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

Google's Applied Digital Skills Lessons

Students are allowed to keep their Chromebooks home over the summer - so reinforce and/or enhance your kids’ digital skills throughout the summer with Google’s Applied Digital Skills lessons. You kids can make pixel art inspired by Frida Kahlo and Mexico or create a comic strip in Google Drawings. You can also learn job-ready skills from anywhere with the video-based lessons. Have a wonderful and relaxing summer with the family!

Kami Library

Kami is a digital annotation tool that helps students and teachers interact with pdf documents. We’ve mentioned Kami before and their comment tools. We’ve also shared Kami Geography Scavenger Hunt Activity as a way for you and your students to test out some Kami’s features.  Now, Kami has expanded their templates for note-taking, games, and more! Kami Library has hundreds of free, ready-made teaching templates to download, customize, and share - no strings attached! You can filter by grade level, resource type, and subject.

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