Go Go Gadget: GoGuardian

Inspector Gadget would be completely smitten with this new tool Keller has purchased for all teachers this year: Go Go Gadget- GoGuardian!

What is GoGuardian? GoGuardian is a web tool that helps teachers monitor and interact with students using district Chromebooks and so much more! View student activity in real time and keep students focused and engaged with your content and lessons during class time in person and remotely. If students do not have a district chromebook, GoGuardian can work if they access the internet in Chrome and log in with their Keller ISD email account. 

Already sold? Me too! Wondering how you get it?? There is a GoGuardian tile in KCloud! It will use your Google Sign In to give you access to your teacher account. When you first sign in, you will need to accept the terms of use and VOILA, you’re ready to engage students!  

Classlink automatically rosters your classes for you, so no need to worry about building your classes! However, if you merge classes or you want more control over which students are in certain classes, you are welcome to add students yourself and build your own classes. We do ask that you do not delete the rostered classes. You can only have up to 115 students in a classroom session at one time, but you can have multiple sessions going if you need more. GoGuardian works well with Google Classroom, so if you have classes already built in Google Classroom, you can sync to your GoGuardian account.  You can even build a class for your clubs or student organizations with one easy click! One teacher suggested going into settings for the classes and changing the description to match your class names and periods for better organization and differentiation. 

When you have your classes built, you can start a classroom session. A classroom session is your class period. You can schedule them in advance and start them manually! When the session starts, you will begin to see when the students log on, and their screens will appear in your session. Remember, you can even have more than one session going at a time!! Enable the chat feature to conference with students during class sessions and even blast out announcements to the whole class! Engagement has never been so easy!

GoGuardian- Schedule a Session:

https://help.goguardian.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004056866-Add-or-Modify-Classroom-Schedules

Now to the fun part! Some fun features of GoGuardian will make you feel like a superstar! Are you tired of links that don’t work, students typing the URL wrong, or going to the wrong sites? GoGuardian allows you to open tabs for students.

GoGuardian Teacher Commands- Tabs:

https://help.goguardian.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005730643-Commands-Open-Tab

Another great feature is the ability to limit distractions with Scenes. Scenes allow you to block websites students have recently been enamored with. Students watching the latest YouTube sensation or playing those cool math games? Create a Scene that adds those websites to the “blocked” list during your session. You can even close a tab when you see the student is off task in real time! Or you can simply eliminate distractions by locking their screen to focus on certain content while you are teaching!  

GoGuardian Scenes:

https://help.goguardian.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003955246-How-to-Create-and-Apply-a-Scene

Gather data with screenshots and reports! You can generate student reports of their browsing history during classroom sessions for documentation. Get data from any session with timeline data, screenshots, and command logs in the Past Session Tab. 

I know you are ready to explore this amazing tool! GoGuardian has extraordinary step by step instructions for each part of their product. Their Teacher Help Center has so many great resources. You can take classes or simply browse their easy to read instructions.

KIC Site Training: https://sites.google.com/kellerisd.net/help/goguardian?authuser=1

GoGuardian Training Guide:

https://help.goguardian.com/hc/enus/article_attachments/360033826411/GoGuardian_Teacher_Training_Guide_2019.pdf

GoGuardian Teacher Help Center:

https://help.goguardian.com/hc/en-us/categories/115000808306-Teacher

 You’ll Be Jammin’ with Google Jamboard App

I am not saying you have to have Bob Marley playing in the background, but it might set the tone for this really awesome collaborative tool! Google Jamboard is also a special interactive TV you could purchase, but why do that when Google has created the Jamboard App to amaze us all with this interactive whiteboard and it is already included in your Gsuite for Education account? Thanks Google!

Now, more than ever, we need digital tools that will allow you to engage with students who are in-person and remote. Jamboard allows you to collaborate in real time with anyone on the app. Use this digital whiteboard to write, draw, sketch and so much more together! Add Google Images or web pages into the jamboard. You can even create templates for up to 50  students and other professionals to interact with. Drawing has never been easier because Google adjusts your image with drawing recognition. Even the least artistic person can be successful. 

Jamboard integrates with Google Drive allowing you to add Google Docs, Sheets ,and Slides to your board. This would be a great opportunity for collaboration on a new level where students and professionals can switch boards and collaborate on various projects together on a Jam Session.

Get Jamboard on any iOS and Android device through the Google Chrome Store or Apple Store.

 

Want to know more, watch this video about Jamboard from Google.

Ditch That Textbook and Holly Clark have some great templates to use for Jamboards.

Jamboard templates: 

https://ditchthattextbook.com/jamboard-templates/

https://ditchthattextbook.com/jamboard/

https://www.hollyclark.org/2020/10/13/how-to-use-jamboard-10-ideas-to-get-you-jammin/

Creatability: Exploring Ways to Make creative tools more accessible for everyone

 

Creatability is the word for a series of resources developed to make the arts more available to users with disabilities, empowered by Google.

The tools include a keyboard in which players use their face, body mouse, or keyboard to interact. It's a canvas that you can draw on by using your face and a tool called Body Synth allows you to only move your body to make music. 

A simple musical keyboard you can play with your face, body, mouse, or keyboard can be found in the Creatabilty collection. 

A drawing tool that works through both sight and sound can be found in the Creatabilty collection. 

Make music by just moving your body can be found in the Creatabilty collection. 

Here is a short video of how these amazing tools became a reality! You too can play and create music by just using your body. 

                                                                                      video provided by Google

Click here to get started on your amazing musical project with your students. 

For more educational technology tools please visit our KIC site at www.kellerisd.net/KIC 

and please be sure to follow us on Twitter @EdTechKISD and like us on Facebook EdTechKISD😀.

There's a New Kid in Town for Canvas Users

Well, really it's just a new RCE - Rich Content Editor - that is! What is an RCE? It is a fancy acronym (can't survive without them) for the line of tools in a program that allow you to add formatting to text. Think underline, bold, color, font, hyperlink, etc. AND... Canvas has a new one!

What is the New Rich Content Editor? Well in the words of Canvas: The New Rich Content Editor is an update to the previous Canvas Rich Content Editor. It provides a condensed, more intuitive toolbar that is grouped by common icons and interactions. 

The New Canvas RCE reorganizes the current tools under a Menu Bar and a Tool bar consolidating like tools for ease of use and placement.

Menu Bar

The Menu Bar consists of drop-down menus of grouped formatting tools and includes all of the 'quick-access' Tool Bar items plus more.

Tool Bar

The Tool  Bar consists of quick access to the most common options used in the Rich Content Editor. Because of the condense nature of the new RCE, your muscle memory may take some time to catch up to the changes!

• Links, Images, Media and Apps (External LTI Tools) have a slightly different look. Be sure to use the drop-down arrows to access what you may be searching for.

• Some of your favorite tools may have moved below the Content Field.  

👀You don't see the new RCE? Well, that's because you will need to turn it on in your course UNLESS you wait until January 4, 2021 - at that time, we will turn it on for you!

Before using the new RCE, you MUST turn it on in Settings for each course. Here's how:

1. Open your Canvas Course
2. Go to SETTINGS in the course navigation (left side of the screen)
3. Choose FEATURE OPTIONS at the top
4. Turn ON RCE Enhancements

🤩Canvas Resources:

New RCE Video (This is a great 5 minute overview.)

Canvas Rich Content Editor UI Overview

Working Together is Success - Sharing Folders

Up until recently, it was not possible to share FOLDERS inside a Google Shared Drive (formerly known as Team Drives). This latest update will benefit our educators collaborating with teams, administrators, and students. Although roles can be specified at the Shared Drive level, additional contributors can be assigned to sub-folders within the drive. Read more here.

View How to Share a Folder within a Shared Drive

Steps Explaining How to Share a Folder within a Shared Drive

1. While in Google Drive, click on the preferred SHARED DRIVE:
   
   
2. Right-click on the preferred sub-folder and select SHARE:
   
3. Select the preferred role and click SEND:
   
   
   
   
4. Confirm the role and click DONE:
   
   
   
5. Utilize the ALL, GUESTS, and MEMBERS tabs in the SHARE window to view all users associated with the selected folder:
   

   

 Wake Up & Wakelet

Wakelet Collection Video by @Wakelet

What is this Wakelet that you have been hearing about, and why do you need it in your life??? I know these are the questions you have been pondering as you lay in your bed at night staring at your ceiling, hoping to fall asleep. Well maybe not to that extent, but they are definitely questions worth asking yourself especially if you want to rock out collecting resources, collaborating, student engagement, digital storytelling, and soooooo much more! 

I am not going to lie, I have been nerding out about Wakelet for a while now! Yes, I know my master’s degree in Library and Information Sciences does fuel my excitement just a little bit, but it seriously is a super cool tool with endless possibilities! 

What a quick run through about this amazing new tool, well here you go!

Wakelet has a lot of great resources: https://help.wakelet.com/hc/en-us/categories/360000157651-General

They also really listen to educators. They are constantly changing and updating to make things rock even more in the educational world. 

Some of my favorite uses for Wakelet:

Collection Development

What do you mean? I mean, I love to gather resources in one place for my peers but also for students. I love that you can add anything with a link. I also am super grateful for the fact that students do not need an account. There are so many times students cannot access the things I need or cool resources because they have to sign into a tool. I will teach about a topic we are coving and put all of the resources a student needs in one place. Or I am collaborating with my peers and we need a place to put the resources we find so we  can all have access to them. You can also copy a collection someone has already made. There is a vast community out there of Wakelet users who probably have already created something you can use! Sharing is caring.

Learning Choice Boards

Student choice has a direct correlation to engagement. Let them choose how they will show you their learning and you will be excited how many students who previously did not engage, will finally do something!  Wakelet is a great place to create learning choice boards with options and even how-to's on each option for students to show learning.

There are more options and endless possibilities how you can use Wakelet in the classroom and in your professional life! I can’t wait to see what you come up with! Make sure to tag #EdtechKISD when you share your collections and also tag Wakelet!

Wakelet is awesome to follow and give shoutouts on Twitter.  Follow them @Wakelet #WakeletWave and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the large community just waiting to learn and show you more!

Misty Shea

Ed Tech, Keller ISD

Cybersecurity Awareness Month

   National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) has officially begun!

With school back in session, many students will re-establish friendships whether in person or making new ones and with social media being a major factor in many of these friendships. We need to help students remember that cybersecurity should always be a priority.

Here are some TIPS to increase safety:

These are just a few ways for students to stay safe while growing up in a digital age 
Please visit ed.gov/FREE for additional information. 

     https://www.cisa.gov/national-cybersecurity-awareness-month-sample-social-media-posts-and-graphics Cybersecurity Awareness Month - Own. Secure. Protect. IT

It's Grade Reporting Week in KISD!

KISD Teachers,

It is time to post grades for our first marking period in Keller ISD and we want you to have the most up-to-date information using our new Aeries Gradebook or Standards-Based Grades. 

If you teach students in 2nd-12th grades, you will follow the Grade Posting instructions:  How-To Document | Video Help.

If you teach students in PK, Kindergarten or 1st grade, you will follow the Standards (Competency) Based Grades instructions: How-To Document | Video Help.

Below are a few hazards to avoid with your first Aeries grades posting:

• If you are seeing Ps and Fs instead of numbers for your FINAL GRADES, please follow these instructions to get the correct marks in your Gradebook. DISREGARD if you are a Co-Curricular teacher or a PK-1st Grade Teacher. 
  
  
• All students must have a grade. If a student is missing all assignments displayed by an orange block, you need to put the number 1 into at least one assignment so the student's grade will not post as a blank.
  

... is being offered throughout the week on Aeries grades posting. Please check your Keller ISD email for various dates and times for assistance.

Emoji Keyboard by JoyPixels

We just learned about Emoji Keyboard by JoyPixels today! This Chrome extension saves clicks, which, in turn, saves TIME! Teachers need tools that are quick and easy. Follow the steps below to install Joy Pixels.

NOTE: This extension should be used by teachers and not by students.

1. From your Chrome browser, navigate to the Chrome Web Store:
   
2. Enter joypixels in the SEARCH BAR
   
   
3. Click on the EMOJI KEYBOARD BY JOYPIXELS extension:
   
4. Click the button
5. Click ADD EXTENSION:
   
6. Click the extension in the upper, right corner of your Chrome browser:
   
7. Utilize the JoyPixels SEARCH field to find the desired emoji:
   
   
   
8. Click the SETTINGS GEAR to adjust the JoyPixels extension settings:
   

📰Fighting False Information w/ News Literacy Project 📰

📰I challenge you to stop the spread of misinformation. 📰

Misinformation and disinformation are rampant in our lives. Now that people have the news literally at their fingertips on smart devices, there is a wealth of knowledge, but not all of it is true or unbias. There are even those out there purposefully feeding us false information to skew elections, heighten our emotions, and falsely create generalizations about groups of people.

Watch this video to see how AI can be used to create fake information. You will notice the former President Obama says some choice words that he would normally not say. This shows how real and life-like some of the information out there can be.

Colorful Ads, short videos, and emotion catching memes bombard social media, cable, tv, and radio. Feeding us sometimes more than we can handle. How can we prepare ourselves and our students to navigate all of the information out there. 

One of my favorite resources is the News Literacy Projects at www.newslit.org. They are a non-profit organization created to help teach skills to separate truth from false or misinformation. They focus on teaching specific skills and giving tools for each type of misinformation. Checkology, their classroom program, gives specifics on how to spot fake news. Below is just one of the many great handouts to teach the different types of misinformation.

Most of the resources are free! Checkology is free to educators right now due to Covid-19 and remote learning. As a teacher, there is even a lot to educate yourself on misinformation.

Do you not know where you stand on the misinformation front? Take this fun quiz! These are some common false pop culture sayings that are shared. There were some questions on there that were truly tricky! How many can you get correct?

📝Easiest Quiz of All Time📝

Now that you know where you stand, go out into the world and stop the spread of misinformation!

NA...EXC... CODES & MORE ! 🦅

 

Have you ever wondered how you can change the NA status in your Aeries Gradebook or where you can add LATE, INCOMPLETE, EXC? 

Here are some easy steps to make the change. 

Once in Aeries Gradebook 

• Select the Gradebook Dashboard
• Click on SCORES BY CLASS

• Select OVERRIDE NOT APPLICABLE/TRANSFER GRADES on the top left corner

ADD EXCUSED, LATE, INCOMPLETE, ETC in the Gradebook Scores

In the Gradebook Dashboard

• Click ASSIGNMENTS

• Select the Assignment
• Click on the Column # Correct (Score) 

Marking MISSING 

Aeries automatically marks missing when left blank and it will average as a Zero

Grades left BLANK will then show up as an ORANGE Box as missing and averages as a zero. 

For more how-to in Aeries please visit our KIC site. 

Reports in Aeries 🦅

 

There are several easy ways to gather reports in Aeries. Make sure while in Aeries you Select Reports in the Navigation Tree. Let's start gathering some information. 

Print Class Rosters: 

1. Select Report

2. Attendance 

3. Select Class Roster 

                                                     

Once you select the Class Period Select Run > Print Report

Daily Attendance Summary Report

1. Select Attendance 

2. Click Daily Attendance Summary 

Once you select the Class period  

Select Run> Print Daily Summary Report

Gradebook Summary Report

 1️⃣  Reports

 2️⃣ Select Gradebook Summary 

  4️⃣ Select  the gradebook and with (+ or -) Assignments 

5️⃣ Select Run > Print Gradebook Summary Report 

Class Progress Report 

🔴 Select > Gradebook

🟠 Select > Progress by Class Report 

🔵 Select the Gradebook

⚫️ Select Run> Print Class Progress Report 

These are just some of the reports Aeries offers. Please check out this quick video on how to print reports in Aeries.

For more information about Aeries please visit our KIC site.