Manage Your Inbox with Filters

Click the "Create Filter button

Our email inboxes can become quite difficult to manage, creating a filter is a great way to clear the clutter without removing important messages that we may need to access later. For example, you may get LMS notifications that you want to filter to a specific place.  Follow these steps to help your inbox manage itself using filter rules.

Suppose you get Exit Ticket response emails. You want to move them all to one folder (Gmail calls them labels) to view all at one time.

Inbox snapshot
You may receive several notifications from Google Forms that you want to create a filter for.

It is best to identify the sender and/or subject of these emails to type into the Search bar. You’ll do an advanced search, so click the drop-down arrow.

Shot of search bar and more option drop-down arrow

Add as much information as possible to ensure you get the right messages filtered. Then click, “Create Filter.”

Click the "Create Filter button

Select any filter rules you see as appropriate for that kind of message. You should apply the appropriate Label (or Create one). You may also want to select “Skip the Inbox.” If the case, rest assured, archived emails in Gmail are not deleted permanently after 30 days. They are permanently stored in your email (and now labelled) until you delete/trash it.

Image of filter menuYou can always remove or edit your filter in Setting by clicking on the wrench icon in the upper-right corner.

shot of filter settings in Gmail

When you are ready to view the filtered emails, access the Label on the left-side menu.

image of inbox label

Build Community through Games and Play

snapshot of playmeo website

In the next few weeks we will be welcoming students back into our buildings. This will be a very exciting time and it will be important to help students feel at ease and games can be a great way to do that. If you are looking for fresh ideas for group activities and games, the Playmeo website is a great resource.

Many activities are free and you can search by learning theme, program outcome, or activity type. Additionally, you can sort by group size and how much time you have for the activity.snapshot of playmeo website

Closed Captions Zoom Update

enable captions in zoom

Closed captions are an essential accessibility tool for people who are deaf or hard of hearing (and for people with other conditions as well). Captioning is also a useful feature for many students as an additional representation of information in a virtual setting. Previously in Zoom, closed captioning was only available from third party providers or by assigning someone to type captions. Now automatic, live transcription of closed captions is an available feature in the Zoom desktop client (not the Chrome browser application). Once enabled, this automatically adds text to the bottom of the video with what the host and others are saying. Please note however, live transcription does not work in breakout rooms, only within the main session.

Zoom captions screenshot
The option to turn on Closed Captioning is in the Zoom toolbar (it may be under “More” depending on window size).

When closed captioning is enabled, as the host you will see the live-transcript below your video, but they DO NOT automatically appear for your participants. Instead, participants will receive a notification and must click the “Closed Caption” option in the menu bar (and usually click Show Subtitle) to start viewing the captions.  Once they have done so, the size of the captions can be adjusted under “Accessibility” in the video settings.

screenshot of adjusting caption font size
Adjust font size in “Video Settings,” under “Accessibility.”

Elaborating on the CC options:

  • Show Subtitles – Displays captioning on the bottom of the video. You can also select Hide Subtitle once subtitles are selected to hide them.
  • View Full Transcript – Opens a panel/pop-up and displays captions in real-time with both the speaker’s name and time stamp. In that pop-up, participants will also see a button to save the transcript (this button might not be available if the host has disabled this functionality). If enabled, click Save Transcript. A copy of the transcript as a .txt file will be downloaded to your machine.
           Note: Transcripts save up to the moment when you click Save Transcript. If you click Save Transcript multiple times throughout the event, it will overwrite/update the existing file. We recommend clicking Save Transcript just before the meeting ends to ensure you have the transcript from the entire meeting. There is no option to auto-save these transcripts.

Bear in mind:

  • Speak slowly, it will help the system capture the words you are saying
  • If there are any loud disruptions (i.e. cars outside or school bells) pause and hold your thoughts until the noise passes.

If you are hosting a meeting with live-transcription, we recommend making a comment at the beginning of your meeting informing your meeting participants that live-transcription is available and a note about how to enable them. Encourage all your students to try turning the captions on to see if it has an impact on their comprehension or capacity to pay attention.  Make it a best UDL (Universal Design for Learning) practice to enable closed captioning during all of your meetings.

For more information on UDL and closed captioning, please read this article.

 

 

Second Semester Transition for Canvas

With the start of the 2nd semester arriving soon, we’d like to again provide step by step directions (please see below) for those teachers interested in transferring content from one Canvas course to another. We shared similar directions covering the export/import process at the outset of our school year to assist teachers in migrating content out of courses they had created and built in to the MISTAR-rostered course shells that appeared in their accounts.

  1. Step-By-Step Directions with Pictures on how to export content from old course and import it into the new course
  2. Step-By-Step Video (Screencast) Directions

Bulk adjusting due dates and times:

*Please note that canvas exports do not include backups of student interactions and grades. Grades can be exported separately as CSV files.

**Year-long courses do not apply here. However, it is still good practice to make backups of your courses.

Below are some best practices when transferring content, this includes exporting your grades, settings, and downloading additional data.

Best Practice: Keep Sem 1 and Sem 2 clean and separate to have easier content management and processing. For those with a course that spans the year, consider just copying the last module or most recent content from your Semester 1 course into your Semester 2 course so that you are starting with an almost fresh course. (You can always have view access extended to the Semester 1 course so that students are able to review their past work at any time – unless you’d prefer to restrict access to that course content.)
You could also extend course dates in Semester 1 courses if you need students to have more time to participate/work in those courses, although you will need to bear in mind MISTAR grade submission deadlines.

Elementary School Teachers – FYI, grading periods have been set in Canvas

Canvas Grading Periods

Earlier this week the district updated Canvas with the dates of the three grading periods for all of our elementary school year-long courses. Consequently, elementary school teachers are now able to filter their grade books, assignments’ list, and students’ grades pages by trimester instead of having to view all graded content from the school year.  Since implementation, STUDENTS only have VIEW-ONLY ACCESS to first trimester course content and are no longer able to submit work for assignments associated with the first trimester since it is not the current grading period AND TEACHERS similarly CAN NO LONGER ADJUST GRADES/FEEDBACK for first trimester submissions.

Please find quick overview directions and screenshots in this document for term filtering.

* High School Teachers – likely we will be setting grading periods for your semester-long and year -long courses too, so that you may filter by term as well.

Elementary teachers — how to access the work of students changing classes

Save

Tomorrow marks the end of the first trimester for our elementary students. Some of our students are changing teachers and school tracks (Safe Start to/from Virtual) and those moves will be processed in our various systems (MISTAR, Canvas, Clever, etc.) this weekend so that on Monday those students are positioned to begin in their new classes.

With this in mind, below is some guidance to help staff access and retain student work so that they may finalize grades and feedback.

For SEESAW, follow these steps BEFORE a student’s exit date, to obtain a copy of their posted submissions. Teachers will lose access to a student’s Seesaw posts after the student has been moved out of their class. [Note, students do retain access to their past Seesaw posts — they would log into their Seesaw account via Clever, click on their profile icon (top left), and then click on “Past Work”. The work from the original class will not show up in their new class journal and the student’s family will also lose access to the class their student was removed from.] 

For IXL, follow these steps BEFORE the student’s exit date, to locate and save a PDF copy of their IXL progress. Teachers will lose access to a student’s IXL progress after the student has been moved out of their class.

For all CANVAS instructors, follow these steps AFTER students have been exited from course enrollment to access their grades and assignments (this guidance applies for any previously enrolled student that has been exited and no longer appears in a course). Teachers retain access to a student’s Canvas course submissions after the student has been moved out of their class.

 

 

For those that teach IXL, access is available to content in four subject areas

IXL

If you are a teacher with IXL licensing, as a reminder, you can adjust the content that you can assign students, to include not just ELA and Math but also the subjects of Science and/or Social Studies* by clicking the boxes for those subjects within your teacher profile when logged into your IXL account.

FIRST LOG INTO YOUR ACCOUNT and SELECT YOUR PROFILE

IXL part 1

THEN CLICK SUBJECTS TO MAKE AVAILABLE….

IXL part 2

* Please note, while access to IXL ELA and Math extends through 2023, access to IXL Science and Social Studies is only available during the 2020-2021 School Year.

Access to Flash-based browser content ends in December, 2020

Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash has been supporting online games, content, and interactive features since 1996. But due to the changing and evolving of newer technologies other mediums such as HTML5 which are more power-efficient and faster, Flash has become less and less popular. At one point 80% of the content on the internet was Flash-based. Since 2017, that number is down to 17%. Due to this, Adobe has determined an End of Life (EOL) date of December 31st, 2020 for the plugin.

What does this mean?

Many different learning websites including sites such as Starfall and CoolMathGames were entirely Flash-based. When the announcement by Adobe was made to end Flash (plugin player support/updates and distribution), many websites started to convert their content to HTML5 and other delivery mechanisms. However, it is up to websites to make this transition. So, as you are planning different learning activities for students, please ensure that you have vetted the website to see if it relies on Flash. A way to check to see if a site uses Flash, Right-clicking on any part of a website will make a box appear with options you can click on. If you see Zoom in at the top of the box and About Adobe Flash Player at the bottom of the box, then you know that you have Flash on the website.

If the site migrates to open web standards (such as HTML5), you shouldn’t notice much difference except that you’ll no longer see prompts to run Flash on that site. If the site continues to use Flash, and you give the site permission to run Flash, it will only work through the end of 2020.

For more information please check out these articles:

https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/saying-goodbye-flash-chrome/

https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/

 

Cleaning Your Smartboard

Elementary instructional staff — Please follow these guidelines to clean your SMART Board (interactive flat panel – IFP):

You will probably want to clean your SMART Board about 1x a month (or more often if used regularly). You should clean your SMART Board while the computer is turned OFF.

If you clean your SMART Board while it and your computer are on it is recommended that you lock the screen so you don’t mess up things on your computer. Go to the blue icon with the white circle at the bottom right of your screen, control panel and then lock screen. To unlock the screen you will need to click on the unlock icon using the mouse on your computer.

Details

To clean the writing surface or screen, use Windex glass cleaner. Just spray the cleaner on a soft cloth or paper towel and wipe the screen surface. Avoid spraying the cleaner directly on the screen, since the cleaner may damage components if it runs into the edge of the screen.

Warning

Do not apply isopropyl alcohol, water or acetone to the back surface of the screen. These fluids could damage the diffusion coating, resulting in a permanent deterioration in display quality. If you do smudge this surface, wipe it carefully with an alcohol-free glass cleaner. Do not spray the cleaner directly onto the back of the screen. Spray the cleaner lightly on a cloth, and then gently dab the surface until the marks are removed.

Note

To remove permanent marker ink from the screen, use a cleaner such as Expo Board Doctor. If you have high-odor dry-erase markers (not non-scented markers), you can cover the permanent ink with the ink from a dry-erase marker, and then wipe with a soft cloth or paper towel while the ink is still wet. If any trace of the original permanent ink remains, spray a cloth with Windex glass cleaner or Expo Board cleaner and wipe the area clean.