DIGITAL LEARNING CADRE
February 12, 2015
Meeting Minutes
9:00 – 12:00 PM
John W. Collette Education Resource Center
The Delaware Digital Learning Cadre envisions all teachers capably and appropriately utilizing digital learning so that Delaware
students graduating from high school demonstrate technology literacy.
NETWORKING
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Networking time is always provided half an hour prior to the start of the meeting.
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Welcome (Wayne Hartschuh)
Schoology – Contract is signed! It’s official; starting July 1, 2015 we will be moving from Blackboard to Schoology. DCET will be
converting all the mandatory trainings from Blackboard to Schoology. PO for implementation has been completed. Between
now and July 1 we will do the implementation of PDMS. It will be live, real time implementation instead of batch processing.
Real time training will now be possible. Set up class, register, go through the training, real time record the completed training.
In order to help us with the transition, we have hired Nicole Klues as an intern/contractor. Nicole was introduced by Wayne
and Nicole shared her background with college level online course implementation. She will present later this morning.
John McClenny was also introduced.
Between February – June: Setup/Migration will occur.
Digital Learning Day: Friday, March 13.
Delaware Digital Learning Conference: Online
Monday, March 16 – Thursday, March 19, 2015. Sessions will be scheduled at 3, 4, 5, and 6 pm each day.
The call for presentations has been advertised. We have received zero proposals so far. We need 16 presentations.
Presentation should last 45 minutes with additional 10 minutes for question and answers.
Strands (?): Common Core, Schoology, “Appy” Hour, Cool Tools, Potpourri
Common Core for the Common Library and Discipline Literacy presentation will be done by Theresa Bennett.
Wayne and Nicole will do a Schoology blended learning session.
Appy hour – Do you have apps that your LEA are using?
Cool Tools – Top ten tools
Scratch – Susan Cornett
Schoology – offer more than one topic. Enterprise version vs free version difference should also be discussed. Teaching
tool part of Schoology.
Plan to do middle/high school sessions at 3pm time. Sessions geared toward elementary educators should start no earlier
than 4 pm.
http://www.dcet.k12.de.us/DDLCOnline2015/
Link for call for presentations is available.
If you know of teachers who are really good, please encourage them to present as well.
DigiGirlz event will be held Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at Wilmington University, New Castle campus from 8:30-3. A save the
date email went out to DLC, TechMACC and ITUG. Please be sure to share this with 8 th and 9th grade teachers. The committee
is working on the four breakout sessions. Coding, Gaming, Cyber Security and Robotics are on the slate at this time. Limited to
150 students. Cap 10 girls from any one school to start. If additional space is available, we will allow additional students from
the school. Looking for someone younger to be a keynote speaker for the day. Registration will open on March 2, 2015.
WELCOME, ANNOUNCEMENTS and DISCUSSION
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SHARING
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Collaborative activities were done on the topics listed below. Facilitators presented to the entire group today. Presenters are
encouraged to post their information on the DLC: Professional Learning PDMS site.
FETC Workshop – BYOD (Sheri Firch) – Padlet.com/firchie/byod with the password DLCBYOD Recently, Sheri attended the
FETC and was eager to share what she learned at the BYOD session. Make BYOD programs work for you workshop was
presented by Susan Brooks-Young and Dan Morris. Permission was given to share with your colleagues. Agenda:
http://opportunitygroup.org/id122.html
BYOD Livebinder was the highlights: Planning, Important Reports, Professional Development, and Instructional Ideas.
UNI by MotionSavvy – The CEO is deaf. It takes sign language and makes it audible. There is an educational pricing around
$500. Sheri Firch encouraged the DLC to look at the site.
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Kahoots (Mairi Moore) – www.schoology.com/home.php Instructional Tech Schoology course with access code SZ2TJJTTTS Mari will send us information. Kahoots is an online quiz and survey tool. www.kahoot.it
You create a quiz, discussion or survey. The kids enjoy using it as a fun way to learn. They currently don’t have an app.
Students can set up accounts, selecting age under 16 so it won’t be shared out.
Reflector Software (Judith Conway) – Technology is often lost in the specials courses. Red Clay purchased some mini iPads
to help increase the teachers of specials classes. She demonstrated how Reflector software reflects her iPad on the
computer that is plugged into the presentation computer. The cost is $8-$10 per program, which allows the teacher to
move around the classroom with the iPad and project on the computer. She demonstrated the free version of 30 hands
app. It allows you to create a simple movie. Great in art, music, library, World Language recording students talking as well
as show their work. Using this software allows students to demonstrate common core skills they can reflect on their work.
Key is you have to be on the same network at the computer.
Digital Storytelling (Melissa Bleile) – http://padlet.com/tech12/DST
Melissa attended Kathy Schrock’s Digital Storytelling session at a recent FETC conference. The site has wonderful
resources listed in the link. Videolicious is a quick video as well as student examples. She shared the Videolicious app
and demonstrated it. The maximum video length is two minutes.
Schoology – Path Forward
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Brainstorming Blackboard to Schoology (Wayne Hartschuh) – Wayne shared information about Schoology. Information is also
being shared with the chiefs this week. Cost will be $3.33 per student; with LEA paying $1.50 and DDOE paying $1.83. All
faculty will have access. Beginning July 1, eLearning Delaware will be using Schoology. We will be doing a MOU with LEAs and
collect funds from LEAs and DDOE will pay Schoology. Select all students per school or grade only. This price is a huge savings,
so Michael League strongly suggests you encourage your LEA to buy in for the entire schools. Districts that currently use
Schoology at $10 per student will save a lot of money by buying into our offer! Next year, if enrollment count exceeds 100,000
students, the cost will go down again. Mairi Moore pointed out that by all of us buying the account verse using free accounts,
technical glitches can be eliminated. Wayne plans to do MOUs with LEAS in March.
- Blackboard is still in use through June 30, 2014. If you have PLC course in your district that will be going past June 30 you
must let Wayne Hartschuh know so DCET can help the transition happen over the summer. Ralph Landolfi said it is very easy
to import Blackboard to Schoology.
- Need feedback for professional development. Cost should not be a concern since LEA will only pay $1.50 per student. How
can we use the resources section of Schoology to share with other teachers? Each LEA will have a domain.
Transition / Migration (Nicole Klues) Nicole needs to get a sense of parent training, teacher training, etc. She will also set up
meeting with each LEA. Members shared their thoughts on what was important to remember with the transition.
- Limit vs. access to all. Tara Amsterdam said, don’t limit the training.
Ralph set up a group that DLC has access and builds something for your district.
Michael League – Create a bank of resources. Model the PD – Collaborate the resources available and also give examples
of how they can use the resources in their classes. We need to communicate to parents what curriculum their child is
using in Schoology.
Tara Amsterdam – Colonial – Build models with folders, grading groups, etc. As professional development, Colonial offers
Schoology nights with teachers once a month from 4-5:30 pm. They have also built in accountability folders with lessons
and feedback. They hope to build 11 models by the end of the school year. This is not just a content management
system. All new teachers have a digital portfolio for their resources they have learned. It is a mentoring program; online
or face-to-face options. Cycle one is parent teach conferences. They are making them use Schoology to learn the
information.
Elaine Elston MOT – Top five things what not to do would be helpful.
Michael League – Indian River – Administrator course/group to allow people to enter their path.
Wayne – accounts get created by eSchool. We pay on a yearly basis. Gradebooks will transfer back and forth before
Schoology and eSchool.
What does a teacher need to do to process the gradebook? Professional development would need to be provided to the
teachers.
Remember, DTI has leverage for Google vs onedrive using Schoology.
Document for how to login the Schoology through different platforms (i.e. Active Directory, IMS, Google, etc.)
Ralph Landolfi created a Schoology 101 course for NCCVT. https://www.schoology.com/course/228891572/materials with
code J3B5N-VR3QP
We need to be more specific with how to name your folders.
Training on how to update their original and it gets updated to wherever else you have it located.
We need to have an easy naming convention. (i.e. Folder with name of the essential question as the folder name.) Tara
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shared an example of a course in her district with great example of naming folders.
A bank of core courses would be nice to have so LEAs could download them as a template then personalize them for their
LEA.
Add statewide resources folder.
Add statewide group.
Not a good idea to share the resources with these user codes. It would be better to have today’s presenter to push up to
the DLC PLC PDMS course.
Before we go live, DLC group should make a group and let that be our way to share resources. Wayne will work on the
DLC group.
Colonial PD template code N4M6X-6GF59.
PDMS will be used to create professional development. Eschool does the same thing for students.
There is a need to grant access for student in Delaware to collaborate with students in other states on a course. (Global
Reading Project)
There are concerns with Cab Calloway students at Charter School of Wilmington. Wayne will look into this situation.
Nicole thanked everyone for their input today and reminded them that she will be following up with each LEA through
personal visits.
ONLINE CONFERENCE
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Fill out and submit Call for Presentations (Wayne Hartschuh)
http://www.dcet.k12.de.us/DDLCOnline2015/
Judith, Melissa, Susan, Lori, Jill, Mary, Ralph, MaryAn agreed to present. Talk to other people in your LEA and encourage them
to sign up as presenters. Wayne asked that you email him with topic and title today.
NEXT MEETING
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The next Digital Learning Cadre meeting will be held Thursday, March 12, 2015. (Be sure to register in PDMS prior to the
meeting for Course# 1588 / Section# 38549.)
Respectfully submitted,
Pam Reed, DCET Administrative Secretary
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