Social Studies

 Questions!  Comments!  Concerns!

 This is the basic stuff to get things moving in the right direction!

You will need to review the checklist in the course. Make sure you make this class your own by modifying the checklist as needed. Set the dates—check display to calendar. Set Quiz dates under Quizzes, but do NOT display to calendar. Update your Teacher widget and syllabus. Update your Collaborate widget. Make your own rooms for your collaborate sessions. Update the testing/assessment widget with the testing info for your class.

 Check to make sure that all content opens, that links are working, that quizzes have questions, etc. Adjust times on quizzes and tests as you see fit as well as the introductory directions on quizzes and tests. This is your class—please update it as you need!  Check to make sure that the approval feature is set on all discussions if you want it that way. If not you will need to uncheck the approval feature.  Check gradebooks and dropboxes to make sure all items are there. Clean up gradebooks and dropboxes as needed.  me the completed BOT checklist found on the department wiki as well as the one that I will you.  me a list of all items that need to be edited before classes begin. Please edit what you can and ask for assistance if needed. Anything that needs to be fixed will also have to be fixed in the masters.

 Call students and introduce yourself. Tell them about materials pick up or lack thereof.  Encourage them to come meet you on the 13 th of August.  Remind them about the first day of class. Explain that they have deadlines to meet each day so they need to work very hard.  Follow up with an using the template on the department wiki – you will need to adjust for the new term.  Students will have access to classes to preview immediately.

 We hope students can pick up materials when they come to campus to meet you on the 13 th, if not they can come on the 16 th to get their materials. I will keep you posted.  Please MAKE sure they have their materials ASAP.

 Introduce Yourself and The Class  Previewing Activities  On This Page issue  Mac users need to use Opera as their browser  Security pop-up issue  USE THE NEWS this year and make sure you use pictures and have fun with it like it is your class board or bulletin board!

 In general, late work is not accepted. However, please use your discretion and work with students who have extenuating circumstances. However, keep up with them and follow up. Do not tell a student that we never allow make up work.  Call parents as soon as a student starts to struggle as well.  Contact site coordinators and counselors as well.  Weekly contact with parents of students with D or F averages.  At least one CLASS session per week—should be interactive. No CHAT assignments.  There will be NO 7-8 pm HELP sessions.  Work week is Monday-Friday: please take your weekends off – there are no deadlines so you are not expected to work on that time off.

 Please make sure to do some sort of intro CLASS session to get them up to speed.  If you notice anything that is old in the course intro stuff, please correct it and let me know so I can fix it in the masters.  Be patient with students as they transition to V10, but esp. with students who are completely new.  Make sure you walk them through setting up their GOC —it is imperative!!!!!!!!!!

 All work should be graded and returned to students within 24 hours Monday to Friday.  All work should show content-related feedback, a numeric score, and specific feedback to explain why points were deducted.  You can use the audio function to record your feedback as well! The students like that!

 We no longer use IGPro.  D2L communicates with the parent portal so please make sure you are keeping up with grading.  Call parents of any student who has a D or F at least every 2 weeks if not more often.  Also communicate with counselors and site coordinators.

 Your landing page is now the TRC so you can quickly access information you need.  We have the SS Wiki where you can access info specific to our department.  If you or a student has a tech issue, you will need to fill out a tech form so that one of the LSCTs can assist you.  Always feel free to contact me—I am here to help.

 Feel free to get in touch with me whenever you need anything: ◦  This goes to my phone so I get this quickly! ◦ ◦ (work cell #) ◦ (personal cell #)

 Sherri and I make up the SS Dept  Tinisha Parker and Lindsey Brown are the Secondary Counselors  We have an entire Middle School staff now and Susan Oates is the Middle School SS teacher.  Gabby Bray is over all things Secondary.  Dr. Phillips will be handling discipline and testing.  Marisa Kana handles all things Special Ed.

 Version 10 is a little different. You will be able to watch a recorded collaborate before Monday and then stay on Monday from 8 pm to 8:30 pm just for questions with the LSTCs.  We have OPEN Labs almost every Tuesday from 2 pm to 4 pm. Please encourage your kids to come.  Sherri and I are working on an overarching Heroes Project that can be a part of all classes to bring in more PBL to our department.

 The building looks really good and totally different.  We have 3 awesome interactive labs for everyone’s use.  We will have monthly fieldtrips and rich experiences so please encourage your full time kids to attend. The program kids will be included in some activities so stay posted for more info.

 QR codes  Remind 101  Glogster  ePortfolio  Other Web 2.0 Tools????