Coming Soon: Read&Write

Read&Write by TextHelp will soon be available to teachers and students. Read&Write is a literacy toolbar that exists in the Chrome Browser, in G Suite Files, and pdfs. This toolbar has many features to support all learners such as text to speech, dictionary, a visual dictionary, the ability to annotate text, and much, much more.

If you are interested in learning more, we are offering a 3-part series beginning January 19 by providing an introduction to the tool. Session 2 on February 23 will focus on using Read&Write to Support Vocabulary Instruction and the third session on March 30 will focus on using Read&Write to Support Writing & Research.  All sessions will occur from 3:30-5:00 in Room 48 at the District Office. Teachers will be paid their hourly PD rate. Due to the nature of this series, attendance is expected at all 3 sessions. Registration is available at https://goo.gl/m2TU0R. Teachers interested in exploring Read&Write in advance of upcoming training, you can install the tool using this link.

Technology Update: STU-CON 2017 & H Drive Storage - 1-12-17

Happy New Year!

STU-CON 2017 – March 23, 2017

STU-CON 2017 is our first annual student powered technology fest and it will be held from 5-7 pm at City Hall in the Galleria. STU-CON 2017 is a showcase for our students to share how they've been learning with technology in their classrooms. It's an opportunity for families to come and learn from their own children and have a chance to explore and engage with the technology our students use daily. We're counting on you, our teachers and staff, to help by putting together teams of students that can lead demonstrations or present projects that you’ve done in your classroom over the last year. This could be anything from using Google apps to robotics to video to podcasting - whatever it happens to be that your students are doing - we want to hear from you!

More Information: https://goo.gl/wik6XC
Form to Sign your Team up: https://goo.gl/3NRgQ3

H DRIVE STORAGE

It’s time to apply some minimalists strategies to your H Drive. We've had several requests for additional storage on the H Drive and unfortunately, that's not possible/ Everyone has the same amount of storage space allocated to on our servers and if we increase for one, we will need to increase for all and we don’t have enough server space to do that. If you're finding that you're running out of storage space on your H drive then it might be a good time for a spring cleaning. Take a moment to look at the files in your H Drive and ask yourself these three questions:

1. Do I need this? If Yes, then decide what to do with it. If No, then delete it.
2. Do I need this semester? If Yes, do nothing. If No, then upload it to your Google Drive for future reference.
3. I don’t need it now, but I might in the future? Face it, all teachers are pack rats and hate to delete anything!If Yes, then upload it to your Google Drive If No, then delete it.

Don’t forget to empty your trash when you’re finished. (Right-mouse click on the trash can and choose “Empty Recycle Bin”)

A couple of reminders about Google Drive:

• Don’t upload personal info (like credit card numbers, social security numbers)
• You can upload an entire folder at one time, recommended to keep the same file structure.
• If you’re uploading individual files, you may want to create a new folder in your Drive to keep everything organized.

Annual Equipment Maintenance

On Friday, January 13, we will be performing the annual maintenance on the universal power supplies for the District’s network between 12 and 3 pm.  This means our entire system will at the District Office will be on our battery backup.  This should not interrupt or impact the network in any way during this time, unless there's a black out or brown out, which we don't anticipate. This is a necessary maintenance to keep our system up and running. You don't need to do anything, but we wanted to let everyone know about this scheduled maintenance.

Again, Happy New Year and we look forward to serving you in 2017!

KIM HARRISON
Director II, Technology

New Google Classroom Updates

Some long-awaited and often requested features in Google Classroom were released today.  You can now post assignments, questions, and posts to individual students or groups of students. Differentiation and group work via Google Classroom made much easier!  Read more about all the new Classroom features released today in the Google Blog. 

Reopen Closed Tab

Close a Chrome tab accidentally? No problem. Try this keyboard shortcut! Use Control + Shift + T to reopen the last closed tab in your Chrome browser.

Hapara Teacher Dashboard Organization

Did you know you can organize and customize your teacher dashboard in Hapara? By default, your teacher dashboard is organized alphabetically by student first name. You can sort your cards by either first name or last name in both alphabetical or reverse alphabetical order.

What if you could organize your teacher dashboard to match your seating chart, by group project, or something else?  You can!   Your teacher dashboard is 100% customizable within the 4 horizontal square layout.  You can drag and drop the cards on your teacher dashboard to create the layout that works best for you! If you want to copy that layout to another screen within your teacher dashboard by clicking the x arrows to the right of the ABC sorting button.

If you want your teacher dashboard to be organized by flexible groups, you can also filter your groups. If you don't already have students assigned to groups, this support document from Hapara will guide you through the process.