Home Base Opt-In Deadline is June 16

The Department of Public Instruction puts a priority on providing school districts and charter schools with access to robust digital content.  Through the Digital Learning Initiative, we are collaborating with state partners to bring additional digital content to Home Base in the 2017-18 school year.  The many new features include NCVPS course content; formative assessment items for many high school Career and Technical Education courses; additional assessment and reporting features in Schoolnet; local professional development tracking and course creation with Truenorthlogic; and PowerTeacher Pro (Gradebook) in PowerSchool.

All LEAs (Finance Officers) and Charter Schools (Directors) are asked to indicate their opt-in decision by using the Home Base Tool (https://schools.nc.gov/homebaseaccess) by June 16.  To ensure access to Schoolnet and local professional development components in Truenorthlogic by the start of the school year, a response must be submitted by the June 16th deadline.

Currently, 88 LEAs and 44 Charter Schools have opted in for the 2017-18 school year.  To see if your district/charter school has made a decision yet, please click here or go to the Home Base opt-in page (http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/homebase/opt-in/) for more information.

If you have any questions, please contact Jamie Woodlief, Project Coordinator, at jamie.woodlief@dpi.nc.gov or 919-807-3745.  You can also access our FAQs for answers to the most common questions.

PowerTeacher Pro Resources

Spring training for PowerTeacher Pro (Gradebook) is winding down. Another round of training sessions is being planned for July, and we will have those dates out soon. 

As we get closer to the implementation of PowerTeacher Pro, we are sharing resources that you may find helpful. Keys to a successful PowerTeacher Pro Rollout will help in ensuring your rollout is successful and your teachers are on board and happy. 

Another resource is the Using the PowerTeacher Pro Quick Reference Card.  There are many other resources available in PowerSource.

We have also shared that Canvas has implemented a new solution for provisioning/rostering with their SIS integration platform. This new solution, specifically leveraging SIF 2.0 technology, transfers your PowerSchool data into Canvas with bulk uploads and/or near real-time events. For more details, please see Canvas & PowerTeacher Pro - What are the plans in North Carolina for Canvas, PowerSchool, and PowerTeacher Pro?.

Coming Soon: self-paced PowerTeacher Pro course in Canvas. 

The map below will show you early implementers (cohort I) in green, and full implementation for the remaining districts will occur in the summer of 2018.

Truenorthlogic

Evaluation / PDP Plans

Evaluation and Professional Development Plans for the 2016-17 school year will close on Friday, June 30 at 5 p.m.  All evaluations should be completed and locked by that time.  Once the plans and the data within is archived, no further updates can be made.  

Register Now for Online Summer Courses

Educator Effectiveness will offer several instructor–facilitated online courses this summer. These courses provide high-quality professional development and the opportunity to interact with peers and an instructor. They combine the flexibility of working from anywhere, at any time, and the benefits of working with a cohort of peers. Summer courses provide a great opportunity to learn and grow your professional skills and earn some CEU credits!

Summer 2017 session courses will start Monday, June 19. Registration for these courses opens today, June 1. Registration is limited to 35 participants per section, so register early.

• Building and Sustaining Professional Development (6 weeks, 0.5 CEU)
• Connecting with our 21st Century Learners (5 weeks, 1.0 CEU)
• Digital Literacies in the K-12 Classroom (7 weeks, 1.5 CEUs)
• Effective Digital Strategies for Teaching and Learning in the K-12 Classroom: A PD MOOClet (6 weeks, 2.0 CEUs)
• Introduction to Data Literacy (5 weeks, 1.0 CEU)
• Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects, Part 1 (5 weeks, 0.5 CEU)
• Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects, Part 2 (7 weeks, 1.0 CEU)
• North Carolina Teacher Standards and Evaluation Process (6 weeks, 2.0 CEUs)
• Responsibilities of the 21st-Century Educator (7 weeks, 1.0 CEU)
• Universal Design for Learning 1: UDL in the Everyday Classroom (6 weeks, 1.5 CEUs)
• Universal Design for Learning 2: UDL in the Everyday Classroom (5 weeks, 1.0 CEU)

Discover Schoolnet

Last week in our "“Wired Wednesday” we focused on Schoolnet 19.0. The new release will be available in August, and in your training site in July. If you missed this webinar, you can access this on the webinar tab of our NC: Home Base Schoolnet Professional Learning Plan. We are also looking forward to new items in the item bank for Schoolnet for the 2017-18 school year.

Since spring, access has been added to these items:

• Expansion of ELA and Math Progress Checks into the Middle Grade Levels (6-8)
• Over 500 New ELA items with an emphasis on High DOK and Technology Enhanced Item Types
• 500 new Math Items
• 600 new Science and Social Studies Items
• 2000 new trans adapted Spanish Items (Items that can be read in Spanish)

The Social Studies Coverage Reports highlights the areas of expansion for Social Studies along with the Coverage Report based on the upcoming release.  

NEW! Item Reporting Tool

Please use this link to report instructional materials and items for review http://bit.ly/hbsnitems

Quick Tips

Classrooms for Teachers

As we close the school year, remember you can use the “Skills Analysis” report to determine remedial areas for your students. You can access this with the following click path: “Classrooms> Student Performance> Skills Analysis.” Then, make sure your test name is set to “Year to Date.” This will tell you which areas you need to review heavier as you close out your year.

Classrooms for Leadership

Leadership can also “Year to date” data for individual teachers, but checking out your Key Performance Indicators (KPI), will allow you to compare current benchmark data with last year’ EOG/C performance data. If you haven’t looked at this data, you may find it very helpful!

Upcoming Professional Learning

Check with your district level Schoolnet lead (click here). They will determine if they have the staff to provide the professional learning or if they need to request a district training. If the lead can host a district training, please have them contact a DTL Regional Consultant for more details.

Click here to find information from past postings.

Still need help? You may also have your LEA/District Schoolnet Lead contact the Home Base Support Center through the Remedy web portal https://nc-myit.us.onbmc.com or (919) 807-4357.