FTT - Closing the Door on 2020/2021

Closing The Door On 2020/2021 School Year 

(And Making Next Fall Just A Little Bit Easier )

Schoology End Of Year Checklist

@LisaBerghoff?@MrKimDHS

As I write this we have nine official school days left. While it may feel like an eternity, it will go by quickly and there are a few things you can do to make sure you close the door on this year and don't really have to look back, unless you want to reflect on all the ways you crushed it during this overwhelmingly challenging year. 

The intention of this post is to give you a step by step guide to ending the year as it pertains to entering grades and managing your Schoology content. Follow these steps in order and you will be able to walk into summer knowing that you've checked everything off the list and confident that you're setting yourself up for success when we return in August. 

1. Double Check Your Grade Setup

You may not have looked at your grade setup since August and that's totally fine. It's a good time to just go in and check that everything is calculating the way you want it. You must click save after making changes in grade setup. 

• Check your category weights, make sure your categories are calculating by total points and not by percentage, even if you weight your categories. Hopefully you have already done this.

• Make sure your final grade settings grade book scale is not numeric. 
• If you plan on overriding grade calculations in Schoology, you can check the box to add an override column.
• Consider if you want your grades to be rounded.
• THSD 113 Rounded .5 - this method is what is most familiar to our staff. A student receiving an 89.5% will earn an "A" for the course, but the value will stay an 89.5%
• Round Period/Final Grades - this is Schoology's native method. Every final value is rounded to the nearest percent. A student receiving an 89.5% will get a 90%, and a student receiving an 89.4% will get an 89%.
• If you are giving a final, make sure it is entered correctly.

2. Click Bulk Edit In Your Gradebook

Do a sweep of all of your assignments and grades by clicking the three vertical dots in the upper right corner of the gradebook. You must click save after making changes in bulk edit.

• Make sure everything with a grade has been published. You will see a little green circle next to it if you have linked classes. If your classes are not linked, you will see a checkbox under the green circle at the top. 
• Make sure everything is in the appropriate category.
• If you would like to save a hard copy of your gradebook because that's how you roll, you can click "export" and you will get a CSV file. 

3. Transfer Overall Grade To IC (when final)

You must click save after making changes in Infinite Campus.

• Go into Infinite Campus and click post grades.
• Make sure the term is S2 and the grading task is S2-Semester.
• You only need to enter a letter grade for the semester.
• After you enter and click save, go back in one more time and make sure it's all looking good.

4. Save Courses To Resources

• On the materials page, click the button that says Options and click save course to resources. 
• Your "home" collection is just for you. It's a good idea to save it here.
• You can, but don't need to, create a new folder. There is a box you can check that that says "save as folder with resources" it's a good idea to choose this one.
• Something to be aware of: if you have assignments with a google doc that made a copy for each student, that will not save to resources because it relies on the student roster. You can enter the link to your original document in the assignment description so you will have it ready for next year. 
• If you are not teaching the same course next year and want to hand it over to another teacher, you can do that in Resources. Just create a new collection and share it with them. 

If after reading this you are feeling uncertain about what to do or not sure if you have everything done correctly, please reach out! I am happy to help. 

FTT - Using Mote for Voice Notes

Tell Me About It!

Using Mote For Voice Notes 

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

It's funny how quickly we have become accustomed to technology that helps us communicate. The first iPhone was released just 14 years ago. Google Docs was initially released 15 years ago. Doesn't seem like we've been using these forever? It's fascinating to me to look at the shows that I watched when I was a kid because so many of them predicted what the future would look like and some were not so far off. Being able to communicate while seeing each other through screens, talking through watches, seeing real-time webcam footage via the tiniest handheld devices are some capabilities that seemed like a dream way back when. And yet, there are still features that we wish we had. There is always a list of ideas, capabilities, apps and software that are headed our way. 

One of the features that has been on my wish list for a long time is the ability to give voice comments in 
Google docs. Working with students who struggle with reading, writing, and language in general has given me a new perspective on these feature requests. If my students can't or won't read my feedback, what good does it do to spend so much time giving it to them? Especially now that we're all using our devices so much more and for so many tasks, the ability to use voice messages is so important. 

Mote is a Chrome extension that makes it easy for anyone to add voice notes and feedback to Google documents, slides, spreadsheets, and emails. A tool like Mote makes it easier to give feedback faster and may even make it more accessible for more students to receive feedback. Using your voice instead of typing is also more personal because the students will be hearing your voice. Tone can be hard to detect with text based comments and using your voice can help make your feedback more clear to students. And where to begin with email!? So many emails are misunderstood because of tone that is missing in text based emails. With Mote you can include a voice message and eliminate so much miscommunication. 

This is a freemium tool, meaning there is a free version and a paid version. I have been using the free version and I have found it to be more than adequate.  Here is the pricing information. With the free version you get unlimited mote voice notes and feedback, you can listen to unlimited voice notes, add voice notes to Google slides, gmail and more. You get 30 seconds of recording time for each voice note. 

• To get started, grab the extension from the chrome web store. 
• You will sign in using your Google credentials and give it permission to run.
• Then, all you need to do is highlight some text and click to open a comments box. You will see the Mote icon and when you click on it the voice recorder will open. Go ahead and speak your message. 
• The very first time you use Mote you will need to allow it access to your microphone. To listen to the comments, click the play button.

Here's a 1 minute video showing how it works:

Ready to give Mote a try? Let us know if you would like some help. 

What are some other future technology features that you would love to see become a reality?