With the summer break approaching rapidly, let's take a look at a few tips from My Big Campus staff, as well as trainers, teachers and administrators at schools all over My Big Campus.
Take advantage of free training resources
Create your own adventure with self-guided training modules that help you find and share resources with ease, ditch the thumb drive, spend less time at the copier, and more.
Join veteran teachers-turned-MBC Senior Coaches who offer free one-hour My Big Campus Overview webinars and half-hour training webinars on a variety of subjects, on days and times that should work for nearly everyone.
Find inspiration, lesson plans, professional development in the Bundle Exchange
As a staff user, when you click on Bundles you see the Bundle Exchange where you can search for inspiration, lesson plans, PD, and more by keyword, rating, popularity, state or common core standard, and more. Brooke Wheeler from Benjamin Bosse High School came up with a great idea for a Bundle: My teacher is absent! What should I do?. It's a fun and engaging lesson for her art classes that she can share with a substitute teacher for days when she can't be in class. And it's an easy idea to adapt for your own subject areas -- create your own, or find and adapt bundles by state standard, type (lesson plan / unit / project-based learning, etc.), or keyword.
Check out our Professional Learning Communities
The educator-only newsfeed EduTalk has come into its own as a source of ideas, questions and answers, and shoutouts from users in every corner of the US and abroad. Many teachers have already linked My Big Campus with their Twitter accounts, and tweets propagate automatically to EduTalk. You'll see "hoots" from experts like MBC Senior Coach Matt Kitchens, PBL practicioner Jason Seaver, and virtual education specialist Michele Eaton, among many others.
For PD resources, discussions, and subject-area collaboration, visit our Topics -- they work like Groups, but they're open to educators anywhere in My Big Campus. If you're new to MBC, join the MBC Orientation Center. You'll also find special interest areas for Flipped Classroom, iPad/iPod, and Project Based Learning.
Finally, there's the MBC Trainers group. We created this group originally to host the first MBC Summer Academy, back in 2011, and it's become the go-to place for best practices, collaboration, technical discussions and expert help from certified MBC Coaches, MBC staff, and other MBC power users. You don't need to be an MBC expert to participate -- request to join, and group owner Merleen Johnson will even send you some goodies!
Got tips or feedback of your own?
Let me know in the Comments if you have a question, or would like to share a tip of your own. I always welcome your feedback related to the subject of this blog post.
Now that the fall term is underway for just about everyone, let's take a look at a few "back to school" tips from My Big Campus staff, as well as trainers, teachers and administrators at schools all over My Big Campus.
Take advantage of free training resources
Create your own adventure with self-guided training modules that help you find and share resources with ease, ditch the thumb drive, spend less time at the copier, and more.
Join veteran teachers-turned-MBC Senior Coaches who offer free one-hour My Big Campus Overview webinars and half-hour training webinars on a variety of subjects, on days and times that should work for nearly everyone.
Introduce your students to digital citizenship and the MBC Pledge
Common core technology standards now require students to learn and master digital citizenship. My Big Campus helps with that by providing a safe, controlled environment where students can learn by experience and example how to conduct themselves online. Robbie Grimes and Merleen Johnson shared tips on choosing appropriate avatars (think of it as an extension of the school's dress code), Jennifer O'Hagan, MBC Senior Coach Chrissie Allen, and Ted Baechtold demonstrated how they handle students who misuse the Report Abuse flag.
Notify parents
While parents usually want their students to take advantage of the school's technology instruction and resources, they may have some concerns about the social aspects of My Big Campus. You can use this sample letter and sample flyer to address those concerns and explain the benefits of safe, monitored social learning.
Parents also like to stay up to date on student activities in My Big Campus. We're working on a Parent Portal, which is scheduled for release later this fall, but in the meantime, check out the tips from teacher Ashleigh Sandifer and others in this MBC Trainers discussion.
Find inspiration, lesson plans, professional development in the Bundle Exchange
As a staff user, when you click on Bundles you see the Bundle Exchange where you can search for inspiration, lesson plans, PD, and more by keyword, rating, popularity, state or common core standard, and more. Brooke Wheeler from Benjamin Bosse High School came up with a great idea for a Bundle: My teacher is absent! What should I do?. It's a fun and engaging lesson for her art classes that she can share with a substitute teacher for days when she can't be in class. And it's an easy idea to adapt for your own subject areas -- create your own, or find and adapt bundles by state standard, type (lesson plan / unit / project-based learning, etc.), or keyword.
Check out our Professional Learning Communities
First introduced last year, the educator-only newsfeed EduTalk is coming into its own as a source of ideas, questions and answers, and shoutouts from users in every corner of the US and abroad. Many teachers have already linked My Big Campus with their Twitter accounts, and tweets propagate automatically to EduTalk. You'll see "hoots" from experts like MBC Senior Coach Matt Kitchens, PBL practicioner Jason Seaver, and virtual education specialist Michele Eaton, among many others.
For PD resources, discussions, and subject-area collaboration, visit our Topics -- they work like Groups, but they're open to educators anywhere in My Big Campus. If you're new to MBC, join the MBC Orientation Center. You'll also find special interest areas for Flipped Classroom, iPad/iPod, Khan Academy, and Project Based Learning.
Finally, there's the MBC Trainers group. We created this group originally to host the first MBC Summer Academy, back in 2011, and it's become the go-to place for best practices, collaboration, technical discussions and expert help from certified MBC Coaches, MBC staff, and other MBC power users. You don't need to be an MBC expert to participate -- request to join, and group owner Merleen Johnson will even send you some goodies!
Got tips or feedback of your own?
Let me know in the Comments if you have a question, or would like to share a tip of your own. I always welcome your feedback related to the subject of this blog post.
I have a couple of new features to tell you about today, one in Groups, and the other in Bundles. I also have news about another update we'll be rolling out shortly, and some information on some ongoing maintenance tasks as we ramp up the performance and security on the My Big Campus website.
Upcoming maintenance this Thursday evening
Earlier this year, we added our millionth user to My Big Campus, and we expect to grow even more quickly in the coming months. To accommodate our growing population, we are working behind the scenes to upgrade servers, data centers, and bandwidth to handle the increased demand for My Big Campus. We're doing this while most schools are on summer break, to minimize the impact on teachers and students.
Like any major construction project, there may be some temporary slowdowns while we reroute traffic. Our next planned maintenance will take place Thursday evening, so we can relocate some servers. I thank you for your patience while we get My Big Campus ready for the next million users and beyond.
Add Group Resources to your Bundles
Now, let's talk about Bundles. Along with Library content, personal files, schoolwork, and other types of content, you'll see a new option on the Content page when you're editing a Bundle. If you're importing courses from Moodle or Angel, this will make it easier to convert those courses into Bundles.
You'll find the option in the Select type of content dropdown list. Select Your Group's Resources, then type a few letters in the search box to find matching items.
Note that you can only add resources from groups where you are the Group Owner.
Auto-approve Group Membership requests
The next new feature was requested by MBC Coaches and other trainers, who needed a way to add group members from outside their district, without having to approve each new member manually. This is especially useful for conferences and professional development sessions.
Group owners can now create an Auto-Approve Code that they can send to trainees, inviting them to join the group. Create a shortened URL for the group at http://www.mbcurl.me, then add the URL and the access code to the group home page. Project or print the page showing the group information so attendees can view it easily:
Users who visit the group page will see an option to Join with Code. When they click that link, they can copy and paste the code from the message into a form. As soon as they click Join, they'll be added to the group.
Both these updates are live now.
Coming soon: Technology standards for Bundles
The other exciting announcement is that in response to requests, you'll soon be able to link Common Core and State Technology standards to your Bundles. My developers are finalizing and testing the code now to make this happen. When this goes live, you'll see an announcement in the MBC Release Notes topic.
What's next for My Big Campus?
We've got a busy summer ahead, and I'll do my best to keep you updated on new features as they move from development into testing. If you've got requests for new features, this is a great time to share those with us. Feel free to post a comment with your ideas and wish lists, and keep watching my Blog for news and updates.
Part of my vision for My Big Campus was to make it possible for professional educators to connect with their peers beyond school and district boundaries. This is especially important for teachers whose schools have limited access to technology and resources. I searched My Big Campus while researching this blog, and was pleased to see the creative ways educators are using MBC to reach out to their fellow professionals:
- Groups: There are groups within just about every school and district for professional development of some type: book studies, conference tie-ins, inservice events, local and district issues, technical resources, and much more. You'll find groups at your school and district here, with search tools to find publicly accessible groups anywhere on My Big Campus.
- Topics: For just about every professional issue, there's a Topic on My Big Campus, where you can share ideas in a discussion or chat, upload or download resources, set up events, and browse the member list for like-minded educators. Check out the list of available topics here, or create your own (and remember to promote it on EduTalk!).
- Library: The Reference Tools category is the go-to place in the MBC Library for professional development videos, web sites, and documents, all contributed by My Big Campus educators for you to enjoy.
- Bundles: You'll find a growing collection of Professional Development Bundles in the Bundle Exchange. Training tools, lesson planning tips, and so much more. Borrow and adapt what's there, or publish your own Bundles for others to use.
- EduTalk: We fine-tuned this Educator-only feed to improve the relevance and focus of posts, and made it possible to share Bundles directly with your EduTalk feed.
There's more to come, however. Tonight's update to My Big Campus adds collaborative editing for Bundles. You'll be able to share editing tasks with individual users, or with an entire group. Students can collaborate on Bundles too -- you'll be able to choose collaborators in any of your groups, as well as people who are following you. Here's a peek at what you'll see when you're editing a Bundle:
Click Collaborators, then search for users and groups. Click [+] to add them as editors for your Bundle. They'll be able to see and edit the Bundle from the Your Bundles page.
The other addition to Bundles is Bundle Type. Staff users will be able to assign a bundle to a category such as Lesson plans, Lessons, Units-Modules, Digital Books, Project Based Learning, and Professional Development. This will make it easier for other educators to browse the Bundle Exchange to find exactly what they're looking for.
We have more updates on the schedule or in testing. Check the What's Next for My Big Campus? page in the MBC Orientation Center to see what we're working on over the next few weeks.
Have a great weekend, everyone, and let me know in the comments if you have questions or suggestions for new My Big Campus features.
We often hear from teachers who "float" from school to school to teach electives or Special Ed. We also hear from staff who chair committees or organize district-wide professional development activities such as reading groups. While the District-Wide User setting allows some inter-school collaboration, there are other ways to provide the flexibility educators sometimes need.
My Big Campus allows teachers to create groups in any school within their district and put anyone in the district (staff or student in any school) into the group. You don't need to be a district-wide user to do this, just a non-student My Big Campus user.
When you add a new group, just below the Group Title, you'll see a dropdown list for School. Select a school from the list for the group's "home." If you don't make a selection here, the group will be added to the school you selected when you log into My Big Campus.
Note that the only time you can make this selection is when you create a group – once a group has been created, you can't change the school. However, you can add anyone in your district to existing groups that you own.
To add members, just start typing in the Members box. My Big Campus will show you matching names as soon as you've typed a few characters. Or, import a list of group members from your Student Information System (SIS).
I'm eager to hear how you are using this feature and, as always, I welcome suggestions on how to make My Big Campus even better. Let me know in the Comments, and I'll forward your feedback to the rest of the My Big Campus team.
Hi, everyone. I hope all of you had a nice Thanksgiving and were able to spend some quality time with family and friends. The My Big Campus staff would like to kick off the gift-giving season with a new feature that should make it easier for educators and other professional staff to connect and collaborate with other staff and students anywhere within their school districts.
We've been hearing lately from teachers who "float" from school to school to teach electives or Special Ed. We also heard from staff who chair committees or organize district-wide professional development activities such as reading groups. While the District-Wide User setting allows some inter-school collaboration, it doesn't really provide the group flexibility educators sometimes need.
The update we're releasing this week allows teachers to create groups in any school within their district and put anyone in the district (staff or student in any school) into the group. You don't need to be a district-wide user to do this, just a non-student My Big Campus user.
You'll see this option when you add a new group, just below the Group Title. Select a school from the list for the group's "home." If you don't make a selection here, the group will be added to the school you selected when you log into My Big Campus.
Note that the only time you can make this selection is when you create a group – once a group has been created, you can't change the school. However, you can add anyone in your district to existing groups that you own.
To add members, just start typing in the Members box. My Big Campus will show you matching names as soon as you've typed a few characters. Or, import a list of group members from your Student Information System (SIS).
I'm eager to hear how you'll be using this new feature and, as always, I welcome suggestions on how to make My Big Campus even better. Let me know in the Comments, and I'll forward your feedback to the rest of the My Big Campus team.