We have been busy with two new improvements in Moodle this summer.
 
First, we have upgraded our Moodle site to version 3.6. New features in Moodle include:

• new dashboard options
• more blocks to customize your view
• messaging between and among course teacher and students
• cloud sharing of documents
• options to hide yourself while you are online
• more information on badge progress
• the availability of teachers to record feedback to students in addition to annotating an assignment
• improvements in the drag and drop quiz feature
• and more!

You can see details here:  https://docs.moodle.org/36/en/New_features
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​Second, we have partnered with Intelliboard to provide Moodle instructors with a dashboard that will display course information. Intelliboard offers an abundance of instant data from your course which provides instructors with real time data on student progress, completed assignments, and a big picture view of the course. Reports can be generated that provide detailed and specific information about the course and the participating students.  

​Both of these improvements are value added to our already free Moodle site. 
 
You can learn more about any of these at our Moodle Users workshop on Wednesday, August 28th or contact Karen Insley at [email protected].
To register for the workshop, have your district representative register you at:  www.register.caboces.org.

By: Karen Insley, CA BOCES Learning Resources

Are you looking for resources and don’t know where to turn? Maybe you have some idea of what you are looking for and don’t have the time to cull through the myriad options available. At the CABOCES Learning Resources center in Allegany, we will have a training in January for the teachers in our two county area, highlighting all that our Staff Specialists here can do for you and your students.
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Learning Resources has recently had an increase in the amount of resources being used by our component schools, but there are still so many things being underutilized. So as part of this training, the Staff Specialists went through each branch of Learning Resources and how they can assist with curriculum and content, utilization of online and digital support, as well as providing tangible resources to use in the physical classroom. The teachers who have gone through the training before have been amazed at the hundreds of thousands of resources available and how each department can either assist with or provide instruction on the various aspects of digital resources and technology, STEM, Library services, and distance learning. 

​Both STEM and the Digital Media program provide kits that can be used in the classroom to aid instruction and provide hands-on activities. Online resources accompany those kits, as well as accessing the SNAP system to find additional support. The Distance Learning branch has many components, including Moodle and Mahara, credit recovery, virtual field trips, collaborative classrooms, online learning, and Adobe Connect. Additionally, our Library Resources offers support to all 22 school libraries in Cattaraugus and Allegany counties, implementation of the inter-library loan system, and provides online usage of Britannica and World Book.
 
If you are not utilizing any of these resources, only using some of them, or need to know more, come join us on January 12 at our Learning Resources center in Allegany, NY.
 
By: Alexandra L. Freer, CA BOCES

While building contractors remodeled Fillmore School this summer, Fillmore teachers renovated their traditional classrooms to incorporate blended learning.  Fillmore will be implementing 1:1 devices for their K-12 students, and the teachers are readily adapting their classes to incorporate technology into daily instruction.
 
The CA BOCES Learning Resources and Model Schools teams worked with Fillmore teachers at Tech Camp for three full-day workshops.  Teachers were introduced to Nearpod’s mobile interactive presentation software, Socrative’s quick assessment tool, Moodle’s Learning Management System, iPad Apps for Elementary and High School, CA BOCES Library and Media resources, and much more.
 
Opening discussion each day with the Fillmore teachers included:
 

• One-to-one tips and tricks for building culture and class management with and without devices with Model Schools team members Lauren Stuff and Mark Carls.

 

• The what and why of blended learning and how it’s changing the traditional face of teaching with Learning Resources team members Betsy Hardy and Alex Freer.

 

• Digital citizenship, information literacy, and accessing good information in a 1:1 school with Model Schools and Learning Resources team members Cece Fuoco and Rick Weinberg.

 
Wendy Clark, who built a Moodle course she named Phenomenal Fourth Grade Readers shared, “I can't wait to use all of the fantastic apps that we learned about in my guided reading lessons! When we get our iPads; I’ll be all ready to go thanks to our summer tech training days!”
 
Cristin Glasner, MS Science Teacher added, “I had an amazing experience this summer. I brought back a huge amount of new knowledge on new technology to use in my science class. I was especially excited to incorporate Nearpod, Moodle, WEO and Edge factor into my classroom. I am so excited about using this technology to engage my students in their STEM lessons, add in Brain breaks, and trying some flipped lessons.  This technology helps me make my content more relevant to my students and draws them into the lesson. They have so much fun, ask great questions, and have a better retention of the content.”
 
Every teacher at Fillmore has developed a Moodle course filled with interactive items for students, including:  Math modules to reinforce math concepts, STEM videos, Music exploration videos, Spanish glossaries, Art concepts, Reading surveys, English journals and forums, Quizlet flashcards, Geography maps, News feeds from historical, language, STEM and Arts sites, and much more!
 
Fillmore’s journey to a 1:1 classroom environment has proven to highlight some great new strategies and tools that teachers are embedding into their day.  Placing technology into the hands of every student allows students access to continue learning beyond the typical school day.  Shaping the future of blended learning and global citizenship within the newly remodeled walls of Fillmore Central School is on an exciting path to great success.

By:  Betsy Hardy, Distance Learning Coordinator, CA BOCES Learning Resources
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Students at Forestville are taking an online Creative Writing class in Moodle through CA BOCES and are honing their skills as readers and writers with the use of Mahara’s journal feature. Students share their journals with one another and comment on the work their fellow writers are doing.

​1.  Each student has an individual journal that they are asked to write in five times per week. Those journals are then shared with each other.

2.  The students’ teacher can then access all of their work from one page. This allows for comments from both the teacher and other students.

3.  Mahara journals enhance student engagement and collaboration, bringing their work to the forefront of the class.  Students have a place to play with language, syntax, genres, and various writing techniques without feeling pressured to be perfect since the assignments aren’t graded individually. Yet, students still strive to do their best since they know that their work is shared with their peers. This becomes an excellent formative assessment where teachers can constantly review the strengths and weaknesses of students and adjust the focus of lessons accordingly.

4.  In this example of a creative writing journal, students are asked to find a literary device in a work of literature they are reading each week and write about it, so students are regularly exploring the way that writers use metaphor, imagery, symbolism, and other techniques and applying in their own work.

5.  Mahara journals are an excellent summative tool, allowing teachers and students to see an arc of student development over the entirety of the course. At the end of the course, both teachers and students can see how students have grown as writers and have a digital portfolio to showcase their work.

​Enjoy this translitic poem by Kessiah:

​By:  Christina McGee, CA BOCES Learning Resources

With more and more schools going paperless, student work has become more accessible for teachers, parents, and administrators.  As a one-to-one iPad district, Cuba Rushford Central School has turned to digital portfolios, or e-portfolios, for their students to share and present their accomplishments. Carrie Bold, Principal at CRCS, tapped Linda Botens to guide all the 9th grade Transition classes through the personal portfolio creation process. 
 
An e-portfolio is an ideal tool to create collections of documents, images, blogs, resumes, videos, and hyperlinks to share with classmates, teachers, family, and friends, and to present to potential employers. Making e-portfolios a requirement for all high school students enables every student a chance to take their work with them and create a visual artifact to show progress and development in all facets of their high school experience. These portfolios have become an online space for students or teachers to reflect on their life, learning and goals, and have become "the new generation of the three ring binder" JISC My World Project Final Report, Roberts, 2006.
 
Upon completion of the first year developing e-portfolios using Mahara, an e-portfolio platform supported by CA BOCES Distance Learning, Linda Botens shared, “It was great seeing all students, regardless of their academic grades in some courses, to be successful in creating e-portfolios in Mahara. This was one place that all students could achieve success, as they got to see their works in a type of on-line program.  They were excited about posting photos onto the gallery, especially the students who used their own photo works from an art class.” 
 
Mrs. Botens added, “Many students were excited about the fact that parents, including grandparents, could see their works, if they chose to do the sharing.  Many of the students liked sharing their works with other students and teachers.  The ultimate success was placing the Romeo and Juliet videos on Mahara.  These could be shared with family members, friends etc., and it is something, that upon graduation, they can view again and bring back the memories.  Overall, this past year proved to be exciting, as we were the first class at CRCS to create digital portfolios, and the students took pride in this.” 
 
Mrs. Botens is eager to meet her new class of 9th graders and to begin the Mahara experience with them.  The past CRCS 9th grade students will continue to add to their e-portfolios in their 10th grade year, and will develop a valuable collection of school memories throughout their years at CRCS. 

By: Betsy Hardy, CA BOCES Learning Resources

Kelli Grabowski, 10th Grade Earth Science teacher, and Beth McIntyre, 10th Grade ELA, collaborate all year-round as part of a 10th grade team at Cattaraugus-Little Valley Central School.  Kelli states that their team is very cross-curricular, especially where it concerns literacy, research, and academic vocabulary skills.  Engaging in concept-teaching is a specialty of Kelli’s and Beth’s while facilitating both Earth Science and ELA.  This summer they collaborated further to work on their online, blended learning Moodle coursesfor one full day and to learn about using Mahara – an electronic portfolio system that integrates with Moodle.

Kelli and Beth work hard at understanding students and their needs to use modern learning management systems that deliver instruction.  They feel the students will be more engaged if learning in the style they are most accustomed to – online.  Moodle and Mahara fulfill this need for students. Kelli and Beth embed rich resources into the online portion of the class with video clips and discussion forums as well as creating a bank of questions for online quizzes. 

Not only will students be able to work at their own pace and access information 24-hours-a-day, they will also experience the reality of an online class that they will almost assuredly face again in college.   Links within Moodle to classroom blogs, wikis, and other online tools are also easily placed into the Moodle classroom by the teacher.  Linking to other technology-based resources in this way, students will polish other college and career-readiness skills.

By Maggie Jensen, CA BOCES Learning Resources