VanWeekly

• Welcome NEW Vanguard Leads
• XP and Stipend Reminder
• XP Tracker 2.0
• ACTION ITEMS- January PD Event
• ACTION ITEMS- Ipad Data
• ACTION ITEMS- FCS Tech Competition
• ACTION ITEMS- Bright Spark Design Competition
• School Lead call
  
• Webinars
• Tips and Tricks
• Shining a Spotlight on Success
• Learning Opportunities for Microsoft

Nov 7-9- GaETC

Nov 8- Twitter Chat

Nov 15- School Lead call

Nov 19-23- Thanksgiving Break (No VanWeekly)

Nov 27- Webinar

Congratulations to our new learning community leads Jill Fears (CLC) and Tammie St. John (NELC)! I'm very excited to have both of these amazing Vanguardians and educators on board. I know they will do an amazing job of representing your interests and taking Vanguard further down the road of Transforming, Innovating, Mentoring, and Supporting!

I wanted to give them an opportunity to introduce themselves to you all, so I asked them to talk about their Vanguard experience. Here they are in their own words.

Congrats Jill and Tammie!

-Justin Evans, Vanguard Lead Coach

As a new Vanguard member, I am the school lead Vanguard Coach at my school and I was awarded Vanguard's 2018 Rookie of the Year. Vanguard to me is a group of educators who are passionate about best practices in instructional technology and who are willing to share with others in a way that will engage and impact the learning of all students. I am ecstatic to be a part of the Vanguard leadership team because having the spirit of collaboration I enjoy sharing and leading others in instructional technology best practices, skills, tools, and resources.

Hello Vanguard! I am so excited to join the VanLeadership Team. What a dynamic group of individuals to learn from. When I think of Vanguard I think of all the “cool tech” tools and the technology that goes along with it. I am reminded of all the fabulous professional development opportunities like GaETC! But most importantly, I think of Vanguard as a group of like-minded individuals who strive every single day to transform their classrooms and schools. I enjoy seeing my colleagues at my school light up with newfound abilities to bring technology to aid and challenge their students. I believe Vanguard is about coaching, mentoring, and sharing the vision of personalized learning with people within our school and beyond. While I have always been a bit of a techy, I also love teaching. Bottom line, I wanted to join the leadership team to meld both and help vanguard teams with coaching, learning and transforming within their teams and schools. A vanguard member once told me to tell my story, shows people what I was doing in my classroom, this push was all I needed to bring the walls down in my classroom. I can’t wait to share what I have learned along my journey and, hopefully, help others bring the walls down in their classroom. I can’t wait to learn alongside all the many passionate members of the FCS Vanguard Team. Thanks Vanguard for the opportunity to join the leadership team!

Stipends will be released twice during the year. Early stipend earners will get their $500 stipend in December. If you're not quite to your XP goal by the deadline for the December release, you will be eligible for the second round, which will be issued in February.

November 16th - Early Bird Gets the Worm Deadline!

• Teachers & METIs must earn 35 points by this date to get their stipend in December.
• Non-Instructional staff must earn 25 points by this date to get their stipend in December

February 1st - Staying the Course Deadline!

• Teachers & METIs must earn 50 points by this date to get their stipend in February.
• Non-Instructional staff must earn 35 points by this date to get their stipend in February.

After a long development period, XP Tracker 2.0 is live and ready to go!

Tracker 2.0 still has the same XP Tracker tab you know and love, but it also adds a really cool new Activity Tracker tab as well. The Activity Tracker lets you select your name and then see every XP entry that you've submitted, broken down by T, I, M(Cycles), M(Other), and S.

Here's how to best use it:

1. Click on cell A2 and start typing your name. There is also a drop-down of all of our names, but typing will help you find your name quickly.

2. Confirm that your email address is correct. If it's not, email me.

3. View your total XP and your submissions by category.

4. When you are finished reviewing your XP, please click on your name and hit delete.
   
   

As cool as the Activity Tracker is, I do want to make sure you're all aware of one unavoidable limitation. This is a shared document. That's why step 4 above is an important courtesy - if you leave your name selected, the next person to use the Tracker will see your information. That's not a problem per se, because we consider XP submissions to be public knowledge, but it's still a best practice to reset the form for the next user.

The other consequence of this being a shared document is that there may be more than one Vanguardian accessing it at the same time. It's not likely to happen often (except perhaps today), but don't be shocked if you see other users in the document.

Finally, the XP Tracker 2.0 is a complete replacement of the original XP Tracker, with a different web address. If you've bookmarked the Tracker, please update your bookmark.

I hope you enjoy the Activity Tracker, and please remember to delete your name when you are finished! Thanks!

-Justin Evans, Vanguard Lead Coach

We are ramping up for our January PD, “Limit Break” gamer themed professional development.

To pull this off, WE NEED YOU!

This is your opportunity to share what you know to help others around the district. We are soliciting session proposals from Vanguard members for Speedrun Sessions (IGNITE - 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide, 5 minutes total https://youtu.be/h_KJbuCMQLI ), Main Quest Sessions (90 minutes) and Side Quest Sessions (50 minutes). Please consider submitting a proposal for one of these opportunities.

We need your expert knowledge!

http://bit.ly/VanguardSessionProposal2018

Session proposals are due on Sunday 11/25/18.

We look forward to learning from each other in January!

There are a number of lines on our Verizon plan that are temporarily suspended due to inactivity. We will be permanently terminating service on these lines by the first week in December due to inactivity. Please check your Vanguard iPad to make sure you have access to data. If you do not have service, please notify Chris Olateru (olateruc@fultonschools.org) by Friday, November 16th.

Carolyn Hutcheson (hutchesonc@fultonschools.org) is the point of contact for questions about the Technology Fair.

This year, the FCS Technology Competition at Centennial High School on January 26th will include a Design Thinking team competition for students in grades 4-12. The top 3 teams from the FCS Technology Competition will go on to participate in the 2018-2019 Bright Spark Design Competition in February. Teachers interested in having a team compete must attend a Design Thinking Simulation training with Amy Barger on November 27th from 8:00-3:30 at the Admin Building on Powers Ferry Road. For additional details about the training day and the Bright Spark competition, see the attached documents. Space is limited, so register in Edivate today!

Click the links below to learn more.

We will be conducting our meeting in Microsoft Teams, and the link to join the meeting will appear in the Vanguard School Lead Team - General channel.

Thursday, November 15th at 7:00pm

November 27 at 7:30 pm we will have the GaETC Smackdown webinar. We are looking for Vanguard members to share their learning from the GaETC conference. What is your biggest takeaway related to Transform, Innovate, Mentor and Support? Complete this quick form if you would like to participate. All you need is a computer, be logged into Teams during the meeting, and have your microphone to speak. If you have a couple slides, visuals, or websites you would like to share with the group, Mindy Ramon can help you with that.

We are looking for your feedback on topics for future webinars. What do you want to learn? Do you have something you would like to teach are showcase to the rest of team? Please complete this quick form to let us know.

We are looking for hosts for our coming Twitter chats! Please let us know if you are interested or know a colleague inside or outside of Fulton County who you believe would make a great host! Have ideas on the perfect topic? Reach out and let me know! Hosts, topics, and all things Twitter can be submitted here: https://goo.gl/forms/V4lclz5SxA0YrR693

New Members Modules: First Semester Courses are worth 40 points ( all new members must complete the modules and have a total of 40 points)

You can check your points here: New Members Point Tracker

New Members Committee are checking points to make sure members do not have duplicate submissions i.e. members with 50 points.

Modules and Codes are Below

M1:BDIOL

M2: MTPJL

M3:KDTIN

M4:( This module has a tab in Teams- see screenshot below) (We also had a code for this module WUYFI)

At the end of every module complete the Module Completion Form your points will automatically calculate.

Vanleads, do you see any vanguard members at your school doing something awesome? Were they struggling with a tool before and are now using it? BRAG on our Vanguard members. If you see something awesome, please submit about your team member.

Please share your success stories with us! You may see your "Spotlight" in an upcoming Vanweekly!

Share Your Success!

Share your Tip, Tool and/or Trick!

If you have a technology, instructional strategy/best practice, or coaching tip, etc. please share!

Share your Tip, Tool and/or Trick here

Mindy Ramon will be facilitating a self-paced online Beyond Microsoft Innovative Educator course. This course will run from December-May and will cover advanced uses of Microsoft tools to transform learning and support students. Course activities and assignments will be aligned to the Technology Integration Matrix. You must have Windows 10 installed on your laptop/Surface and have completed the Microsoft Innovative Educator course or be familiar with OneNote and OneDrive to participate. This is an advanced level class. Please complete this form if you are interested in this course. Participation is limited to 25 teachers. First come first served!

Mission: Building the capacity of instructional leaders to transform learning and teaching.

Vision: Through building colaborative relationships and supporting student focused learning, the Vanguard Team will positively impact student achievement.

Pillars: Transform, Innovate, Mentor, & Support (TIMS)

@FCSvanguard