December 11, 2014 Happy Holidays and thank you for your continued partnership with Home Base! In this, the last Biweekly Update of 2014, you will find news and reviews to inform your Home Base experience plus exciting information about the coming year’s 2015 Symposium! NEW THIS WEEK • 2015 Symposium and Call for Presenters • The 10­Point Scale and Its Integration in Classes • High Quality Online PD Modules: Available Now! • Schoolnet Update • New for December! Schoolnet Webinars • Next Home Base Maintenance Weekend is Dec 12­15 • PowerSchool Scheduler Training and Preparation • Additional December Schoolnet and OpenClass Webinar Series IN CASE YOU MISSED IT • Twitter ALERTS for Home Base System­­SIGN UP NOW! • A New Pilot Assessment Program for K­3 children: Purposeful Play • Coming in March! 5th Annual Collaborative Conference for Student Achievement (CCSA) NEW THIS WEEK 2015 Symposium, Feb 23 ­ 25 and Call for Presenters The NCDPI’s annual Symposium, Feb 23 – 25, will be held at the Sheraton/Koury Convention Center in Greensboro, NC. We at the NCDPI are in need of LEA experts to serve as session presenters. ➢ LEA Coordinators ➢ Data Managers ➢ Nurses ➢ School Counselors ➢ And Various Staff Members For those interested in presenting, please use the Google Doc located at http://bit.ly/1z2EAD8 to submit your proposal by Friday, Dec 12, 2014. If you have any questions or concerns, please email us at ncsis@dpi.nc.gov. Please use this opportunity to share your valuable knowledge with your colleagues across the state. We look forward to seeing you at the Symposium! The 10­Point Scale and Its Integration in Blended Classes Earlier this year, the State Board of Education approved the move to a new 10­point grading scale for high school students, beginning with students entering ninth grade for the first time in the fall of 2015. With the phase­in of the new scale, that means high school teachers are likely to have students on the new scale and students on the old scale in the same class. It’s important to know that PowerSchool can handle more than one type of grading scale within a course. This functionality is not customized for North Carolina, but exists in the software already. As an example, if 9th graders enrolled in a math course are blended with 10th graders who are on the prior grading scale, PowerSchool can track both sets of students’ grade scales. This is based on how teachers set up students in PowerSchool. More “how­tos” on this topic are being produced and will be shared well in advance of the 2015­16 school year. High Quality Online PD Modules: Available Now! Please take advantage of our self­paced, facilitated modules and mini­modules available to teachers and principals at no charge! You may click here to access a printable version of current modules: http://bit.ly/1BDKgam All modules may be accessed through the Educator Effectiveness PD System through Home Base. In addition, you may get ideas for staff and PLCs using the implementation guide, found here: www.rt3nc.org. Over 50 professional development opportunities are listed here for your educators. Please contact Dr. Geetanjali Soni, Geetanjali.soni@dpi.nc.gov or any member of the Educator Effectiveness Division with any questions. Schoolnet Update on Latest Improvements In preparation for upcoming benchmarks, the NCDPI and Pearson teams have applied a number of improvements to Schoolnet Version 16.0 to enhance and optimize the software. Additionally, there are three “major” improvements that have been made to distribute and balance the load on Schoolnet. They are as follows: ➢
Assessments ­ Created a dedicated database instance to serve the assessment administration activities ➢ Assessment Reporting – Created a read­only database instance to serve selected reporting activities ➢ Static Content ­ Added a Content Delivery Network (CDN), which will place static content closer to the requester without placing additional burden on the application servers This helps to ensure that, on heavy user days (such as benchmark assessments), the system has been improved to handle higher volumes of users. To stay informed about improvements, maintenance schedules and more, please follow our Home Base Alerts on Twitter. PowerSchool Scheduler Training and Preparation
The NCDPI’s PowerSchool Team is inviting each LEA to coordinate a team to assist each school with producing the 2015­2016 schedule. Assistance with the Scheduling Component of PowerSchool will begin in late January and early February through scheduled webinars. Condensed Build and Load Workshops will then be offered throughout the state in face­to­face workshops in March and April. The training will culminate in June with support workshops held at the NCDPI in Raleigh. District coordinators, with the support of the PowerSchool team, will lead the preparation, building and loading process for the schools in their respective districts. More information about the first training event can be found in the January Biweekly Report. Additional December Schoolnet and OpenClass Webinar Series The Schoolnet and OpenClass webinar series continues throughout the school year, including the month of December. The last session will be held Thursday at 3:30 p.m. on each of the components within Schoolnet (Classrooms, Assessment Admin, and School and District Data) and on OpenClass. Information about the webinars is posted on the NCDPI calendar ( http://bit.ly/1AOp4hv) or included in these archived Biweekly newsletters or at http://bit.ly/1vJGuuh The last December webinar is listed below: ➢ Schoolnet ­ School and District Data Component ­ KPIs and Pre­Formatted Reports Thursday, Dec 18 3:30­4:30 p.m. This webinar will focus on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), accessing/running, saving and publishing pre­formatted reports, and best practices or scenarios discussed by local testing directors. Register here or copy and paste this url: http://bit.ly/1FnElFK into your browser. Next Home Base Maintenance Weekend is Dec 12­15 The next Home Base maintenance weekend is scheduled for Friday, Dec 12, through Monday, Dec 15. The system will shut down Friday at 5 p.m. Once maintenance is completed, a message will be sent to notify users that the system is up and available for use. Home Base will be returned to service no later than 6 a.m., Monday morning. If a delay in bringing up the system should occur, users will be notified via NC SIS email and the new Home Base Alert on Twitter: http://bit.ly/1zVb561 You can view the entire upcoming schedule of maintenance weekends here or at http://bit.ly/1HEB335 Upcoming PowerTeacher and PowerSchool Webinars and Workshops Scheduled ➢ Mid­year Graduates in PowerSchool Webinar ­ This webinar will discuss the process for handling records of students graduating mid­year. ● Tuesday, Dec 16, at 9 a.m. Register Here! http://bit.ly/15oqP7X ● Tuesday, Jan 13, at 9 a.m. Register Here! http://bit.ly/1xXKMyj ➢ PowerSchool New User Workshop (School Level Staff) ­ This four­day workshop, Tuesday­Friday, Jan. 6­9, from 9 a.m.­4 p.m., will train new users on the day­to­day processes of using PowerSchool. Register Here! http://bit.ly/1vjOpMW ➢ Office of Civil Rights Data Collection (OCR/CRDC) ­ This hour and a half webinar is intended for OCR Coordinators, NC SIS Coordinators and any staff who are involved in the Office of Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC). ● Tuesday, Jan 6, 2015 at 1 p.m. ● Tuesday, Jan 20, 2015 at 1 p.m. Register here! http://bit.ly/1pnrbVg ➢ PowerSchool New User Workshop (School Level Staff) ­ This is a 4­day workshop to train new users on the day­to­day processes of using PowerSchool. ● Tuesday, Jan 6 – 9, 2015, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Register here! http://bit.ly/1vjOpMW ➢ PowerSchool New Coordinator Training Workshop ­ This workshop is geared to new PowerSchool coordinators who have not attended the 5 day IPT certification training or the 8 day District certification training. ● Thursday and Friday, Dec 11 – 12, 2014, 9 a.m. ­ 4 p.m. ● Monday and Tuesday, Jan 12 – 13, 2015, 9 a.m. ­ 4 p.m. ● Thursday and Friday, Jan 15­16, 2015, 9 a.m. ­ 4 p.m. Register here! http://bit.ly/1rcc1U2 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT Twitter ALERTS for Home Base Systems Users Our Twitter followers are growing. Help spread the word that Home Base Alerts are available through Twitter now! The more users who join the Home Base Alert, the fewer emails we’ll need to send out. Please join here. http://bit.ly/1zVb561 Learn about Tweets, Retweets, Hashtags and more information that will help you become a tweeting expert by clicking here. http://bit.ly/1vc2URm A New Pilot Assessment Program for K­3 Children: Purposeful Play North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction’s Office of Early Learning is currently designing and piloting a developmentally appropriate, individualized assessment process for K­3 children. This process will be used by all school districts and is intended to be formative in nature. The K­3 Formative Assessment Process is envisioned to inform daily instructional practices, such as purposeful play and other developmentally appropriate activities for young children. Click here go to http://bit.ly/15oCofx 5th Annual Collaborative Conference for Student Achievement The NC Department of Public Instruction will sponsor the fifth annual Collaborative Conference for Student Achievement (CCSA) on March 30­April 1, 2015 in Greensboro. Registration and Proposal Submission Sites Now Open! “Champions Engaging North Carolina in 21st Century Teaching and Learning” What: A Collaborative Conference for Student Achievement Date: March 30 ­ April 1, 2015 Where: Sheraton Four Seasons/Koury Convention Center, Greensboro, NC Please note! More information may be found on the conference website by clicking here. http://bit.ly/15oB2kN Please watch our website for exciting updates on speakers and sessions! ​
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