Seesaw is Making Progress with the NEW PROGRESS Tool

Progress in Seesaw just dropped yesterday afternoon!

Did you notice? Your toolbar in Seesaw changed for the better with the new PROGRESS tool. The Progress feature gives you a way to simplify your teacher workflow and to efficiently view and better understand students' progress in Seesaw. Note: Progress is only available on the web at this time.

PROGRESS simplifies workflow with two views:

ACTIVITIES VIEW

The activities view gives you insight into student engagement by viewing activity completion and identifying trends.

• This view allows you to see at a glance where your students are in regards to Activity completion. You can filter by STUDENT, FOLDER or SKILLS on the right.
  
  
• The indicators show a student's individual progress with each Activity.

• In addition, hovering on a student name or an activity name will provide a quick summary. 
  
  
• Clicking on a student name will provide a PROGRESS REPORT with links to ALL activities for that date range. This report can be copied and then emailed to students or families. 

SKILLS VIEW

The skills view helps you hone in on student mastery of key skills or standards they are working towards.

• All of the skills tagged to student work will show across the top in your chosen date range. 
  
  
• The number will indicate the number of pieces of work tagged with that particular skill.
  
  
• The color will indicate the most recent piece of work tagged with that mastery rating. Color ratings can be set by user under Class Settings > Progress > Skills Rating Scale.

Information on PROGRESS from Seesaw

Note: Progress is a part of our Seesaw for Schools subscription in Keller ISD.

There are No Cons with IconsMania

 

It's no joke! The rumor is true! The makers of SlidesMania! have launched 🍎💻IconsMania! 🏠✏️ When creating choice boards, agendas, infographics, and other visuals for students, consider using this free tool!

Features you Can Benefit From:

• The icons are editable
• New collections are always being added
• Collections come in colorful, monochromatic, and outlined
• Help is at your fingertips (help for Google users | help for Windows users) 

For a full step-by-step on how to use IconsMania!, click here.

Organize Google Drive with Flair

Spring always brings out the cleaning spirit, and the end of the year for those of us in education reminds us how many files, images, and more we added to our Google Drive. A year's worth of lessons and all of the amazing digital wonders made are crowding your Drive with no end in sight. If you are like me and organizing is always a chore, there are some easy ways to organize your Google Drive and also add a little personal flair!

List vs Tile View

Google Drive gives the option for List View or Tile View. It really depends on your own preferences on which one fits your organization style.

List View:

Tile View:

Color Code me Surprised

Google Drive gives you the ability to color code the folders!

  

You can color all of a subject the same color to find what you are looking for faster. Within each folder you can create sub folders to further customize your Drive. Creating folders with coordinating color coding systems can make finding items a breeze. You will always know what color to look for.

I am a huge advocate of subfolders. Within each folder, I create subfolders to further organize my files. Your folder names will be based on groupings of items you have. For example, a teacher might create sub folders in her Math folder for things like assignments, supplementals, and lessons. The possibilities are endless and again, according to how your brain likes things organized.

To color code your Google Drive folders, right click on the folder and select Change Color. Choose the color you want. Vilola! Colors added!

What’s in a Name? Emojis make it fun!

Naming conventions can make or break your organization system. Google Drive automatically alphabetizes your names of folders and items inside. You can further add flair to your names by adding emojis and symbols. However, once you add an emoji or symbol, alphabetizing does not work. It brings it to the top of the list.

You can right click on the name of the folder or file, you can choose the option Rename. A box will pop up for you to alter the name.

You can add emojis with these hotkeys:

Mac Devices: Control + Command + Spacebar

Windows Devices: Windows key + Period (.)

Find it FAST

Now that you have organized your Google Drive, what if you cannot find something? You can search using the search bar at the top of Drive, filter & sort, as well as “Star” favorites.

You can Sort by clicking the down arrow next to Last Modified to sort by date modified. This is helpful if you just used the document.

To “Star” and favorite an item right click on the file, folder, etc and choose “Add to Starred”

The file, folder, etc will have a star next to it.

To show all of your starred folders, files, etc click on Starred on the left navigation bar. Your starred items will be there for easy access.

Searching in Google Drive starts with the search bar at the top. If you click the down arrow on the right side of the search bar, you can further filter your search results by type of file, owner, location, and more.

My favorite search option is to filter by Type. If you click on the drop down menu next to the option Type, you can further filter your search by images, pdfs, docs, and much more!

Remember, the best tip for organizing, is to organize as you go! Each time you upload, create, or save an item, immediately put it in the right folder and subfolder. I downloaded the Google Drive for Desktop in order to save files on directly to my Google Drive from my device! I would be so unorganized without it. Visit this site for more information about the Google Drive for Desktop: https://support.google.com/a/answer/7491144?hl=en

PowerPoint as your Virtual Background

 

You can now use your PowerPoint Presentation as a virtual background in Zoom. 

While navigating through your slides, they will appear behind you.

How do we do this? 

• Login to your zoom 
• Go to the Zoom meeting controls 
• Click the share screen icon     
• Click  Advanced 
• Click PowerPoint as Virtual Background 
• Then Click Share                

This will open to the Windows file page. 

Navigate to your PowerPoint Presentation on your computer, Click OPEN and watch the magic happen.

Just like any PowerPoint Presentation, you can navigate through your slides while staying on top of your presentation. 

Check out this how-to video.

For more information about Zoom, please visit our KIC site at www.kellerisd.net/KIC, and please be sure to follow us on Twitter @EdTechKISD, like us on Facebook EdTechKISD, and follow us on Instagram @edtechkisd 😀.

Google Contacts Update: Now More Convenient than Ever!

Google Contacts

Google continually works to make their user interface a better experience for all. This CONTACTS update was a much needed improvement that rolled out in late fall. You may have noticed it in Gmail, but in case you didn't, we wanted to share!

Previously, to access CONTACTS information for an organization, you needed to open a new tab and go to contacts.google.com. However, NOW you can open Google CONTACTS right from your Gmail side panel. What? Of course you need this in your life!

Activate CONTACTS in your side panel by clicking on the CONTACTS icon. The following information will be available to you:

• Contact information, such as phone number and email address, 
• Campus/Department and position, 
• Whether you’ve received email from them before, and more. 

For Keller ISD Readers, if you notice that your phone number is not visible to others in your Contact, you can add it by following the steps below:

1. Sign into KCloud 
2. Search Employee Access Center (EAC) and sign in.
3. Click UPDATE on the front page under Information and add a work phone number found in the top, right corner and SAVE.

Allow the new integrated Contacts to help streamline your Gmail efficiency!