Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:seems like the principals need to tell their teachers to go ahead with non synchronous learning in whatever way they choose. Stop relying on the higher ups.

+1000000000

That’s what my elementary grade level did from the beginning and we didn’t miss a beat today. Students watched recorded lessons, they completed the work, teachers commented and returned it, and answered questions from students. When I mentioned recorded lessons last week many in other threads were amazed and upset that the kids might not have “live” lessons. Well, it’s working well for us and we’ve had positive feedback from families.

Us too. So it’s been fine for my kids. They have a live morning meeting where the teacher went over the plan of the day. There is a live afternoon session of “ask the teacher” where they could get help with any other problems they ran into. Other then that it is videos and assignments. Also the teacher, spec Ed teacher and grade level ia are monitoring the classroom stream and helping as questions pop up there.

Can’t believe FCPS admin is throwing teachers under the bus like this. Y’all don’t deserve that. And it’s a failure of leadership to accept full responsibility when things like this happen.

00:01 here. I will add that our lessons were recorded using BB Collaborate or Screencastify. The recorded lessons were all hyperlinked in a Google Slide and posted in Classroom. Lessons were all completed in Classroom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:seems like the principals need to tell their teachers to go ahead with non synchronous learning in whatever way they choose. Stop relying on the higher ups.

+1000000000

That’s what my elementary grade level did from the beginning and we didn’t miss a beat today. Students watched recorded lessons, they completed the work, teachers commented and returned it, and answered questions from students. When I mentioned recorded lessons last week many in other threads were amazed and upset that the kids might not have “live” lessons. Well, it’s working well for us and we’ve had positive feedback from families.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's revealed now that teachers were TOLD they could use guest links.

And FCPS lady is saying no one warned them what could happen.

IT woman said that it was just word of mouth among teachers to set things up via guest links. It wasn't the IT dept who caused this, according to her, it was other teachers giving bad info to their fellow teachers.

That is a complete lie. The training from IT leadership said that guest links were to be used. Each teacher was sent their own secure link and a guest link to share. There was NO WAY for teachers to set up their own secure links for each student. We did not even have a Collaborate license until Tuesday night that allowed for them to be set up by teachers at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like the FCPS servers were not sufficient and FCPS didn't populate the Collaborate sessions with the specific students.

While FCPS made BB guy grovel and take the fall, the details seem like FCPS IT dept. screwed it up.

FCPS pays a fortune for managed hosting by Blackboard. All of the system is hosted by them. Most Bb clients install on their own servers but FCPS has paid a fortune for managed hosting specifically so they can manage high loads professionally. FAIL

So the problem is 100% on Blackboard's end?

Absurd.

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is now saying they failed to tell teachers how to properly set up sessions to not allow crashers. There was a way to prevent it, but they didn't communicate it well to teachers.

This is a lie. 100% not true.

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like the FCPS servers were not sufficient and FCPS didn't populate the Collaborate sessions with the specific students.

While FCPS made BB guy grovel and take the fall, the details seem like FCPS IT dept. screwed it up.

FCPS pays a fortune for managed hosting by Blackboard. All of the system is hosted by them. Most Bb clients install on their own servers but FCPS has paid a fortune for managed hosting specifically so they can manage high loads professionally. FAIL

Anonymous wrote:So 50% of the teachers could have used the last 3-4 weeks to set up Google classroom sites. They had time. But, I guess they thought BB would work, so they didn't move down the path of using Google classrooms.

NO. We were literally told from central office that all teachers MUST use Blackboard, even teachers who have used Google Classroom in FCPS for YEARs. It has caused huge stress for our staff who mostly use GC to have been forced to go back to this crap product. No SBTS wanted this, no teacher wanted this. If the person who supervises you tells you you are not allowed to do something, most teachers are rule followers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone post a link to the recorded session from today?

https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung-gs-rev1&sxsrf=ALeKk01hFxBRLlM5wpZoB1Sf5a1W7O72tA%3A1587081646730&ei=rvGYXsGOLLSgytMP5qiz2AI&q=youtube+fcps+school+board+4%2F16%2F2020&oq=youtube+fcps+school+board+4%2F16%2F2020&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAM6BAgAEEc6BggAEBYQHjoFCCEQoAE6BQghEKsCOggIIRAWEB0QHlCga1jOnwFgnaQBaABwAXgAgAGtAYgBigqSAQQwLjEwmAEAoAEB&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp#

I watched it live. Circular firing squad Some of the SB members were surprisingly astute. Others--not so much.

Anonymous wrote:Can someone post a link to the recorded session from today?

https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung-gs-rev1&sxsrf=ALeKk01hFxBRLlM5wpZoB1Sf5a1W7O72tA%3A1587081646730&ei=rvGYXsGOLLSgytMP5qiz2AI&q=youtube+fcps+school+board+4%2F16%2F2020&oq=youtube+fcps+school+board+4%2F16%2F2020&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAM6BAgAEEc6BggAEBYQHjoFCCEQoAE6BQghEKsCOggIIRAWEB0QHlCga1jOnwFgnaQBaABwAXgAgAGtAYgBigqSAQQwLjEwmAEAoAEB&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp#

Anonymous wrote:This started out with FCPS telling BB to apologize and grovel and take the blame.

As the School Board is getting to the details, we are finding out that FCPS/IT is really at fault. They didn't explain to the teachers to not use "guest" sign in. They didn't have the server capacity. They didn't connect the class list with the class. They didn't update the BB systems for years. They didn't test the system (although part of that is BB's fault).

Basically, this was FCPS/IT screwing it up.

This is insane. There was literally no other option.

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is now saying they failed to tell teachers how to properly set up sessions to not allow crashers. There was a way to prevent it, but they didn't communicate it well to teachers.

Well, that is a BOLD-FACED LIE. Blackboard Collaborate sent out emails to each teacher with the moderator link and the guest link. Teachers use moderator links and guests (students) use guest link. Those were the only two choices. Ever. Period. There was NO way to prevent it at the time of launch (Tuesday).

What makes the above statement from FCPS leadership even more unbelievable is that it was revealed earlier this week that FCPS had to sign an emergency contract and pay big bucks to link Blackboard Collaborate to Blackboard (I think Tuesday night?). Up until that point, they were operating as two separate platforms.

FCPS leadership can get the hell out of here with this fabricated blame-game. Disgusting.

Can someone post a link to the recorded session from today?

Anonymous wrote:seems like the principals need to tell their teachers to go ahead with non synchronous learning in whatever way they choose. Stop relying on the higher ups.

+1000000000