If you have not heard of Matt Miller, author of Ditch that Textbook and other titles, it is your lucky day! His website, books, and podcast are full of great teacher tips. Recently, he has promoted an EfficienTEACH series to help you save time and have a big impact on student learning. Check out some of his fantastic resources below, click the picture to access the links.
Ever find yourself writing emails and thinking that you should really save it to re-use later? Google Docs now makes it easier to draft an email in Docs and send it with just a few more clicks.
Entering @email in docs.google.com will load a template complete with To, Cc, Bcc, and Subject lines. It can also be accessed via Insert > Building Blocks > Email draft.
You can access your contacts and enter them directly in the correct fields. Then you can draft your email. Because you are in Docs you can share it with your grade-level team or co-teacher for feedback and suggestions.
When you are ready to send, click on the Gmail icon and it will automatically populate the Gmail message with what you entered in Docs. Then congratulate yourself because that yearly email or other frequent communication is saved in Drive to save you time in the future.
This feature was previously mentioned along with some other exciting updates in this blog post.
Canvas Studio is a tools that allows instructors and students to actively collaborate through video and audio media.
If you want to chat more about the possibilities with Canvas Studio, submit a tech ticket and we’d be happy to answer your questions and walk through it with you.
Highlighted below are a number of new features that will be available in Canvas after this Saturday’s (4/16) update.
2. Apply Score to Ungraded Assignments
3. Rich Content Editor(RCE) Icon Maker
Some of the other new features are New Quiz abilities and Emojis in Submissions.
To find out more information about all of these new features, please visit: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Releases/Canvas-Release-Notes-2022-04-16/ta-p/515876
The P-CCS Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Department (DEI) is pleased to invite you to participate in a spring book study with the Assistive & Instructional Technology (A&IT) and Technology Departments.
We will be reading and reflecting on the book, Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success authored by Andratesha Fritzgerald. This book will build on the concepts of Culturally Responsive Instruction and provide practical next steps for building more equitable and inclusive classrooms.
To participate, please be prepared to commit to the following schedule:
– attend two Zoom meetings to discuss the book (April 14 & April 28, 7-8 p.m.)
– complete asynchronous discussions & activities via Canvas LMS.
Course activities will conclude by May 12th. SCECHs will be available and the book will be provided. Space is limited. Reserve your spot by completing this form.
Instructional staff, when you get your new laptop and open up Google Chrome, you might sign in to Google/Gmail and think that you are all set to go. But perhaps you notice that none of your bookmarks or saved passwords are coming up. You (probably) didn’t do anything wrong, you just need to make sure you are ALSO SIGNED INTO the browser GOOGLE CHROME itself. Check out those steps here. They are also linked on the laptop handbook that is accessible on the Desktop of your new laptop.
How do you know if you are logged into Chrome? You want to see your icon in both places as pictured at the top of this page.
The Michigan Learning Channel (MLC) is a statewide public television partnership offering free instructional content to support the education of students and to provide alternative resources for families and teachers. Designed to enrich school learning, the instructional content is aligned with Michigan’s educational standards and follows widely accepted sequences for mastering skills throughout the school year. Some of the programs include Read, Write, Roar, Curious Crew (science), and InPACT (physical education).
This programming is being broadcast on special on-air channels established by each of the participating public television stations in Michigan. It is also available as a livestream and stored for on-demand viewing on a variety of digital platforms, ensuring accessibility to all students, teachers and families in the state.
You can find their programming at: https://www.michiganlearning.org/
PBS LearningMedia is a great destination for direct access to thousands of classroom-ready, curriculum-targeted digital resources aligned to Common Core and national and state standards.
Spur your students’ achievement and engagement through the use of audio recordings, documents, interactives, lesson plans, videos, and more! Browse by standards, grade level, subject area, and special collections then favorite and share resources with your class and colleagues. Best of all, PBS LearningMedia is free for PreK-12 educators and students.
You can find all of this at: https://pbslearningmedia.org/
PBS LearningMedia can be easily integrate in Canvas to find out more click here: https://pbslearningmedia.org/help/canvas/
Please submit a tech ticket if you have questions or would like a guide when exploring these resources.
Need to quickly change a course due date? Head to the Calendar in Canvas (on the far left of your screen on the Global Navigation Menu). From there, you can drag and drop an assignment due date to a new day.
Be on the lookout for scammers trying to impersonate Google. The spammer will take advantage of the option for “Response Receipts.” These emails are sent from the email address “forms-receipts-noreply@google.com.” which is the official, legitimate email.
The spammer pretends the user has filled out something with Google when they have not and requests that the person fill out their email address and click to verify. See an image example below.
While the email address may be official, those links could lead to anywhere and could ask for more information. Keep in mind, if you are getting a response receipt you likely have already completed what you need and should not need to send any new information.
If you think you have received one of these scam emails, you can click “Report Abuse” at the bottom of the email.
If you would like more details about this scam, please read this post, where we sourced the information for this blog.
In the latest update for Chrome, you’ll now see a share icon in the link address bar. Click that “sharrow” and you be able to copy the link or get a QR code with a few less clicks.
More and more teachers are going “paperless” in their classrooms. As a result, you might not like making formatting adjustments when an image, table, or something else falls right around a page break. Google Docs now gives you the option to “pageless.” View the video below to find out how and see why it might be helpful.
More information from Google on this update.
