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Texas Education Agency

Technology Standards Approved at June SBOE Meeting

by Jennifer Bergland June 20, 2022

written by Jennifer Bergland

The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) met during the week of June 14-17. At this meeting, the board heard from the Commissioner of Education and dealt with several issues that pertain to technology in Texas schools.

Commissioner Update

At each meeting, the Commissioner of Education, Mike Morath, updates the board on things pertaining to Texas schools. He usually provides the board with pertinent updates and then answers questions posed to him by individual board members.

He began the meeting by discussing the shooting in Uvalde. He acknowledged how difficult the past four weeks have been for all involved, including the agency that is dedicated to the well-being of all children in Texas. One of the ways the agency is responding is to create a team at TEA led by a Chief of School Safety and Security. This individual will report directly to the commissioner and will work to improve the safety of our schools.

The Commissioner then highlighted the agency’s work on improving the teacher pipeline. This discussion included the recruitment, retention, and preparation of Texas teachers. He also discussed the work of Teacher Vacancy Task Force that was launched on March 10.

I always find the commissioner’s update to be insightful. You can learn a lot about the agency’s priorities and the priorities of the SBOE members. His update was given on June 15 at the beginning of the SBOE’s agenda. It lasts about an hour and twenty minutes.

Technology Applications and Computer Science Standards Revised

On Friday, June 17 the board voted to approve on second reading the revised K-8 Technology Applications TEKS. For background on the revision process, see the blog post I wrote on May 16, 2022. A vote taken on second reading is the final vote which means these standards have been approved. However, because it takes several years for the instructional materials to be created and selected, they will not be used in Texas classrooms until the 2024-2025 school year.

The board also approved on second reading the revisions made in seven CTE computer science courses: Fundamentals of Computer Science, Computer Science I, Computer Science II, Computer Science III, Foundations of Cybersecurity, Digital Forensics, and Cybersecurity Capstone.

A proclamation seeking instructional materials for each of these courses will be issued which means they, too, will be implemented in Texas classrooms in the 2024-2025 school year. This is the next step for most of the high school courses listed above. However, the changes made to Fundamentals of Computer Science and Computer Science III do not require new instructional materials, so they will be implemented in the 2022-2023 school year.

TEA Provided an Update on the Long Range Plan for Technology Update

At the April SBOE meeting, TEA gave an update on their progress on the Long Range Plan for Technology. At that meeting, the board provided TEA staff with some specific suggestions of things they wanted to see in the plan. During the June meeting, TEA provided a very brief update on their progress with the plan and their inclusion of the board’s recommendations.

The plan will change the device refresh cycle from a recommended seven years to a much shorter range of two to three years. During the pandemic most districts provided devices to their students that were taken home. Districts have reported that the wear and tear of devices that are used 24/7 prohibits their ability to extend their usage to seven years.

At the board’s request they added a stipulation that all districts must ensure compliance with CIPA. Currently, only districts that participate in the E-rate program are required to abide by the CIPA regulations. Very few districts do not participate in the E-rate program but there are a few that do not.

The plan will also include provisions that deal with cybersecurity. It will also address the need to ensure that students have access to high speed Internet both at school and home. And finally, the plan will address school safety, including the need to use technology to provide physical security to school facilities.

TEA indicated they would bring the final draft to the board for their approval at the September meeting.

In Conclusion

This the second consecutive SBOE meeting that has dealt with major issues that pertain to the use of technology. As always, TCEA is committed to monitoring these items as they make their way through the process. It is important to remember that issues that involve teaching and learning are not only decided by the Texas legislature but also the State Board of Education. I encourage each of you to identify who your board member is and reach out to them when you have questions or concerns. They work for you! If you don’t know which board member represents you, use this form to find out. Make sure you use your home address, not your school address.

June 20, 2022 0 comment

LMS

Virtual Learning Tools, Part 1: Make Schoology Work For You

by Miguel Guhlin August 20, 2020

written by Miguel Guhlin

As schools embrace learning management systems designed to make teaching and learning easier, challenges abound. Many educators are struggling to navigate the wealth of tutorials and videos available for Schoology. In this blog entry, the first in the series, we explore three Schoology-related questions. Before we go any further, allow me to share another reason why Schoology has become so pervasive in Texas.

TEA Offers Free Learning Management System

If you missed the July 30, 2020 announcement, you may not have heard that the Texas Education Agency is offering a free LMS in support of the Texas Home Learning initiative. Here’s an excerpt from the announcement:

As part of THL 3.0, TEA announced this week that it will offer all Texas school systems a world-class Learning Management System (LMS) from PowerSchool’s Schoology for two years at no cost. Like other THL 3.0 offerings, use of the Schoology LMS will be optional for Texas school systems. Currently, Schoology is used in schools representing more than one million students across Texas (1 in 5 students statewide).

If you are embarking on your first use of Schoology, this series on LMSs Made Simple will address some key questions teachers are asking.

In This Entry

This first set of questions includes the following:

How do you keep parents in the loop about missing assignments?
How do I set up non-graded discussions?
How do I disable students’ ability to reply to each other?

Ready to get started?

Did You Know?
The Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented (TAGT) is offering a free webinar for parents. The webinar, taking place on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 at 6:30 PM, is Helping Kids Thrive in Today’s World. The speaker is Christine Fonseca. Fill out this form and TAGT will send you a link to the webinar.

Identifying Missing Assignments in Schoology

We know that students may sometimes fail in completing all their assignments on time. One way to motivate them is to make sure parents can access the list of missing assignments. How do you get that done in Schoology? That’s the question Maria is asking below:

Does anyone know a way for teachers to identify missing assignments for the week? A report that shows all weekly assignments and their completion status? Families are having a hard time and I would love a quick way to provide feedback to them. Thanks for all your help.

In Schoology, the teacher can mark assignments as missing in the gradebook. Parents who have signed up can receive updates via email on missing assignments.

Did You Know?

Sign up now for this online, self-paced course that covers everything you need to know about using Schoology and setting up courses. Learn more online.

The first step involves marking student assignments as missing in the gradebook. You can see what that looks like below:

As the teacher, you can export the parent access codes as a comma-separated values (CSV) file. Open this file type in Excel or Google Sheets and then you can email merge it to send to parents. Parents can then sign up via the Schoology website using the access code:

The parent view shows them what assignments are missing or scores/grades received:

In this way, you’re able to keep parents informed of their child’s progress.

Setting Up Discussions

Setting up discussions in Schoology is straightforward. Let’s take a moment to consider the request Kris shared:

As a K-4 educator, my principal informed me I would be using Schoology this year. As a counselor, I need to set up bibliotheraphy with discussions. I don’t need to grade. What should I do?

Bibliotherapy involves using books as therapy or treatment. School counselors rely on it as a way to treat mental or psychological disorders. As the author of this study points out:

Using quality children’s literature for bibliotherapy helps students to grow socio-emotionally. It assists students in identifying with the main character in a story. That character has a disability which leads to personal insight and growth.

Source: Afolayan J. A. (1992) Documentary perspective of bibliotherapy in education. Reading Horizons 33: 137–148

While reading the book, you can set up activities such as the ones Kelly Bear suggests:

Ask open-ended questions about the story
Retell the story
Act out roles
Use puppets
Write reactions
Record thoughts through audio/video
Create art

Jumping into Schoology

How will you do this in Schoology in an online environment? One approach can involve using free digital tools like Flipgrid. You can use Flipgrid to create a safe space for student-created book talks. You embed the Flipgrid topic in a Schoology page or discussion topic. Since you can embed content into Schoology pages, assignments, and more, the sky is the limit. You can also encourage students to use Wakelet, Google Docs/Slides, or Microsoft 365. Organize their exploration of a text using one of these tools.

Did You Know?

Sign up for the Remote Learning Tools self-paced course. You’ll pick up a variety of tools that make flipped classroom, hybrid/remote learning easier.

Schoology allows us to set up book-centered folders that may contain relevant resources. What’s more, we can use groups in grading to assign specific students to the bibliotherapy. This means we have to take a few steps though first.

The first step is to get a list of students into the Bibliotherapy course. You have the option of either creating a course for each book (cumbersome) or student, or a course with many books. That is, create the course and then create a “Materials” folder for each book. Then you are able to create pages or discussions that take advantage of grading groups.

Here’s a short video on how to do that in Schoology:

Disabling Students Replying to Each Other’s Posts

Mayra shares a common challenge. At the start of the year, you may want to limit students’ ability to send each other messages. Schoology has an amazing feature known as “Updates.” Google Classroom users have it as well, but for them, it’s the “Stream.” This common feature also appears in Edmodo.

What may not be so obvious is “How do you disable students’ ability to reply to each other’s posts in Schoology?” Some possible responses include:

Adjust Course Options to turn on moderation or turn that feature off
Ask your Schoology administrator to disable that and the “liking” feature
Disable comments for each post
Set up a discussion that requires students to post first. This means they must post first before they see what others have written.

Since it can be a bit confusing, let’s walk through each of these in a short video.

Hopefully, this first blog in our series was able to answer a question or two you may have about Schoology. In the next installment, we’ll cover some of the ways educators are brightening up their online courses.

August 20, 2020 2 comments

Good Teaching Leadership

Texas Resources for the 2020-21 School Year

by Andrew Roush August 14, 2020

written by Andrew Roush

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, state and national education agencies and organizations have worked to coordinate, provide models, and create plans for the uncertain 2020-21 school year. In Texas, home of TCEA, the state education agency is updating two programs meant to provide support to districts as the school year approaches.

Within the Texas Education Agency‘s (TEA) focus on instructional continuity, it has developed a partnership with PBS, as well as a general instructional continuity framework. In addition, two recently updated tools are available to help schools get the new year off to a good start.

Strong Start 2020

TEA’s Strong Start initiative provides planning tools and example plans, sample school models, and implementation supports, which include webinar and training offerings. Sample school models include detailed options for fully on-campus, fully online, and hybrid instruction models.

texas education agency — Some of the options listed on TEA’s Strong Start page

The Strong Start portal includes downloadable resources and tools directly from TEA, but also links to decision-making tools, plans, and guides from organizations and educational institutions from across the country.

Texas Home Learning

Another TEA project, Texas Home Learning, is being updated for the coming year. Entering its third phase, the program is designed to provide contingency at-home learning resources for Texas schools and districts.

The third phase of the project is designed for the 2020-21 school year, while phases one and two from this spring and summer, were meant to provide resources in between school years.

Phase three includes standards-aligned curriculum, free access to learning management systems, and more, according to the initiative’s website.

Sharing Useful Tools

What resources, grants, tools, or techniques are you using or hope to use this school year? Let us know in the comments!

Photo by Matese Fields on Unsplash

August 14, 2020 0 comment

Educational Trends

Ed Tech News Roundup: Starting the School Year, Startup Companies, and More

by Andrew Roush August 7, 2020

written by Andrew Roush

Howdy, folks! Welcome to another in a series of periodic ed tech news roundups. We hope you enjoy this one, and if you have a story you’d like to see included, let us know.

Tech Talk

As remote learning continues, and educators work to deliver hybrid and online learning, ed tech companies are hoping to find practical solutions — and growing quickly.

While the U.S. saw a precipitous drop in GDP in the second financial quarter of the year, educational technology firms raised more than $800 million in the first half of 2020. [EdSurge]
The U.S. isn’t the only place seeing growth either. With ed tech being “no longer optional” ($) and ed tech startups are seeing potentially explosive growth ($), a Brazilian company is looking to raise a whopping $300 million. [EdWeek MarketBrief]
As the ed tech industry grows, writer Doug Bonderud considers practical ideas to help make technology accessible to and useful for all. [EdTech]

From Tech to Texas

In TCEA’s home state, the conditions and guidelines around reopening schools are taking shape.

Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement that local health authorities can mandate school closures “if there’s evidence of an outbreak after students have already returned to campus — but cannot shut them down weeks before schools open,” according to the Texas Tribune.
Abbott’s statement comes days after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent a much-publicized but non-binding guidance to schools stating that local health officials have “some authority to order schools closed if people in it are infected by COVID-19, but not as a preventive measure.” [Texas Tribune]
Paxton’s guidance also caused course corrections and changes in plans to delay school in some Texas school districts. [NBC DFW]

Bridging the Digital Divide

The COVID-19 pandemic has helped highlight the digital divide in American schooling, which is described by Stanford emeritus professor Eric Roberts as the “growing gap between the underprivileged members of society, especially the poor, rural, elderly, and handicapped portion of the population who do not have access to computers or the internet; and the wealthy, middle-class, and young Americans living in urban and suburban areas who have access.”

With a rush to remote learning, many local school authorities are working with tech companies to expand access. [Axios]
Meanwhile, partnerships are forming between state and local entities to tackle the connectivity gap, exemplified in Texas’ “Operation Connectivity.” [Government Technology]
Also in Texas, legislators are working to fund mechanisms already designed to spread internet access to rural parts of the state. [Texas Tribune]

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

August 7, 2020 0 comment

Advocacy Funding Leadership

Senate Education Committee Hearing on SB 507

by Jennifer Bergland February 18, 2016

written by Jennifer Bergland

The Texas Senate Education Committee held a special hearing on February 10, 2016, in McAllen to discuss the placement of video cameras in self-contained special education classrooms as specified by SB 507. This bill was overwhelmingly approved by the Texas House of Representatives and was approved by the Texas Senate by a vote of 21-10.

Provisions of SB 507

Require districts to install video and audio equipment in classrooms in which a majority of the students in attendance are provided special education services, and are assigned to a self-contained classroom or other special education setting for at least 50% of the instructional day.
A request for this type of recording in a classroom is triggered by a parent, trustee, or staff member of a school district or open-enrollment charter school.
Video equipment must be able to record all areas of the classroom or special education setting, except the inside of a bathroom or any area in the classroom in which a student’s clothes are changed. Audio recording is still required in these areas.
Written notice must be given to all school or campus staff and to the parents of the students in the classroom prior to the installation of recording equipment.
Recording is only permissible while the conditions that triggered the request are still present.
The recording may not be used for the purpose of teacher evaluation; however, it may be used against district or school personnel if the recording is believed to document a possible violation of district or school policy.
The recordings must be maintained for at least six months.
The commissioner of education may make rules giving districts guidance in the implementation of this law.

Outstanding Questions:

When someone requests that a camera be placed in a classroom, does that require a district to put cameras in all classrooms covered by the bill?
Does a recording constitute an educational record, thus triggering FERPA requirements which would require the storage of the recording for much longer than six months?
When will the commissioner’s rules be available for public comment?

What Was Learned at the Hearing:

TEA has had one stakeholder meeting to gather input before the commissioner makes his rules. At the stakeholder meeting, TEA indicated that the commissioner’s rules would probably not address whether a request for video recording would trigger one classroom or multiple classrooms. They also indicated that the rules would not address how much time a district has to comply with a request due to infrastructure or budget availability. At the hearing, TEA indicated that the proposed rules will not be available for comment for at least four weeks.

Janna Lilly, Director of Government Relations for TCASE, provided testimony about the challenges and concerns that districts have with the implementation of SB 507. She made it clear that districts are eager to comply with the law, but that districts need clarification regarding implementation of the law. One of the biggest challenges districts are facing is whether one request triggers the installation of video and audio recording equipment in multiple classrooms or just that one. She predicted that the cost projection for the equipment is between $3,000 to $3,500 a classroom. If districts must install this equipment in multiple classrooms, it could be a large financial burden on many districts. She urged the committee to consider appropriating additional funding in the 85th Legislature for districts to implement SB 507.

The senators on the Senate Education committee expressed their frustration that TEA has not released the proposed rules by now. Since student safety prompted this law, the senators want districts to have as much information as they need to implement the bill by the beginning of the 2016-2017 school year, as required. They also were adamant that they never intended one request to trigger multiple rooms across the district, nor did they consider the recordings to be considered an educational record. They also suggested that districts look for grants or gifts to be given for the purpose of camera and audio equipment installation.

District and Stakeholder Input:

I see two avenues to impact the implementation of SB 507. First, when the rules are posted, provide feedback to TEA. The commissioner and TEA staff will use this input to help edit and shape the rules. Second, contact your senator and let them know of your concerns, especially if they are on the Senate Education Committee. Senator Van Taylor stated that this law is at the top of the list of bills with which his superintendents are concerned. He indicated that their concerns involved cost, implementation, and privacy issues related to storing video of students. He was very much interested in getting answers to the questions that were posed by his superintendents from TEA.

The senators see this as a safety issue and thus are eager to get it implemented, but we can continue to engage them in conversations that will help inform the legislators of the questions and struggles districts are having in the implementation.

Senate Education Committee

Larry Taylor, Chairman

Eddie Lucio, Jr., Vice-Chairman