Preparing your Digital Classroom

-

Happy New School Year! 


While it still feels like summer outside, inside we know you are working hard to prepare the physical learning area for students. You are likely creating welcoming, functional, and intentional spaces so that your day can run smoothly, and so that your students know how to navigate the space. Your digital classroom is the same! Spending time setting up an efficient digital space allows you to keep organized and allows the students to easily find materials and assignments. 

Here are some of our top tips for preparing your digital classroom. For more detailed steps on setting up your virtual classroom, see our Teacher Intro to Digital Tools Brightspace page.

1. Customize: This is the first thing your students see! It is nice to take some time to make it work for you and your students. For example, you may want to add a Google Meet link to your Nav Bar in the event of a virtual school day. You will also want to add a photo or Bitmoji of yourself to the profile, along with your contact information. For more ideas and tutorials on customizing, click here.




2. Set up Content folders: Content is where curriculum resources and assignments are stored. Setting up the folders in advance will help you to stay organized when posting material and will allow for a consistent naming structure for students. Consider the folder levels below for inspiration. The unit folder is the overarching topic, the lesson level contents about a week of material, and the last level is the folder level which can only store HTML documents, assignments, and weblinks.




3. Post in Content: I always liked pre-loading a student assignment or activity in my Content area. This gave a purpose for going into the Brightspace course and gave practice on how to access assignments from the first day. Consider choosing an activity from our Digital Take-Out Back to School options.




4. Announcements & Activity Feed: Leave a welcome message for students in your class under the Announcements widget. This area is only visible to members of the class. It is nice to get students into the habit of checking that area. I always liked to post a photo of me and my family from the summer with a little more detail about myself. Maybe you post a link to a "Getting to Know You" survey. Perhaps you ask them to perform a simple task, such as write their favorite color and TV show on a post it to give to you. Likewise, consider posting a welcome message to Parents & Guardians through the Activity Feed so they are aware of important dates, calendar events such as Back to School Night, and other pertinent info. 




5. Plan for Explicit Modeling: It is so important to schedule time in your day to review the digital classroom space, just as much as it is to give an in-person tour of the room. Block out a period of time to have students log into Brightspace on their chromebooks and click along with you as you showcase how to pin your classroom to their waffle to find it easily, where to find important announcements, and where to view content and assignments. Knowing this from day one will get students into the habit of bringing chromebooks and regularly checking the class Brightspace page. 


From all of us in the Office of Instructional Technology, best wishes for a fantastic start to the 2023-24 year! We look forward to supporting you.






Popular Posts

Book Studies in Brightspace

-
Image
By Melissa Connelly, Behavior Specialist & Brightspace Campus Champion at Belle Grove Elementary, and Stacy Langhirt, 1st grade teacher and former eCoach, Severna Park Elementary Books clubs about technology, really? Yes! It was an awesome experience. When asked to facilitate a class during the summer of 2021, feeling a little burned out on technology we asked if we could try something new. Guess what the answer was a  resounding, YES. That is how a five week technology book study came to be using our new LMS, Brightspace. Facilitating a book study about tools and technology that we have available to us everyday and that our students are familiar with just made so much sense. We were able to share a wonderful text, Eric Curts' Control Alt Achieve: Rebooting your Classroom with Creative Google Projects ,  that was rich with ideas on using Google Workspace for Education in the classroom and we had conversations centered around those ideas that helped all of us to grow as e...
Read more

Computational Thinking: Its really not that scary!

-
Image
By Kerri Lambert, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist Computational thinking. It’s one of those current, hot educational phrases that leaves most teachers scratching their heads and thinking, “Does this really apply to me?” Especially when most articles and books stress its relationship and importance to computer science.  However, the more I read, the more I’m convinced that computational thinking extends to all content at all grade levels. After all, at its most basic, computational thinking is all about the process of problem solving. And let’s face it, that’s something we all do, all day long!  So what exactly IS computational thinking? By definition, computational thinking is the process of breaking down complex problems down into parts, recognizing patterns, and devising a solution. It has four pillars or processes: Broken down into the processes, computational thinking seems a lot less intimidating. I mean, even cleaning the house can be broken down into comp...
Read more

Who to Follow on Social Media

-
Image
by Kerri Lambert, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist In OIT, we are often asked how we learn “all this stuff” and how do we keep up with all the changes across our platforms. There are several ways, but one of our favorite ways is to peruse Twitter when we have a moment. This allows us to get information from one place and in the small snippets of time- and it doesn’t fill up our inboxes! If you are on Twitter and looking for people to follow, here are a few that we recommend. It’s no secret that OIT supports a variety of instructional applications and yes, sometimes it can feel overwhelming! But, many of the programs we subscribe to are active on Twitter. Not only do they tweet out updates or upcoming features, but also showcase ways educators across the country are using their products with students. This is also a great way to find out about learning opportunities such as webinars or conferences. Following the companies gives you the best of both worlds- updates and inspir...
Read more