This page is dedicated to providing resources to assist our districts in their response to the COVID-19 virus. We will continue to update this information as necessary.
Zoom Video Conferencing
All teachers have access to basic account through our Zoom license. Zoom has recently announced that they are going to extend pro features to all K12 school districts through the Covid outbreak. ECBOCES has already applied to have our account upgraded so that all of our account users will have pro status. In the meantime, click HERE for instructions to get your Zoom account set up.
Moodle LMS
All districts have access to our Moodle LMS. ECBOCES can set up classes so that your teachers and students can communicate during a closure. Moodle has apps for all devices that allow for downloading course content for those students
that do not have regular internet service. Please contact emmar@ecboces.org to get more information.
Big Blue Button Video Conferencing
ECBOCES has a secondary video conferencing system that is integrated into the online.ecboces.org Moodle site and also has its own website found HERE. This is very similar to Zoom but actually has a nice way of automatically saving recordings to the main conference page for easy access. Click on LDAP login and login using your ECBOCES username and password or, for most of our GoogleApps schools, login with Google and use your school address. Big Blue Button tutorials are found HERE.
INTERNET ACCESS
Many of our students might not have internet access in their homes. Keep your school wifi up in a closure and maybe move an access point closer to the parking lot so students could drive in and access internet during a closure.
Google apps has a lot of great tools for connecting with your students in a closure. Google classroom, google drive, google meet are all tools readily accessible with an internet connection. Google has some getting started tutorials HERE.
*Updated 3/17 with T-Mobile and Viaero Options*
Mobile Hotspots are another way of providing internet for your students. The ECBOCES has been collecting vendor information for these services. Use this Google Sheet to
access the data. We will update this as new solutions become available.
The flipped classroom methodology could be extremely helpful during these times. Teachers could record their lessons and then share those recording with their students via Google or Moodle. ECBOCES has a free course for its members on flipping the classroom HERE.
Recording lessons can be a way to still connect with students, even if they cannot connect to a live conference. There are lots of free tools to record with including Zoom, BigBlueButton and Loom .
Khan Academy is a great site with free resources and also has put together a schedule to help us in the daily teaching of elementary students.