21Things4Students is Project-Based Curriculum for Grades 5-9, supports MiTECS competencies

On October 8th Google announced that their app Grasshopper, created for students to use to learn to code, now can run in a web browser. The app/site has several courses designed to intuitively help someone build coding skills. Each lesson starts with an introduction to some vocabulary before moving into the coding lessons. Each lesson has a tutorial, a practice activity, and a quiz. You have to successfully complete each lesson before progressing to the next one. Grasshopper will save your work in progress.

For more information visit https://grasshopper.app/ and to start coding today on a Chromebook, Mac or Windows PC, browse to https://learn.grasshopper.app/

The Regional Educational Media Center Association (REMC) of Michigan promotes the transformative use of technology and provides Michigan schools with access to educational resources to help teachers increase student success. They’ve just released their October Connect newsletter with info on the 21Things4Students project-based curriculum (https://remc.org/21things4students), fall learning opportunities, upcoming free virtual courses, and more.

Here’s a link to their October Connect newsletter.

Here’s a link to an archived list of their most recent Connect newsletters.

And finally, a link should you want to subscribe to either (or both) of their once monthly electronic mailings of the Connect Newsletter AND/OR on upcoming and available free virtual courses!

The Read&Write for Google WEB Toolbar can be used to access web pages in the Chrome browser. Students and staff can use supports like text to speech, word prediction, talking and picture dictionaries, study skills highlighters and more.

RW4G@PCCS website: WEB Toolbar https://sites.google.com/pccsk12.com/rw4g-pccs/toolbars/web-toolbar?authuser=0 RW4G

@PCCS website: Tools Demo https://sites.google.com/pccsk12.com/rw4g-pccs/toolbars/tools-demo

Read&Write for Google WEB Tip Sheet https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wEOXhwyAh45PgjfsOUZhXEo6hXmPHbj6JmRtxh-KuIk/view

Last May (2019), all Google EDU account holders around the world that had YouTube Brand accounts were notified by Google that their YouTube Brand accounts would be deleted a couple of months later, in July 2019. While worldwide millions received that notice, in our district it was ~60 staffers and ~2400 students. Google later decided to instead suspend EDU Brand accounts in July and only outright delete them this coming November (2019). For the ~60 P-CCS staff, the Technology department submitted online forms necessary to obtain a temporary one year extension (until July 15, 2020) from suspension / deletion of their Brand accounts. Student brand accounts were not eligible for any extension and were suspended this past July.

One major result of the account suspensions that were not foreseen by Administrators or Google, is that if a user had configured their Brand account to be the default account to use when signing into YouTube, they could not view YouTube videos at all until they changed the default channel by selecting the box under “Settings > Advanced Settings” within YouTube.

If you encounter any students unable to view YouTube, please let them know the following:

Affected student users need to sign-out of Google (or delete their cookies) then navigate to youtube.com/channel_switcher and sign in again, remembering to change the default channel once they sign-in. Once this has been done on one device, it will fix the issue on any of their other devices.

Some students might find it easier/possible, to simply delete their Brand account by browsing to  https://myaccount.google.com/brandaccounts and deleting the Brand account. Once deleted, they should be able to again log into YouTube.

For those interested, especially those staffers with Brand accounts and a one year extension, guidance on content retention as well as more background on the situation can be found here.

 

 

 

If you think you might have missed an email sent to a group that you’re a member of, head to groups.google.com, click on My Groups, then find and click on the name of the group and in most instances a page will open listing past email messages to that group.

At Groups, you can also adjust how emails are sent to you for each group for whom you are a member by clicking the down arrow to the right of “Every new message” found on the right hand side of the landing page: 

Note, some groups are set to show who are their members; others are not. If set to show, click on “Members” to see a list along with the date they were added/joined the group.

This and more can be explored by visiting groups.google.com.

UPDATE: If the original solution does not help you regain access to Google Mail (Gmail), see if the following helps:

On the mail page that doesn’t load, depress both the control key (ctrl) and the F5 key at the same time. The page should refresh and mail should load.

————————————

Should the above not work, another temporary solution is:

STEP 1) Navigate to: chrome://settings/cookies/detail?site=mail.google.com
(you may need to copy and paste the link in your browser)

STEP 2) Find the below entry and click on the X:

STEP 3) Reload your Gmail or visit http://mail.google.com

If this does not resolve your issue, please submit a service request.

Original Post

If you ran into the issue with Gmail this week, you know who you are. From time to time, Google’s Sync technology that allows your browser to save your bookmarks, passwords, form data, etc., seems to get a bit glitchy. This week, it appears to have kept some of you from being able to access your Gmail.

Fortunately the fix is easy and can get someone back up and running in a snap. So, if you have an issue with one or more Google apps and you hear the suggestion that it might have something to do with your profile (or you just want to try this and see if it helps), here’s what to do:

Remove your “profile” and then add it back to the browser. After doing so, you will want to choose “Link Data” when you are adding your profile back so that it syncs important things like bookmarks, passwords, form data, etc. See elaboration on these steps below:

Remove a person or profile

After you remove someone from Chrome, their bookmarks, history, passwords, and other settings are erased from the computer.

1. On your computer, open Chrome.
2. At the top right, click Profile .

1. Click Manage people.
2. 
3. Point to the person you want to remove. For this exercise you want to remove yourself.
4. 
5. At the top right of the person (aka you), click More   Remove this person.
6. Confirm by clicking Remove this person.

Once you have removed yourself, you can add yourself back as well and re-sync or link your data again. See below for the steps to add yourself back to the Chrome browser.

Add a person or profile

1. On your computer, open Chrome.
2. At the top right, click Profile .
3. Click Manage people.
4. Click Add person.
5. Choose a name and a photo.
6. Click Save. A new window will open and ask you to turn on sync.
7. (Optional) Turn sync on in Chrome with a Google Account for the new profile. Their bookmarks, history, passwords, and other settings will automatically sync.

Using a Chromebook? You can share your Chromebook with other people by adding them to your Chromebook.

Do you want to learn more about the Texthelp suite of tools for teachers & students?  Below are some supportive resources Texthelp touts.

The tools include:

• Read&Write : A UDL tool for literacy
• EquatIO: Make math digital
• WriQ: Instantly access student writing & level
• Fluency Tutor: Increase student fluency & track progress

Welcome to the Texthelp Training Portal!

Technology can be the spark for wonderful things, but its real value comes from empowering users – in the workplace, at school or at home. To get the most out of the Texthelp products, we offer three main areas of support.

Courses – From learning the basics to integrating into instruction, Texthelp short courses bring together strategies and best practice. Each course has simple instructions, videos, and great examples to help you become experts in Texthelp software. You can gain achievements along the way!

Certification – Here is a chance to show what you know with two levels of certification: Level 1 Certified User requiring passing an assessment and Level 2 Role-Specific Practitioner requiring passing and a project.  Earners receive badges and certificates.

Resources – Why recreate the wheel? We have plenty of checklists, lesson plans, strategies, help/tip sheets, presentations, and ideas to get you started and keep you going.  Many are contributed by educators just like you.

Go to: https://training.texthelp.com/course/index.php

R4WG@PCCS website: bit.ly/RW4GinPCCS

If you’re wondering how to enable your new ID/door access proximity card to work with many of our copiers instead of having to input a PIN number, please see the directions and a link to a video below.

1. Place the ID/ proximity card in front of the card reader on the copier

2. When asked if you’d like to associate and account with the ID, tap “yes”

3. Input your network credentials (what you’d use to login to a district desktop computer) NOT your Google login information

4. Tap “set”

5. Place the proximity card in front of the card reader again and you should be able to login without the need to input a pin number

If you need visual instructions, here is a 40 second video that shows you how: https://www.wevideo.com/view/1081340782

Every 90 days, your P-CCS network password is set to expire, and you are automatically prompted to create a new password. [Each time, we urge you make it a “strong” one. See here for guidance.] While this may seem frustrating at times, it keeps our network AND your data safe. There are some specific ramifications that occur when this process happens. Once you reset your new password on your P-CCS ProBook, desktop, or other district-provided laptop, it is important to IMMEDIATELY also reset your password on any personal devices connected to the Staff WiFi network. The illustration below highlights the systems and devices that are affected when changing your password:

If you DO NOT change your password, your other devices, such as an iPhone or Android might well continue to “knock on the network door” with your OLD PASSWORD multiple times, thus locking you out of your account and causing frustration. When dealing with iPads, iPhones, or Androids, it’s a good idea to also tap “Forget Network” first before entering your new password for the network WiFi. See the links below for further assistance in this regard.

How to forget a Wi-Fi network on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac

Android 101: How to ‘forget’ a Wifi network

As always, if you experience a lock-out, you will have to have someone else submit a service request on your behalf.