Districts and Charter Schools,
 
Please forward this E-lert to your school-level stakeholders. We often have enrollment information for counselors, grades for data managers, tips for lab facilitators, announcements for testing coordinators, and strategies for school leaders, all of whom support your district's and school's e-learning efforts.
NCVPS E-lert for June 23, 2016 - Summer Edition III
Calendar Check
2016

June 20 : Start of the Summer Session

June 24: Last Day to Register

July 1: Last Day to Drop

August 12: Last Day of Summer Session

August 18: Final Grades Posted

See the complete NCVPS calendar at this link.
Essential Links








NCVPS Is Hiring Teachers

Celebrate & Connect

Connect with us on Twitter! Find us here. Tweet to us on Twitter at @ncvps or with the hashtag #ncvps.
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Current E-lert News
What's New?
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New This Week







Important From Last Week!


In addition, be sure to check out all of our tips and reminders in this week's e-lert .
SummerELASummer ELA Contacts
District Coordinators & Charter Schools,

If you have not yet completed the summer contact information form,  please follow this link to do so.  

Our teachers will need this information. 

Thank you!
SummerUpdatesSummer 2016 Updates
What's New?

We are on Day 4 of summer school, and so far the support requests have been very low at the Virtual Support Center. We would like to thank everyone for such a successful start!

The Day 3 Student Status Report is posted in our registration system.   See the details below.

The last day to register students for summer is Friday, June 24.

Details for Summer

StudentAccess Course Access
After schools enroll a student, access is not immediate. The process of "batching" students from the registration system into the learning management system (either Canvas or Blackboard) takes about one business day. Therefore, students enrolled on the June 20th through 24th (the last day to enroll) will have access the next day.


Start Date: Monday, June 20

Day 3 Status Report: June 24. Find this document in the registration system. It will show which students have not logged in yet. Please contact those students. 

Last Day to Register: Friday, June 24

LastDropDay *Last Day to Drop: Friday, July 1 - Some districts are on an abbreviated summer schedule for staff by this date. Be sure your summer students know who to contact in the district if they want to be dropped. NCVPS cannot drop students. This is an important date to keep on your calendar. This 1 is the last day districts and schools can drop students with no penalty for the student and no cost for the district or charter.

Progress Reports Posted: June 30, July 7, 14, 21, 28, August 4, 11. Find these progress reports in the registration system.

End Date: Friday, August 12

Final Grades Posted: Thursday, August 18


Follow this link  to our registration system. 

If you need access, contact our  Virtual Support Center here

Please remember that there is only one login per school.  If your school already has access, you will need to share the login username and password.

If you are new to the NCVPS registration system or need a refresher,  the guide at this link will help.

Summer 2016 Grade Reporting

The Day 3 Student Status Report was posted on June 23. Look for the report titled " Summer 2016 3-day No Show Report due June 22."

The Day 3 Student Status Report is a good early indicator of which students have begun working and which students have not.  Please contact those students to make sure they have their login information.

The first progress report will be posted on Thursday, June 30.  This will be that last report that you receive before the last day to drop, which is July 1. 

Reporting Overview
 
See how your students are progressing! We post progress reports every two weeks in the registration system.



Our grade reports are weighted grades similar to school report cards.



NCVPS posts student status reports after the third and seventh days of class. These reports indicate if students have logged in or not to their NCVPS courses. These reports are early warning indicators for schools.





Summer Resources

Follow this link to see our checklist for students. Be sure your summer school students are aware of this link. It will get them off to a great start this summer.


Follow this link to see our checklist for school. This has all your details to run a successful summer program.  

Calendars

Follow this link  to our summer calendar!





We have a number of great offerings this summer. We have courses for the accelerated students, on pace students, and credit-recovery students.

See our full Summer 2016 catalog at this link. In addition, we have a number of special summer catalog announcements below. Please take a look! 


NCVPS and Oklahoma State University have partnered to move their German courses for NCVPS students into Canvas, the statewide LMS.

In the past, OSU has sent separate login information to NCVPS students who take German courses. Now, students will use their NCVPS login to access their German courses.

Middle School Success 101

Middle School Success 101 has been added to the course catalog for Summer 2016

Health and Physical Education

NCVPS will be offering the HPE - Health and Physical Education 1 credit course and the Health Education 1/2 credit in the summer. We will not be able to offer the Fitness-Physical Education 1/2 credit course because of the number of required videos students must submit to show mastery in four weeks. Also, it will be harder to see a change in the student's fitness level in four weeks. 

Students will have eight weeks to submit videos to show mastery and change in their fitness rate in the  HPE - Health and Physical Education 1 credit course because both Health and PE will be covered each week in the eight week summer session. The Health Education 1/2 credit will still be offered in four weeks twice during the summer session. If you have any questions, please contact Karen Creech at  karen.creech@ncpublicschools.gov.

Summer with the Arts

We've had a number of messages from parents and students inquiring about summer arts options. We do have a great list of summer courses in the arts. Watch our short video below and explore our summer options.
  • Visual Arts (Beginning)
  • Visual Arts (Intermediate)
  • Visual Arts Specialization (Intermediate): Art of Game Design
  • Art of Photography I
  • Visual Arts Specialization (Intermediate): Art of Advertising
  • Digital Photography II
  • Music Specialization (Beginning): Music Appreciation
  • Music Specialization (Beginning): Music Business and Recording
  • Visual Arts Specialization (Beginning): Non Western Art
  • Visual Arts Specialization (Intermediate): Visual Journaling
  • Visual Arts Specialization (Intermediate): Art of Videography
  • Visual Arts Specialization (Intermediate): Art of Fashion Design
FallUpdatesFall 2016 Updates

Follow this link to our registration system. 

If you need access, contact our  Virtual Support Center here

Please remember that there is only one login per school.  If your school already has access, you will need to share the login username and password.

If you are new to the NCVPS registration system or need a refresher,  the guide at this link will help.

NCVPS is transitioning all of its courses to the Canvas learning management system. Currently, Canvas does not have the functionality to let schools calculate weighted marking period grades.  
 
In the past, NCVPS has posted grades in the NCVSP registration system following this process: 
  • Every two weeks we post an unweighted progress report.
  • We post our first weighted grade report at midterm. This is our 1st marking period grade, and it's weighted 37.5%.
  • We then post the 2nd marking period grade (37.5%) at the end of term, along with the final exam grade (25%) and final grade. 
  • For EOC and CTE courses, we report the final classwork grade (75%), and schools calculate in the exam grades (25%).  
Starting in Fall 2016, NCVPS will post grades in the NCVPS registration system following our new process:
  • Cumulative progress reports every two weeks.
  • Final class average at the end of term (75%), along with the final exam grade (25%), and final grade.
  • For EOC and CTE courses, we report the final classwork grade (75%), and schools calculate in the exam grades (25%).   

The cumulative progress reports are a very accurate indicator of exactly how a student is performing in the course. This is actually how we posted grades in our first two years, and it's also how we still post summer grades.

Calendars

We have published our 2016-2017 Academic Year calendar. See all the dates here!




Our catalogs for the 2016-2017 Academy Year have been posted. See the listings here. We have updated catalog information below.


NCVPS will offer the newly developed AP Computer Science course. Read more about this new course at the College Board's website


To align with revised College Board requirements for AP Physics 1 and 2, we are revising the labs in these courses for the 2016-2017 school year. Students will require materials for these hands-on labs.  We will post a list of required materials on our course description page later this summer.
Tech Updates
Password Reset

If you have had your password reset, the new password will not expire unless you have reset it. If you have forgotten what your password was reset to, you can look up the help desk ticket to access the new password or click on "Forgot Password". 


When requesting help regarding a course it always easier for tech support to respond quickly if we have the specific section name, for example: 

CourseSec01Sum16


When opening a ticket with the virtual support center, please always include the following:
  • Student's first & last name
  • PowerSchool ID number (This will help ensure we have the correct student)
  • School name (full name, i.e. Eastern Mills High School, not EMHS)
  • Course name - if the student is already enrolled,  include specific section, i.e. CourseSec01Sum16.
If you need a new student account for a student who is new to PowerSchool (not just transferring schools), include the following:
  • Your full school name (i.e. Eastern Mills High School, not EMHS)
  • The student's first and last name
  • The student's PowerSchool ID number
  • The student's email address 
  • The student's phone number (the contact number this will be in PowerSchool) 
  • Does the student have an IEP? Yes/No
  • Does the student have a 504 Plan? Yes/No

Replying to a Support Center Ticket
 
After you submit a ticket to the Virtual Support Center, you will receive a ticket confirmation and resolution via email. To expedite your resolution, please do not reply to the email. The email will have a link in it for your response. Please click on that link (see below). 



This will put the ticket right back in the queue of the person who is working on your ticket. If you reply to the email, then that will have to be manually put into the ticket, and that can delay the process by several hours. 

In Canvas:
Click on "settings" on your name in the upper right side of your course.
Click on "Add Email Address" under Ways to Contact on the right of screen.
Add your correct email if Canvas is not displaying your correct email.  
Click on "Register email."
Click the star next to your correct email address. 

In Blackboard:
Click on students name in the upper right side of your BB course
Click on setting
Click on Personal Information
Click on Edit Personal Information to update e-mail if it's incorrect.
Scroll to bottom and Submit


Student Logins:
Students, are you having difficulty locating your class? During the 2016 Summer semester, NCVPS will be offering courses in two learning management systems, Canvas and Blackboard. If you are unsure which platform your course is being offered in, please follow this link:
 http://www.ncvps.org/student-bbmoodle-login/

javaflashUpdatesJAVA and Flash Updates

Please update your Java to Version Java 8, Update 91.

Head to http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp and follow the instructions from there.

Please go to the following link to update Adobe Flash Player to the latest Version 21.0.0.242
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Blackboard Instant Messaging (BBIM)
 
Students will need to click on the BBIM link in their class and create an ID and password that they will remember. NCVPS does not issue BBIM logins nor do we store this information.   

 
Many students visit our homepage to log in to their courses. It is a best practice to bookmark the actual login pages for both Moodle and Blackboard. Please have students and lab facilitators bookmark the following pages:



In addition, many school administrators visit our homepage to log in to our registration system or Virtual Support Center. Please bookmark both of these pages in your web browser:


Virtual Support Center:  http://www.help.ncvps.org/ 
 
 
For additional information, please see our Tech Requirements:
http://ncvps.org/technology-requirements 
HireDesignersNCVPS Hiring Course Developers
NCVPS is hiring course developers, writers, and designers.  


Please forward this message to colleagues in your school or district who may be interested.

Thank you!
Course Catalogues
NCVPS Courses
 
NCVPS offers over 150 different courses, including advanced placement, electives, traditional, honors, core, STEM, occupational course of study, and credit recovery courses. 

Check out our 150+ list of courses here

VendorApprovedUpdatesVendor Approved Courses

In addition to NCVPS courses, North Carolina public schools also have a list of approved third-party vendor courses that they may choose from for virtual classes. Please follow this link to see the list of approved vendor courses. More on the vendor approval process can be found here.  

Here are the newest approved vendor courses: 
(Course Title - Vendor) 

Courses -  Vendor

Edgenuity -  MS Math 6
Edgenuity -  MS Math 7
Edgenuity -  MS Math 8
Edgenuity -  MS Social Studies 6
Edgenuity -  MS Social Studies 7
Edgenuity -  MS Spanish 1
Edgenuity -  MS Spanish 2
Edmentum -  AP Literature
Edmentum -  Career Management
Edmentum -  Entrepreneurship 1
Edmentum -  Principles of Business
OdysseyWare -  English 4
North Carolina Virtual Public School
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SUITE 3900, Raleigh, NC 27606
Phone:   919-513-8550    |  Fax:   919-513-2557  |