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Enter the Fortress of Solid Learning
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Sept 2008, Vol 8, Issue 1
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Welcome!
Schools are in session and this educator welcomes you and your students to the "fortress of solid learning" at Castle Learning Online.
The Castle Learning SIGN-IN page looks different these days. This Newsletter has a new "face," too. But you can be assured of one thing, Castle Learning (formerly School Island) is the same awesome educational review, testing, and assessment resource that you've relied upon since the first day of school.
We're excited about serving you throughout 2008-2009. Have a great year!
- Professor Bill
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50,000 questions and they're all yours!
Castle
Learning Online was created by qualified educators to help educators
give students the power to achieve at their own pace. You'll find
questions categorized to specific content areas and correlated to state
standards, but you have complete flexibility to address weak areas that
need improvement. You can combine questions from multiple subjects from an extensive
data base of field tested questions and even add your own questions and
vocabulary sets. It's easy and it's all yours!
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Critical reminder for administrators
The Castle team would like to THANK YOU
for being part of Castle Learning Online! If you have not already
renewed your Castle Learning Online subscriptions for 2008-2009, please
contact your Sales Representative about your order.
During the
summer, we performed the standard account management procedures
necessary to prepare for the new school year. Session and account data
for the "old" school year must make way for the "new." If you feel that this procedure does not meet the needs of your school, please contact Castle Learning Online Technical Support at support@CastleLearning.com or 1-800-345-7606 ext 2 to make other arrangements.
Each school's Castle Learning Online Administrators should send 2008-09 enrollment data to Castle Technical Support as soon as possible.
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 'The Crucible' added to literature series
A new unit called "Literature: The Crucible" has been added to the English coiurse. This one in a series of literature short answer questions that have been and will be adding. Each section in this unit contains questions covering
an act in the Arthur Miller play "The Crucible."
To add these questions into an assignment, go to the Add Question page, select the unit named "Literature: The Crucible," select a section for the desired act, then use the Browse and Select option to select the questions that you would like to include in your assignment. The order of the literature questions for a particular act parallel the sequence of events in the act. The use of Randomization is not recommended in assignments with literature questions.
(Photo of American playwright Arthur Miller courtesy U.S. Department of State)
More New Featuress for H.S. English
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Calling All
Administrators
Give your students the power to succeed!
Make sure every student knows his/her
Castle Learning Online
STUDENT ID.
And let every student know that they can
explore every course
at every level.
All students can study at their own pace to pick up fundamentals they've missed or challenge themselves to reach for academic excellence.
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New Feature Alert: All Teachers
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ASSIGNMENTS MAY INCLUDE 100 QUESTIONS
The number of questions that can be included in a Short Answer assignment has been increased to one hundred questions.
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| New Feature Alert: All Teachers |
ASSIGNMENT NOTES
Teachers can now add an Assignment Note of 2,000 characters to any assignment. When they view their assignments your students will see your special instructions, due dates, related material, etc. by clicking an icon in a column called Teacher Note.
To
create an Assignment Note, teachers use the Create Assignment Note link
in the options portion of the various Edit Assignment pages. If the note already exists, the link is called Edit Assignment Note. To remove a note, edit it and clear its contents.
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New Feature Alert: Administrators and Teachers
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PASSWORDS NOW REQUIRED FOR ALL TEACHER ACCOUNTS
In order to increase security, all teacher accounts must be password protected.
Teachers who sign into an account which does not have a password
must now use the school's Default Teacher Password. After signing in, the
teacher will be prompted to select a new password.
Administrators
need to let teachers know the school's Default Teacher Password. Administrators can modify
the Default Teacher Password from the Administrator's Preferences page.
It is recommended that the Default Teacher Password be changed
periodically.
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New Feature Alert: Spanish and French Teachers
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SPANISH AND FRENCH NOUNS
In all vocabulary related activities in Spanish and French, nouns are now displayed with the correct article and gender designation, but are alphabetized by the noun itself.
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New Feature Alert: Math
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MAJOR GEOMETRY REORGANIZATION AND UPDATE
Targeted to high school students, Geometry includes a review of basic geometric terms often introduced in middle schools and builds to a more comprehensive treatment of
plane figures, including area and perimeter problems, loci, coordinate
geometry, transformations and symmetry; and three-dimensional figures,
including surface area and volume.
A major addition to the course includes step-by-step formal and informal proof-building questions
concentrating on the five congruence techniques, similar triangles and
proportions, indirect proof techniques, circle proofs, and coordinate
geometry proofs.
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New Feature Alert: Elementary English
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MAJOR ENGLISH UPDATE FOR GRADES 3, 4, AND 5
- By adding 45 new Critical Reading Sets
(passages with reading comprehension questions), we've more than
doubled the number of reading sets at each level providing greater
variety of topics.
- Additional questions in the Critical Reading Skills
unit (short reading passages followed by a single multiple-choice
question) give greater coverage of the original six reading skills at
all three grade levels.
- An additional reading skill, Literary Forms and Devices featuring questions in the Critical Reading Skills unit appropriate to all three grade levels has been added.
- A new unit, Listening Skills,
gives students practice in answering a multiple-choice question after
listening to a short passage. Students may replay the passage as many
times as needed.This feature
requires audio software capable of playing MP3 files as well as
speakers or headphones. Check your browser software for compatibility.
- Expansion of the Vocabulary unit includes a new section on Antonyms, plus additional questions on Synonyms at all levels.
- Expansion of the Spelling unit includes a new section on Contractions at all levels.
- The Vocabulary Review now includes many literary terms that can be added to Flash Card sets.
- A new constructed-response activity in Grammar Editing allows
students to practice proofreading and editing skills. Students
can edit and save the passage right on the computer. When they are
finished, they see a model response along with a detailed explanation
of the errors and corrections. Teachers can review student responses,
make general comments and assign a point score.
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Upcoming New Features Alert: High School English
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INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE
We've added a new unit target to high school students with four sections and vocabulary flash cards.
- Literary Forms and Techniques reviews the structure of literary works as well as common writing techniques such as flashback, foreshadowing, irony.
- Figurative Language
includes questions on imagery and figures of speech such as metaphor,
simile, personification, oxymoron and hyperbole, as well as
alliteration and onomatopoeia and other literary devices.
- Poetry covers terms specific to this genre.
- Analyzing Critical Lens Quotations is
a special section of in-depth multiple-choice questions that assist
students in formulating appropriate interpretations of literary
quotations, often the crucial first step in critical essay-writing
tasks involving literature.
In addition, the Vocabulary Review has been expanded to include a greater selection of literary terms for use in Flash Card Sets.
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The Mail Bag
Like
many "beginnings," the start of a new school year is an exciting but
hectic time. Not surprisingly, we receive many questions about signing
into Castle Learning Online and setting up classes for the new school
year. Here are some commonly asked QUESTIONS and ANSWERS on these topics.
QUESTION: I am a teacher. My Castle Learning Online administrator gave me a login ID but no password. How do I sign in?
ANSWER: As part of our enhanced security features,
we have recently added a Default Teacher Password. Teachers whose
accounts were created without a password OR whose passwords have been
cleared must sign in with their ID and their school's current Default
Teacher PasswordThe address of the Castle Learning Online sign-in page
is CastleLearning.com. Type in your ID and your school's default teacher password at the prompts and click Sign In. Follow the steps to select a new password.
The next time you sign into Castle Learning Online, use your ID with the password that you chose.
If you do not know your school's current Default Teacher Password, ask your Castle Learning Online Administrator. This default password is used ONLY the first time
a teacher who does not have a password signs into an account.
Administrator accounts and student accounts are not affected by this
change. Your Castle Learning Online account is a valuable resource. To
protect your it choose a password that is easy for you to remember, but
hard for others guess. Never share your sign-in information.
QUESTION: I want to set up my classes for the new school year, but the students are not there! What happened?
ANSWER: In
preparation for the new school year, student accounts are deactivated
at the end of August unless the district has requested a different
date. Once the accounts are deactivated, students can no longer access
Castle Learning Online. When the district sends the 2008-09 student enrollment data, the 2007-08 student session data is archived, the "old" student accounts are deleted and "new" accounts are created.
If
you sign into your Castle Learning Online teacher account after the
student accounts are deactivated but before the new accounts have been
uploaded, you will see your "old" classes and will be able to pick up
report data on your classes and assignments. However, you will not be
able to add any students to classes. This is actually a precaution. For
example, if you are a middle school teacher you could be "missing" the
new students moving up from elementary grades.
QUESTION: I am a Castle Learning Online administrator. To save, time, I would like to set up my student accounts so that they all use the same password. Why did Castle Learning Online Technical Support deny this request?
ANSWER: For security purposes, Castle Learning Online does not allow the use of generic passwords (the
same password for all users). The reason is simple: the accounts are
completely unprotected and vulnerable to accidental intrusion or
intentional misuse. However, younger users in particular sometimes find
it difficult to choose an appropriate password the first time that they
sign in.
A compromise solution is to request a password pattern
that is easy to describe rather than the exact same password for each
student. For example, some schools request that student passwords be
set to the district's student identification number, which is often
easily available to teachers when students need a reminder. Others base
passwords on the date of birth (2-digit day and 2-digit month) or other
personal information that is easy for a student to remember. Include
this information in a column labeled Password when sending the
enrollment data to Castle Learning Online Technical Support.
Ask the Castle Learning Online Administrator at your school to send the 2008-09 enrollment data to Castle Learning Online Technical Support as soon as possible!
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Professor Bill wants to hear from you
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Whether you're a new or longtime user, we'd you to shareyour experiences with Castle Learning Online. Let's hear from teachers, students and administrators. Email us today newsletter@CastleLearning.com. See you next month!
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See you
Soon! |
The Castle Learning Online team will be at these conferences. Hope to see you there.
September
New York Assn of Math Supervisors
October
New York Assn of Foreign Language Teachers
New Jersey Science Educators
Pennsylvania Elementary & Secondary School Principals
New York State English Teachers Conference
New Jersey Association of Mathematics Teachers
New York State Middle School Association
New York Suffolk County Science Teachers
North Carolina Science Teachers Association - Southern Region
North Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics
November
New York SCOPE 14th Annual Technology Conference
New York State Association of Mathematics Teachers
New York State Technology Conference
New York City Association of Teachers of Mathematics
December
North Carolina Educational Technology Conference
Drop by our conference booth. We look foward to meeting you!
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| Contact Information |
email: newsletter@CastleLearning.com
toll free: 800-345-7606
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