March 2022 Technology Newsletter
By: Michael Kealy
The New York State Education Department is no longer supporting the EngageNY.org website and it will no longer be available for use after March 30, 2022
The EngageNY curriculum resources will be moving here in March 2022 from the EngageNY website. All ELA and mathematics curriculum files will be available at this new location, and will remain free and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) license(link is external).
Archived EngageNY Curriculum Files:
Grades 3-8 ELA and Mathematics Test Materials:
ActivInspire
REMINDER: Only Click Links and Download Files From Trusted Sources
CISA has been warning and pleading with all organizations in the US to prepare for potentially devastating cyber-attacks on the US depending on how this war unfolds. There have been some very big names that have had some significant, unexplained outages lately. Were they an isolated ransomware attack? An attack from a foreign government or government proxy? No one is saying.
One of the primary vectors for cyber attacks in the use of phishing or ransomware. I am writing to remind you to please use extra scrutiny and caution when clicking links or opening files from unknown sources. The old saying goes if you see something, say something. Please report any suspicious emails or activity on your computer to the Technology Help Desk so that we can investigate, mitigate, and prevent an attack.
Google Updates
Google Meet attendance reports available now for education meetings with two or more participants
Quick summary
Google Workspace Education Plus and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade users will now automatically receive an attendance report anytime a meeting has two or more participants. Previously, attendance tracking was limited to meetings with five or more participants.
Attendance reports include the following information:
- Participant’s name
- Participant’s email
- Overall length of time a participant was on the call, including when they joined and exited
Getting started
- End users: This feature will be available by default. Visit the Help Center to learn more about tracking meeting attendance in Google Meet.
Rollout pace
- Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 21, 2022
Resources
New email draft template in Google Docs
Quick summary
Google is making it easy to collaborate on an email draft in Docs with the new email draft template. You can mention people in the recipient fields using the @ menu without having to remember their email addresses, and collaborate on the message body using comments and suggestions. When ready to send, simply click the button that is shown alongside an email draft. A Gmail compose window will pop up, with email fields (subject, to, cc, bcc, and body) automatically populated based on the email draft in the document.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release domains:Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 15, 2022
- Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 22, 2022
View additional Calendar statuses in Google Chat
What’s changing
In addition to seeing when someone is out of office, you can now see additional Google Calendar statuses like “In a meeting” or “In focus time” in Google Chat.
Who’s impacted
Admins and end users
Why you’d use it
We hope by surfacing these additional statuses, this will make it easier for your colleagues to identify appropriate times to message you.
Additional details
Additionally, the Admin control for Calendar availability will be updated to include configuration options for displaying “In a meeting” or “In focus time” blocks.
Web:
- Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 14, 2022
- Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 25, 2022
Resources
Google Sheets doubles cell limit
Quick Summary
Google has increased the cell limit in Google Sheets from up to five million cells to up to ten million cells. This limit applies to new, existing, and imported files.
Over the course of the last four years, we’ve been steadily increasing the cell limit in Google Sheets: from 2 million to 5 million in 2019 and now to 10 million. We hope this and future increases give users the ability to work with their data on a much greater scale in Google Sheets.
Rollout pace
- This feature is available now for all users.
Resources
Michael Kealy
Beacon City School District
Email: kealy.m@beaconk12.org
Website: https://www.beaconk12.org/domain/24
Location: 101 Matteawan Road, Beacon, NY, USA
Phone: 845-838-6900
Twitter: @techkealy