IAR Already??? Part 2

 This is part 2 of a 4 part series of posts I am hoping will help you help kids be able to better manage the experience of April's IAR test!

Screen time is a real concern. I am certainly not an advocate of having kids looking at a screen all day long. But the IAR test is indeed an online test, and kids are expected to be able to look at that screen for a bit of time. Because we tend not to want to overdo it on screen time, we often don't ask kids to do a lot of reading online. But kids DO have to read long selections on their screens on the IAR test, so we can start to prep them for that by giving them chances to do some online reading. This will give them the chance to practice scrolling through a selection or using tabs to click to different reading selections (just like they are asked to do on the IAR assessment). Please don't think this means ALL their reading needs to be done online now! But consider having some reading assignments done on their Chromebooks so it's not a new or challenging experience once they get to the exam in April.

Similarly, consider offering some assessments online, too. Yes, the kids already take the MAP test online, but the MAP test format is different from the IAR test format. If you can have kids try to do some other online assessments (Google Forms, assessments that are part of your online curriculum), the kids will feel comfortable with different types of online assessments and not feel so intimidated by the IAR online format!

Drop a comment below about how you give kids the chance to practice reading online and taking online assessments for a chance to win some teacher swag!

IAR Already??? Part 1

 The IAR exam isn't until April, so why in the name of all that is good in this world am I writing about it now?????

Because there are things we can do all school year to help kids get ready for that assessment.

I'm not talking about "teaching to the test" type stuff. I am talking about experiential stuff. That's what is hardest to prep the kids for, the experience of taking that test.  So, how can this be accomplished? I plan to share some ideas with you over the course of the next 4 posts (I didn't want to do them all in 1 because that's overwhelming, so I'm trying to break the suggestions into bite-sized pieces).

Keyboarding

One of the biggest challenges for kids is being able to find the right keys on their keyboards as well as being able to type all the things they need to type in their allotted time. So the sooner we can make sure kids know where to find the keys, the easier it will be for them.

• Letters: just having the kids know where to find letters on the keyboard can be challenging enough. Having kids play online keyboarding games or giving them paper keyboards to practice "typing" on can help. The more they get to look at a keyboard, the more likely they will be to find the letters.
• Numbers: kids need to know how to find the numbers, too. It may seem obvious since the numbers are in order, but I have seen lots of kids struggle to find the numbers they want to type.
• Special keys: kids need to know how to use the shift key (to capitalize or use some pieces of punctuation), tab key (to indent or move between elements), backspace key, and even the CTRL key. Try to find opportunities for kids to have to use these keys.
• Fingers: I'll be honest, I am not so worried about kids learning home row finger placement (I know I should, but I'm not). What I have seen students struggle with is using more than one finger to do something, like hold down shift and a letter key to create a capital letter. So often, they try to do it with 1 hand, or they try to press 2 keys at the EXACT same time rather than hold down one and then tap the other. Giving them some opportunities to work with more than one finger at a time on the keyboard will surely help alleviate some of the frustration kids have operating the keyboard.

All of these keyboarding skills will ultimately help the kids manage the time limit they face with the IAR test. It just saddens me to think there are some kids whose score simply doesn't reflect what they know because they ran out of time because they struggle with the keyboard. 

How do you help your students learn their way around a keyboard? Share a strategy in the comments and I'll send you a cool Google sticker!

What's with this Security Update Notice in Drive?

via GIPHY

 Have you seen the little banner in your Google Drive that says, "On September 13, 2021, a security update will be applied to some of your files"? If so, do you know what it means for your Drive? If not, I am going to try to simplify it for you. It might matter; it might not. But it's still worth understanding :-)

On September 13, 2021, Google will be adding what is called a resource key to some shared links. Basically, this is going to change the shareable links so they are different. The whole idea behind this is to make the links more secure/less hackable. 

So here's some good news: Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms are NOT impacted by this security update. So that's good news since most of what we share tends to be in those file formats. 

Other file types and folders that have been shared MIGHT be impacted, though, so be aware of that.

So, how should you proceed? Keep using Google Drive as normal. If you run into a situation where a file or folder isn't accessible by someone because of the security update, let me know. I can walk you though removing the security update if necessary.

Hopefully, that little security warning at the top of your Google Drive isn't so scary sounding anymore.