Tuesday Tech Tip: 7 Steps for Starting the Year in Schoology

Here in Cherry Creek Schools, most of our teachers will be returning from break this Friday (although we do have some schools already in session!).  So, we wanted to post some tips about getting the school year started in Schoology.

Before we list "the 7," it's worth a reminder that Schoology has a great Help Center with more information about these topics.  If you've got a question about how something works, be sure to check there first.  We've linked any Help Center articles that may be helpful for each step.

#1:  Check Privacy Settings

Each course in Schoology has its own settings, and it's worth taking a look at your settings before your students access to make sure everything is set the way you want.  Using the Course Options pull-down, choose "Edit Privacy/Course Settings."  

The privacy settings for the course are by default set at "Organization," with the exception of roster.  However, you can either make parts of your course more restricted or more open.  If you only want those enrolled in your course to see the items, change the settings (see below) to "Course."  If, however, you want to use your course like a website for posting events and information, you can change the privacy to "Everyone" for Profile, Updates & Calendar.

If you don't want students to post course updates, be sure to move the permission to "Course Admins."  In addition, you'll want to think about the parent settings.  We'd recommend having both Anonymous Member Names and Hide Comments/Posts checked.

#2: Choose Your Default Landing Page

In the same area above ("Course Privacy Settings"), you can also determine which page students land on when they first enter your course from their Courses pull-down.  If you will be using Schoology primarily for announcements and updates, it might be a good idea to choose "Updates."  If you will be utilizing Schoology as your digital learning space, you will probably want students to first land in the "Materials" area.  You can always change these later, if your needs change.

Also, don't forget that every place in Schoology is basically a link.  Want your students to end up somewhere other than the Updates page or the Materials page?  Grab the URL from where you want them to go and share that link with them.  If they bookmark it, they will have easy access to the place you designate.

#3: Upload an Image for Your Course or Section

Each course has a default image of a book in the upper left corner, but if you mouse over the picture, you'll see the option to "Edit Picture."  Upload an image from your hard drive so that you can both personalize the section and find it more easily in your course pull-down.

#4: Link Sections (Help Center Article)

You'll want to do this ONLY at the beginning of a term as it gets tricky with losing data.  If you teach several sections of the same course, you can link them together so that they get the same materials.  

Caveat:  if you will be using Schoology to give online assessments, be aware that currently, there's no way to set different availability for assessments for different sections.   If you don't want to open an assessment for all sections at the same time, don't link sections.

#5: Connect Google Apps and/or OneDrive (Help Center Article)

If you've already done this, you won't need to do it again for the new year; however, if you use Google Drive to store files or OneDrive, you'll want to connect them as "Resource Apps" so that you can easily add content directly into your course.  To connect your Schoology account to your Google account, go under the "Resources" area and choose "Apps."  You'll see Google Drive already there, and while you have to "Approve" the first time, after that you can use the Google Drive Resource app to get files stored there.  Use OneDrive?  Use the "Install Apps" button and add it here.

#6: Organize Your Course with Folders (Help Center Article)

When setting up your course, be thinking about how to best organize your materials, both for you and for your students.  (If you need some ideas for different ways to set up your class, check out Schoology's post on 5 Simple Ways to Set Up Your Courses.)  You're going to want to rely heavily on folders, but don't forget that you have visual options for folders that can help organize (and pace) your course.  Be sure to:

• title your folder by unit, date, topic, etc.
• color code your folders, 
• add descriptions and images that help guide your students, 
• determine visibility dates or hide until you're ready for students to access it 

Remember that you can drag & drop things into a different order, if you need to.

#7: Set Up the Gradebook in Schoology

Depending on your level (see below), you may be syncing with Powerschool.  Tip: create the same categories in Schoology as you have in Powerschool so that you can push assignments from Schoology to Powerschool into the correct category (this year, you will be able to map to custom categories).  

Suggested settings for elementary schools:

Suggested settings for secondary schools (or those schools syncing with Powerschool):

We hope everyone has a smooth and successful start to the school year!

Tuesday Tech Tip: Mixing it Up with Office Mix

We've done a series of blog posts in recent weeks, all focusing on "tools of engagement."  Zaption, Socrative, PearDeck, and Classflow all provide levels of student interaction and analytics that can help teachers monitor progress.  In addition, we've posted previously about ways to narrate a presentation (MoveNote) and create a screencast (Screencastify & Snagit),

This week, we're highlighting Office Mix, a tool that does ALL of those things inside of an application that most people are already familiar with: PowerPoint.  OfficeMix would be a great option for blended or flipped instruction or anytime you want students to interact more with information being presented.

Office Mix is a relatively new add-on for PowerPoint 2013 (you can install the add-on from their site).  While you do need PowerPoint to create a mix, a mix can be viewed on any device with a web connection, including mobile devices;  however, certain interactive elements are not yet available on iOS or Android.

With Office Mix, you can:

• create interactive questions inside your presentation, 
• record yourself going over your slides, 
• annotate your slides, include a screencast or screen caps, and 
• insert live web pages, videos or interactive content.  

You decide if you want it publicly available or restricted to your district or school domain. Office Mix analytics will tell you how long viewers spent on each slide, show their quiz answers, and results can be exported to Excel.


Use your district email address when prompted to sign in (choose Office for Work or School).

Your mix can be added into Schoology as an assignment, embedded into Schoology or another website with code, or accessed via link.  See the Mix below for the directions on adding into Schoology (and also to experience some of the interactive elements you can insert into "the mix").



Check with your school technology support folks if you need to upgrade the version of MS Office on your district PC laptop.  And have fun mixing it up!

Tuesday Tech Tip: Zaption

Using video for instructional purposes is a great way to engage learners and share information. How many times have you been sharing a video and stopped it to ask questions or to see if your students were still with you? Have you ever wondered if your students are really paying attention to the content or if they are taking the opportunity to take a mental break from class?  

What if there was a tool that could help you with this, where you could pause and check for understanding, gather feedback, and have your students interact?  

One tool you might consider is Zaption.  Zaption allows you to create engaging video lessons in minutes.  

With Zaption you can create tours for your students where they interact with video content. With a little planning, you can turn online videos into interactive learning experiences.  Zaption’s authoring tools allow you to find relevant online video and add elements such as text, images, drawings, discussions and questions.

You can start from scratch or search Zaption’s content to get started.

Once you create a tour, getting it to your students is as simple as sharing a link. You can also embed the tour into a website or right inside of Schoology or even share through Google Classroom.

Consider creating tours for students to use on individual devices or perhaps you want to use the tool with the whole class as you project from your computer.  The Office of Instructional Technology is happy to help you think through how this tool can enhance student learning and engagement.  

Why not give it a whirl?  Watch the video below and then login to www.zaption.com. Use your CCSD/G+ Login

Want more?  Check out these tours from the Zaption Gallery

Think Outside the Cart: Covering Your Bases When Testing Impacts Technology

cc photo courtesy of Max & Dee Bernt

For baseball fans (like me),  March typically means that Spring Training is in full swing and the MLB season is getting closer.  This year, however, March also marked the beginning of our online testing season.  We're hearing concerns about online testing taking classroom technology out of the lineup.  So, to both honor the imminent baseball season and to address those concerns, here are some ideas about keeping the ball in play (apologies for the foul puns).

cc photo courtesy of  Jamie Campbell

Make a Call to the Bullpen.  In baseball, your "bullpen" is your pitching relief  (pitchers who come in to "relieve" or take over for other pitchers). Maybe a Chromebook cart is like your starting pitcher, but if it's not available, you might want to remember other technology at your building,  In our case, Chromebook carts supplemented any existing technology at a school.  That means that school labs, other laptop carts, M&A's, iPads & iPods & other tablets could come back into the game.  Even if you can only bring in a few, you could use them creatively for learning.

The Double or Triple Play.  If you get two or three players taken care of in one play, that's a double or triple play.  It's possible that not every machine is being used for assessment. While people tend to think of needing the whole cart, remember that great stuff can happen when kids collaborate together when sharing a device.  If you can get your hands on 10 devices instead of 30, it might actually be more effective than 1:1, depending on your learning goals.

Put the Shift On.  Sometimes, players in the field will move from their traditional spots and "shift" to specific areas, based on where they think the ball will go.  In a classroom, you can think about this like using learning centers or stations.  If you have as few as 4 or 5 devices, you can "shift" students to different centers/stations in the room, based on the activities you want them to do.  Using centers or stations is good practice anyway, but when faced with limited technology, it can be a game-changer.

The Hidden Ball Trick.  Sometimes, a player will "hide" the ball and deceive the runner into thinking s/he can step off the base, but the ball is still live.  We often ask kids to hide their own technology (mobile devices) or put it away so we don't see it.  But, cell phones are incredibly powerful devices.  If you set some ground rules about using them for learning, you might be surprised at how well students behave when given the chance.  If you teach younger students who don't have cell phones, you may want to ask your parent community if they have any "old" phones to donate.  If you take away the phone functionality, smart phones are just mini tablets with WiFi capability.

The Pinch Hitter.  A pinch hitter is basically a substitute batter -- a player not in your game day lineup who steps into the box.  If testing means that school-provided technology isn't an option, maybe it's time to explore substituting what you have with BYOD (or Bring Your Own Device). Parents are probably well aware that testing is affecting student access to devices, and explaining your need for student-provided technology, even temporarily, could be a way to keep you on your game.

cc photo courtesy of Scott Ableman

The Play at Home Plate (and Instant Replay).  Sometimes, the most exciting plays happen at home plate.  More and more teachers are trying out the concept of the flipped classroom or flipped learning (see our blog posts this month for more about flipped learning).  That term refers to students getting some part of their instruction on a device, often at home or outside of the classroom (maybe from a site like Khan Academy or teacher-created videos).   Besides leveraging time in an efficient way, this also provides students with the option for instant replay if it's video-based.  Didn't quite get the concept?  Just replay the part you need.  And since our district has Schoology, we already have digital spaces that can be used for learning outside of the classroom.

Finally, if you're worried about access at home for students during testing windows, remember that local libraries have computers for student access (and many schools have drop-in locations available during the school day).  Also, remember that anyone with a smart phone has access to the Internet.  If a family doesn't have a desktop or laptop at home, a smart phone is another access point.

Testing doesn't have to mean that technology for learning is benched during our assessment windows.  If you are creative and think outside the cart, you can continue to hit home runs for learning with your students.

Cooking Up Some New Ideas for Your Classroom...Exploring Blended and Flipped Learning

Hearing the words blended and flipped might make you think about food and cooking techniques. No, you have not stumbled upon the Food Network. If you have been around the educational table in the past few years, you have seen these words surface in relation to learning. Undoubtedly, you have heard the terms blended and flipped classrooms.  But what exactly are these things?  

Over the next 4 weeks we will explore many aspects of blended and flipped classrooms.  We will share various resources and thoughts about taking your instruction to another level.  

To get started, here are a few links to sites to help ground you in what these terms mean.  

Defining Blended Learning by the Teach Thought Staff:  This article offers some basic understanding of the concepts.

3 Mindsets for Blended Learning from ISTE:  This article focuses on aspects to consider when blending your classes.

Flipped Learning-A Definition from the Flipped Learning Network.

4 Tips for Flipped Learning from Edutopia a few tips from fellow educator.

Cheers to you and your new learning about blended and flipped classrooms.  Tune in next week for another installment and assistance with sharpening your skill set.