We're already getting questions from school administrators about how to prepare for extended school breaks. I commend these admins for planning ahead :-)
I'll be blogging about best practices for summer break over the next few weeks. Today, I'll talk about best practices to consider for managing student access to My Big Campus when teachers and staff may not be available to monitor student activity.
Even when school is out, a lot of students will still want to visit My Big Campus regularly. You can safely leave My Big Campus turned "on" for your students this summer if you wish. Students will appreciate the chance to explore the Library, use Bundles to build their digital portfolios, and practice their digital citizenship skills.
I want to assure administrators and teachers that even if your school is not fully staffed over the break, I and the rest of the My Big Campus team will be monitoring user activities, just as we do when school is in session.
Here are a range of options and best practices to help you manage your users over the summer.
Option 1: Leave Everything as Is
Just be sure to remind students that school rules and the My Big Campus pledge still apply to their online activities, even when school is not in session. If our staff disables any student accounts for not following the terms of use, your district administrator will be notified.
Option 2: Remove Students from Groups
To secure your groups from use while the group owner is away, remove students from all groups.
If your groups are auto-populated and memberships maintained with SIS imports, you can use a SIS import to remove group members.
If group owners maintain the group memberships, the group owners can use the Group Maintenance tool to remove members.
NOTE: For users not integrated with the Lightspeed filter: If you have a free account and the students you've given accounts will no longer have you as a teacher, there's a bonus. When your students are removed from all groups, their policy will automatically change to lock down their accounts until they are added to a group again. They'll still be able to log in and browse the Library, but most social activities will be disabled.
Option 3: Adjust Student Policies
Through MBC Administration, you can adjust the policies for students at each school to disable any aspects of the site you don't want them using over the summer, such as student-to-student messaging.
Option 4: Disable Accounts
District and School administrators can disable accounts using policies. You'll see it as just another check box in the list. We hope this won't be necessary, and I want to assure you again that My Big Campus is monitored by my staff even during school breaks.
If this is your choice, however, here's how to turn off My Big Campus for all students, or for specific groups of students:
In the top navigation bar, click Administration, then click the Policies tab.
To disable all student accounts, left click the "All Students" policy and choose Edit.
Select (check) Disable all users that get this policy
Click Save
If you only want to disable a subset of students, you can create a Custom Policy and assign it to MBC groups, Active Directory groups (requires Lightspeed filter integration), or individual students. This Tech Note explains how.
Final Note
You don't need to (and shouldn't) delete your student users at the end of every term. When you delete user accounts, all user content disappears — content that students and their parents may want to keep, particularly their files and photos. This is especially important for graduating seniors, whose digital portfolios will be valuable for job and college applications.
You can disable these accounts using the procedure above, or you can upload a SIS file that will disable access and remove accounts from your district, while still preserving student content. We're working on ways to give graduating students access to their own content, and will have more information on that as the project progresses.
I'm interested in hearing from school admins and teachers about how you manage student access during breaks. Let me know in the Comments if you have ideas, tips, or questions related to the subject of this blog post.
As the summer break winds down, admins and teachers are wondering how to get students and groups ready for the new school term. I blogged about this a couple of months ago, but this is such an important subject I felt it would be helpful to post the information again.
Student portfolios
Many students now in their final year of high school will want to retain access to content they created in MBC, to supplement college applications and resumes. Admins should keep this in mind before they consider deleting user accounts and content for students who graduate at the end of this term. We're working on a special portal for Alumni that will allow graduating students to preserve their digital portfolios. I'll have more information for admins and students as the project develops.
What to do with your Groups
Next, let's talk about group maintenance. One of my colleagues at My Big Campus put together a video that gives you an overview of the maintenance process. With this tool, teachers can retain and reuse the group content they want to keep (resources, pages, discussion stems), while clearing out responses, comments, and members.
Teachers should plan whether to reuse their existing groups, or create and populate a new group for classes that repeat each term. In both cases, admins can use SIS imports to set the group title, group owner, and add or remove group members. Here are some tips, if you're using SIS imports to update group rosters:
In the "memberships.csv" file, if the field unique_sis_group_id matches an existing group, the import will remove all existing users (except the group owner) from the group, and replace them with the list of users in the CSV file.
Use "groups.csv" to create new groups or update an existing group with a new group owner. Specify existing group ID to overwrites group settings for existing groups; new unused group ID to create a new group.
Reusing Quizzes and Assignments
The next big deal for teachers is being able to reuse assignments and quizzes. The Schoolwork Templates feature makes it very easy to build a repository of schoolwork that you can fine-tune and deploy as needed. Here's another video on that topic.
We've got an upgrade to the Schoolwork module in development now, for release early this summer. You'll have more question types available for Quizzes, and importing will be supported. Watch my blog for more details as the new release takes shape.
Updating student records
This one's for IT admins: Take some time now to plan and test your SIS import process for adding and updating student records for the upcoming term (this article explains how).
Some schools clear out their Active Directory and start again with the new school term, but that doesn't mean you should delete student accounts on MBC; a SIS import with the new login tied to the existing student IDs and screen names will allow students to keep their MBC logins, and their online files and other data.
For students graduating to another school in your district, a SIS import can relocate them quickly. Consider also what to do with students who leave your school or district over the summer break. MBC staff can also, on request, move students to another school if they're changing districts.
Export your graduating senior class from your SIS to a users.csv file, and hang onto that file. When we deploy our Alumni portal, we'll be able to use that to place grads in the correct school and year.
Stay in touch with your professional peers
Got a question, looking for best practices, or just want to extend your professional learning community? Use EduTalk, and the staff-only Topic groups on My Big Campus as professional lifelines during school breaks. Search the Bundle Exchange for lesson plan ideas, standards, and media for your classes.
Allow student access during the break: pros and cons
Another question for schools to consider is whether to allow students to use My Big Campus on their own during the summer break. Because users can access their My Big Campus accounts from anywhere at any time, including school breaks and vacations, you will need a procedure for monitoring user actions when staff resources are limited. If staff are not available, you can use policies in MBC to limit or remove access to My Big Campus features during breaks. In addition, I and my staff continue to monitor user activity just as if school was in session. Anyone violating the terms of use will have their account suspended—and our school contacts will be notified in the usual fashion.
On the horizon for My Big Campus
If you're curious about how my team and I will be spending our summer vacation, take a look at the Product Roadmap in the MBC Orientation Center. The Roadmap is based on your feature requests, along with other input from the MBC community. We have regular staff meetings to discuss and schedule future development of My Big Campus, and we're eager to hear your wishes, ideas, and even frustrations. Any questions or suggestions that I can bring to our team for discussion? Let me know in the comments.
Students may be out of school for the summer, but a lot of them will still want to visit My Big Campus regularly. You can safely leave My Big Campus turned "on" for your students this summer if you wish. Students will appreciate the chance to explore the Library, use Bundles to build their digital portfolios, and practice their digital citizenship skills.
I want to assure administrators and teachers that even if your school is not fully staffed over the break, I and the rest of the My Big Campus team will be monitoring user activities, just as we do when school is in session.
Here are a range of options and best practices to help you manage your users over the summer.
Option 1: Leave Everything as Is
Just be sure to remind students that school rules and the My Big Campus pledge still apply to their online activities, even when school is not in session. If our staff disables any student accounts for not following the terms of use, your district administrator will be notified.
Option 2: Remove Students from Groups
To secure your groups from use while the group owner is away, remove students from all groups.
If your groups are auto-populated and memberships maintained with SIS imports, you can use a SIS import to remove group members.
If group owners maintain the group memberships, the group owners can use the Group Maintenance tool to remove members.
NOTE: For users not integrated with the Lightspeed filter: If you have a free account and the students you've given accounts will no longer have you as a teacher, there's a bonus. When your students are removed from all groups, their policy will automatically change to lock down their accounts until they are added to a group again. They'll still be able to log in and browse the Library, but most social activities will be disabled.
Option 3: Adjust Student Policies
Through MBC Administration, you can adjust the policies for students at each school to disable any aspects of the site you don't want them using over the summer, such as student-to-student messaging.
Option 4: Disable Accounts
Very soon, Lightspeed customers will be able to disable accounts using policies. You'll see it as just another check box in the list. I'll have more information about this in a few days. We hope this won't be necessary, and I want to assure you again that My Big Campus is monitored by my staff even during school breaks.
Final Note
You don't need to (and shouldn't) delete your student users at the end of every term. When you delete user accounts, all user content disappears — content that students and their parents may want to keep, particularly their files and photos. This is especially important for graduating seniors, whose digital portfolios will be valuable for job and college applications. In fact, if you put all graduating seniors in a policy and disable access, in the next few months we will be able to notify them how to access their content through an alumni portal.
I'm interested in hearing from school admins and teachers about how you manage student access during breaks. Let me know in the Comments if you have ideas, tips, or questions.
Summer's almost here (and for a few of you, the summer break has already started). You may be on vacation, but if your school allows, you can still use My Big Campus. Here are a few things students like to do on MBC over the summer:
Say "Hi" to me, Bob Campus. I'll be here all summer long to answer your questions.
Just remember that I and the rest of the My Big Campus team will be monitoring activity just as we do when school is in session. The My Big Campus pledge still applies, and so does your school's internet use policy. Practice good digital citizenship, and have fun.
Got plans for the summer, or ideas for My Big Campus? Let me know in the comments, and have a great summer vacation!
It's that time of year already: time for teachers and admins to start thinking about what to do with groups, assignments and quizzes. It's also not too early to plan how to manage My Big Campus users over the summer break.
Student portfolios
Many students now in their final year of high school will want to retain access to content they created in MBC, to supplement college applications and resumes. Admins should keep this in mind before they consider deleting user accounts and content for students who graduate at the end of this term. We're working on a special portal for Alumni that will allow graduating students to preserve their digital portfolios. I'll have more information for admins and students as the project develops.
What to do with your Groups
Next, let's talk about group maintenance. One of my colleagues at My Big Campus put together a video that gives you an overview of the maintenance process. With this tool, teachers can retain and reuse the group content they want to keep (resources, pages, discussion stems), while clearing out responses, comments, and members.
Teachers should plan whether to reuse their existing groups, or create and populate a new group for classes that repeat each term. In both cases, admins can use SIS imports to set the group title, group owner, and add or remove group members. Here are some tips, if you're using SIS imports to update group rosters:
In the "memberships.csv" file, if the field unique_sis_group_id matches an existing group, the import will remove all existing users (except the group owner) from the group, and replace them with the list of users in the CSV file.
Use "groups.csv" to create new groups or update an existing group with a new group owner. Specify existing group ID to overwrites group settings for existing groups; new unused group ID to create a new group.
Reusing Quizzes and Assignments
The next big deal for teachers is being able to reuse assignments and quizzes. The Schoolwork Templates feature makes it very easy to build a repository of schoolwork that you can fine-tune and deploy as needed. Here's another video on that topic.
We've got an upgrade to the Schoolwork module in development now, for release early this summer. You'll have more question types available for Quizzes, and importing will be supported. Watch my blog for more details as the new release takes shape.
Updating student records
This one's for IT admins: It's not too early to plan and test your SIS import process for adding and updating student records for the upcoming term (this article explains how).
Some schools clear out their Active Directory and start again with the new school term, but that doesn't mean you should delete student accounts on MBC; a SIS import with the new login tied to the existing student IDs and screen names will allow students to keep their MBC logins, and their online files and other data.
For students graduating to another school in your district, a SIS import can relocate them quickly. Consider also what to do with students who leave your school or district over the summer break. MBC staff can also, on request, move students to another school if they're changing districts.
Export your graduating senior class from your SIS to a users.csv file, and hang onto that file. When we deploy our Alumni portal, we'll be able to use that to place grads in the correct school and year.
Stay in touch with your professional peers
Got a question, looking for best practices, or just want to extend your professional learning community? Use EduTalk, and the staff-only Topic groups on My Big Campus as professional lifelines during school breaks. Search the Bundle Exchange for lesson plan ideas, standards, and media for your classes.
Allow student access during the break: pros and cons
Another question for schools to consider is whether to allow students to use My Big Campus on their own during the summer break. Because users can access their My Big Campus accounts from anywhere at any time, including school breaks and vacations, you will need a procedure for monitoring user actions when staff resources are limited. If staff are not available, you can use policies in MBC to limit or remove access to My Big Campus features during breaks. In addition, I and my staff continue to monitor user activity just as if school was in session. Anyone violating the terms of use will have their account suspended—and our school contacts will be notified in the usual fashion.
On the horizon for My Big Campus
If you're curious about how my team and I will be spending our summer vacation, take a look at the Product Roadmap in the MBC Orientation Center. The Roadmap is based on your feature requests, along with other input from the MBC community. We have regular staff meetings to discuss and schedule future development of My Big Campus, and we're eager to hear your wishes, ideas, and even frustrations. Any questions or suggestions that I can bring to our team for discussion? Let me know in the comments.
