Governor’s Teacher Network Provides 10,000 New Resources for Educators

North Carolina public school teachers have a bigger toolkit this year, thanks to the approximately 10,000 new instructional modules and other materials created by North Carolina teachers in the Governor’s Teacher Network (GTN), a project of the federal Race to the Top grant that ended in 2015.

Approximately 450 teachers in the Governor’s Teacher Network  worked over the past year to develop lesson plans, student assessments and other instructional modules aligned to the state’s Standard Course of Study. These digital teaching and learning resources are provided through Home Base, the technology suite of tools available to all local school districts and charter schools at minimal cost. Each digital resource created by GTN teachers is tagged for ease of access and use by classroom teachers.

Schoolnet Assessment Use Reaches New High at Mid-Year

As many as a half million student assessments were given statewide in Schoolnet during a 10-day period from Jan. 10-24, analyses show.

Many of these tests were classroom teacher-developed assessments for student grades (not standardized or state-required). These numbers reflect students from more than 200 districts and charter schools all across North Carolina.

What’s noteworthy about this is that the volume was high during this timeframe without negative consequences or outages. Schoolnet staff members say that last summer’s professional development has made a difference in teachers’ comfort level in using the tools that Schoolnet provides.

Schoolnet by the Numbers, Jan. 10-24:

• Logins: 1,275,142
• Online Tests Submitted: 382,284
• Scanned Tests Submitted: 140,197
• Express Test Creation: 16,068
• Manual Test Creation:  8,525

Top Testing Districts:  Charlotte-Mecklenburg (40,804), Winston-Salem/Forsyth (22,352), Cumberland (20,227), Union (18,663), Gaston (17,303), Onslow (13,372), Edgecombe (13,198), Guilford (11,898), Moore (11,858), Pitt (11,631), Brunswick (8,152), Craven (7,463), Scotland (7,207)

Home Base PD System Course Redesigned

The newly redesigned module, Universal Design for Learning 1: UDL in the Everyday Classroom, is now available in the Home Base PD system. The course, with all new content, allows participants to analyze and adapt lesson plans in order to make learning more accessible for all students.

For a complete description of this course, a listing of all self-paced and facilitated courses available, or instructions on using the Home Base PD System, please log into www.rt3nc.org.

Last Call for Early Registration for Home Base Symposium Feb. 10-12

Time is almost up for early registration for the Home Base Symposium scheduled for Feb. 10-12 at the Sheraton Four Seasons Hotel in Greensboro. After tomorrow, the cost rises from $140 to $250.

You won’t want to miss this year’s information-packed conference, featuring in-depth professional learning focused on PowerSchool, Schoolnet, Truenorthlogic and other Home Base applications.

Four years in the making, North Carolina’s Home Base technology hub now gives educators across the state access to a wide array of resources assembled to help with everything from data management and analysis to teaching and learning. This year’s Home Base Symposium promises to provide a wealth of practical information to help educators, administrators and support staff put those tools to their best use.

The theme of this year’s symposium – Connections Count! – emphasizes the growing and evolving impact of the digital landscape for education today and in the future. Special efforts are being made this year to include more professional learning for all the components comprising the Home Base suite of applications – PowerSchool, Schoolnet, Truenorthlogic, Identity and Access Management, Learning Object Repository and Canvas. Sessions will serve the needs of all skill levels – novice to expert.

MAINTENANCE WEEKEND FEB. 19-21

The PowerSchool team will be making two concurrent upgrades next month during the Feb. 19-21 maintenance weekend: a move to a new hosting environment and an upgrade of the PowerSchool application to version 9.2.  We are working to complete both upgrades during the maintenance period.

We also will execute an upgrade of the PowerSchool application from version 8.3 to version 9.2.  This new version includes several updates that will benefit our customers and NCDPI.  These updates include a new visualizations component for attendance and grades that will help schools identify students based on academic performance and attendance.  Also included are updates to the scheduling module, course availability by year and enhanced security controls.