Preparations for Math Practice Test during PLC Meeting on Monday

After implementing the SBAC Practice test for ELA we learned some valuable lessons and will therefore make slight adjustments to the SBAC Practice test Math activity on 2/26/14. We found the solution to the "Kiosk Application cannot be installed" error message and need to address the high number of students who didn't submit the Google form.

In PLC on Monday, please review the lesson plan and Directions for Administration and please note the following revisions/additions from the ELA lesson:

• Added instructions at the beginning of the Directions for Administration to include Wifi authentication (this will eliminate the Kiosk application error) and teacher verification for the submission of the student Google Form
• Added teacher verification forms
• Hard copy to be filled out at the end of each period, signed and submitted to the SBAC Site Coordinator
• Google Form Electronic copy to be filled out by the teacher at the end of the testing day
• Demo the Ontario video on adding lines and points

Please email or call me Friday or over the weekend if you have any questions. Please leave a comment on this blog with a clarifying question (don't be a pumpkin eater and ask something goofy just to say you asked a question), or a value added comment. 

SBAC 2-7-14 Things to Do on Monday

Good afternoon SBAC Site Coordinators,

Here are a few last reminders on things to do to prepare for the SBAC Practice test activity on Tuesday, February 11th:

• Visit your ELA PLC Monday morning to review the Directions for Administration Presentation on the Lesson Plan and specifically the last few slides on troubleshooting and highlight the SBAC Practice Test FAQ's document. Also address the following:
• Where should kids report if they don't have their Chromebook? 
• Where will your Techs be located? Who do the teachers call if they get any of the common error messages? 
• Review the student survey with the teachers. Remind them that if the student wasn't able to take the test on their own chromebook, they need to mark no on the form and the reason why. Take this survey yourself before Monday, demo it in PLC. 
• Please post a brief comment on this blog regarding any specific questions you have, a bright idea that may benefit one of your colleagues, or your general plan of attack on Monday. 

• Review your master schedule and distribute the extra headphones to teachers. You may want to ask them to keep the little wire ties and have the kids tie them up when they are done. They get really tangled and messy without these. Remember that there are only a few per teacher

• Send a phone dialer on Sunday and/or Monday reminding students to bring their Chromebooks and headphones. (Make the message known that we are not requiring students go out and buy headphones and we will provide them if necessary but we want to give them the option of using their own). 

• The site techs will checkout a few loaner Chromebooks to the teachers (these will be scanned in and out) and they will collect them on February 12th. 

• The site techs will be available to walk classrooms with you and you will need to communicate to staff that they will be unavailable for other day to day duties. 

• Testing Coordinator Manual was posted on February 7th. Review at your leisure, no need to memorize at this point. 

Good evening, 

The email message below went out to all students in grades 5-11. This will hopefully help us with getting students the most updated Chrome version so they can access the SBAC app. 

Updated instructions for students to access the SBAC Practice Test have been added to the SBAC Practice Test Lesson Plan. There are some troubleshooting slides that I added and there are two screens on the practice test that SBAC changed slightly. Please post a clarifying question or comment at the bottom of this blog (making sure you are paying attention). 

The site techs are doing a great job of working with students to put their devices back on the PUHSD Management system. Please continue to monitor and coordinate the effort to get students into the library so that they can have the techs review their devices. 

Joe and his team are working to get loaner Chromebooks to the ELA teachers on February 11th and we need you to add the classrooms to this Google Spreadsheet for all ELA teachers at your site. He is also working with the some of our Network/Wifi contractors to have them out to observe our network being pushed to the limit, thanks Joe!

Thank you for all of your hard work, happy testing!

Student Email Message: 

Hello students, 

In the next week you will be working on a few activities in class that will require the latest Chrome web browser updates. Some of your teachers will walk you through this in class but we would like you to update your Chrome browser ahead of time if possible. To complete the update, please do the following: 

1. Click on the Chrome Browser button (muliti color circle on the bottom left hand side of the screen)

2. Type chrome://chrome in the browser window and then push enter

3. Chrome will begin the update process. Please check back in a few minutes and then click on the button that says restart. 

Thank you for your attention to this, have a great week!

Sincerely, 

Perris Union High School District Technology Department