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Hello. Greetings everyone. This is Merleen with the Community Engagement Team once again
to share with you some of the updates since we last talked.
I apologize for being a couple of days late. April was a very busy month and we did do
an extra couple of webinars on Bundles specifically so hopefully you benefited from that.
I want to talk some more about Bundles, just some tips and tricks, lessons learned.
We spent some real quality time last week with folks in Indianapolis, from all over
Indiana, where we were able to train over 100 different educators there over the course
of a few days. Several want to become certified MBC coaches, so that's very exciting for us.
In the process of being there, we actually got to get our hands dirty with Bundles, and
created a bunch. If you have been over to the Bundle Exchange, straight away from the
left navigation, as an educator you see that.
This is what I'm talking about on my screen now. You'll find some good stuff in there.
Teachers are willing to share lesson plans that they've created, and so on.
I have created, as promised, to those of you who were int raining last week, I know there's
some of you out there listening today, I have created for us and I'll put it out in the
MBC Trainers group as well, a bundle that included all the resources.
In days of yore, pre-Bundles, we would have a bunch of different ways of sharing some
content: in our Indy training camp groups, in our resources pages, a bunch of different
resources.
I promised I would do the work to drag them over into a bundle.
So I've done that, and my very proud My Big Campus logo is a little large for this format
so I'll get one that's more right-sized.
What I've done is taken all of the training resources that I had listed in that group.
So, I've got the pre-training awareness building ones with an explanation of the videos that
were there.
Some documents that were made by Rachel Porter from Southwest Parke School Corporation.
And then some training resources including Goals, some realistic goals of what you can
expect to accomplish within a one hour training.
Snd some PowerPoint that I've created that has all the pertinent discussion talking points
that you would want to cover as to why you're using My Big Campus, and be able to answer
the question "what's so great about My Big Campus" in light of the other resources available
out there.
I've also included an actual video, not by me, using that same PowerPoint talking points
that another educator there that produced immediately following our training, Rachel
Porter.
And then I've got our quick start guide and some other things.
Anyway, I think this will be a good resource for you. So let's just go ahead.
I've just finished creating it, so now I'll show you how we might share it.
I edit the bundle, I can go over since I've got it 100 percent complete.
You see down here at the bottom of the screen, since it's 100 percent complete, I can publish
it.
By virtue of publishing, it goes out into the Exchange where you can search for it and
find it.
It's 100 percent complete because I've completed all these fields on this information page,
because I've got content in here.
I don't have any standards for it because you might have noticed we have common core
standards. We have state standards.
But we don't have any of the tech standards in here at this time.
So my recommendation for those of you who want to be able to share, search and find,
is to include those tech standards, if you know them, within the Tags or the Objectives,
the Summary, or somewhere in here.
And then I've added some cover art. Just because you know me and my coffee, so there it is,
and now I can go ahead and publish it.
Now that it's published, it tells me where it's going in the Exchange and all that, and
who can see it.
And now you all will be able to find it over here in the Exchange.
And now my mug got fatter, it can hold more coffee. Yay!
But also, you don't have to share it in there.
If you're not ready to share that yet, or you've created something and you want to be
able to just share it with your co-workers or within a class group or whatever, that
is perfectly ok.
You probably have noticed, as we have discussed before, every one of our wall posts, and anywhere
you see this box, in addition to all the old things you could share, Bundles is now there.
So I can do that. What I'll do for our purposes is share that with our group in MBC Trainers.
I've got a quick link for that.
I can share it in Resources. I've already got a bunch of different things here. I can
add this bundle now, and it shows all the Bundles that I've created.
So, here's my My Big Campus Training Resources bundle. I can attach it there.
I can also put it in a discussion, and everyone would have gotten notification of that, that
I'd done it that way, and we can add some discussion around it.
This bundle, by the way, that I've created, is not really for delivering training to teachers
out of that bundle, as much as it is to just be able to deliver to you all the resources
you can pick from to use.
Also included though, just because I want to take good care of you, is a bundle that
was created by one of the educators, again Rachel Porter.
Yes, she was one of the stars. There were a lot of stars at our training that day.
Inside here, I've shared her bundle that she created on the fly, in class. Overachiever,
Rachel Porter from Southwest Parke.
Right here is her bundle, which you can also find in the Exchange. She was very willing
and happy to share it. This is how she's delivering training through Bundles.
So there's a few things you can do, if you want to just watch:
You can "Yes" a bundle
You can share the bundle
You can choose to watch this bundle, so if she makes any changes to it you'll be made
aware.
And you can branch the bundle so that you can make your own copy and begin making changes
and edits, and customizations for your school.
Any questions around any of that business? A quick review of Bundles and how you can
share those things?
And again, I've got that inside of the MBC Trainers group, and I'll put it inside the
Indy training camp groups too, so we have it all where you might be comfortable looking
for it.
Coming soon for Bundles, we have a few different things that are slated on the short list,
I mean within days by that.
Being able to search inside by contributors, so you'll be able to search for superstars
like Rachel Porter inside the bundle.
Being able to hide certain things from student view.
If there are parts of your bundle that you have put text in, where it's just really guiding
you.
Or you want to communicate that to your principal.
Or it's for sharing with others of your peers and you want to tell them what you're doing
to do in class.
That's not the part the student needs to see, so you'll be able to do that.
Also, if you have some components that you don't want the student to see until you're
ready for them to see it within the bundle, then you can open these things up over time.
So you'll be able to hide parts of your bundle from student view.
Also being able to collaborate on Bundles, so you'll be able to create Bundles working
with other teachers or staff.
So that's all there coming up very soon.
Other than that, what I wanted to share with you today was what's on the roadmap for the
rest of the product.
You may know that over here in our MBC Orientation Center, which is a Topic that only staff sees,
is a page called What's Next for My Big Campus.
I just updated this again so it's got some updates.
What you see here is what is in development during these months, as opposed to what's
going to be released.
Just so you know what we're working on this month is Google docs integration again.
Google docs integration is really for your use within a school.
We had struggled with being able to allow for access to Google docs within My Big Campus
only, because we can't control the kinds of content and images and so on that people might
put in there.
They're a consumer-oriented company, and so they are constantly doing way cool things
that break our security.
So we have figured out that we can actually still provide a single sign on for you to
be able to access those and have them display within My Big Campus.
But we're just going to make that so you contain the risk within a school.
You decide if you want to make that accessible or not. You just won't be able to share those
documents outside.
All we're lacking, the back end is done on that. All we're lacking is the user interface,
getting that out, but I'm expecting it to look very similar to the way your MBC Docs
look in there now.
And again, it will be a single sign on, so that when you sign on, there'll be some integration
like you do with Twitter for EduTalk, where you're able to map your login with us to your
login for Google Docs.
That way that it will display in our interface.
We've had a bunch of schoolwork ease of use enhancements.
You guys have been feeding us all kinds of things: that you need to have fewer clicks,
and easier ways to be able to grade assignments and so on. So we're working on a bunch of
those.
The ExamView imports which is for our quizzes.
Bigger story behind that is that we're going to have to have a whole bunch more question
types by virtue of being able to import those.
So even if you don't use ExamView, a lot of benefit there in that we'll have a bunch of
different question types beyond the multiple choice and true/false that we have today.
As you know, we are already supporting standards within Bundles, but what we will have in addition
to that is support for standards within the library.
So that when you're submitting items to the library, you can attach standards to those
as well.
And then finally, part of that library redesign work that we're doing. We're going to be able
to allow you to filter by grade level.
You may have noticed, in the last couple of months, we made it so that in policies for
your elementary school students, or the lower grade students, if you want to have a policy
that doesn't allow them to search the library directly.
So that that navigation up here at the top disappears, and when they search for something
in this search bar here, they don't have the results from the library.
It doesn't keep teachers from being able to share whatever they want to share and need
to share with students.
It just means that they're not able to access any content that's only appropriate for high
school students.
You know what I'm talking about, the Driver's Ed crash video, that you may not want your
elementary students to bump into.
But what will be new is being able to filter by grade level.
Instead of taking away all access to the library for those lower grades, you may want to be
able to say Pre-K through third grade library content, or sixth grade content, and that
sort of thing.
So that is what they'll be working on during the month of May.
And then over summer, we've got our mobile device management integration.
That's something that's being worked on all sides of the house so that we deliver a better
way for you to be able to manage those mobile devices you have.
Particularly to be able to push down to your teachers management of those apps that are
on those devices.
So that's just going to give you a way to tier the administration of those devices.
The other big goal for summer is to get the iOS app and Android app up to speed with the
website feature set.
At least where it makes sense for you to be able to do things that you should be able
to do or would want to do on the apps.
Lastly, we're going to spend a lot of time scoping the portal that we want to create
for parent access.
We've got some ideas, but we really need to think through.
We want to have a long term view of how you want that to look as well and how other things
will fit into it, including that alumni access that so many of you have told us you would
like to have.
For student portfolios, we want to make sure that we're accommodating access, once students
graduate out of your schools, to still be able to get to the work that they've done
and those kinds of things.
Those sorts of access outside for your users that you own, and are things we need to be
able to figure out.
So that's a lot of the work over the summer months.
I'll pause here for a second, looks like I've got a question from Dean Mantz.
Dean wants to know if there will be time for current customers to test the global device
management.
Yes, you can contact me and I'll forward that on if you want to.
We are taking a list of customers now that want to be able to help us beta test that.
So absolutely, Dean, you can let me know and I'll pass you on and make sure you get on
the list.
And anyone else that's interested in that.
The last thing I want to cover is, I would love to get some particular stories from all
of you, any of you.
We are wanting to put together a video of some real specific sorts of outcomes that
you may have experienced through your user of My Big Campus over the course of this year.
I've been fortunate to have gotten some of that sort of thing, before and after engagement
sorts of statistics, from different folks.
Luke Konrath for one. Jason Roseberry shared with me some outcomes as a principal by way
of how My Big Campus has improved discipline.
Other teachers have shared with me that they themselves have become so much more engaged
since they've been using My Big Campus because their students are more engaged.
If you have any of those kinds of stories that you would be willing to share with me,
I'd love to be able to share those beyond your walls and our walls, and include you
either in a video or in some different scenarios that help other people understand the benefits
of using My Big Campus.
So we're open to that. You can message me within the site and I'll be sure and get back
in touch with you.
All right, everyone, that is everything I had planned to cover today.
I appreciate you again taking your time out to attend and listen in.
If there's anything that's sparked your attention, or you think of something after the fact,
as always please just start a discussion in the MBC Trainers group.
All right everyone, have a great day.