In the most recent SDS we introduced two features related to the calendar, and one for test booking:
1) Announcements in SDS can be visible to parents too, but many of us were not giving parents that option. There is now a brightly-coloured checkbox to let you know whether the announcement you are creating will be visible to parents on the SDS. The default for this setting is No (not visible) so that we don't embarrass ourselves accidentally (we have to choose to do this). However, please consider whether it might be useful for parents to see the announcement and set the checkbox to Yes (visible to parents) whenever appropriate.
2) We have created a page to highlight which students are in danger of being over-committed in the future. This can be found at Staff menu->Attendance->Student Event Forecast. The page uses the student filter functionality, and can be adjusted to bring up a specific group of students, such as those in a particular class. The page estimates the hours of class time that have been and will be missed by each student, based on events (calendar items) and absences (entered by the Data Centre). Clicking on the student name will bring up a detail page for the student, showing the specific classes that were/will be missed.
3) when scheduling a test, you can now indicate the length of the assessment. The times default to the full period, but this can be adjusted to be longer or sherter as needed. This can be useful for the folks in LR so that they know how long to give a student for a test as well as determining how loaded a student might be. This is also particularly relevant if an assessment is being set over a double period.
If you know of any SDS features that you think colleagues should know about or be using more, let me know, and I will try to incorporate that in a future tip.
If you would like any help with any of this, please let one of your EdTech support teachers know, and they will be glad to help.
Also, please let me know if you have any tips you would like to share!
