Terry's Tech Tips

Fall sports are in full swing, and the Activities Fair will be held soon!  Before the month is out, we will submit many of our School Sponsored International Trips for School Committee review. If you are a coach, club advisor, or trip organizer, connecting with students and parents can be time-consuming.  There are several ways to set up systems to communicate with these students and/or parents.  One option is to create a snapshot in Aspen. Why create a snapshot in Aspen for clubs, sports teams, or trips? As a teacher, you can easily communicate with students in your classes.  Communicating with students in clubs, sports teams, or trips means you need to access them under the Staff View>Student top tab with all 1300 students.  If you create a snapshot in Aspen, you can specify that snapshot as a filter and with one-click access only the students you want to communicate with.  When contacting students and/or parents, any email changes made in Aspen ...

The beginning of the year is a critical time for setting up your GradeBook.  You want to be sure your choices provide the results you expect.  Once you have a lot of grades entered, you don't want to change your average mode calculation. The four Aspen Grade Average Mode options are listed below to provide you a sanity check: Total Points   The easiest to understand, select Total points if you calculate averages by dividing the total points a student earns by the total number of points possible.   You can create categories, but their value is determined by the points available from assignments in the categories. For example, a student receives a 100, 90, and 80 for assignments where each is worth 100 points. (Assign1 + Assign2 + Assign3)/Possible Points = Score (100 + 90 + 80)/300 = 90% Category Total Points Select Category total points if you want to use total points for individual assignments within a category. The weight of the cat...

Google introduced a lot of updates over the summer.  As a Google for Education School, we work in the Google Suite all the time.  We create for our classroom or assess work students create. Below are some highlighted changes for Google Docs and Slides. Google Slides Present Mode: If you use Google Slides in your classroom, Google has added these capabilities while in Present mode : Resize speaker notes and slide thumbnails in the presenter view  Navigate to a specific slide with a keyboard shortcut   -   For example, 7 followed by Enter sends you to slide 7. Control video playback with keyboard shortcuts: View all available Present mode keyboard shortcuts by clicking the new “tips” button in the presentation control bar.  Read the full Google post here. New Customization Features for Google Docs Headers and Footers: Previously, Headers and Footers in Google Docs had to remain the same on every page except for page 1....

Does your Google Classroom have a Classwork Tab? If it doesn't, significant changes are coming on September 4th!  Below is part of the official Google announcement: The previous version of Classroom (without the Classwork page) is deprecated and will be discontinued on September 4, 2019.  This means that new classes will be created using the version of Classroom that includes the Classwork page—instructors will no longer have the option to revert to the version without Classwork. In addition, all classes still using the previous version will be automatically converted to the version of Classroom that includes the Classwork page on September 4. Click here to read more detailed information on this change. What can you do?  If you want to, you can add the Classwork tab yourself.  Follow these directions from the Google Help Center  to add the Classwork tab.  Otherwise, as of September 4th, your Google Classroom will contain a Classwork tab...

Spice it up!  Create a Course Expectation Infographic Think about most students' first day of school.  They start out in Advisory, reviewing a multitude of compliance documents and completing a form agreeing to all the contents.  Not that exciting.  This year, they'll receive their laptop in Advisory as well - very exciting!  The rest of the day will be spent in each class, getting to know their new teacher (inspiring) and reviewing course expectations (not as exciting). If you are thinking of spicing up your first day, you may want to consider presenting your Course Expectations using an Infographic!  The example above is based on a course that I will teach in the spring. Reasons why Infographics work: Infographics are everywhere on the web - with good reason.  Infographics play to our brain's strengths: 60,000 times faster Humans process visual information 60,000 times faster than text. https://images.app.goo.gl/82HPWapeQh5raZe...

I was so excited last year when I noticed that Google Classroom provided the ability to copy the classroom for the next year. Good News: I tested this process out at the end of last year, and my results were great!  Every assignment saved as a draft with all related documents and support links placed under the topics I had created.  I knew teachers who had used Moodle in the past would appreciate the new feature.   Bad News: That's good news.  But, there was something that I didn't consider last year.  When you copy a Google Classroom, it makes a copy of everything in the Classroom.   Every document, every video, including your directions, course syllabus, and other 'view only' documents you provided to your students in their assignments.  Let's consider how that might look: You have a Course Expectations document.   You taught two sections last year.  You added this document to each course.  If you...

Today's post is an update for suggested strategies teachers and students can use for final exam preparation.  I have added one additional strategy tip from the previous post! As final exams approach, your students face the challenge of preparing for them.  Cognitive learning research provides insight into the best practices for studying.   The Top 2 Study Strategies are Retrieval Practice and Spaced Learning: Retrieval Practice  Retrieval Practice is the act of  pulling information out of your brain.   You remember what you know about a word, topic, or lesson,  pull it   out of your mind  and then articulate it in some way.  For example, you write down everything you can remember.  This is the way your brain really wants to learn!   Retrieval Practice is the opposite of reviewing notes or the textbook and trying to ' stuff ' the knowledge into your brain! Teacher Action:...