New Gear for the New Year

Teachers in Maize tend to go above and beyond what it takes to communicate to students and parents. While all elementary teachers communicate through the Message Center in Skyward, and all middle school and high school teachers post information on their Blackboard sites, do not be surprised to find other resources for communication attached to these common places.
As the new year kicks off, several teachers start out with new textbooks also available online. While online textbooks are not a new thing, new texts now offer more options to help students learn such as practice tests, review slideshows, highlighting and notetaking online.
Students are busy, teachers are busy. Being able to access textbooks online from home is great, especially if you have one of those kids who remember at about 8:00 on Sunday night that they were supposed to read a chapter or study for a test and forgot to bring the book home! Currently, Maize offers Envision Math online for elementary, and various Middle School and Secondary texts.
Curriculum Director, Sheila Rathbun, has been working dilegently with vendors to make sure that we have all of the online pieces that we need to give students access.
Last year, the high school English departments at MHS and MSHS received online texts.
Examview tests often come with the online texts, allowing students to take their tests, such as vocaubulary tests, through Blackboard and receive instant feedback on how they did.
This year, many science teachers at the middle and high school levels received online textbooks.
Maize Middle School and Maize South Middle School science teachers received online textbooks from Pearson this year.
Mike Tinich teaches high school science at Maize South High School. He as well as his colleagues in the science department are working to create websites accessible through Blackboard or by going directly to the site. Their website, created with Weebly.com is a resource for students and parents where assignments and important information are accessible at all times.
Students and parents use this well-organized site to learn about the class curriculum, the teacher's expectations, find assignments, and access links to supporting Web sites recommended by Mr. Tinich. An excellent feature is a link to an online version of the textbook. Each student and parent receives a password that enables them to access the full textbook from any Internet-connected computer. During the school year, tutorials and reviews for every topic covered in class are also posted.
Brant Benninga at Maize High School has also created a website accessible on his Blackboard site. He has chosen Edmoto for his Government class. Because the social studies department uses totally online resources for their curriculum, they currently have a 1:1 laptop availability in their classes.
The district has access to Worldbook Encyclopedia online as well! Students can use this online book for research in various classes that they are enrolled in. To access this site at home, go to this link: http://www.worldbookonline.com/?subacct=N4518 and enter the username and password given by your teacher.