Back to School with LearnPlatform

Alright. Well, hello, and welcome to the learn platform by Instructure back to school webinar. Thank you to everyone here that is making time for us today. I know it's a very busy time of year, and I apologize if I'm forcing you to fast forward through the last few days or weeks of your summer. However, I do know that some of you are already in the thick of it, so I appreciate your time even more. I know it's busy.

It is, though, really important to consider how you are going to introduce and remind and educate yourself about our platform. There's also a couple of things that you can do to set your out self up for success throughout the school year. I'm gonna go through our agenda, for ebook reminders before we jump right in. Maybe while I'm doing that, if you don't mind typing in, the name of your district and maybe what state you're in. I'd love to see what parts of the country everyone is coming from.

So you can introduce yourself in in the chat as I, jump through our agenda here. So first of all, I wanted to point out that we did have a change to our UI. I'll show you that in a minute here or you might have even noticed it yourself. We are gonna spend most of our time talking about rolling out Learn Platform to the different people in your district and community. Even better, I'm gonna be sharing some examples of, resources that other districts have shared with us as examples.

And so just wanted to shout out some of those districts from all over the country. And if you have examples at the end, I'm gonna be asking for yours as well. We're gonna definitely, take some time at the end for some questions, so jump right in. As a quick reminder, learn platform is now part of the Instructure EdTech effectiveness solution. We offer many great solutions depending on what your needs are.

If you have any questions about the solutions we offer, please contact your CSM or your account manager. And if you're not sure who that is, you can also share that in the chat, and we'll definitely get you to the right person. Alright. I'm seeing Kentucky, California, Arizona. Awesome.

Hello, everybody. If you haven't noticed, this is a screenshot of what the new UI looks like. We we did this right after, like, the middle of June, and our hope was that you were done with your school year, but you also had a little bit of time to get used to the look and feel of it. Your custom colors and your logo all stayed the same. But what we will notice is that there is your menu is alongside the top here instead of on the left hand side.

We did this for two main reason. One, and a big one was it it improves our accessibility for all of our users, and so we love that. But, also, we wanted it to have a more cohesive feel with all of our other Instructure products. Lastly, I love it just because it gives us more real estate for that product library, that menu on the left. A couple little bit of screen space, and, I appreciate that we can get some more extra columns or extra products in our view.

If you have any resources that you share with your, staff that have screenshot or specific instruction that they click on the left hand menu. Those might be things, that you think about updating. However, it is fairly intuitive. Nothing else has really changed except for the location of that. So, let's just get into some things about introducing learning platform.

I think it's really important to talk about the what and why that is specific to your school district. Each district has implemented learn platform for different reasons, and we wanna highlight that when you're introducing it to your educators. As a former teacher myself, and now working in in k twelve ever since, I can attest to some program burnout. It can sometimes feel like every year there's another tool or program that educators need to learn and try to incorporate into their already busy day. This is not one of them.

It doesn't require a lot of additional training, and it's not a resource that they need to rely on every day. However, they are busy, and so they definitely need that reminder, of where to go and when and why. So our most successful district, not only tell their staff what platform is, they explain why they're adopting it and how it will make that educator's life easier and is not just another EdTech tool. That story that you tell to be authentic and specific to your need and really what you want your outcomes for a learning platform to be. Here is an example of Aurora Public School, how they tell their story.

I just took some screenshots of this short video that they've made. It is one of the resources we'll include as a follow-up. What I love about this video, it it shows visibility to the problem, that they were trying to solve. It's it shows the goals for adapting LEARN platform, and helps them better understand the why behind it. They encourage educators to use learning platforms to save themselves time looking for EdTech that's safe, and it meets their needs, and it's available within their district.

They kind of present it like it's online shopping for EdTech. You know, I'd be great online shopping. I know how to use the the search bar and the filters to find the right things for me. If we point them in the right direction, hopefully, that they have that same feeling or experience. Many districts also allow educators to submit requests for new EdTech or give feedback on the EdTech that they're using.

And really that allows educators to feel like they have that voice and choice in the ed tech that their districts are implementing. So I love the idea of, video short video overview. That really shows learning platform in a positive light and the different ways that it's going to help your educators and keep your students safe, rather than just another tool that they need to be using. Beside the the what and the why about your story, we wanna start thinking about the timeline. As we know, you know, every district has, you know, different calendar start dates, and so we really wanna take into consideration your own district timeline and what you would like to accomplish between now and, you know, the end of this school year with form platform.

So what I am showing you here is just an example of what a a calendar kind of look like. If you look at the top actually, let's look at the bottom. In the black here, we've laid out some district events that are already happening or on the district calendar. And on the top here, we're showing some activities that might be related to what is happening with learn platform on the top. So thinking about your end goal, what are some things that you would like to, accomplish with one platform? And, you know, in this case, they'd like to in this example, they'd like their educators to know where to go, when to use it.

They want to collaborate across departments to really dig into the data that's available in learn platform, and then use that data to make improvements into their EdTech ecosystem throughout this school year. So as I said, this timeline is just simply an example. So as you can see, the staff is returning in in August, and they're already leveraging meetings or PD time that is already set up by the district to introduce platform. In the case of the Leadership Institute, they'll really be introducing their plan to leverage data from an inventory dashboard and feedback from from educators during the new teacher training institute. They're gonna be getting a more in-depth look at learn platform, you know, helping them kinda create their account or log in for the first time.

And then when the full staff returns, even though they used Learn platform last year, they're still gonna be reminded about the district ed tech library and the processes that they need to follow to submit, new ed tech. As they move past, the start of the school year and that inventory dashboard starts to collect data, they have a point, during the first few weeks where they're gonna be reviewing that inventory dashboard with building leaders. So taking a look at the first month of EdTech usage, they're really looking to see if there's high usage of any reviewed and denied products. They're looking to identify any brands, new, or unknown products that are being used widely across the district. And then based on the information that they're getting, on EdTech that school year, they're gonna begin to identify products that they wanna dig in deeper for and, possibly ask for some educator feedback.

A lot of districts have fall PD or break days, so, that is another time of year. They they have some face to face time with educators. They plan to, again, remind them of learn platform and then introduce to them the idea that they will be asked for feedback and the importance of sharing that with the gift of help with those decisions. The last thing you might see on this timeline is an example for our school districts that lever leverage RCE reporting. That is rapid cycle evaluation.

Rapid cycle evaluation reports are usually ran a few times a year, and meeting with your research manager at the beginning of the year just to start that planning is also really important. So if you're on this call and you are subscribed to RCE and you need help connecting with your research manager, please put that in the chat, and I will have them reach out to you. If you're interested in learning more about RCE, you can also add that in chat. Again, just wanna highlight this is a made up example of a district's timeline and some things that they are planning to do, just to help make them more successful during the school year and leveraging all those things learning platform has to offer. Feel free to interrupt and type in the chat if there's anything that you need help with or questions that have come up.

Otherwise, I wanna remind you of a couple of, things that you might wanna do at the beginning of the year on the technical side. It's a good time to just do a technical check. Like, if your district wiped your devices or got new devices or got a new SIS, These are some things that might affect how your learning platform account is configured. So if you hired a new admin, make sure that you add them, and so that they can have access to your account. Check that your SSO is still working properly.

Sometimes those certificates expire, and they could go to log in and it says, you know, they get an error message. It's easy to update, but those are some things we wanna do before the start of school, if possible. The other thing, if you got new devices or reimaged laptops that you wanna check to make sure that those learn platform extensions are still deployed, Usually, at the beginning of the school year is when we see, like, the most movement in buildings or districts with staff and students. So it's also a really great time to update your roster. If you don't have a one roster connection that beginning of the year, you know, it's a really good time to do it.

If you have using that, this that allows for one roster connection, Please make sure that that is still working properly and you're sending us data every night. This presentation that I am gonna send as follow-up will have some support articles if you need some additional technical support. Otherwise, we also have a support team that's available to help if you have questions about your rosters, your extension, SSO, those types of things. Just wanna highlight that the benefit of updating a roster allows you to filter your inventory dashboard accurately by building and grade level. So it is a great, data to have, especially at the beginning of the year.

So just check on those rosters, make sure you have them also. Alright. Let's talk a little bit about a communication plan. You know you know your district best. Think about the programs that you've introduced to your district in the past and why they were successful.

And maybe you introduced others in the past and they weren't as successful. So let's replicate the positive, and I'm gonna give you some ideas to pull from. You obviously decide what's gonna work best for you. So we wanna try to choose the right message and the right setting for your audience. Trying not trying to make it, any more complicated.

So leveraging those already scheduled meetings, newsletters, things that are already happening in your district is a really good strategy. You'll also recommend a mix of communication. We all know how busy your staff is. Sending one email usually is is not enough, to get them to take notice. So it we try to encourage multiple different types of communication, in in multiple different ways.

So if you have a district website, or an internal resource that you share with your staff, it's great to include a link there. We talk if you have PBL workshops. Getting a small order of time on that agenda, I would say five to ten minutes depending on, you know, how much information you wanna share about your processes would be completely, enough time to do that. If you have newsletters, that's great. I've even seen, some of the email signatures for, like, our tech people to include links to the library there.

You have opportunities to meet with your smaller committees, or departments. That's great. We do have a learn platform rollout kit that we're updating. It's gonna have some resources for you. And, really, they're intended for you to modify, to really meet your own needs and your own messaging.

So we have some templates for, a teacher presentation. I'm trying to move this. Okay. It's being done. I'm gonna put them into the chat.

And, actually, if you have examples, would you please also add them in the chat? I'm gonna share a couple of things here. One is a blog post that we did this summer. It the name of it is three best practices to help maximize our platform in this school year, and it reviews what we talked about today. But then also, if you scroll to the bottom, there are multiple examples from our districts. They are short video recordings, links to their websites where you can see exactly how they, share this with their staff.

Here's one example of a website that we can see here. And here is that template I was looking for. So, when you get this, anything that's in red is what you can customize if you wanted to walk through how to access, you know, your your library, how to explore your library. You can come in here and you can cut and paste and use what you need, and make it your own. But our goal is to just give you some ideas so that you can build the messaging that's best for you.

Let's see what other examples. Here's Aurora. Here's another look at their public website and then a link to their public learn platform library for their parents and stakeholders. Here, Jefferson County, who I think a few of you are actually here on the call today. Hello.

Shares a little bit more about their process and exactly how products are reviewed. Same with Joliet, in Illinois, also shares a little bit more about how they are vetting their EdTech. Here's that Aurora video. And then a video from the Utah Education Network. Again, these are all great resources that you can access on that blog page.

So I am going to see what questions we have in the chat. If there's anything specific to teacher rollout that I can help with. So, educating your staff is just one of our best practices for your long term success. You know, start thinking about how you can use this time to, you know, build that data driven culture. Are there other building leaders and admin that are interested in discussing what EdTech is being used? You know, what your safety, a, policies are for either data privacy, accessibility, or, you know, with AI changing the market, you know, are you considering these things at the beginning of the school year? As we mentioned, don't start from scratch.

Try to ingrain learning platform into the processes and the things that you're already doing within your district. And then as you're moving into the school year, I'm gonna remind you that it is a best practice to maintain your library. So as things change, make those updates as you go instead of finding yourself at the end of the school year and your library does not match what is actually being used or what's approved. So at the beginning of the school year, if you're vetting these brand new tools that you're seeing are you being used a lot, make sure you're adding that to your library. If you cut ties with other EdTech products that you're no longer using, make sure that you've updated those statuses.

I know it's much easier to say than do, but breaking it off in the small chunks and and kind of doing it as the school year goes will make your life easier in the future. A few reminders of some of the bigger product updates, that might have happened while you were gone this summer. You can now stop workflows and send a notification to the at any point. So if a reviewer notices, you know, a red flag and it doesn't need to continue or somebody that it's a product that you know will be approved. It doesn't need to continue on any further.

You'd be able to accept that workflow and notify your requester of your decision. You can now also send reminders to those reviewers who are a little bit late in their reviews. If you are taking a look at your library, you might have noticed that there is a column now that displays the company name for the EdTech product. Just like Learn Platform, I should say Instructure has many different products that they offer. So Instructure, it's company, learning platform will be the product.

But adding that company column is making lives a lot easier to see, okay, if you already have a a DPA or Instructure, you know, does that cover all your products similar with other companies? So that was a huge win. You can now also change the view. So some people prefer that title view of the library. Others like a clean list. You can do that.

And wanna bring your attention to coming soon. We're working on custom created product tiles. We have released that to some of our customers. It allows you to add a custom tile. Really, the what we want to accomplish is to be able for your educator, if there is a product that is not in the learn community library and needs to be added, that first, that request would come right to the learn platform admin.

From there, learn platform admin can choose to create a product title for that request right away while also allowing the learn community team to vet that pry vet that product and add additional privacy information to it. And then that learn platform admin would eventually be given the choice to merge their custom tile with the one that was created by learn platform community. This will save time for getting those products started and into the library and also will give districts a little bit more control over the names and what, you know, what information is included, for those products. So watch for that coming in the next, month or so. We'll have blog posts available when it is ready.

Speaking of logs, we are now updating the guides in our Instructure community area. So you can come here to read the guides. We're going to be adding additional content here, a lot of how to information. We also have some of those, product logs that we talked about. Here's that one for best practices for, teacher rollout and those examples of what some other districts are doing.

I have talked this whole time. I don't see questions in the chat, but I'm going to stick around for a little bit longer. If you have a question or if you have an example that you'd like to share of how you introduce our platform or how you plan to remind your educators of our platform, please talk to them in the chat. Otherwise, you will receive a recording of this, this session and those resources that I've shared with you. Thank you, everyone, for taking time today to talk about learning platform.

And I hope that the start of your school year or wherever you are in the beginning of the school year is going really well for you. Thanks, Madra. Thank you. Thank you, Nice to see you. Thanks, Madra. Thank you, Kathleen. Nice to see you.