My eCoach News, Updates, and Tips

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Online Learning Community with communication, collaboration, publishing, and coaching tools all in one place

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Featured Projects Examples from 2012
By Barbara Bray December 22, 2012 -- 11:30 AM
Teachers are amazing. We continue to be surprised by the quality of projects teachers create in My eCoach. Here are a few examples of projects we featured over the last few months. FAST - Fusing Art, Science, and Technology by Melissa Taylor-Salvador, Susan Mitchell, and Michelle Steever ArtCentral@GWHS by Lawrence Montgomery Popping Poetry by Angela Johnson-Drummond and Cynthia Melendez Why is the U.S. Falling Behind in the Education Race? by Ann Wolfe The 21st Century Kindergarten Classroom by Michael Tillyer Cloud Storage and File Sharing by Khaled Ghaben Heavy Breathing, Pounding Heart, Copious Sweating and Stinky Bathrooms... more...

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Featured Member August 2012
By Barbara Bray August 7, 2012 -- 09:04 PM
Donna Blanton Elementary Teacher Pinellas Park Elementary Pinellas Park, Florida Donna was introduced to My eCoach via a science grant for a collaboration project in 2006. She was so intrigued with the capabilities My eCoach had to offer to create teacher and student friendly websites that she incorporated My eCoach into all areas of her curriculum. Donna creates surveys, blogs, quizzes, a classroom webpage and projects that include web-based learning units. Donna is always looking to keep up with todays’ demands in the ever-changing ... more...

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Create a Form from Survey Builder
By Barbara Bray August 6, 2012 -- 10:42 PM
You want to create a form but the surveys keep adding Q1, Q2, etc. to each question. Surveys just didn't look like forms. So now you can just click one box to convert a survey to a form. When you create a form, you probably want to be notified and know who fills it out. Use the pull-down menu to choose either internal message or email where you want to be notified. more...

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Please take our Survey
By Sara Zimmerman March 15, 2011 -- 02:40 PM
We want to hear from teachers and administrators We are looking for input on what type of support you need as a teacher or administrator. Please take a moment to answer this short survey of 8 questions so we can better understand what your needs are.

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More updates about our Text Editor
By Sara Zimmerman March 15, 2011 -- 02:36 PM
Last month we launched our new text editor. Here are a few more quick tips about how to use our new text editor: To align your image, go to the second tab (Appearance) to the pull down menu. Use the Full Screen to have more room to type. If you make a mistake while you type, you now can Undo your last actions. Check out the Word icon where you can now insert text from Word and it keeps the formatting the same. The paint brush icon removes messy code. You can even insert the date and time into your text. Click here for an overview of some of the features. more...

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New Text Editor: works with all browsers
By Barbara Bray January 18, 2011 -- 05:04 PM
Our new text editor means that now you can use any browser with My eCoach. This text editor is different than our older text editor so you may have some questions about some of the new features. This is a quick overview of some of the features. Some of these features are pretty intuitive like the first row. There are more fonts and options plus whatever font ... more...

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Access to Team Lists
By Barbara Bray December 14, 2010 -- 04:26 PM
Team managers now can export the contact information for the members of their team. On the Team Manager, the eCoach has access to loads of tools. Now there's a link to Export Roster right above the roster to the left of Send Message to Team. The list is exported as a .csv (comma separated file) by first name, last name, email address, and more. The eCoach has access to the team manager on their team page.

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Current My eCoach Projects
By Sara Zimmerman October 19, 2010 -- 05:36 PM
Individuals and groups are regularly using My eCoach, with many users returning to realize the benefits of their lifetime memberships. Below are some exciting projects currently happening in My eCoach: Mid-Pacific Institute in Honolulu, Hawaii teachers are including inquiry and project-based learning in their lessons. Barbara worked with an amazing team of facilitators who guided 15 teams of 8-10 teachers to create public service announcements about their school. Read more... Madison Middle School in Oakland, CA is creating exciting learning environments where teachers participate in job-embedded ... more...

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Common Core Standards Available in My eCoach
By Barbara Bray October 18, 2010 -- 01:09 PM
The Common Core Standards (English/Language Arts and Mathematics) are available in the My eCoach standards alignment tool. We encourage you to add the standard that meets the learning objective or target with your lesson or project. There are a few projects matched to the standards. Add The Common Core Standards to your Standards List. Go to Toolkit > Standards. Choose Common Core Standards and any other standards you want in your Standards List. Then click Save. Go to My Locker > My Standards and ... more...

Comments: 1 Last Comment By Rebecca Jones December 28, 2010 -- 12:34 AM

Customize Look and Feel
By Barbara Bray May 18, 2010 -- 08:44 AM
When you login to My eCoach, you can change what you see and how My eCoach looks and feels. After you login, go to the inbox at the top right or your profile. After you click Settings, click on Look and Feel. This will open some new looks and themes that you can choose from. The default is the teal theme that you were assigned when you first join My eCoach. I had changed my look to an olive green theme. Thought it was time to change it to a more neutral color. Scroll through all the different themes and choose another theme. Then choose if you want to keep the icons or not. Then ... more...

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8 Quick My eCoach tips
By Sara Zimmerman April 5, 2010 -- 03:19 PM
My eCoach has a lot of features that members may not be aware of, so we decided to share some quick tips with you. Some of these tips are new features for everyone while some are new features just for teams: My Notes - helps keeps team notes in place New Themes - added monthly; join a team for access ePortfolio Process Team - step-by-step help with ePortfolios Landing Page - change your landing page Drag and Drop - in the edit mode of the Universal Builder Forum Follow - you can now follow or unfollow forum threads Follow Blogs - it's easy to do Profile - easy to upload a pic and info more...

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Looking for My eCoach Gifts and Stuff?
By Barbara Bray February 9, 2010 -- 08:04 PM
Some of our members have asked us to create a store with our new logo - so we did. Now you can get yourself or a gift for a friend a shirt, children's organic shirts, onesies, messenger bag, prints, teddy bear, tote bag, journal, gift cards, postcards, and even a mug with our logo. Check out our new My eCoach Online Store today!

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New Features within My eCoach (January 2010)
By Sara Zimmerman January 29, 2010 -- 04:56 PM
Drag and Drop in the Universal Builder: You can easily modify the position of your pages of your Universal Builder projects with our new drag and drop editor! more... Choose your landing page: Now you can easily choose which page shows up first when you log in to My eCoach. If you are an individual, you can select the Home page or Profile page. If you are on a team, you also have the option to choose which team page you land on first. more... Additional "Delete" in Inbox: We've added an easy-to-access delete button at the top of your Inbox. New icons in Universal Builder ... more...

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New team reporting tools
By Sara Zimmerman December 10, 2009 -- 10:28 AM
Team managers can now provide even more focused support to their team members by using our new team reporting tools. You can see who is using what tools, how often, and view by each team tool or by each member. Bring up a report and send messages to team members right from that report. We added an At-A-Glance chart that gives you activities in a bar chart by date plus you can compare activities by different dates. Screenshot of our new team reporting tools more...

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November Facebook Contest Winners!
By Sara Zimmerman November 19, 2009 -- 02:12 PM
Our November contest asked people to become fans of our Facebook Fan Page. We had some great response and randomly chose 4 lucky winners: Diane Chen: A copy of FableVision's Animation-ish Cathy Keck: $25 Amazon.com gift card Bobbi Kurshan and Ann Lumm: Individual Lifetime Memberships to My eCoach Missed out on the contest but want continual updates? Facebook is free to join. Once you have an account, go to this link and click on "Become a Fan" on the top. Then tell your Facebook friends by going to our Fan Page and clicking on "Suggest to Friends." more...

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My eCoach services are covered by EETT funding
By Sara Zimmerman November 19, 2009 -- 02:11 PM
My eCoach services are covered by EETT funding What is EETT? EETT is a 2-year grant. A minimum of 25 percent of the total grant award must be spent on that provides teachers with the capacity to high-quality professional developmentintegrate technology effectively into curricula and instruction to promote student achievement. more... How can My eCoach help? If you have EETT funding or are going to apply for other educational grant funding, then write My eCoach into your grant. Our services directly match EETT (and other) grant requirements and have been successful in similar programs worldwide. ... more...

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Leadership Coaching Scholarship
By Sara Zimmerman November 19, 2009 -- 02:10 PM
Leadership Coaching Scholarship Apply 11/20/09 through 12/31/09 Do you have a coaching program where your literacy, math, or technology coach needs an online community and support to supplement their face-to-face coaching? We are offering a coaching scholarship to one school or district that includes: virtual training for one coach to become the eCoach lifetime memberships for the eCoach and ten teachers a team with coaching tools for three years five hours virtual coaching for the eCoach To apply for this scholarship, you must: ... more...

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Follow My eCoach on Facebook and Twitter
By Sara Zimmerman September 30, 2009 -- 02:50 PM
Stay informed through your social networks Do you find it hard to keep up with all that My eCoach does? If so, become a fan and follow My eCoach on the new My eCoach Facebook Fan Page and on Twitter. We're adding regular updates, links to interesting projects, discussion ideas, information on upcoming grants, photos and more. more...

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Centering Images
By Charlotte McGovern May 19, 2009 -- 02:52 PM
Now you can center an uploaded image in the edit mode of the Universal Builder. After you have clicked the Add Image icon and have found your image, choose the Center button. Now your image will be centered on the screen like this. more...

Comments: 1 Last Comment By Barbara Bray May 19, 2009 -- 03:00 PM

New Look
By Barbara Bray April 27, 2009 -- 08:35 AM
Lots of exciting things are happening with My eCoach. One is our new look. After 12 years with the same logo, we thought it was time to change to represent people helping each other and coaching. My eCoach provides tools all in one place but it�s not the tools that make My eCoach. It�s the people, the coaching, and that My eCoach is an umbrella larger community for all the members. There ... more...

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My eCoach Facebook Share Place
By Barbara Bray November 21, 2008 -- 03:13 PM
We set up a place in Facebook to promote projects, programs, or events that you may be doing in My eCoach. Why did we do this? You are doing so many wonderful things in eCoach that people may not know about. We feature projects that have been reviewed and submitted to the eLibrary. We spotlight resources that have been shared in the eLibrary. We write about programs that eCoaches tell us about. The best way for us to share is if everyone shares. Facebook is a social networking program that encourages people to connect. We have some of these features but ours are different. We invite you to join ... more...

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Ongoing Programs and Projects
By Barbara Bray November 21, 2008 -- 12:31 PM
San Diego County Office of Education�s Leadership Services continues to provide AB 430 training for California principals. Melissa Hunt, Director, with the support of eCoaches Cynthia Sistek-Chandler and Ward Smith, set up one leadership team for over 400 principals who have participated in the training. Stanford University�s Bay Area Foreign Language Program (BAFLP) with support from their eCoach Marcelo Leal has set up five more teams including BAFLP Leaders, an ELD Strand, and Mandarin Strand. Example project from Kathleen Rooney: Ideas for Incorporating Technology in the Foreign Language Classroom.... more...

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Changes and Updates in eCoach to Date
By Barbara Bray November 20, 2008 -- 07:29 PM
Left Navigation The left navigation has been changed and streamlined. My Community is where you can find Certificated eCoaches and other community resources. This is where you can find events, conversations, your teams if you are on any teams. The Message Center is the glue that connects all the features and people in eCoach. My Locker is where all of your work is stored. We moved My Locker next because some eCoach members were going to My Toolkit that used to be in this area to start new blogs instead of adding posts to the blog they started. We encourage everyone to check their work first ... more...

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Verifying User
By Barbara Bray October 29, 2008 -- 12:17 PM
When others outside of the eCoach community comment on your public blog or Universal builder, they are asked to verify who they are with a captcha. Once that you have set the blog to view by public, anyone inside or outside of the My eCoach community will be able to read or comment on your blog. If anyone wants to comment on your blog, he/she will be required to type his/her name and the words (captcha). Captcha is a verification that is used to determine whether or not the user is a human. Each time there will be different numbers and letters. We changed to a new Captcha program that asks ... more...

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Updated FAQs
By Barbara Bray September 27, 2008 -- 09:21 AM
We have made lots of changes in eCoach and realized it's time to update the FAQs on the inside and outside. We try to keep up with the questions people ask us and share the answers. One thing we didn't share was the 30 day trial account and new pricing for organizations so that's up now. Please check out the FAQs. We are open to new ideas and questions. Thanks!

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New 30 Day Trial and Pricing for Organizations
By Barbara Bray September 3, 2008 -- 01:30 PM
Any new members that sign up for a free account will now get a 30 day trial of all the features in My eCoach. We figured that if you were checking out eCoach, you really needed to be able to access all of the features. After the 30 days are up, then free members continue with their lifetime membership but with limited access. They can always join at any time. Several large organizations have approached us to give their members access to all of the tools for at least one year so we came up with an annual subscription pricing structure. People are raving about all the tools in eCoach so we want ... more...

Comments: 2 Last Comment By Roxanne September 17, 2008 -- 12:15 PM

Check out our New Look
By Barbara Bray September 3, 2008 -- 08:12 AM
We figured it was time for a new look when you first come to My eCoach. We needed new color schemes, sample projects, and pop-ups. The pop-ups give you an overview of some of the features. We have so many features now all in one place that you may not be aware of them. So click on some of these like how to create surveys. We�ll be making more including showing you how you can make pop-ups just like these. more...

Comments: 2 Last Comment By Coach Cynthia September 18, 2008 -- 10:48 PM

Pinellas eMentor Cross-Age Cross Curriculum Projects
By Barbara Bray June 26, 2008 -- 12:52 PM
Pinellas County Schools received the EETT grant again to expand the cross-age cross curriculum projects they started in 2006. Barbara spent a week with a fantastic group of eMentors from Kings Highway Elementary School and John F. Kennedy Middle School. The focus is on science where there will be six new cross-age projects. The 12 eMentors mapped the curriculum, looked for gaps in the standards and where their students needed more engaging projects. The topics so far include the Changing Earth, Forms of Energy, Habitats and Life Cycles, Force and Motion, Ecology and Ecosystems, and Space. This ... more...

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Add a Widget
By Barbara Bray June 25, 2008 -- 06:54 AM
You can share that you are a lifetime member of eCoach or post a widget from eCoach on any blog. Go to My Toolkit to Widgets A widget is a logo or image of a site that your users can click to access that site quickly. We created four different widgets for you: the eCoach logo, I am a Lifetime Member of eCoach, one that goes to our free eLibrary, and a login to eCoach. Choose one of the widgets to put on the sidebar of your blog. If you use another blog outside of eCoach, embed the code from the widget you would like to share with your readers. more...

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Embed Code - We made it easy!
By Barbara Bray June 6, 2008 -- 09:23 PM
Now you can add Web 2.0 tools like SlideShare or stream videos from Teacher Tube using our new Embed Code box in the Universal Builder. Under Contents either Add a New Page or Edit an existing page and now your will see an Embed Code box. I went to TeacherTube and found a great presentation by Karl Fisch called "Did you Know?" and copied the embed code. After you click Save. The video will appear below the text box. You can use the text box to introduce your embedded file or video. You can still use View Source that is in the lower left corner of your text editor to embed code. The text editor works with blogs, surveys now, message center, and calendar. We found using View Soure was a little difficult for some of our members so now with the embed code box, all you have to do is copy, paste, and save. You also have a similar box to embed code on the sidebar of your blogs and Universal builder. more...

Comments: 1 Last Comment By Jayna June 5, 2011 -- 06:07 PM

Standards, Resources, and Programs - Oh My!
By eCoach Staff February 26, 2008 -- 02:53 PM
Up to Standards Every state�s content standards are available in My eCoach. We add standards based on community requests. Some communities have asked us to add professional, technology, and even local standards. Check your standards from the left menu and add any resources to your standards. These will then go to our eLibrary for review and publishing. Resources Galore! Look for thousands of new resources in our eLibrary. Along with your submissions, we have a group of interns and students who are finding rich resources for you ... more...

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New Left Navigation
By Barbara Bray February 21, 2008 -- 06:05 AM
The left navigation bar was changed based on much input from our members. Since My eCoach tries to bring together all the tools you might need for your community, the left sidebar navigation was getting long and cumbersome. We asked for ideas from many of our members to come up with ways to make navigation easier. Home field is now Home. Icons are different. Looking ... more...

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New Look on Home Field
By Barbara Bray February 6, 2008 -- 03:19 PM
We changed Team Up to Bulletins where you can ask for collaboration, promote events and new teams, and share new features. We combined Tips and Tricks, Featured Projects, and eLibrary Spotlight into one box that rotates along with the Bulletin box on its left. Click Bulletins on the left and go to View All Posts to create a new bulletin to be approved and posted. Check out the new personal space below just for you and only you. Use it as an aggregator for all of ... more...

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Updates with Blogs
By Barbara Bray October 24, 2007 -- 11:55 AM
Several new updates with the eCoach blogging tool: New templates Add categories to posts Blog posts now appear in recent activities New Templates Check out the extended list of templates for your public blog. We adapted the new templates in the Universal builder so you could extend your collaborative projects using a similar template. Just put a link to your blog in the Universal builder. Add Categories to your Posts Why would you do this? If you have multiple posts and people are having trouble finding a post on a particular topic, they can check your list of categories on the right sidebar. At the ... more...

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Updated Chat Room
By Barbara Bray August 30, 2007 -- 03:18 PM
Go ahead and check out the chat feature now. Some of you were concerned about the jumping when you were chatting with others. We fixed that because of your request, so now it is seamless. Just make sure you are in the right chat room. The room that shows up is the All Community Chat room and everyone can read what you are writing. You will also notice that your messages will stay in the room even after you leave. We did this because many of you wanted to archive the chat. So now the messages will last about 2 hours. Also one more thing - when people left the chat room, their name and profile would ... more...

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New Front Page
By Barbara Bray May 25, 2007 -- 08:06 PM
My eCoach has a new look. The front page looks more like our online community and has links to new information. You can still login from this page and access our store and the community eLibrary with thousands of free resources. Some resources are archived and others will be repurposed and added to our eLibrary. Please visit and let us know what you think! My eCoach more...

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eCoach or Open Source?
By Barbara Bray March 19, 2007 -- 03:28 PM
Some of you love Moodle as your learning management system (LMS) and that�s great. My eCoach can complement Moodle or Bb but some are finding that eCoach does the same and much more. eCoach was not created to replace any LMS - it was created to support, supplement, and enhance face-to-face programs. We encourage blending f2f with online - that is not always possible - so some people are trying to find a solution for online only. In my opinion - this is very difficult to do. You can set up a course in Moodle or Bb or even eCoach and find that maybe 50% participate. Do you ever feel like you have ... more...

Comments: 4 Last Comment By Sarah Zykanov March 26, 2007 -- 10:55 AM

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