning looks like inside K-6 Schoology Courses in Lee’s Summit.

Objectives:

1. Discover the essential elements needed in order to establish teacher buy-in and overall Schoology implementation success. 
2. Strategies for utilizing Schoology with elementary students.
3. Learn how to share resources within a Collaboration Cafe structure.

Participants will engage in an inner-outer Socratic seminar with LIVE feedback via a digital back channel, analyzing and evaluating the provided essential/driving/problem-based question.

Objectives: Primary Objectives attendees participating in this presentation will take away include:

1. Detailed teaching methods that will introduce a hands-on, multi-tiered Socratic seminar that can be transitioned from teacher control to complete student-centered management over the course of an entire year.
2. Instructional methods that underpin deep reading and writing analysis of informational texts with collaborative participant-driven speaking and listening techniques (all of which will be shared both digitally and hard copy).
3. Ideas concerning how the Socratic seminar can segue itself into larger, philanthropic community service endeavors that reach beyond the confines of the brick-and-mortar classroom.

30 tips, tricks and innovative ideas for Schoology users in under 30 minutes. Remaining time in the session will allow for short tutorials as per the audience.

Objectives: Attendees will come away with 30 tips, tricks and innovative ideas. Attendees will also be given step-by-step tutorials for several of the tips, tricks and innovative ideas.

This session will cover the synergy of Turnitin and Schoology to impact your writing instruction. Your presenters Heleyna Graham (Head of K-12 Success at Turnitin) and Elsie Peterson (High School ELA Teacher) bring years of EdTech and classroom experience to an exploration of how students perceive and interact with computer generated feedback. Expect takeaways for increasing student engagement with writing lessons and improving writing scores.

How to create your own successful gamified learning environment in Schoology.

Objectives:
1. Step by Step guide to creating a successful gamified learning environment in Schoology.
2. Implementing game-based learning within a gamified learning environment.
3. Tips, Tricks and avoiding pitfalls in gamification and game-based learning

Too often special education is an afterthought when integrating new technology. I had the opportunity to pilot Schoology within my resource room classes. Those students are now high school juniors and I am still using Schoology. Learn some of the techniques and suggestions that we have found works with students in a variety of learning environments. Some of the topics include: organization, managing IEP data, standards, grading groups, and also modifying assignments.

Objectives: Attendees will come away with
1. Ways to organize both student and teacher materials for easy access
2. Individually assign and tag for data collection of IEP goals
3. Create grading groups
4. Brainstorm a list of other tips and techniques that work with others in the field

Critical thinking, communication, collaboration/team building and innovation/creativity have been consistently articulated as top skills and competencies needed.  Microsoft solutions, including Office 365, can help educators use technology strategically to create a learning environment that helps not only foster those skills, but deliver a great, immersive and collaborative classroom. 

For system administrators looking for enhanced control and setup capabilities within the platform. This session will discuss upcoming changes in the product that will help make it easier for administrators to set up roles/permissions for Teaching Assistants, Teaching Coaches, Student Help Desk, as well as differentiating roles by School within an Organization.

Objectives: Highlight all the great things we are doing with permissions

• What's coming in the fall and beyond
• How administrators can leverage this new updates

CK-12 Foundation has created high-quality STEM content for personalized learning using the CK-12 app in Schoology.  Covering K-12 math and science branches, CK-12 is modernizing the way that teachers and students are accessing, customizing, and using core content through cutting-edge technology and machine learning.

Teachers and students can improve learning using CK-12’s many resources, including:

• Concept-based learning using lessons, interactives, videos, and real world applications

• Adaptive practice questions that reinforce learning and fill in gaps

• Student achievement reports from CK-12 integrated into Schoology

• Interactive math and science tools

• Completely customizable content, including a full-featured math authoring tool

• Interactive concept map that relates math and science topics

• Content available anytime, anywhere, on any device

 

By the end of the session, participants will be able to use the CK-12 app in Schoology to:

• Search for concepts and content on CK-12

• Customize and create content on CK-12

• Create assignments using content and Adaptive Practice on CK-12

• View reports of student achievement on CK-12

Create a change in practice by learning how to create personalized modules, which are competency based. After presenting our journey at Schoology NEXT 2016, we’re back with lessons learned, best practices, and a celebration of a shift in paradigm. Work hands-on to learn how to create a framework for implementing competency based PD, which provides teachers different approaches to professional learning that are flexible, responsive, and individualized, while honoring teacher voice and choice.

Objectives:
1) Learners will be able to define and describe a successful personalized competency based PD system.
2) Learners will be able to describe the process of implementing a personalized competency based PD system.
3) Learners will be able to determine inputs that lead to a successful implementation.

How can we use technology to develop active learning opportunities for gifted students that go beyond lower order thinking apps? After exploring principles of both gifted and online education, participants will develop a basic framework to support tech-based enrichment opportunities for academically talented students. Finally, attendees will construct a structured learning unit that facilitates independent thinking and problem solving yet contains the scaffolding necessary to support challenging materials.

Objectives:

1. Examine the intersection of gifted education and online learning through the lens of best practices.
2. Develop a basic curricular framework to support online differentiation for gifted students in a regular education classroom.
3. Construct a virtual learning unit that encourages independent problem discovery and solving for gifted students.

Schoology is a powerful tool. Adding APPS through Schoology's API makes the learning environment richer. Sometimes, we find APPS that are outside the Schoology family that we want to use. In this workshop, we will explore 3 such APPS (Wizer [interactive digital activity sheet maker], Kaizena [annotate collaboratively on pdfs], and Ilosvideos [recording with CC capabilities]). With a little bit of HTML help [don't be scared!], we can embed the APP right into the platform. In addition, this will be a sharing opportunity as you are encouraged to showcase an APP you have found helpful with the rest of the group. Come one and come all! There are plenty of APPetizers to go around!

Objectives:
1) Learn how to embed 3rd Party Apps using HTML option in Schoology
2) Explore Apps to enhance instructional design of courses
2) Explore 3 Apps to expand student learning possibilities
3) Explore and share Apps by other Schoology users

Let’s explore the concept of using Schoology to create a digital transition in the classroom. This transformation goes beyond just content creation. It begins with understanding the standards you are teaching, then developing a student-centered approach to help guide their learning, and finishes with an appropriate method of assessing their mastery. In this session, you will see examples of teacher content, assignments, and assessments before, during, and after a digital transition. Other topics covered will include methods of delivering effective feedback, applying Webb’s DoK Levels to achieve learning shifts, implementing a growth mindset with both administration and staff, and other best practices for a successful digital transition.

Objectives: Attendees will come away from this session with
1) a replicable model for implementing a digital transition
2) examples from different stages of the process
3) tips for preparing administrators to understand and support their staff through a digital transition
4) an opportunity to share best practices with other session participants.

Learn more about our exciting new enhancements to our integrations with Google Drive. See how students and educators will now be able to more seamlessly use Google Drive while working inside of Schoology to manage grades, assignments and student submissions

Objectives:

• Introduce the new Google Drive ntegration improvements
• Discuss how this can be set up and leveraged in the classroom

Choose A Response (CAR) is a powerful technique that honors students’ talents and interests when responding to texts or other methods of content delivery. Paired with Schoology’s discussion board features, CARs can turn boring worksheets or discussions about content into meaningful, memorable learning opportunities for students that prompt higher order thinking skills. You’ll be amazed what students can do when you allow them to use their creativity and tech tools to show their thinking.

Objectives: Attendees will come away from this session with

• An understanding of how voice and choice affect student motivation and engagement 
• Ready to use CAR template that can be adapted across content-areas 
• Examples of student CARs 
• Discussion board tips 
• Rubric options

[UPDATED] Storytelling is arguably the most powerful force in human history. Stories are the backbone of civilization and they can inspire action on massive scales. Can stories be harnessed to transform education?

Join two Schoology veterans, Sr. Instructional Designer Bradley Kemp and Editor in Chief of the Schoology Exchange Dylan Rodgers, for a deep dive into the awesome power of storytelling and the 6 steps you need to take to build an educational blog that empowers your thought leaders, helps great ideas spread like wildfire, and provides ongoing on-demand PD opportunties for faculty.

In this session you’ll:

• Learn about the power of telling stories and why you should start leveraging them
• Explore the 6 essential steps for building an educational blog for continuous learning.
• Receive an eBook that illustrates all the best practices discussed in this presentation

I will present the way I use Schoology to keep my 4th graders engaged at their own levels by way of Schoology. I will explain how my students have a weekly Schoology contract that is personalized for them and at their level. As the whole class is working on their customized Schoology assignments, it allows time for me to pull groups to work at back table on strands they need extra work on or conference one on one. The use of Schoology has provided much more success for my students, as opposed to centers that students easily become disruptive at and/or eliminates busy work. My differentiated Schoology assignments are easily managed and easy to share with other grade levels so students throughout the building (not just my classroom) are working at their own pace and ability.

Objectives:
1. Step by step guide to developing differentiated, customized Schoology lessons.
2. How to integrate the work you already do in your classroom into a differentiated lesson into Schoology.
3. How to use Schoology throughout the elementary for mass customization.

Social media and smartphone technology have many uses that can be applicable to the online and face-to-face learning environment. We will provide dynamic and creative uses for social media live video streaming applications in the accounting classroom environment.

Objectives: Participants will learn how to:
1.)Communicate with Experts
2.) Lesson Recaps
3.) Enable Virtual Field Trips
4.) Involve Parents
5.) Share Live Events
6.) Virtual Office Hours

Learn about how we empower staff to transform student learning in a 1:1 environment through the use of our district's Learning and Technology Framework and the supporting digital tools, including Schoology. In this session you will experience our district's Learning and Technology Framework, connections to our teaching and learning strategic work (ie. reading and writing workshops, math workshop, inquiry, constructivist learning, student voice, cultural proficiency etc.), how we developed our learning session modules with Schoology as the platform to deliver content and instruction, and ways we have collected perspectives to inform our next instructional steps. The session will also include next steps you can take with you as you move forward in professional learning with staff in your district.

Attendees will come away from this session with...
1) Strategies to empower staff to transform learning in a 1:1 environment
2) Ways to connect teaching and learning strategic work while using digital tools
3) How to develop professional learning modules utilizing Schoology as a platform
4) Methods for collecting stakeholder perspectives to inform learning throughout the year
5) Ideas to continue staff learning beyond the session/module

Maybe it’s time to look at the Schoology gradebook through a different lens. You may have a rigorous learning environment with committed and talented teachers, as we do, but do you have a complete picture of the grading practices across your school?

Providing training and professional development on how to use the Schoology gradebook is essential but you can’t stop there. It wasn’t until our first year with Schoology was well underway that we discovered all of the elements that make the gradebook truly valuable. The Schoology gradebook provided an opportunity for us to better understand our current grading practices across grade levels and departments and also view and appreciate the student perspective. With this data we were able to take a deep dive into grading and reporting as a school. In this session I will share what we learned about grading and reporting and the questions to ask and consider as a school. I will also give you a glimpse into our overall implementation process, including the survey data that pushed us to dig deeper.

Objectives:
- Learn best practices for implementing Schoology's gradebook
- Learn new ways to use the Schoology gradebook to inform grading and reporting at your school
- Generate new questions and ideas to facilitate discussion of the grading and reporting process at your school

Elementary teachers will learn strategies for implementing Schoology in their classrooms with students and with other teachers. Teachers can manage small group resources, streamline access to online resources for quick access by students, share resources with other teachers to decrease individual prep time, record students with audio and/or video for fluency checks, force sequential completion of tasks, assign individual learning paths for struggling or excelling students or for hospital/homebound students, build courses for tutoring groups, and provide feedback on assessments immediately with view submission settings or individual comments. Teachers can build groups with other teachers to share resources, organize resources for quick access, and become admin in multiple courses when team-teaching.

Objectives:
Attendees will come away from the session with
1) step by step directions, including screenshots, for each task listed in the description
2) knowledge on how to get elementary students comfortable navigating Schoology courses
3) strategies for resource organization for self and with colleagues
4) evidence of successful use with students under the age of 8

Do you feel stifled by your school's textbook adoption? Are students less than excited by lessons that begin with "turn to page 5,000 in your book"? This year my building adopted a new reading program-the cost of which would have completely paid off my home mortgage. I wrestled with the above questions until December when I decided to take charge and created interactive "to-do" lists in Schoology. Student interest increased, lessons were easy to differentiate for a variety of levels and lesson planning became less of a chore. Join me as I take you through my journey including samples of plans and student outcomes. Bring your laptop and a teacher's manual to begin your journey putting "Umph" back in your textbook lessons!

Objectives:
1) To see how Schoology can be used to make textbook learning more engaging
2) To learn how to work smarter, not harder by creating unit lists that can be reused next year with minor tweaking
3) To gather resources and gain new ideas

There’s always something new to learn about with BrainPOP! Join us for a session covering the BrainPOP basics and highlighting all our newest features – from Make-a-Movie to Make-a-Map to game-based learning and our integration with Schoology. Discover how BrainPOP can be used to provide students feedback on formative assessments. Learn to collaborate with other teachers on common assessments and easily analyze student progress. Using tools such as Assignment Builder and Mixer, explore how teachers can accommodate assignments and assessments for all students.

Perfect for veteran users and newbies alike, this session will include best practices for engaging students and getting the most out of My BrainPOP while showing the ease of use via the Schoology integration. You’ll take home tips and tricks that make it easy to integrate all these new features.

This session will explain the research in mindset of Carol Dweck, Jo Boaler, and other researchers and evidence behind the benefits of teaching students about having a positive mindset.  Participant will engage in hands-on activities in math proven to impact students’ algebra understanding and lower math anxiety in at-risk high school minority students. These low access point-high ceiling activities have been successful in working with disengaged at-risk 18-20 year old math students.

Objectives:
Attendees will come away with
1) an understanding of how to implement positive mindset practices in their classrooms
2) specific activities in Algebra to implement in their classrooms using conceptual understanding and mindset

For many teachers, it is a Big Change to move from traditional classroom design to one where technology like Schoology supports personalization. This session will use the example of a large urban school district to explore successful ways to support teachers and school communities through the change process. Participants will review an implementation of their own, considering project management, vision, communication, needs identification/addressing, and review/reworking as means to build trust and ease the transition.

Objectives:
1. An understanding of the pattern to the way people react to change
2. A planning tool to use in analyzing a change underway in their organization
3. Examples of how an urban school district is managing change
4. Ideas for how to manage change in their organization