Welcome to the Digital Learning Plan (DLP) monthly newsletter
This newsletter will explore the Wyoming DLP, its goals, and suggested strategies to ensure equitable access to opportunities and success in postsecondary, career, and civic life.
 Celebrate Digital Learning Day 2020 this Thursday, February 27. Digital Learning Day is meant to highlight innovative teaching practices and instructional technology programs that improve student outcomes. The Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) encourages instructors to engage their students with digital learning activities. From holding a virtual debate to showcasing a digital project, the sky’s the limit with how creative a Digital Learning Day event can be.
Wyoming’s 2020 Teacher of the Year, Dane Weaver, talks about Digital Learning Day in this video.
For more resources and information on how to participate, visit https://digitallearningday.org. Also, keep an eye out for more digital learning initiatives in 2020.
DIGITAL LEARNING PLAN IMPLEMENTATION
This month initiatives focused around the DLP Future Ready Framework gear Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment are highlighted. The following are the DLP goals for this gear:
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- Provide a common understanding of what students should know, understand, and be able to do specific to digital learning and digital citizenship.
- Technology is used to gather and utilize data to inform educators and students with personalizing instruction.
- Educators use instructional practices that shift their role to be facilitators of learning.
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Initiatives were developed and implemented by the WDE based on the recommendations from the above goals. The Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment gear initiatives being featured include the Wyoming Digital Learning Guidelines and WYEd-Fi. The Guidelines address providing a common understanding of what students should know and be able to do and WYEd-Fi addresses using technology to gather and utilize data to inform instruction.
 In November 2019, the WDE released the Wyoming Digital Learning Guidelines, based on the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Standards for Students to support education technology use in PK-12 classrooms. The development of the Guidelines was a direct response to stakeholder input when the DLP was written. Educators agreed digital learning was important and asked for guidance to help them understand what ed tech to use at each grade level.
To meet the request, the Guidelines were written in a scope and sequence format with specifiers that help “unpack” each of the ISTE Standards for Students and indicators with additional learning outcomes. Classroom examples are also provided for each of the ISTE Standards at the primary, intermediate, and secondary level. To support the Guidelines, the Shorecrest K-12 Technology Skills Scope and Sequence were included to provide the same type of guidance for the foundational skills needed to implement the ISTE Standards for Students.
To support educators in understanding and implementing the Guidelines, the WDE also launched a free, online course. The self-paced Guidelines course is delivered through the WDE Canvas learning management system and takes about eight hours to complete. The open-enrollment course allows educators to join and complete the interactive modules as time allows. One-half (.5) Professional Teaching Standards Board (PTSB) credit available upon completion.
Wyoming Digital Learning Guidelines Course Stats:
- 200+ educators have registered for the course.
- 160 educators have enrolled in the course.
- 66 educators have completed the course.
Visit the Wyoming Digital Learning Guidelines web page for more information and the online registration form.
For more information, contact Lori Thilmany at 307-777-7418 or lori.thilmany@wyo.gov
 The WyEd-Fi product aggregates various student data in a near real-time manner to provide a fuller view of a student’s, or a student population’s, performance. Categories of data include: Attendance, Grades, State & Local Assessments (WY-TOPP, NWEA Map, FastBridge, and others), Growth and other more. The goal is to more fully evaluate a student’s or student population’s needs during the current timeframe to design change/assistance in the present time to effect a change in the current school cycle and into the future.
Benefits of WyEd-Fi:
1. Has an authorization system that allows staff to only see the students’ data they have the right to view. This makes it compliant with FERPA.
2. Provides a Performance at a Glance as well as a deep dive into student data.
3. Provides snippets of the Performance at a Glance visualization giving a high-level overview. This same layout is present for a student, a school and the district.
 4. Allows for a deeper dive for a teacher’s view of a classroom – class section performance.
 What’s new in WyEd-Fi?
Local Assessment data is being included onto the dashboard such that a district can now view that data along with the state assessment data for evaluation of how the student is performing.
This, along with a student’s standard Growth data, plus the newly deployed Growth MGP data (shown below), provides a comparison of a school in the district alongside the other district school compared to the district as a whole. This allows an understanding of performance and whether changes might be warranted.
In addition, the WyEd-Fi team is creating Canvas courses to help educators better understand WyEd-Fi. These courses will offer PTSB renewal credit.
Contact Information
For more information about WyEd-Fi, contact Jeremy Thigpen at jthigpen@espsg.com or Kimiko Rife at krife@espsg.com.
Save the Date
Wyoming Innovations in Learning Conference
November 5-6, 2020 in Casper
(Pre-Conference activities on Nov. 4)
The 4th annual Wyoming Innovations in Learning Conference is an opportunity for educators to share and explore innovative teaching and learning practices for classrooms and distance learning environments, from kindergarten through higher education. The call for proposals will open on March 2, and registration opens on March 16.
This conference is hosted by the Wyoming Department of Education (WDE), the Wyoming Distance Education Consortium (WyDEC), the University of Wyoming, the Wyoming community colleges, the Wyoming State Library, school libraries, and the Wyoming Arts Council.
Stay Tuned
Next month’s Digital Learning Plan Newsletter will focus on state initiatives focused around the Future Ready Framework gear Use of Space and Time.
For more information on the Wyoming Digital Learning Plan or the Future Ready Framework, contact Robin Grandpre at 307-777-5315 or robin.grandpre1@wyo.gov.
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