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SCOCA Webinars: Quality Matters Preview

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/819479614

Preview of Quality Matters Training for the summer of 2013 with SCOCA – if you have registered for one of the QM online classes for this summer and have questions, this webinar will get you up to speed! Please note that this webinar is intended to be helpful, but is not required.  We will record the webinar so that you can see it later if you are unable to attend in real time.

Title: SCOCA Webinars
Date: Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Time: 2:00 PM – 2:45 PM EDT
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.
System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Mac®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.6 or newer
Mobile attendees
Required: iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phone or Android tablet

Quality Matters Training at SCOCA

SCOCA is pleased to begin offering Quality Matters training for our teachers and other school personnel at no charge thanks to an eTech grant. 6 sessions are planned between June and August (details below) – registration details coming soon!

Grades 6-12 Applying the Quality Matters Rubric Online Course (K-12 APPQMR)

Description: This course is the most comprehensive approach to the G6-12 Rubric offered by QM.  This rigorous workshop covers all elements of the Grades 6-12 Rubric and its use in evaluating online and blended courses.  This course discusses the underlying rationale for each standard and provides some hands on experience.

Audience: This workshop is appropriate for teachers, instructional designers, administrators and regulators who wish to understand more about research supported best practices, mandates required by state and local governments, quality course design and the selection of high quality online classes and materials. We are recommending that teachers from the same school/district sign up for the same course if possible.

Length of time: The K-12 Applying the Quality Matters Grades 6-12 Rubric (K-12 APPQMR) workshop requires approximately 15 hours of work within three weeks. Participants may be awarded one (1) Continuing Education Unit on successful completion of the assignments and quizzes in the workshop.

Cost: Free!  This workshop is free to all teachers, tech coordinators and administrators in the SCOCA region. However, space in the courses is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis, so register soon!

The Sessions: SCOCA will be offering 6 different sessions of the course this summer to accommodate teacher schedules (we know you have vacations planned!), so choose the timeframe that best suits your schedule. Click the link to go to our training registration site:

Credit: You can earn a certificate for CEU’s and we are also offering Graduate Credit from Shawnee State University.  You can earn 1 graduate credit hour from Shawnee at a cost of $130 (payable to SSU).

Registration: Register by following the links above. Registration will be open untill each course is filled or untill 2 weeks prior to the beginning of the class. Once you have registered, you will receive log in information 1 week prior to the beginning of the class. We will announce a webinar in May that will help you get the most out of the training and we will follow up in September. If you need more information, contact Peggy Whyte (pwhyte@scoca.org).

Email issues – the guys are on it!

Careful if you go up to the NOC....

Whew – thankful for a snow day for most of our schools today!  That will maybe give our guys some time to get the issues worked out with email.  They are working with Microsoft to get the Exchange server working again with OWA. (Excuse my French – it’s all a bit over my head!) At this point, some of the guys are starting to resemble the zombies from The Walking Dead!

Advanced Placement Summer Institute at Shawnee State University July 15-18

See the attached flyer for more information about the Advanced Placement Summer Institute at Shawnee State University July 15-18!  Great opportunity for schools that want to get their teachers certified for AP courses.

SSU APSI 2013

Ancestry.Com from INFOhio – fun stuff!

If you haven’t tried it out, you really must try out the new Ancestry.Com database from INFOhio!  You’ll be totally amazed at what you can find.  What a great resource for our students! To get to it at school, choose the resources for middle or high school and you will see button for it.

This resource is a bit different than most of the databases offered by INFOhio – you can ONLY access it from school or from a public library. The INFOhio username and password do not work from home, sorry to say.  I would spend hours in there if I could do it on my free time!

Have a look and then maybe you can have your students research their own ancestry.  Here is a lesson plan link that may help – be sure to check out the forms to use with students!

“Grow Your Family Tree.”

ProQuest Ancestry Library Edition is brought to you by Libraries Connect Ohio, INFOhio working with Ohio’s other library networks, OhioLINK and OPLIN. Access to this resource is funded in part through an Institute of Museum and Library Services LSTA grant awarded by the State Library of Ohio. The content does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the granting agencies.

Blackboard Training Webinars Special Event

This week our Blackboard Training Webinar is a special event featuring Chris Pope and David Small from Blackboard Mobile.  They will show us ways to use Bb Mobile in the classroom – great tool for schools leaning toward BYOD!

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/440516590
This week’s webinar is a special event with Blackboard.  Chris Pope and David Small from Bb Mobile will be joining us to answer our questions from our group about using Blackboard Mobile Learn in the classroom.

SCOCA Bb Training Webinars

We are not having a Bb Training Webinar this week or next, so you might want to review the previous webinars.

You do not need to be logged in to view the webinar recordings.

WVIZ’s and MAGNET’s Career’s in Manufacturing Awareness Program

Manufacturing offers a wide variety of exciting and challenging career opportunities. Plan for your students, on October 11th, to meet three young professionals who have studied Science, Technology, Engineering and Math and have great manufacturing jobs in Ohio.

Your students will gain information about these careers and what advanced manufacturing looks like today. They will see the importance of the course work they are taking now and the career choices they can make for their futures.

MAGNET and the Ohio Department of Development will cover the $75 fee for the first 40 schools registered to participate in the program. Schools interested in participating need to let me know by October 8th.

Two fifty minutes sessions will be held. Session 1 at 9:00 a.m. and session 2 at 10:00 a.m. October_11_Flyer.pdf Manufacturing

Free Tickets for Educators to the Storytelling Festival in Chillicothe, Ohio Sept 6-8

Have you heard a good story, lately?  Well, have we got some stories for you!

On the weekend after Labor Day, several nationally known storytellers will be joining regional and local storytellers here in Chillicothe, Ohio for the 9th annual Southern Ohio Storytelling Festival.  The festival starts on  Thursday evening with a special “meet the tellers” concert.

Four of our six tellers this year are back by popular demand.  Bil Lepp is a nationally renowned liar (winner of many liars contests with his hilarious contemporary tall tales) from West Virginia who is one of the country’s most popular tellers.  Carmen Deedy also returns to our festival with her humorous and poignant stories of growing up Cuban in Decatur, Georgia.  Donald Davis is the patriarch of America’s storytelling revival.  His warm and wonderful tales have endeared him to audiences everywhere he performs.   Geraldine Buckley appeared here two years ago before storming onto the national stage.  Her British charm and keen wit captivated our audiences before they captivated the country.  With tellers like Geraldine, our festival has earned a reputation as a “launching pad” for national talent, featuring excellent tellers before their excellence has become nationally recognized.  We anticipate that to continue this year as we get to hear the amazing stories of Sheila Arnold and Octavia Sexton.

Don’t miss this opportunity for your students to learn, laugh and be educated through the power of cultural and personal stories.  Fourth through Eighth grade classes are welcome to join us in Yoctangee Park during the day on Friday.  Our tellers will also be performing at several area schools when they’re not on stage in the park on Friday.  And we anticipate that SCOCA will again be broadcasting our tellers as a part of their distance learning offerings that Friday.  And, of course, we hope your students will bring their families and join us for stories Friday evening and  on Saturday.  They will, we’re sure, be especially interested in the ghost stories at the Majestic Theatre Friday night.

Thanks to a grant we received this year we are able to again offer 2 FREE weekend passes to the festival to educators. To take advantage of this offer, please fill-out the online coupon at http://www.sostoryfest.com/coupon . Enter the word “educator” in the “Coupon Code” field.  Since we can hold your tickets for you at the gate if necessary, this offer is valid through the end of the school day on Thursday, September 6.

We hope you will make use of this coupon yourself so that you can not only enjoy a wonderful weekend of entertainment, but can learn first hand how storytelling might be incorporated into your classes as well.  On the festival website, there are “curriculum connections” for how storytelling can be used and how it addresses the Ohio Academic Content Standards Benchmarks.  If you can’t attend yourself, feel free to let someone else in your family attend in your place.

Concert performances featuring all of the tellers will be held on Friday and Saturday evenings “under the stars” in a tent at the Pump House Center for the Arts. Performances by individual tellers will be held throughout the day on Friday at local schools and at the Pump House  followed  by ghost stories in the Majestic Theatre.  Saturday the fun continues all day at the tent at the Pump House. Many people attend the Thursday or Friday  evening performances for an excellent overview of each teller so they can decide which tellers they would like to see during the day on Saturday. The Saturday evening concert features a wonderful encore performance by each of the tellers. The complete schedule for the weekend is available at http://www.sostoryfest.com/ in addition to other useful information about the festival.

If you need overnight accommodations, please check out http://www.visithistory.com/ <http://www.visithistory.com/>  or call our visitors bureau at 740-702-7677.  It’s a great festival at a reasonable price, so please encourage others to join you.

During the day on Friday, thousands of local students will (and even classrooms around the state will be connecting through the distance learning network) hear the storytellers.  If you would like to make arrangements for your class to attend the festival, please contact: Peggy Riggin at peggy.riggin@horizontel.com or call 740-772-8344.

Thank you for all you do for students and we hope to see you there!

SCOCA Blackboard Webinars

SCOCA Blackboard Webinars
Join us for a Webinar on August 29

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/181057174
We’ll have a quick look at these topics:
Assessments inside Blackboard – tests and quizzes that “grade themselves!”
OGT Practice Tests
Title:    SCOCA Blackboard Webinars
Date:    Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Time:    3:00 PM – 3:30 PM EDT
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.
System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer
Mobile attendees
Required: iPhone®/iPad®/Android™ smartphone or tablet