Schoology to IC Grade Passback update

Great news! If you use the Schoology to IC Grade Passback feature, Infinite Campus updated this past weekend to eliminate a step. So previously it was this:

Now you can change it so that when you click a button in Schoology, the student grade in IC updates immediately!

To do this, go to your Gradebook by going into Main Menu > Instruction > Gradebook. Choose Settings > Non-Campus Assignment Defaults. Change Default Standards/Grading task to Semester. This means that all assignments and their grades will go directly into Infinite Campus. 

The Schoology to IC Grade Passback documentation has been updated on page 5 with this latest update.

Gmail’s email layout

Make your emails and newsletters look professional with Gmail’s new email layouts! At the bottom of the window, click Layouts (table-like icon). Choose the layout you want to use and then change the images and buttons to craft your email. You can customize the styling by entering a Parkway logo and entering the color from Parkway Brand Standards Guide. For more directions about the email layout in Gmail, check out Google’s directions to create email with customized layouts.

Closing Tabs on Accident?

 

Method to change the ‘default’ of Google Docs to ‘Anyone with the link’

The default share settings in Google Docs are automatically restricted. The rationale for this restriction is for privacy reasons, especially if Google Drive replaces your hard drive. This can become time consuming when you’re constantly changing every public-facing document for parents, colleagues, or administrators to ‘Anyone with the link’ or to anyone in the network (Parkway Schools).

To alleviate changing public-facing Google Doc every time, consider creating a folder and setting that folder share settings to ‘Anyone with the link.’ Then, any doc you put in that folder automatically has those permissions. For example, you can create a Parent folder with a share setting to ‘Anyone with the link’ to view or a student folder with a share setting to ‘Anyone in Parkway Schools’ to view. Or create a folder within your PLC and share the folder with members in your PLC.

Schoology Notifications

Schoology sends an email for each new notification. However, if one receives too many notifications and emails, one may ignore or mute the emails. Limit the notifications by controlling which types of Schoology notifications to receive and how (email vs. text). Check out these directions here:

Schoology Notifications

New Schoology Feature: Student Annotations

When creating assignments in Schoology, teachers will now see the option to assign an Annotations Assignment which pushes a copy of a file (not Google) to each student for them to directly annotate on the document.  

Accepted file types: Docx, HTML, JPG, PDF, PNG, PPTX, RTF, TXT, XLS, XLSX, and XML

Students will then be able to use the tools to type and draw on the document. Changes will be saved as they work. It’s like using Kami on a PDF! (Parkway School District still has a license to use Kami for the 22-23 school year.)

Directions for using Student Annotations

Kami's Split and Merge Feature

 Kami is a digital annotation tool that helps students and teachers interact with pdf documents. We’ve mentioned Kami before and their comment tools. Now we’re diving deep with a fan-favorite Kami tool - Split and Merge.

Split and Merge allows you to effortlessly customize and combine your PDFs by simply clicking a few buttons. Cut out content you don’t need, rearrange the pages for a better flow, or get completely creative by chopping and changing a bunch to make something completely original. Check out Parkway’s Kami’s Split and Merge video!

All students have the Kami extension pre-installed on their Parkway-issued Chromebooks. Teachers need to install the Kami extension in Chrome.

Google Drive Storage Tip: Purge large, unnecessary files

Google announced that starting in July 2022, schools and universities, such as Parkway School District, will pay for storage. You can sort your files descending by size in the Drive Storage quota and delete your largest unnecessary files. In Google Drive, select Storage and reorder to find and delete your largest files. Purging unnecessary videos or large files can help free up storage space. You can also delete previously taught Schoology or Google Classroom shared course folders in your Google Drive.

For more Google Drive tips, check out the blog posts: Create an ARCHIVE folder in Google Drive and Google Drive folder tips.

Create an ARCHIVE folder in Google Drive

Your preferred learning management system (Schoology and Google Classroom) has a folder for your courses in Google Drive. This folder allows your students to share their assignments with you. Simplify this digital storage by creating an Archive folder. Doing this will allow you to quickly find the materials with the current courses. To do this:

1. Go to your Google Drive and select for the folder associated with your preferred learning management system

1. If you use Schoology, the folder is called Schoology Google Drive Assignments and/or Assignments.

2. If you use Google Classroom, the folder is called Classroom.

2. Right-click and select New Folder

3. Name this folder ARCHIVE

4. Drag and drop all the previous courses taught into the ARCHIVE folder

Do this AFTER the course has completely ended, with the final grades submitted. DO NOT do this with a live course because it will mess up the communication between the learning management system and Google Drive.

For more ways to organize and personalize your folders in Google Drive, check out the Google Drive folder tips blog post.

Google Drive Folders Tips

 While the search feature in Google Drive is helpful and amazing, sometimes it may feel as if you are searching in a black hole. One way to organize your Google Drive is to create folders. Think of folders as ‘boxes’ for storage. Some tips for organizing your folders in Google Drive:

• Use consistent naming and numbering. You can organize your folders by year, subject, and/or type. 

• Add colors to folders. To do this, select the folder and right click. You will see Change Color next to a paint palette icon. Choose colors that make sense to you.

• Add emojis for a visual effect. To do this, go to emojopedia.org to search for the emoji you want. Copy it. Select the folder you want to edit and press ‘n’ to change the name. Put your cursor BEFORE the name of the folder. Then paste.

Time spent creating an organized structure in your Drive means having more time and energy for other tasks. Depending on the state of your Drive, this could be a lot of work. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Take pride in even the smallest accomplishment!

Parent Pointer: Kami

Kami is a digital annotation tool that helps students (and teachers) interact and collaborate with pdf documents. All students have the Kami extension pre-installed on their Parkway-issued Chromebooks. Kami has a Read Aloud feature that allows learners to hear the text to be read aloud. (Remember, this feature is also available with Chromebook Accessibility.) Kami also has a Dictionary feature, which gives the definition of the highlighted text. Finally, a tool that both students and teachers enjoy is the colorful stickers rewarded after a job well done. Go ahead, have your child test out Kami’s features with this fun Kami Geography Scavenger Hunt Activity (you must use the Parkway-issued Chromebooks and open the PDF with Kami).

Schoology Tip: Hiding Students’ Overall Grades

If you are using the Schoology Gradebook, your students may start to notice a different overall grade in Schoology than IC because Schoology will start calculating the semester grade by averaging Q1 and Q2 by default. Please remind and reiterate to the students that their actual grade is in IC.

To avoid confusion, you can hide the student's overall grade in Schoology. In each Schoology course, go to Grade Setup. Under Visibility Settings, check Hide overall grade and Hide grading period grades.

If you are using the Schoology to IC Grade Passback, it will not impact the accuracy of grades in IC. This is because IC is not set up as a quarter system. You should notice that as you pass back the assignments, you have to do an additional step in IC of selecting Semester for the Standard/Grading Task (slide 5).

 

If you need help or support with this process please email the Help Desk at helpdesk@parkwayschools.net. Please include whether you are having trouble with Schoology or Infinite Campus and a screenshot of the issue.

Emphasize words in a Google document’s comments

Last week, Kristen highlighted using the Mote extension to give audio feedback or directions to students. To continue with the topic of feedback, did you know that you do NOT have to use ALL CAPS to emphasize words in a Google document’s comments? You can style text by enclosing within *, _, or - for *bold*, _italic_, and -strikethrough-. Check out @TonyVincent’s image on Twitter below. 

If you find yourself making the same comments repeatedly, consider setting up canned feedback in Google Docs or Slides.

Parent Pointer: Taking a Screenshot with the Chromebook

Throughout the semester your child(ren) may be required to capture the Chromebook screen (take a picture) to show evidence for the assignment. Here is a video of both methods.

To take a screenshot of the full screen with a Chromebook, hold down the Ctrl + Switch Window keys: 

Chromebook Keys:

Full Screenshot:

To take a screenshot with part of your full screen with a Chromebook, hold down the Ctrl + Shift + Switch Window keys. Highlight what you want to capture.

Chromebook Keys

Partial Screenshot:

All files are saved to your Downloads folder.

Ester Park - Follow on Twitter @MrsParkShine

Google Slides are not just for presentations; they can be used for interactive notebooks, choice boards, games, and breakout rooms. We’ve mentioned before how Slidesmania and SlidesCarnival have free templates and how to's for Google Slides. 

Another similar, great resource is from Ester Park. Ester Park is an instructional designer that creates amazing digital materials. You can access anything from graphic organizers to Bitmoji stickers with videos. Most of her materials are free on her website. Check them out today!

Helpful Google Extensions

Extensity

If you have many tabs open (even if you group your tabs), all of your extensions will run on those tabs which slows down your Chrome web browser and computer. Check out Extensity for quickly enabling and disabling all of your extensions for Google Chrome. It keeps your toolbar clean and you can quickly turn all extensions off (and back on) with a single click.

Teacher Tip Dualless

Having a second monitor is extremely productive for virtual teaching. If you do not have a second monitor, check out the Dualless extension. It splits your browser window two by just 2 clicks. You can choose one of the preset ratios according to your needs. This will be helpful when you are sharing your screen at the next virtual faculty meeting with only your laptop :)

Website Availability Check

You’ve found a wonderful, new website or video to share with your students tomorrow and are so excited for the lesson. Then when you start the lesson the next day, you realize that it is blocked and students can’t use it during class.

Does this sound familiar? Good news! Parkway now has a new filter that allows you to check the website's availability. Follow these instructions to check for website availability. Please be aware with this new filter, we have had to reset some allowances. Contact your building Technology Specialist or the Technology Help Desk for these allowances.

Tips and Tricks for Organizing your Google Drive

How do you rename something in Google Drive? Do you right-click and select rename or do you select the file/folder and type ‘n’? Check out these tips and tricks for organizing your Google Drive. While the search feature in Google Drive is helpful and amazing, sometimes it may feel as if you are searching in a black hole. Time spent creating an organized structure for your Drive in the summer means having more time and energy during the school year for teaching. Depending on the state of your Drive, this could be a lot of work. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Take pride in even the smallest accomplishments!

Teacher Tip: Taskade

written by Kristen Harms// posted by Elegan

 Team Building?  Virtual CLT?  Curriculum Writing?

Taskade is the all-in-one collaboration platform for remote teams. Unleash your team productivity with task lists, mindmaps, and video chat.

Start by creating a workspace and add your team members. From there, you can work together, assign tasks to team members, and chat live alongside your projects.  You can assign tasks to someone else and set due dates.

The free version of Taskade includes unlimited tasks, projects, teams, workspace members, and all the essential features unlocked.  You can use Taskade for weekly agendas, team meetings, project outlines, product roadmaps, and much more. For inspirations, please visit our templates gallery and try out over 300 free templates.

There is also an app for Android or IOS.

Checklist Bank

Providing students and parents/guardians with a checklist allows families to manage their own time and space efficiently. We see and hear how Parkway teachers are staying organized with checklists. For ideas on staying organized in a virtual classroom for students, check out this shared Checklist Bank folder. It has examples of checklists from K12 virtual teachers. Make a copy of these checklists to use from the Templates folder.