Capstone Connect Quickstart Guide for Teachers
Step 1. Sign In
Access Capstone Connect from Capstone-Connect.com or PebbleGo.com by clicking “Sign In” in the upper right corner of either site.
Sign in with your Capstone Connect account username and password. This username and password are the same username and password your students will use when signing into PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next.
Step 2. Navigate to Capstone Connect
Once signed in, we’ve nested the “Search by Standard or Title” under the Capstone dropdown menu, keeping the view unchanged for students but simple for teachers to access.
Select “Search by Standard or Title” to navigate to Capstone Connect to begin searching for resources correlated to standards or by title. If you do not see “Search by Standard or Title” you have logged into an account that does not have a Capstone Connect subscription.
Step 3. Search for Content
The Capstone Connect homepage allows you to find the content to inspire your everyday teaching
- Search by Standards allows you to search by state or national standards to find aligned resources.
- Title Search allows you to search by the title [or word in the title] of the resource available within your Capstone Connect subscription.
- Featured Content allows you to discover a timely set of featured resources that support the education topics that are trending for the month.
- Activity Bundles are theme based activity plans and projects that are standards aligned and provide learners choice through hands-on cross curricular activities consisting of graphic organizers, maker and EdTech projects, as well as the opportunity to show what they know.
- Trending illustrates what search terms are most popular from your community— whether on a school, state, or global level—to help inspire your next lesson.
Search by Standard
The Capstone Connect Search by Standard homepage allows you to filter a variety of content by
- State or National Standard
- Subject
- Grade
This example illustrates a search for content focused on First Grade Science for the standards in the state of California.
Search by Standards Results Page
These are the results of your search for First Grade California Science standards. You can scroll to find the specific standard you are interested in finding content for.
You can drill down to a specific standard by selecting the hyperlinked text. In this example, we’re going to look specifically at “Engineering Design.”
This view shows curated Capstone content that is correlated to your chosen standard. Curated content includes resources available in PebbleGo, Capstone Interactive eBooks, Activity Bundles and Instructional Materials. Content is sorted alphabetically. Use the search field to narrow your results.
Title Search
Another way to search for resources is using the Title Search from the Capstone Connect home page. This allows you to filter content by the title of the resource or a word within the title of a resource. This example illustrates a search for content focused on the word “friends.”
Title Search Results Page
These are the results of your search for “friends”. In this example, there are 3 pages of results. You can use the pagination buttons to navigate to the resources you need.
This view shows a closer look at the curated Capstone content that resulted from your Title Search of the word “friends.” Curated content includes resources available in PebbleGo, Capstone Interactive eBooks, Activity Bundles and Instructional Materials. Content is sorted alphabetically. You can find the specific content you are looking for or explore the multiple resources generated by your search.
Filtering Content
Whether you search by standards or title, you can filter results and look only at specific types of content. This can be done by selecting the criteria in the Filter and then selecting Apply. In this example, we will filter instructional materials and eBooks that have been returned using a title search. We have further refined the eBooks search to include books that are only within a specific Lexile reading level.
Featured
A timely set of featured resources that are standards aligned that support what education topics are trending for the month. Our featured resources will save you time and help you stay focused on what matters— engaging learners with quality content, all without the effort to vet and curate.
Activity Bundles
Each activity bundle has 5 theme based standards-aligned supplemental activity plans that can be used to:
- Support Core Curriculum
- Extend Research Projects
- Supplement Plans for Emergency Substitute Teachers
Each activity plan is flexible and modular–designed for educators to choose the pieces that work best for them and their learners. All activity plans are designed to support ELA research standards, as well as being aligned to an ISTE and content specific standards. Find Activity Bundles/Plans by:
- Searching by standard or title
- Scrolling through the carousel on the Capstone Connect home page
Activity Bundles are sorted on the Capstone Connect home page into two grade level groupings: K-2 and 3-5
Activity Bundles and Plans Include:
- Instructions for use
- Clickable Table Of Contents
- Overview of standards, components and resources
- Discover: Where learners dive into research
- Activity specific graphic organizer
- Engage: Where learners create to show what they know with Maker and EdTech projects. You can use both projects or just one.
- Maker - No technology needed - Common classroom materials
- EdTech - Engaging digital technology
- Free/freemium kid-friendly EdTech tools used
- Share: Where students reflect on learning
- Ready to use essential questions for learning reflection
- Topic housed in Flip’s Discovery Library
- Vocabulary words
- Printable Blackline Masters
- Graphic organizers
- Activity specific
- Tailored for students’ grade range
- PDF format for printing or digital integration
- Links:
- Select the resource link to go directly to the article or eBook to easily share with students
- Direct link to add the topic to your Flip classroom
- EdTech tool help page
Trending
Discover what search terms are most popular from your community in real time— whether on a school, state, or global level—to help inspire your next lesson. You will only see what products you have in your subscription.
Step 4. Share with Students
Instructional Materials
Whether or not you’ve filtered the results, you can easily download instructional materials. Select the download button or the title to save a PDF of the instructional materials to your device. After the document has been downloaded to your device, you can upload it to a cloud service of your choice (ex. Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox) and house the link in online lesson planning resources or share with your peers.
Pebble Go Articles: Copy Link
Copy a direct link to a PebbleGo article for easy student access via your LMS or favorite EdTech tool in 1 of 2 ways. Whether in Capstone Connect or in PebbleGo, you can use the “Copy Link” feature to create a unique URL that can be easily shared in any Learning Management System (LMS), education platform or EdTech tool allowing your students a quick, no sign in experience to access the PebbleGo article. Two options include:
1. Select the “Copy Link” button within Capstone Connect:
2. Or, Select the “Copy Link” icon at the top of the article from within the PebbleGo article.
Capstone Interactive eBooks: Copy Link and Preview
Copy a direct link to an eBook for easy student access via Your LMS or favorite EdTech tool. To use this eBook as part of a lesson, select the “Copy Link” button to create a unique URL that you can share in any Learning Management System (LMS), education platform or EdTech tool allowing students a quick, no sign in experience to access the eBook.
Preview an eBook
You can preview an eBook by expanding the preview area of the results page by selecting the drop arrow next to the copy link icon. You can quickly scan book information like summary, guided reading level (GRL), Lexile level, ATOS readability level, page count, runtime and subject area. If the eBook has an associated instructional material, it will be linked.
Note: Only provide the direct link on computers and web pages that students need login to access. The rule of thumb is that if anyone on the internet can select and get access to Capstone Interactive, PebbleGo, and PebbleGo Next, then you cannot use the direct link in that location.
Step. 5 Integration with LMS and EdTech tools
The “Copy Link” feature noted in the PebbleGo Articles and Capstone Interactive eBooks sections of this guide allow you to easily copy a link to any PebbleGo or Capstone Interactive eBook that is returned in your standards search. This unique link is tied to your school’s Capstone Connect account and can be accessed by multiple students at one time. These links can be easily pasted in your LMS or EdTech tools like Seesaw or Google Classroom. Because these links provide access to paid materials within your Capstone Connect subscription, we strongly encourage you to use the links for student access only.
Flipgrid
Seesaw
Google Classroom
Canvas
Wakelet
Google HyperDocs
Schoology
eBookshelf
Step 6. Helpful Resources
Tools to easily share information with parents & guardians about PebbleGo and Capstone Interactive
Effective and engaging options to start using PebbleGo with your students
Easy-to-follow lesson plans to use in the classroom or for distance learning