Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Tech Tips and news for September 15, 2023

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I hope your school year is off to a great start. There's been time to implement your classroom rules and routines. Students are over the novelty of a new school year and grade, and are settling in to their normal routines. The weather is even cooperating with fall-like temperatures. If only we could reduce the number of indoor recesses. As you are helping students form good classroom habits, please consider also helping them form good digital habits as well. To help with this, Common Sense Media has a few collections of lessons for grades K-5 and 6-12. See the Digital Advice and Digital Well-Being lessons below. Use them as is, or customize them to fit your needs. In addition to the collections highlighted below, Common Sense Media also has lessons on Digital Citizenship and Cybersecurity Essentials. These lessons are pretty much plug and play for teachers. Check out all their collections here. 

Here's Why You Should Use Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Here's Why You Should Us Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), from How-To Geek by Jason Fitzpatrick
You should all be familiar with 2-Factor Authentication, because you use it on your ASA email account. It adds a layer of security, and should be used on all your online accounts - especially any that store your credit card or banking information. 

Device Advice:  Onboarding for School-Issued Devices

There are four lessons in this collection for grades K-5, and they might be a nice supplement to the Student Tech Care video. For the students in grades 6-8, perhaps you can amend the lessons provided, have students create posters as reminders of the rules, or even having them create a video of their own may help them feel more invested in the care guidelines. Of course, reminding them that repairs start at $180 helps too. 😉 If students choose to make their own video about caring for ASA devices, I'll be happy to use them and share them with the rest of the school. Common Sense Media also has a set of lessons for Digital Well Being - see below. 

Digital Well-Being:  Middle School Lessons

Digital Well Being Lessons, from Common Sense Media
For grades 6-8, there are 4 lessons focusing on students' digital well being. These lessons include My Values and Tech, Digital Media and Your Brain, Thinking Traps, and Positive Tech Habits. Help your students find a balance between tech and life, and start developing healthy online habits. The lessons include handouts and posters for visual reminders. 

Google Workspace Updates


Google Drive:  Lock Files More Easily


Soon, you'll be able to lock a file in drive by right clicking on it, selecting File Information, and Lock. Locking a file makes sure reviewers can’t change a file. Edits, comments and suggestions can't be added to locked documents. In order to lock a Drive file, you must have Edit-access to the file. You can unlock a file in the same way you locked it. This update should be available before the end of September. Learn more about getting approvals on files in Google Drive here. 

Google Drive:  Reorganized File and Folder Menu


You may have already noticed the Google Drive context menu (the menu you see with a right click) has changed. It's now much shorter, but all the same features are available. Some features have been placed inside sub-menus. For example you'll now see an arrow next to Share, clicking that arrow opens the Share Sub-menu where you'll see Share and Copy Link. Likewise, Move and Shortcut are now found within the Organize sub-menu. 

Google Sheets:  Get Started with Smart Canvas

Now when opening a new Sheet, you'll see the familiar Type @ to insert that we're used to seeing in Docs. This will allow you to insert Smart Chips, such as email information, dates, calendar events, other docs, sheets or slides files, places and map directions, YouTube videos, and more. 

Google Slides:  Add Annotations to Your Presentations


While presenting your Google Slides, you will be able to turn on the new pen feature, and annotate your slides. With the pen tool, you can circle, underline, draw connections, or make quick notes directly on your presentation. To annotate your Slides presentation, ​​open ‘slideshow mode’ by clicking the ‘Slideshow’ button in the appbar > mouse over the bottom-left side of the viewer and open the three dot menu by clicking on the ellipsis icon >select “Turn on the pen”.  To erase annotations, use the eraser tool in the bottom left viewer menu. Learn more about presenting slides here. This feature is available now. 

IXL Teacher and Student Dashboard Redesign

In case you haven't had enough major user interface changes with Infinite Campus and NWEA, IXL has also joined the club with new dashboards for both teachers and students. Learn about the new Teacher Dashboard here. You'll also want to familiarize yourself with the new Student Dashboard here so you can support them. 

REMC8 Educator Resource Center

Keep in mind that the Regional Educational Resource Center (REMC) is available to help you with Ellison die cuts, Variquest Paper Cutter, which makes variable sized cut-outs and lettering on all kinds of materials, and laminating. Check out their services and online catalog here. They are located on the KISD campus on Knapp Street. 

Tabs in Chrome:  10 Power User Tips and Tricks

Tabs in Chrome:  10 Power User Tips and Tricks, from How-To Geek by Reyadh Rahaman
Save yourself some time and work smarter. 

15 Plug and Play Lesson Plans from Google

15 Plug and Play Lesson Plans from Google, from Shake Up Learning by Kasey Bell
There are actually 21 lessons in a variety of subjects. 


Google Form Parent Contact Log

John Sowash offers this Parent Contact Log Google Form template for you to use to keep track of all your parent communications. 

Canva Teacher Cheat Sheet

Kent ISD has created a Canva Cheat Sheet for teachers with shortcuts to the most common templates you might use. If you haven't embraced the wonderful world of Canva yet, for creating newsletters, diagrams, infographics, invitations, and pretty much any other graphics based resource you can think of, you may want to reconsider. ASA has a district account, so you no longer need to create your own account and wait to be verified. ASA teachers can now share resources in Canva with each other, and safely create a class for your students so they can use Canva too. All ASA teachers have been set up with a Teacher account. You should be able to sign in using your ASA email address and signing in with Google (don't create a new account). If this doesn't work, contact me for the invitation code. There are lots of tutorials available here. 
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