Weekly Tech Tips and News for June 2, 2017

Walter Wilhelm

We are now in the home stretch of the school year:  one more week to go! We can see the end of the tunnel and this last week of school will zip right by and everyone will be off starting their summer and recharging their internal batteries, so to speak. Before you head out the door, I want to call your attention to some changes you'll see when you enter assignments into Infinite Campus next Fall. There are also some new features and warnings you'll see in Gmail and Sheets that you should be aware of. In addition to these, there are several tips and ideas for you to take a look at. Continue to check this blog periodically during the summer so you'll know about any other updates or changes that take place. It's much easier to find out about them as they appear, rather than all at once, when you are trying to get ready for school in the Fall.

• New Tweaks Coming to Infinite Campus Assignment Editor
• G Suite Updates:  New Gmail Security Features & Google Sheets Improvements
• 5 Surefire Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy
• 8 Tips for Communicating with Parents Using Email
• 3 New Ways to Share Photos in Google Photos
• 12 Great Ways to Grow as an Educator This Summer
• My End of the Year Student Survey 2017

New Tweaks Coming to Infinite Campus Assignment Editor

Sometime this summer the assignment editor in Infinite Campus (where you create and edit your assignments) will be enhanced a bit to improve the way teachers use it. Scheduled improvements include the ability to align assignments to any section in any course - not just sections within one course. The editor itself will be reorganized so all required fields will be visible without needing to scroll. The Active checkbox will be replaced by a "include in Grade Calculation" box, and teachers will be able to select only one category per assignment. The fields in the assignment editor have also been rearranged and grouped by who uses them:  Teachers or students. The For Students section includes the fields for assignment instructions and attaching files. The For Teachers section provides a place for teachers to make notes about the assignment, as well as attaching files. For full explanations of each of these changes, including screenshots, check out this Campus Community article. You may need to login to Campus Community to see the article. If you do not already have a Campus Community account, login to Campus, click the waffle in the upper right, and select Campus Community. You will be walked through the process of setting up an account. Campus Community is a great resource for Infinite Campus tutorials, new features and articles.

G Suite Updates:  New Gmail Security Features & Google Sheets Improvements

Increased Spam Detection

Google has clearly taken the increase in phishing, malicious attachments and Ransomware threats very seriously, and continues to take action to protect Gmail users. Google has been able to detect a pattern for these attacks in Gmail traffic, and program Gmail to detect suspicious activity early to prevent them from reaching your inbox - they will go to your Spam folder instead. Google claims this programming, as well as their ability to block file types that are high security risks, has given them a 99% accuracy in spam detection. For full details, check out the G Suite Update blog.

Additional Scrutiny of Suspicious Messages

In addition to this new programming, Google will also be delaying the delivery of some mail they deem suspicious so the spam filter and Safe Browsing features can check the messages further. These messages may be delayed up to 4 minutes - not a huge price to pay for security. You can find full details on these features here.

New Warnings

Still another Gmail update will warn you when you are replying to an email sent from outside the domain, (the domain is the part of the email address that follows the @ symbol) and not in your contacts. This is intended to warn you if the sender is impersonating someone from your contacts, or if you are sending a message to the wrong address. If you know the address is a legitimate new contact, you can dismiss the warning and send the message. Here's the full post, with screenshot.

Easily Visualize Data in Sheets and Other Sheets Updates

In Google Sheets Explore (at the bottom right corner of the window) you can now ask for specific data in plain English, instead of needing to enter a formula. The new information will appear as a chart in your sheet. In addition, it's also now easier to keep charts from sheets updated in Docs or Slides. Just copy the data from you sheet into Slides or Docs, and click the Update button to keep the data updated. Additional Sheets updates include:

• You can now change default keyboard shortcuts in the browser to match Sheets shortcuts.
• Updated print interface, which allows you to adjust margins, select scale and alignment options and repeat frozen rows and columns before printing.
• There will be an improved sidebar for creating and editing charts, with custom colors, additional trendlines and more chart types, including 3D.
• More functions have been added as well, bringing the total to more than 400.

You should see these improvements any time between now and June 14. For full details and screen shots see the G Suite Updates blog.

5 Surefire Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy

From Common Sense Media

8 Tips for Communicating with Parents Using Email

8 Tips for Communicating with Parents Using Email from A+ Teacher Tech by Alice Keeler
Parent communication is a wonderful tool, but it is only effective if parents actually read them. These are great tips for  how to get parents to read the information you send home.

3 New Ways to Share Photos in Google Photos

Google Photos has added three new ways to share your photos with others. This could make it much easier for you to share classroom photos with your students and their parents. New sharing options will begin with Suggested Sharing, where Google Photos will prompt you to share photos with the person in the photo - just in case you forget. The next option will be Shared Libraries, where you can automatically share any photos in your library with someone else, such as a spouse. The last new sharing option is Photo Books. You select the photos, and a 20-page photo book will be created, which you can tweak. You can purchase the book in softcover for $9.99, or hardcover for $19.99. Here's the full description of all three new features at Google's The Keyword.

12 Great Ways to Grow as an Educator This Summer

12 Great Ways to Grow as an Educator This Summer, from Ditch That Textbook by Matt Miller
Just like you want your students to remain engaged in learning opportunities during the summer to prevent that dreaded summer slide, don't fall prey to it yourself! Here are 12 ideas for your own growth during the summer.

My End of the Year Student Survey 2017

My End of the Year Student Survey 2017 by Pernille Ripp
Do you ever wonder what activities during the year really helped your students learn, and which weren't as effective? This teacher gives her students an end of the year survey so she can grow as a teacher.