FTT - End of Semester Grade Book Checklist

 End Of Semester Grade Book Checklist: Schoology/IC (December 2022)

As we look to close out the first semester of the 2022-2023 school year, here is your checklist for entering final exams and posting your semester grades. 

Step 1: Enter Final Exams. 

Do you have a final exam that lives outside the in-progress semester grade? 

For example, here is a breakdown of how my semester grade is calculated.

 Two Options- Enter In Schoology And Sync Or Enter Directly Into IC

   

For either option, do this first:

• Go to your IC gradebook and click on Settings -> Grade Calc Options and make sure it is set to calculate correctly. As an example, here is what mine looks like.
  

  
  
  
  
  

Option 1: Enter in Schoology and then sync to IC

• Enter your assessment/assignment in Schoology. DO NOT click the box that says "Set As Midterm/Final". Just make sure your grading task is set to Final Assessment. You can enter multiple parts to your final. As you enter each part, just make sure the Final Assessment grading task is chosen. 

• Enter the grades and click on the sync button to move over to IC. You should be able to see those grades appear in the Final Assessment task in Infinite Campus.

Option 2: Enter directly into the Infinite Campus grade book

•  In Infinite Campus go to your grade book, choose a section and then choose Final Assessment as the grading task.
• Click Add (top left, above settings) and then enter the details for your final. If you have a final with multiple parts, you can click Add and enter as many parts as you need.
• Click Save or click Add Sections to add it to other course sections.
• Enter the grades in the IC grade book and click Save.

    Step 2: Finalize, Post, and Save Your Grades.

• Take a look and make sure the grades look accurate. Go to your Infinite Campus grade book and select a section. Choose the Semester grading task. 

• Go to Grade Book.  Under the Semester task, click the orange "Post" in the "In-Progress" column.  After you click "Post", a window will open to the right to confirm details.  Make sure you are posting to the Semester Task and click OK.  This will put all grades in the "Posted" column.  Lastly, make sure to click "Save", which will turn orange from grey after you post.  Repeat for every section.

• IF YOU NEED TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO THE GRADE: You will do that in the Posted Column and then click SAVE. 

Step 3: Do a Happy Dance! (and then make sure everything is set up correctly for Semester 2) 

FTT - Gradebook Syncing and Building Technology Guest Blog!

                  Gradebook Syncs and Tech Office Tips

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

This week's blog will address some key information regarding our favorite topic of 2022, the Schoology-Infinite Campus sync, as well as some tips from our building technology departments regarding Papercut and Google Drive!

Syncing Best Practice

With the end of the semester approaching rather quickly, it's certainly worth checking for any major sync issues BEFORE things get a little hectic during finals week. Our suggestion is to compare the composite grades in both gradebooks. THEY SHOULD BE THE SAME (.01 difference for rounding). If your composite scores are different, here are a few key steps you can take to identify and solve the discrepancy. 

1. Audit your Sync Status Log! Click on the Clipboard icon in your Schoology gradebook to see whether or not your assignments are actually syncing correctly. 
   
   
   
   
   
2. Schoology-IC Category Calculations. Make sure your category weights and calculations are the same in Schoology as they appear in IC. Note though, that you do not HAVE TO calculate the composite score in Schoology. Students do not see composite scores in Schoology.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. IC Uncategorized Assignments. Make sure that you go through each of your IC gradebook tabs to make sure that you have no uncategorized assignments. If you do, you will see an Uncategorized Assignment notice with a red number in IC.
   
   
   
   
   If you have any further questions regarding the Schoology-IC sync, please contact us!

Technology Building Tips on Google Drive and Papercut

The next few tips come from our tech departments as commonly asked questions. Take a look:

Here are reminders for signing back into Google Drive and Papercut.  If you have further questions, please send an email to helpdesk@dist113.org.

Sign back into Google Drive when your G: drive is no longer available

• Launch Google Drive from your Start Menu (Windows) or Launchpad (MacOS)
• Then click on the Drive icon in the Task bar (Windows) or the top menu bar (MacOS)
• You may be prompted to sign in via Okta

Sign back into Papercut when your district printers are not appearing

• Right-click on the Papercut icon (Windows users will find it in the Taskbar, Mac users will find it in the top menu bar)
• Select View my printers
• When the Papercut Print Deploy Client window opens, click Sign in with Google
• This will open the Papercut app
• Launch View my printers again, and you will see your Papercut list of printers

Hope this was helpful! 

FTT - 5 Google Forms Tips and Tricks

5 Google Form Tips and Tricks 

Google forms can be a wonderful tool for all kinds of things. Anytime you want to collect data you can quickly and easily create a form. Forms are great for sign-ups, taking a quick poll, getting to know you information, check-ins,  or exit tickets. There are also lots of great add-ons that you can use with Google forms and the Google sheets that go with them.

I definitely remember the first time I used Google forms with students. I was giving a short quiz in the health class for my students in the essentials program. I was beyond excited to have them respond and to get all of their answers in one place. I felt like it was a life-changing teacher moment. I emailed my students the link to the form, we did not have an LMS, or QR codes and if I wrote the URL on the board there was no way my students were going to type it in correctly. It worked! My students filled out the form and then clicked submit. Later, when I went to grade their quizzes, my heart sank as I realized I forgot the most essential piece of information. I forgot to ask for their names. In the early iterations of Google forms, there was no automatic collection of email addresses. There was no auto-grading. Some of you will remember flubaroo as an ingenious discovery.  

The point here is, Google forms has come a long way. And the developers at Google are constantly adding and adjusting and sometimes those additional features get overlooked. 

Here are my top tips for using Google forms right now.

1. Get email notifications

Sometimes you have a form that is available for long periods of time. Students or participants can fill out the form whenever they need to sign up for something. You make the form, you send out the form, and then you forget about it. I used to set calendar reminders to check certain forms but now you can just get an email notification whenever someone submits. 

Here's how:

1. While you are in edit mode on your form, click Responses a the top.

2. Click the 3 vertical dots next to the Google sheets icon

3. Select Get Email Notifications For New Responses

2. Use conditional logic: Jump to a section based on the respondent's answer

This is one that many people know about but often shy away from trying because they believe it will be too complicated. I'm here to tell you that you can do it! This ability really comes in handy when you have many questions but they might not all apply to all respondents. For example, if you are using a Google form to collect some feedback from students as a formative assessment, you might ask them how they are feeling about their understanding of the current unit and then your follow-up questions will vary depending on their responses.

Here's how:

1. While you are in edit mode, enter your questions and create sections by clicking the add section icon. 

2. Go to the question that will determine the follow-up. This needs to be a multiple-choice or drop-down question. Click the three vertical dots next to the "required" button and choose Go To Section Based On Answer. 

3. You will see "Continue To Next Section"  appear next to each of the response choices. You can click to adjust where you want the respondents to go based on their answers. You can choose another section or you can opt to have them simply submit the form.

3. Embed your form into Schoology using the iframe embed code

Most of the time I am using Schoology's assessment tool with my students. However, sometimes a Google form is the right way to go. It depends on your purpose and what you are going to do with the data. There are times when I really want that spreadsheet with their responses. I can always click Send and copy the link and put it in my Schoology course by choosing Add File/Link/External Tool on the materials page. To reduce the number of clicks for my students you can embed with Google forms which is simple to do.

Here's how:

1. On your Google form click Send and choose the embed HTML icon < >

2. Click Copy to copy the HTML embed code

3. In Schoology, click Add Assignment and click the dots on the right side of the edit bar to switch to HTML.

4. Right-click paste to paste the HTML code.

5. Finish the rest of the details of the assignment (remember to disable submissions) and click Create.

Here is what it looks like in the student view when it is embedded:

4. Change How It Looks: 

Adjust Header, Text Fonts, Add Images, Links, and Videos

On their own, Google forms can look a little bland. If we are all using the defaults then they all tend to look the same. This is not inherently bad, but if you are looking to grab students' attention and maybe make your form stand out a bit, consider adjusting the way your form looks.

Here's how:

1. Click the Theme icon. It looks like a paint pallet. 

2. From here, you can change the text font and size of your header, questions, and responses. 

3. To add links, you will notice that there is now a link icon when you are editing the headers or the questions. Simply click the icon and paste your link. This is great if you have a Google doc or an article that you want students to refer to when responding to your form.

4. To add images or videos, you will notice an image icon when you are editing headers, questions, and also responses when you are using multiple-choice or checkbox questions. You may have noticed that there is an image in the example of the embedded form above.

You also have the ability to add images and videos independent of questions. For example, if you want students to watch a video of a TED talk and then respond, you can click the video icon in the pull-out menu that you use to add questions. 

Here is what it looks like:

You can also add a custom header. I like to use Google Drawings for that. Or, you can just search for background images and Google forms will let you adjust so you will know what it is going to look like. You can even add gifs.

5. Response validation

Want to make sure students only select a specific number of items from a checkbox list? Want to make your own digital escape room game or breakout box? Want to make sure your students have the correct answer before moving on to the next question? Want to make sure only the students in your room have access to a form? These are all examples of times when you would use response validation. 

Here's how:

1. Click the plus sign to add your question. This will work with most question types, depending on your purpose. 

2. Click the 3 vertical dots next to the "required" button and choose Response Validation.

3. Enter the parameters. For example, I have a question on my form that says: What is the square root of 81? If the answer is anything but 9 it will say "Incorrect. Try again!"

Here is the setup: 

Here is what it looks like to the students:

To be honest, it was hard to choose just 5 but nobody wants this post to go on forever. I would encourage you to click on the settings tab and take a look at all the changes that are in there. Want some help with Google forms? Let us know. We're happy to help.

FTT - Gmail's New Look is Here to Stay.

 Gmail's New-ish Look and Integration Updates

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

 Originally posted In March- Revised and updated for 2021!

While Gmail's new user interface was been available since the summer, you may have noticed that all users who were on the "classic" view are now being automatically updated with no option to go back. So if you're still trying to get used to the new look, here is an older blog post highlighting all of the new changes. Enjoy!

Gmail is getting a relatively small update with more rounded corners and focuses on better integration between Google's main communication apps: Gmail, Google Chat, Google Spaces (think Slack, Discord, or even AOL chat rooms), and Google Meet. Essentially you can access the aforementioned apps in a full-screen format without having to create new tabs or switch between them. They began this integration process with Google Calendar and Keep a few years ago now, and has been widely viewed as a good move. 

Try it yourself

You can take a peek at the new interface by going to your settings. Click on "Try out the new Gmail View" and you may be surprised at how little actually changes. As mentioned, corners get rounder and the left bar UI gets a little cleaner. 

Integrations

So first off, heavy users of Google Chat, Meet, and Spaces will enjoy seeing a full-screen UI with their corresponding displays without having to switch tabs. You can toggle through each app by choosing from the left menu. Although the option exists if you'd still prefer chatting in a pop-up window:

Chat notifications are will now appear as bubbles that appear on the bottom left corner of the page. You can respond directly via the bubble, or you can chat via the pop-up window. 

The Bottom Line

These new integerations can be helpful if you utilize the various communication apps in Google. If you haven't jumped into Google Chat or Spaces yet, I highly suggest you give them a try. Here is a previous FTT Blog on Google Chat to assist you. If these changes are not enticing enough, enjoy the bubbles and rounded edges! 

FTT - Flashcard Factory

Flashcard Factory

Make Flashcards For With Your Students

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

As we learn more and more about cognitive processing styles and the ways to differentiate in order to offer options for all learners, it is important to remember to include students on the creation of learning materials. Too often, we get stuck in the mode of having students create as a way of demonstrating their learning at what we consider an endpoint. There are so many opportunities to include students in creating at the beginning as well as the middle of their learning. Why not include students in hands-on experiences that let them be in charge right from the start? Fortunately, we have digital tools that can help make the learning pit interactive and maybe even fun.

Pear Deck's Flashcard Factory is not new, but I think we often forget it's there or think it's not for us. I'm here to remind you and convince you that it is for you and your students.

Vocabulary can be a barrier or an open door to learning. Using Flashcard Factory at the beginning or the middle of a unit can help flip the switch from barrier to open doorway.

 There are a few things I love about Flashcard Factory. Here they are in no particular order.

1. Students are involved in creating their own study set of flashcards

2. It requires drawing in addition to writing 

3. It is collaborative and encourages students to lean in and work together

4. The class gets to look at and make decisions about whether or not a card makes it into the final deck

5. The graphics are super cute and fun

6. This is appropriate for any content area and any level

7. Seeing what the students come up with can be great formative data

Here's how it works:

1. Go to PearDeck.com and sign in using your school Google credentials.

2. Click Flashcard Factory.

3. Create your list or import a list. There is a connection to Miriam Webster if you want to auto-add definitions. 

4. Click Play Flashcard Factory and present the join code to your students. They will go to joinpd.com and enter the code.

5. Once your students have all signed on, click Clock In. It will automatically put your students in pairs and on teams. There are 2 teams: Day Shift and Night Shift. If you have an odd number of students, they can work on their own and the game will adjust for them. You can click to shuffle the teams if you don't like the pairings that were created. Click Let's Play to start the game. 

6. Once the game starts, pairs of students will be given a word and the definition you loaded for them. One of the students is asked to draw an example of the word and the other student is asked to write an example. Remember, they are given the word and the definition so they will need to draw and write to show their understanding of the word. When they are done, they will click Ship It. A smaller version of their flashcard will appear on the screen you are projecting and it will land on a conveyer belt. 

7. Once everyone has done all of the words you will click to move on to Quality Control. The students will have an opportunity to look at every flashcard and collectively decide to keep (green check) or reject (red X) each card. You have the ability to see who made each card but it is not printed on the cards. 

8. The last phase is called the shipping phase. You can print the cards or export them to Gimkit. In lieu of printing, you can also opt to save as a pdf when you get to the print menu. Save the pdf to your Google drive and share the link on your Schoology page so your students can easily access them. 

Want to learn more? Here is a quick seven-minute webinar to walk you through using Pear Deck's Flashcard Factory.

Want some help getting started? Feel free to book a time with me so we can get your students to create incredible flashcards.

FTT - Trick or Treats!

 Trick or Treat!

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

Well, it's 10:00 pm on Halloween night and my household just survived what seemed like an eternity of Halloween-related activities. Sugar-loaded toddlers are finally asleep and perhaps it's time for some tech treats for you! Here is a hastily put-together list of some of my favorite websites of all time for educational fun. If you find at least one of these websites useful, it'll be worth the price of admission. So enjoy!

• Absurd Trolley Problems: A fan favorite in economics class - the internet's take on the classic Trolley Problem thought experiment. Incentives matter and the rest is commentary. This website gives you increasingly complicated/absurd ethical dilemmas to solve as you progress through the site. 
  
  
• Radio Garden: Ever thought you'd be interested in what radio stations were playing all across the globe at any given point in time? Radio Garden gives you instant access to what's on the radio anywhere on Earth, from Faridabad, India to Rio Branco Brazil. It's shocking how many stations out there are blasting English Pop!
  
  
• TypeLit.io: Need to improve your typing skills AND want to get caught up on some classic literature? TypeLit records your words per minute, accuracy, and progress as you type through any part of a variety of classic books. You can even import your own book by signing up. This is a personal favorite that I never seem to have enough time for.
  
  
• Ventusky: This incredible website gives you beautiful, updated meteorological data visualizations anywhere on Earth. Temperature, wind, clouds, precipitation, and more. 
  
  
• Musclewiki.com: Pick a muscle, any muscle. Click on any major muscle on the human body and this site will immediately give you a variety of featured exercises and stretches with detailed instructions, GIFs, and videos specific to that muscle organized by difficulty. 
  
  
•  QuickDraw: A fun interaction with Google's A.I. neural network! You are given 20 seconds to draw a random object to see if Google's powerful A.I. can guess what you're doodling before time runs out!
  
  
• Onelook.com: Have you ever had a word on the tip of your tongue but couldn't quite think of the word? This "reverse-dictionary" lets you type in a description of a word and the program A.I. offers a suitable list of potential answers.
  
  
• SuperCook: This helpful website gives you recipes for dinner based on what available ingredients you already have on hand. Tens of thousands of recipes on hand with specific instructions!
  
  
• Pie Chart Maker: That's it. That's the description. This site helps you make great looking Pie Chart Graphs. Interactive ones at that. Downloadable PNGs, JPEGs, and SVG files. Values, Colors, 
  
  
• UnSplash: Need a picture of something? High quality something? Unsplash has millions of high resolution pictures of almost anything you can think of. Test them out!
  
  
• FreeLearningList: A recent addition to this list, this site is a resource aggregator designed to organize and score the best education-related resources available free on the internet. This non-profit sought to help parents and guardians fill in the gaps for their children's education during the pandemic.

That's a lot. The internet is a fascinating place. I hope you were able to find some utility in at least one of the websites above. Do you have a personal favorite to share? Comment below!

FTT - Google Smart Chips and Building Blocks

Google Smart Chips And Building Blocks

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

As educators, we know the importance and value of interconnectedness. When we are learning new things, brain science tells us that if we can connect a new concept to one we already know, it is more likely to stick. Relevance and connection matters in learning. I have had several experiences over the years where I have gone to workshops or taken courses on topics that were really exciting to me. However, if I didn't have immediate use of those skills and information it quickly collected dust and never really made a difference in my work with students. My hope is that these posts come to you at a time when they are relevant, can be connected to things you already know, and are easy to apply right away. 

In order to help with connections, we need to be organized and able to access all of those pieces easily; and while I am talking about concepts and skills, this same applies to our digital files, documents, calendar events, and contacts.

You may have noticed that when you are utilizing Google docs, which for purposes of this post includes docs and sheets, there are some new options.  These new features were added to make our digital elements more connected and easy to locate. There are a ton of new little nuggets of functionality here in Google docs. I will show you a few of my favorites. Let's take a look at those and the best ways to use them.

@Menu

When you are working in Google docs, type the @ symbol (fun fact: it's official name is asperand) and you will see a mini menu appear. This is one way to access the new Smart Chips and Building Blocks features. It will also give you easy access to text formatting options, entering tables, bookmarks, equations, and more. 

Use the @ menu to link to people, files, and events, and add items to a Google doc. You can add Smart Chips that link information and suggested actions for people places, files, and events. The @ menu also lets you add building blocks that give you the opportunity to create email drafts, meeting notes, table templates for tracking projects, and more. 

Building Blocks

Building Blocks can be accessed by the @ menu or by clicking "insert" in your Google doc. These allow you to insert templates within your document such as email drafts or project management trackers which can be so helpful when you have students or course teams working collaboratively.  

Your options within the Building Blocks menu are meeting notes, email draft, product roadmap, review tracker (one of my favorites), project assets, and launch content tracker.

Tip: When you type the @ symbol in Google docs, start typing the first few letters of what you want to narrow the suggestions. For example, to insert an email draft type @email and press enter.

We have all wrestled with drafting an email in Gmail and oops! You accidentally hit send. No? Is it just me? I love the new ability to draft an email in Google docs. You can also work on it collaboratively by sharing the doc with your colleagues. Once you are done, just click the Google docs symbol and it will open in your email application. No need to cut and paste! Don't worry, you still need to click send for it to go.

Another Tip: If you want to send to yourself you can just type @me and it will add your email address.

Smart Chips

Smart Chips give you quick access to items within your document. The functionality is similar to inserting a link with a few upgrades. Your options within Smart Chips are people, file, calendar event, and place. All of these will create nice little links within your document and will have icons to show what they link to. When you hover you will see a preview. 

• Add Smart Chips by going to the "insert" menu within Google docs OR typing the @ symbol. 
• Once the Smart Chip has been added, anyone with access to the document can hover to see a preview of what is linked in the Smart Chip. You can also click to open it. 
• You will notice that when you use Smart Chips, you can see the file type in the link.
• Adding a Smart Chip does NOT give everyone access to the document. You will still need to utilize the share button within Google docs to ensure access. 

 

Ever send students a set of instructions and wish you could include a dropdown menu? Now you can!

Tip: Add a dropdown to your Googledoc by typing the @ symbol and start typing "dropdown" or go to "insert" and select "dropdown". When you do this, you have the option of creating your own or using some pre-set dropdown menus.

Wishing you could create checklists with boxes in your docs?  You're welcome.

Tip: Add checklists to your document by typing the @ symbol and start typing "checklists"

This list could go on and on but we all have things to do and places to be. I would encourage you to explore by using the @ symbol in your docs and see what tools you like. Are you already using Smart Chips and Building Blocks? Let us know. We'd love to hear more about what you are doing. 

 

FTT - Troubleshooting IC-Schoology Syncs

 Troubleshooting IC-Schoology Sync

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

You don't know what you don't know

The sneaky thing about this sync is that it may seem like everything is working well, but then you get that dreaded email from your chair (or me) that your grade book isn't syncing! You think, "oh gosh, I could've sworn I did the thing that I needed to do to get the thing to sync to that other thing!!!" As we approach some important grade deadlines, we need to be able to know whether or not our grade books are syncing the way we want them to.

• View Sync Status Log

Click on the clipboard icon in your Schoology grade books every once in a while to audit your sync status. It's a quick, easy way to see if your sync is working as intended. Otherwise, the only other way to audit your syncs is to manually check your grade books in Infinite Campus (although that's not a bad idea). A red dot will appear on your clipboard to alert you to an issue.

• Cross-Linked Courses
  We've found that the majority of our persistent sync issues have been with courses that are cross-linked. The issue: make sure that every single section, whether it has active students in it or not, is set up identically with the other sections. That means the grade calc options AND categories need to be IDENTICAL. Please refer to slide 6 for Grade Calc Option instructions, and slide 16 for category setup.

• Composite Scores in IC vs Schoology
  You should also periodically check to make sure that your composite score in Schoology matches your composite score in IC. While there are slight variations to account for differences in rounding (e.g., .01%) your composites SHOULD MATCH. 
• What could account for statistical differences in your composite scores? 
• Factor'ed grades in Schoology DO NOT sync over to IC. You'll need to manually set the multiplier in IC.
• If you've deleted an assignment in Schoology, it will NOT delete the assignment in IC. 
• Make sure your assignment total values are identical in both spots. 
  
  
• Schoology-Infinite Campus Configuration Page
  This page "IS" the sync. You need to make sure that your categories are matched up correctly. 9 times out of 10 simple sync issues can be cleared up here. Additionally, if you are section-linked multiple sections of a course on Schoology, remember that you will need to set up the configuration for each section.
  
  
  
  
  
• Finally, make sure you've followed the initial instructions.
  Here is the LINK to the initial presentation guide. I know this is a lot of extra steps. I know most of this is not intuitive and not to mention incredibly boring, tedious, and insipid. We really appreciate your patience, and let's hope second semester is smooth sailing.

FTT - Google Integrations that'll make you happy!

Google Integrations That Will Make You Happy!

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

 Sometimes I like doing things the long way. For example, I might take the scenic route home from Chicago to enjoy the beautiful scenery on Sheridan Road. Or, if I am making a new recipe I will make sure to follow all of the instructions and not use any shortcuts until I have made it at least once.

One area where I really don't want to do things the long way is when working in Google products. I appreciate all the shortcuts and I'm super excited to share some with you that you may not know about.  You think you need all those tabs open but maybe you can close some!

 These shortcuts are little things that can add up to big time efficiency.

Let's get into it!

First, let's take a look at gmail. Look at the right side of your screen and you will see some icons.  Don't see them? Click the arrow in the bottom right corner of your screen to open the side panel. You will see a similar side panel within most Google products. 

These icons probably look familiar to you but just in case they don't, here is a quick rundown.

At first glance, you can see that by clicking on these icons the coordinating product will open up in a side panel. But if you continue to explore you will see that there are many time saving features now embedded within the Google environment. I would encourage you to go ahead and click and try a few things. You may be surprised at how easy it is to discover the new capabilities. 

• Calendar/Gmail:
• When you have Gmail open, click on an email message and then click the Google Calendar icon. At the bottom of the side panel, click Create An Event. You will notice that the new event is automatically populated with the subject of the email. You can grab the details from the email and include them in the description of your calendar event. Click save to save your new event to calendar without actually opening calendar.

• Keep/Gmail:
• When you have Gmail open, click on an email message and then click the Keep icon. At the top of the side panel, click "Take a note". A new Google Keep note will be created. You can title the note and add whatever relevant information you need. You will notice that on the note a link to the email is automatically created for you. No more copy/paste from gmail into keep! While we're here talking about Google Keep, if you open that note in Keep you can click the bell and set a reminder. It will auto-populate to your calendar. 

• Tasks/Gmail:
• When you have Gmail open, click the Tasks icon.
• You can then click and drag an email into Tasks and it will automatically create a new task for you with the same title as the subject of the email.
• Once your task is created, you can add a date and time and it will automatically add it to your calendar. If you have notifications enabled you will get a calendar notification on that date and time.

• Contacts/Gmail:
• When you have Gmail open, click on an email message and then click the Contacts icon. 
• On the side panel you will now see the contacts of everyone on that email thread.
• Within the side panel you can add them to your contacts with one click on the add to contacts icon.

You will notice similar functionality within Google calendar. If you click on a calendar event and then click the Google keep icon and click "Take A Note", you then have a Google keep note with the calendar event linked directly to it.

These icons are also available in Google docs, sheets, and slides. If you have a doc open and click the calendar icon and click "add event" it will automatically give your event the same title as your document and gives you the ability to seamlessly attach that Google doc to your calendar event. 

Here's the moral of the story, if you see a little icon while you are using Google applications, go ahead and click on them. I promise you won't irreversibly break anything and you just might discover your new favorite productivity tool. 

Check these out and let us know what you think.

FTT - Adobe Acrobat: Edit your PDFs like a PRO!

 Adobe Creative Cloud

Using Adobe Acrobat Pro for PDFs

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

Why PDFs? 

I suppose PDFs have become so ubiquitous in our digital worlds that most of us probably don't wonder at the rise of Portable Document Formats and how they became one of the standard electronic methods of conserving and sharing data online. It was initially a proprietary format created by Adobe in the early 1990s and is now THE dominant electronic writing document. We rely so heavily upon it because PDFs typically guarantee reliability. Once created, PDFs can lock in the formatting and size of whatever images or text in the exact manner of its inception. Once you save a Word doc into a PDF, there is some sense of permanence or finality associated with its creation.

But that benefit cuts both ways. Things change and so should our PDFs. Have you ever languished at your inability to "edit" a PDF? Well now that staff have access to Adobe Acrobat Pro at District 113, your PDFs should be as malleable to your fingertips as Word Docs or Google Docs (sort of).

Installing Adobe Acrobat

• Depending on whether or not you have a Mac or PC, your process might be slightly different, but generally the same. It begins with Adobe Creative Cloud. Search for the Adobe Creative Cloud icon. It is a rainbow-colored icon that MacOS users can find by opening their "Launch Pad" and Dell users can find the icon on their desktop. 
• Open Creative Cloud. It may ask you to log in. Here are the simple steps to do so. Once you log in, you will find "Acrobat DC" under "Available in your plan." Click "Install." Disclaimer, this may take 5-10 minutes to complete. 

Opening Adobe Acrobat DC

• Find a PDF on your computer and open it with Adobe Acrobat. You can right-click on it and choose the "open with" option:
  
  
  

Option 1: Edit PDF

• Assuming you've made it thus far and were successfully able to open a PDF with Adobe Acrobat, you should now see an updated list of functions on the right. One such function is labeled, "Edit PDF" and should be a fan favorite. Click on "Edit PDF" and you will be able to make changes to your PDF much like you would a Word document.
  
  
• Double click on whatever text or image you are interested in editing and you can now rewrite PDF text.  (If this is not immediately available, you may have to OCR the text first. See below) You can click and drag, resize, change the font, etc. 
  
  

  

Option 2: Organize Pages

• Clicking on the "Organize Pages" function allows you to change the layout AND order of your PDF pages. Additionally, you can add and remove pages of your PDF, or even split a PDF into mulitple files.
  
  
  
  
  

Option 3: Scan & OCR

• If you want screen-readers to be able to access your content, scanning and OCR'ing your files are critical for ADA compliance (and best practice). Click on the "Scan & OCR" option to begin.
• For simple OCR you can click on "Recognize Text" at the top and choose your file. It will then convert all of your block images into readable (and searchable) text.
  
  
  
  
  
• MAKE SURE YOU SAVE. Unlike Google Docs, any and all changes to your PDF must be saved.

Conclusion

This is just an introduction to Adobe Acrobat Reader Pro. Some of you may have had difficulties even installing Adobe Reader on to your computer. Please know that this blog is just an introduction, letting you know that this capacity exists. If you need any additional assistance installing and utilizing Adobe Reader, PLEASE let us know! 

FTT - What's in the Toolbox?

What's In The Toolbox?

Quick Guide To Online Learning Tools

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

Now that our school year is under way and we've settled in as much as we possibly can given all of the excitement of working in a high school, it's a good time to think about our use of technology in our classrooms and to take an inventory of the tools we have at our disposal. The goal of any learning tool, digital or not, is to support learning. Sometimes it's a matter of increasing student engagement. Other times it could be a need to make materials more accessible. I recently came across this article that lists 5 Questions To Help You Make EdTech Decisions. Of course, your content and the needs of your specific students may lead you to add to this list, but these 5 questions are a nice place to start:

• Is there a tool to help check for understanding so that all students can share their learning?
• Have I identified open-ended creation tools that give students a space to create a product that demonstrates their learning?
• Will students be able to collaborate with their peers and work toward a common goal?
• Do these tools help students build transferable skills they can apply in a variety of contexts?
• Will these apps or websites work in the environment my students currently use (home, school, hybrid), and do they take connectivity, accessibility, and hardware into account?

Keeping the learning goals in mind, here is a quick and easy guide to what we have as a district for use in our learning spaces. 

Here is a rundown of the online products we pay for, along with a brief explanation of what they do. Feel free to book a time with me to explore more!

1. Edpuzzle

2. Hapara

3. Padlet (at HP)

4. Pear Deck

5. Schoology

6. Screencastify

7. Turnitin

8. Texthelp: Read&Write and Equatio

We also have premium (free to all educators) access to:

Canva

Flip (formerly Flipgrid)

There are MANY other online tools that offer fremium and/or free limited versions. 

A quick reminder about SOPPA:

The Student Online Personal Protection Act is a "digital privacy law that provides safeguards to protect the privacy and security of data about students when it is collected by educational technology companies. The Act is intended to ensure that sudent data will be protected when it is collected by edtech companies."   

We as a district need to account for the agreements we have with edtech companies and how data is collected and how it is protected. Any online tool that is used in our classrooms that utilizes the single sign-on ( Sign on with Google), falls under SOPPA.

Not sure if a tool you are using is SOPPA compliant? You can always go to LearnPlatform to check. If you are using something new, you can also request that it gets in the cue to be approved.