Tech-Knowledge-Y
Tech Tidbits From Your ITS {2016-2017 v.14}
What's New in the New Year?
Any New Year's Resolutions? Remember, changes don't have to start on January 1. Change can be ongoing and begin whenever the need for improvement arises. The same can be seen with technology in that changes are continually made to improve the functionality or accessibility of a program. Technology changes within our division often occur for this reason. Have you already seen some of these?
Google Classroom Gets Personal - Personalize the learning by giving assignments to individual students or subsets of students within a class. To do this you will deselect the default sharing option of "all students" and then select the students that you want to receive the assignment. Detailed directions are available here.
Another new option in Google Classroom lets you receive notifications when students submit assignments past their due dates. And you can now receive notifications when students re-submit assignments. You can find notification set-up directions here.
Another new option in Google Classroom lets you receive notifications when students submit assignments past their due dates. And you can now receive notifications when students re-submit assignments. You can find notification set-up directions here.
Changes to Clever: Many of you have already seen this. There was an update done to the Clever site that changed the appearance of what students see when they login. Students now see a white page with the same request to login, but it is different than the blue screen our kids have become accustomed to.
Google Classroom has been added to Wixie: Wixie has now added a shortcut to load directly to Google classroom. Like all things Google, this will make it easier to assign things to your students. If you encounter any hiccups, let me know! I will work on a tutorial for this next week, so be on the lookout for a training video!
SchoolNet Updates: New features will be added to SchoolNet by the end of the business day TODAY (Friday January 13). New features are listed below and are accessible to all administrators, teachers, and staff!
- Text to Speech – Text to Speech is supported through TestNav and all assessments created after the upgrade will have the Text to Speech option automatically selected. Any assessments created prior to the upgrade that need this accommodation must have Text to Speech manually selected in Test Properties. To generate this feature, which will require additional processing time, select Generate Text to Speech prior to previewing or select Publish to TestNav. Additionally, students who require this accommodation will need Text to Speech selected on their TestNav PNP tab located on the Student Profile page.
- Gap Match Item Type – A new technology-enhanced item that allows for all or nothing scoring is now available through TestNav.
- Analysis Spreadsheet – This spreadsheet can be created through Classrooms and School & District Data modules and has been updated to allow filtering, hiding and pinning of columns.
- Standards Performance – A new report has been added to the Classrooms module to provide teachers the ability to compare multiple assessments with the same standards set. This report displays bar charts of overall class performance based on specific standards with the ability to select individual objectives and preview individual student performance.
Digital Badges Passport
Learn new digital tools in a flipped format!! The site for flipped digital tools and reflections will soon be up. If you are looking to amp up your lessons with a digital tool please visit the site to learn something new and share your reflections. Once you have reflected on your digital tool I will place a badge in your mailbox for your to display.
Important Dates
Monday January 16 - No School
Tuesday January 17 - Transformation of the Power of Technology PD (@MalibuES)
Wednesday January 18 - Transformation of the Power of Technology PD (@WindsorWoodsES)
Tuesday January 24 - Wading the Waters of Blended & Personalized Learning PD (@MalibuES)
Thursday February 9 - Final Assignment for Teach Like a Pirate Book Study (both schools)
Friday February 10 - Final day to return borrowed copies of Teach Like a Pirate (both schools)
Thursday February 23 - Virginia Digital Learning Day (Start Planning NOW)
Jamie Frederick
Instructional Technology Specialist
Malibu Elementary
Windsor Woods Elementary
Email: jmfreder@vbschools.com
Website: https://sites.google.com/vbschools.com/itsjamievb
Twitter: @ITSJamieVB