Tech tip #43 - Google Classroom

Google Classroom:

This blog post came into my inbox recently and has a good list of things to do with Google Classroom:

http://alicekeeler.com/2017/02/27/11_things_google_classroom/

From the first paragraph:

In a nutshell, Google Classroom is Google Drive Management. It allows you to assign assignments and collect work from students. If you are just starting off with Google Classroom here are some things you will want to try first…

Another thing you can now do is to extend Google Classroom assignments for some students in the class:

http://alicekeeler.com/2017/02/26/google-classroom-extend-due-date/

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.

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca

Also, please let me know if you have any tips you would like to share!

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Tech tip #42 - Some Google slides features and updates

Google Slides – a good alternative to PowerPoint

Google slides was recently updated to allow one to insert videos into a presentation. This is one PowerPoint feature that was previously missing.

A brief overview:

http://alicekeeler.com/2017/02/09/insert-google-drive-videos-into-google-slides/

and “5 things  you did not know”:

http://alicekeeler.com/2017/02/13/5-things-google-slides-not-know/

including “slash create”, voice typing speaker notes, Q&A feature, and autoplay video

Alice Keeler also has many handy tips about using Google slides. Here is a link to all her posts on Google slides:

http://alicekeeler.com/category/google/presentation-google/ or http://alicekeeler.com/tag/slides/

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.

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca

Also, please let me know if you have any tips you would like to share!

Tech Tip #41 - SDS updates

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 want to scan through all the changes that have happened to SDS (it typically has at least one update a month, checkout the “changelog” page at: https://secure.smus.bc.ca/wiki/index.php?title=SDSHOWTO:SDS_5_Series_Changelog

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.

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca

Also, please let me know if you have any tips you would like to share!

 

Tech tip #40 - filling in PDF forms (and some sunny stuff!)

Hello all and Happy New Year,

Sunny news:

As of today (January 4^th),  the mornings will start getting brighter as the sun will start to rise earlier than the 8:05 it has been for the past few days. (Sunsets (today 4;32 PM) have been getting later since the 10^th of December (4:18 PM). This morning also marks the time when we are closest (by almost 4 million km!) to the sun (147,101,082 km instead of 152,093,163 km on July 3^rd). You can find out a bit more about this here: https://bobs-spaces.net/2017/01/03/earth-at-perihelion-2017/

Fillable PDFs:

If you need to complete a fillable PDF form you may find that it does not work well in your browser. To properly fill in most of these forms, you need to use the actual Adobe Acrobat program and not the web browser plugin. In general, you want to download the file, work with it in the proper Acrobat program, save it and then send it back. This applies to, for example, filling out the Sodexho food request form.

To fix this, you can just right-click and then download the file, but your best option is to go into your browser settings (see instructions below for Chrome) and make sure that it uses the “system viewer

Instructions for Chrome:

Go into the settings menu (from the three dots in the top right corner of your page)

Choose “show advanced settings

Click on the “Content settings” button

And then check the “open PDF files in the default viewer application” checkbox

For this to work, you will need to have changed the system default application from Edge to Adobe Acrobat. These instructions were sent out at the start of the year, but can be found on the SMUS wiki: https://secure.smus.ca/wiki/index.php?title=SMUS_Windows_10_FAQ#How_do_I_open_PDFs_in_Adobe_Acrobat.3F

If you would like any help doing this, please let one of your EdTech support teachers know, and they will be glad to help.

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca

Also, please let me know if you have any tips you would like to share!

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Mike Jackson, Science Teacher

Senior School Technology Coordinator

St Michaels University School, Victoria, BC

Tech tip #39 - what does the XXX key do?

There are quite a few keys on many keyboards that do interesting and sometimes unusual things… Here is a sampling:

Insert key: the insert key toggles whether text is inserted before other text or overwrites it. If you accidentally press insert, it can be surprising! http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/i/insertke.htm

Home key: the home key returns you to the beginning of the line where your cursor is. Ctrl-home will take you to the beginning of the document. Shft-Home will highlight to the beginning of the line. http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/h/homekey.htm

.

End key: the home key returns you to the end of the line where your cursor is. Ctrl-end will take you to the end of the document http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/e/endkey.htm

Numlock key: the numlock key toggles whether the number keypad acts as a number key entry system or whether the other functions (arrows etc) are enabled. http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/n/numlock.htm

F-lock key: the F-lock key toggles whether the function keys at the top of the keyboard behave as “F-keys” (e.g. F5 for “refresh”) or as indicated on the key (open, spell, save, print etc) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Lock

ScrLk (Scroll lock): This key is rarely used. In Excel it will change whether the cursor moves or the page moves. http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/s/scrolock.htm

Windows key: the Windows key is found to the left and right of the space bar and can be combined with other keys to perform common tasks. Win-E – explorer, Win-P – monitor/projector choices etc (http://www.computerhope.com/shortcut/windows.htm#2)

Menu Key: beside the right Windows key, you may find the menu key which brings up a context-sensitive menu (usually the same as when you right-click)

This page has a good summary: http://www.computerhope.com/keys.htm

This page of the top 10 is pretty useful: http://www.computerhope.com/tips/tip79.htm

If you would like any help doing this, please let one of your EdTech support teachers know, and they will be glad to help.

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca

Also, please let me know if you have any tips you would like to share!

	Michael Jackson MA (Cantab) MEDes (Calgary)
	Science Teacher Senior school Technology Coordinator
	Senior School, St. Michaels University School
	3400 Richmond Road | Victoria BC | V8P 4P5 | Canada Phone: 250-370-6182 | Fax: 250-592-2812 Cell: 250-888-8783 Twitter: @MikeJ_SMUS www.smus.ca
	.

non tech tip - Sunsets are now getting later! (though the days are still getting shorter)

The earliest sunset (4:18 pm) of the year was on December 10^th, so we can enjoy more evening sunlight (sunrise does not start getting earlier until December 31^st (8:05am), however!) …

The December Solstice (Winter Solstice) is on Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 2:44 am in Victoria. This day is 7 hours, 48 minutes shorter than on June Solstice (3 and a half minutes shorter than today). In most locations north of Equator, the shortest day of the year is around this date.

To understand why the latest sunrise, earliest sunset and shortest day are different one has to understand the “equation of time” – basically the difference between “clock time” and “sun time”. Basically “solar days” (solar noon to solar noon) vary in length. A good explanation can be found here: https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/equation-of-time.html. Another good article can be found here: http://earthsky.org/earth/winter-solstice-and-late-sunrise. Yet another here: http://earthsky.org/tonight/earliest-sunset-today-but-not-shortest-day.

If you want to get all nerdy about Victoria’s “sun stuff” you can go to: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/canada/victoria

Enjoy the sky! (even though we can’t see much of it today!)

Cheers

Mike

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Mike Jackson, Science Teacher

Senior School Technology Coordinator

St Michaels University School, Victoria, BC

Tech tip # 38 - network start menu folder

Hello all,

Many years ago, all the programs on the network were available through the start menu, but that is no longer possible with our network setup.

To compensate for this, we have created a shortcut to a folder of shortcuts called W7-Start Menu (or W10-Start menu). This folder should be on your desktop. If it is not, please ask one of your ed tech support folks to help you find/recover it (you can find the shortcut in the W: drive).

I have created a screencast of how to use this folder: http://www.screencast.com/t/z0TbgJoK  (the video also shows how to use the Lab monitoring software)

If you would like any help doing this, please let one of your EdTech support teachers know, and they will be glad to help.

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca

Also, please let me know if you have any tips you would like to share!