Pandemic problem - students were remote and we needed to send each student their report card at the end of a grading cycle. We did not want to use the U.S. Mail as it was expensive, non-eco friendly, and time consuming, Our solution, mass email individual files to student email addresses. We chose to send the emails and documents to student email addresses because we were confident that they were the most reliable address we had on file for any student, as the email addresses were created and assigned by the school district. In non-pandemic times, we would send the document home with the student. 

Early this year we learned how to send a mass email through mail merge using Word. Thank you Peerti Burns for teaching us how to do this first step! After we learned how to mail merge out a standard email we were met with a new challenge, attaching a specific pdf to each email. Sending each student a specific file took us a bit of time to figure out.  The steps below walk you through what we learned so that we could send individual pdfs to students.  

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There are two tools that I used to help make the process simpler and go faster. I reference them in the videos, but I am linking them here too.
Links to Plug-Ins
AutoSplit:   
https://www.evermap.com/AutoSplit.asp

Mail Merge Toolkit: (Remember to try trial and make sure the version you buy attaches your file.  I am not sure what the difference is between Personal Attachments and Personalized PDF in attachment. There were not two versions when I purchased the add-in). https://www.mapilab.com/outlook/mail_merge/#purchase  

Also, I used two formulas that you can copy and paste into your spreadsheet to help complete your data sheet.
Links to Formulas:

• Formula to remove characters from ID Number:     =LEFT(A1,LEN(A1)-4)    
• Formula for Vlookup to match file with ID Number  (Remember to change file to your file’s name.): 

          =VLOOKUP($A2,'[Report Cards Sample File.xlsx]Sheet1'!$A$1:$G$3193,7,FALSE)     

Learning to send documents individually to students has added an additional layer to  our communication channels. It's efficient, reliable, and cost effective.  The challenges we have faced during the pandemic have been immense, learning to leverage email to distribute unique student information is one way in which we have gotten better through the pandemic months.  I hope what we have learned helps you communicate with your community.

Working on a large campus with upwards of 200 teachers I get excited every time a teacher discovers Twitter, connects with a Facebook group or more recently connects through Instagram.  As much as I would like to say the majority are collaborating in these spaces and building PLN's outside our building we aren't there YET.  

Last May I had an idea to try and reach the teachers that were not connecting in the spaces above through good old email. I looked at the different platforms that I could use to create an email that was not just created in Outlook but in a space where it could be a  resource.  Smore was my first choice, however with the email filters in place in my district the communication didn't come through consistently or if it did all the resources did not show up correctly.  I use Constant Contact for our school eNews, but it wasn't going to work for what I wanted to push out to faculty. So for the teachers, I chose to use Mail Chimp.  I am grateful that there are so many tools to choose from! 

I follow the same formula in each email. I share a strategy, a resource (usually a blog post or podcast), a tech tool, and finally some of the social media posts from our faculty.  I love to share these highlights! For teachers not using social media, the embedded posts give them an idea of what other teachers are doing. It also reinforces that social media posts are interesting. I make all of the posts clickable in hopes that people might discover more than the single post they clicked on. Each year our story grows on social media painting a  stronger picture of who we are as a school! While i am pushing this content out to them, I am hopeful eventually it will start to pull them into spaces where they can pursue their own interests and connections. 

If you want to subscribe to the mailing list and receive a copy of the emails that are sent out in the future click here!  Please feel free to use the format and any content that has been curated! 

Below is what the latest Learning Connections email out looked like.  

Connecting ideas, people, tools and opportunities to learn.

​Learning Connections is a communication that has been created to help connect educators at Bellaire HS to ideas, people, tools, and strategies. Our goal is to create a space that you can browse when you have time. We will be sharing interesting educational posts, podcasts, and online courses with you periodically. We will also be spotlighting different uses of Social Media on campus. Each of these moments helps to tell Bellaire's story.This communication is intended to be collaborative moving forward and a product that is crowd-sourced by the Bellaire faculty. You'll be able to send in ideas through a form at the bottom of this message or tag items #BHSLearn on Twitter.

15 Visible Learning Strategies

You’ll probably agree with me when I say, “200% more growth than peers” is quite a stretch.

Or is it?

In our recent nine-week action research, students who focused on visible learning strategies outperformed their peers on district standardized tests. But that’s not all. They achieved over 200% more growth than their peers.
We’ll get into our results more, but first how? What are visible learning strategies?
We used a handful of visible learning strategies and helped our students take control of learning. Their teacher gave them a few strategies that allowed them to take ownership in their learning. They only used three of the 15 strategies below, and achieved amazing results! Read more here...

​https://teamtomeducation.com

Class Randomizer
Shout out to Glenn Fruitiz, a BHS Science teacher, for this share!  His students know at any moment that he may be calling on them. It's a great tool to make sure you are reaching the room.  Create a spreadsheet that has each of your periods in it and quickly copy and past your roster into the tool. ​

Below are links to other editions of Learning Connections .

• Learning Connections #1
• Learning Connections #2
• Learning Connections #3
• Learning Connections #4
• Learning Connections #5

I would love to hear other ideas and see examples of how you connect with your teachers. Please share below or tag me on Twitter.