Tuesday Tech Tip: 4 Handy Enhancements in Schoology for the '16-'17 School Year

As we start the beginning of any school year, we typically post things related to updates and/or good ideas for getting the year going.  We posted earlier this month about "7 Steps for Starting the Year in Schoology" and "Outlook Email Awesomeness," and this week, we're posting about a few noteworthy additions in Schoology.

If you're curious about other things coming down the road, you can view the Schoology NEXT keynote from Ryan Hwang, Co-founder and VP of Product (posted on the Schoology Exchange).

1.  Syncing to custom grading categories in Powerschool

This year, those using the PowerTeacher Gradebook will be able to map Schoology gradebook categories to the categories in the PowerTeacher Gradebook (even if they are custom made!).

While we could map to Powerschool's "default 4" last year (homework, test, quiz, and project), teachers with custom categories (like "essay," "peer review," "vocab," etc.) had to manually change the category in the PowerTeacher Gradebook after syncing. Now mapping to PowerTeacher custom categories is an option.

To see how to map your categories, check out the support article in Schoology's Help Center.

2.  Lots of New Apps in the App Center

If you're looking to add some interactive elements into your course from other providers, Schoology has added quite a few new integrated apps in the App Center.  A few are subscription based, but apps like Quizlet, OneNote Class Notebook, TedEd, & CollegeBoard are just a couple that you might want to check out.  They will be adding even more as the year goes on, so stay tuned.

To see how to add apps from the App Center, check out the support article in Schoology's Help Center.

3.  New User Login Page for Mobile Devices (coming soon)

We have a lot of mobile app users, but the login page can be a bit confusing since we use MyCherrycreekschools to log into Schoology in CCSD.  The login page for mobile devices will be getting new look, making logging into Schoology even easier.  Instead of having to choose between "username" or "email," the page will ask you to choose your school first.  This will take you directly to the single sign-on page (in our case, http://my.cherrycreekschools.org).

For schools with shared devices, the app will remember the school, so students will only need to log out.  The next student who logs in will be automatically taken to my.cherrycreekschools.org.

4.  Assessment Management Platform (AMP)

This is easily the biggest addition for the '16-'17 school year.  Schoology announced the addition of AMP in June, which lets PLCs, schools, or the district deploy common assessments across multiple sections and collect the data centrally.

Probably the most exciting part is the new question types that are now available as part of the assessment builder, including technology enhanced items.

These question types will be available in the "old School"-ogy  test/quiz builder later on this year, but here are the question types that are currently part of AMP.   

Standard	Enhanced
Multiple Choice (auto graded) True/False (auto graded) Matching (auto graded) Ordering (auto graded) Fill in the Blank Text (auto graded) Fill in the Blank Dropdown (auto graded) Short Answer/Essay (teacher graded)	Shared Passage (mixed) Label Image (auto graded) Highlight Hotspot (auto graded) Highlight Image (teacher graded) Highlight Text (teacher graded) Math Short Answer (teacher graded) Number Line (auto graded) Chart (auto graded)

For more information, check the support article in Schoology's Help Center.  Our team will be working with schools who wish to use AMP.

We hope everyone has had a great start to the year.   And as always, feel free to reach out to our team if you have questions or need support. 

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: Taking It With You

If you're leaving the district, there may be some digital items that you want to take with you (or need to make available for others).  If you use Google Apps or Schoology, here's how you can share, keep or take your stuff.

Google Apps

The most important thing to remember about items that live in Google Drive is that once your account is deleted, all of your items become inaccessible, even if you've shared them.  Additionally, you can't transfer ownership to an account that lives outside of the district (in our case, an address that doesn't have "@cherrycreekschools.org").   Here's how to handle your Google files:

1. Transfer ownership of files that others still need to access.  If you have shared files that in-district folks will need to continue using, be sure you transfer ownership.  You can either do this on an individual or folder level (using the "Sharing" options) or you can submit a ticket our HelpDesk and they can transfer all files that belong to your user to another in-district account.
2. Use Google Take-out to download all of your Google data.  If you have files that you want to take with you, you can download your files (the default for Google Docs is to convert to MS Office equivalents but you can change those options).  To get your Google account data (including your docs, drawings, slides, forms and spreadsheets), go to https://www.google.com/settings/takeout and select the services for which you wish to download your data.  Google will create downloadable archive files and email you when they are ready to be accessed.

Schoology Materials & Resources

If you created content in Schoology, and you still would like to access & use it, you have a couple of  options.  You can create a free, personal account and share your collections with your personal account or you can export items from your Personal Resources if you will be using a different Learning Management System (LMS) in the future.

1. Continue to use Schoology with a personal account.  You may be leaving our district, but that doesn't mean to have to stop using Schoology.  While we have the Enterprise version in Cherry Creek Schools, Schoology also has free accounts that you can use as a teacher.  
1. Go to http://www.schoology.com and signing up for a free teacher account, using a personal email address (like Gmail or HotMail).  
2. Make a "connection" between your personal account and your CCSD account (see this support article for directions on making a connection).
3. Create a collection in your Personal Resources and share that collection with your personal Schoology account.
4. Go into your personal Schoology account and create a new folder, moving the shared collection items into it for continued access.  (* Use the collection sharing directions above to share items with in-district colleagues or use an existing Schoology Group to make sure your shared items are still accessible by others.)
2. Export your Personal Resources into a Common Cartridge format for import into another LMS.  If you will be moving to another district that uses a different LMS than Schoology, you can export your items into a Common Cartridge format.  Most LMS platforms allow for import of CC formatted files.  
1. Go to your Personal Resources area and use the arrow pull-down to choose "Export."
2. Select the folder or collection you wish to export.
3. Schoology will create the export file for you in your Transfer area (http://www.schoology.com/settings/transfers), notifying you by email when it is ready for download.

If you have any questions about this (or how to get other items you own, like items from your CCSD server), contact our HelpDesk or check the Backyard.

The Power of Positive Messaging

As previously posted, our blogs for this month are focusing on the Communication aspect of P21's 4 Cs. This week’s tip is about using Schoology and other tools to help increase positive communication in your classroom. As teachers, we all know the importance of ongoing communication with parents. The problem is that we often get into the habit of only letting parents know when their students are misbehaving or when there is a problem or concern. This leads to regular communication with only a small handful of parents, and those tough phone calls always seem to turn into 20 minute conversations.

Well here enters the Power of Positive Messaging. When teachers take the time to send positive messages to parents, they are building positive relationships with those parents as well as with students. Therefore, behavior issues start to decline, and when issues do come up, the parents are more likely to work with the teacher to help solve the problem.  

So let’s get to easy ways to send those messages. There are many tools out there that can help you, but today the main focus will be on building a positive community within Schoology. Schoology makes it easy for teachers to communicate with both students and parents through their messaging tool. To send a positive message to one of your students or the parents of one of your students, simply go to your Schoology course, click on Members, and click the wheel to the right of the student. There you will see the option to send a message, which will go to the student, or Message Parents, which will send an email to the parent(s) of the student.

While students are not given access to message each other in Schoology, they can message their teachers. This feature could be used for students to send positive messages to you about other students in class, which can provide you even more positive feedback for your messages to parents. 

Posting positive Schoology updates can also help create positive relationships with parents and students. You can post about your entire class, or by using first names if you feel comfortable with that. Maybe give a shout-out to some of your students each day or week for something they accomplished. 

Media Albums in Schoology can be used to show off positive behaviors and classwork as well. Simply use your phone to take and post pictures of kids doing great things, add a quick caption, and those can be seen by all of the members of your course and their parents. To learn more about Schoology's Media Albums, click here. 

Another great tool for positive parent communication is Class Dojo. If you aren't familiar with what Class Dojo can do for you, check out our post from last August about it by clicking here. 

The next time you have to make that tough phone call to a parent, take time to reflect about what the Power of Positive Messaging could do to help you build positive relationships with your students and parents in the future. Carve out a little time in your calendar each day, or even each week to give it a try and see what happens from there. 

Tuesday Tech Tip: Using Backchannel Chat in the Classroom

As posted last week, we're focusing on the Communication aspect of P21's 4 Cs during the month of February. Communication skills, vital for all students, can encompass myriad approaches and tools, but this week's tech tip is about using Backchannel Chat as a way to help students gain "an understanding of the protocols and norms of various digital tools. . .and a developed awareness of how to use technology safely and responsibly" (Wilkey Oh).

If you're not sure what exactly a backchannel is, it is "a digital conversation that runs concurrently with a face-to-face activity" (Holland, 2014). It provides a place to capture thinking, share ideas and resources, and communicate with others without interrupting the flow of an activity.  This can be a way for students to take notes collaboratively, ask questions to each other, and make meaning for themselves.

Backchannels might happen using something like Twitter or Today'sMeet (you'll see this happen at conferences), but when working with students, it's sometimes a good idea to have that happen in safe space that isn't public or publicly available.  That's where something like the Backchannel Chat app in Schoology comes in.

Backchannel Chat is a free app that teachers can add to any Group or Course in Schoology where they are an admin.  This opens a "room" that only members of your class or group can access (although a teacher can get an external join code to invite a person from outside of the class to participate).  Backchannel Chat also has paid versions that allow for more flexibility in features (file uploading, private messaging between teacher & student, and unlimited "rooms").

Unlike a Discussion Board, the chat happens in real time with no need to refresh. The chat can include live polling and anonymous posting (but the teacher can see names).  Chat transcripts are available after the chat, if needed, and you can use embed code to bring in external media for rich discussions.  And because the chat is moderated by a teacher, it provides both a way to assess and hold students accountable for content posted.

Silvia Tolisano's blog had this guide on using a backchannel with students:

Need more ideas?  Check out these resources:

• Speak Up in Class, Silently, Using Social Media (NY Times)
• Backchannel in Education: 9 Uses
• 7 Things You Should Know About Backchannel Communication
• 10 Ways to Use Backchannels in Your Classroom
• Benefits to Using Backchannel Chat

As we look for more ways to help kids build digital skills in the 4 Cs, backchannels can be a great option to helping kids learn the power of collaborative conversations.

References

Oh, Erin Wilkey. "Communication in Practice – A P21 Member Perspective from Common Sense Media - P21." Communication in Practice – A P21 Member Perspective from Common Sense Media - P21. Partnership of 21st Century Skills. Web. 08 Feb. 2016. 

Holland, Beth. "The Backchannel: Giving Every Student a Voice in the Blended Mobile Classroom." 2014. Web. 08 Feb. 2016.

Tuesday Tech Tip: 5 Additional Ways to Use Rubics in Schoology

*This was also cross-posted on Schoology's blog.

Rubrics can be very powerful instructional tools for providing criterion-referenced feedback, and in digital learning environments, they can also be a great data collection tools.  We get plenty of student data from external sources, like state or national assessments, but rubrics allow us to measure what we value.

In our district, we've seen digital rubrics being used most often in assessing electronically submitted written work, and the rubric feature in Schoology is a great fit for that.  However, in addition to that function, a digital rubric can be used in other ways as well.

1.  Performance Tasks, Visual Art Products, and Physical Models/Projects

Sample Debate Rubric on iOS

Just because Schoology's rubric is digital doesn't mean that the student work being assessed has to be digital.  In fact, a digital rubric can be a very handy way to assess work that's done offline.  Are your students doing speeches or debates?  Creating works of art?  Doing performances?  Use a Schoology rubric to provide digital feedback for students, even though they are not necessarily submitting work in Schoology at all.  

Tip: if you've got the Schoology app installed on a mobile device, you can assess work easily without having to have your computer in front of you.

2.  Weekly Point Collections

Sample weekly point collector using the rubric tool

As part of your classwork, you may have a daily assignment that is really more of a weekly collection of daily points.  Instead of creating a repeating assignment that you have to fill in every day, you can use the rubric tool to keep track of daily points but collect them in a single assignment.  This could work well for PE (where you may need to track if students dress out daily), citizenship or weekly participation points, or daily journal entries.  Use the criteria fields on the left for each day of the week and create a column (or several) for point totals for each day.  

Tip:  create a 4-day point collector as well, if you want to account for weeks where you may not see them each day.

3.  Offline Assessments for Tracking Mastery

Sample Data Collection for K-5 Math Pre-Assessment

If your students are doing an offline assessment but you still want to collect data based on standards or learning objectives, you could create a data collection tool with a Schoology rubric.  This is especially helpful when you have multiple questions that are aligned to the same standard and contain items that need to be in hard copy (like a math assessment where a student has to show work).  This allows you to track data for mastery without having to create an assessment and score each question individually.  (At the time of this post, Schoology assessments cannot be graded unless a student makes an online submission, which makes a rubric point collector a good alternative.)  

Tip:  Use a single column for the total points possible and type in the points received manually in the pts column.

4.  Checklists

Sample paragraph checklist

Sometimes you don't necessarily need different levels of achievement for criteria: sometimes it's just a yes or no situation -- either it was there or it wasn't.  This could helpful for project checklists, writing checklists, or notebook checks. While the Schoology rubric defaults to a 4 point scale when you create it, you can remove columns to give points for completion or the presence of a required element.

Tip:  If you want to gather data on the various checklist items, be sure to make them as custom learning objectives first. Anything you add to the rubric using the +Criteria option won't be tracked in your mastery reports (but it will still provide visual feedback to the learner).

5.  Notebook or Binder Checks

Collecting student binders or notebooks is a common method for assessing both notetaking skills and/or organizational skills.  Depending on access in the classroom, these notebooks may be digital or not.  Instead of giving holistic points for a notebook check, it might be a good idea to use a rubric so that a student can see which areas (if any) need some work in the binder. And, if the notebooks aren't digital and stay in the classroom, it can help parents keep better track of the notebook checks over time.

Tip:  if using achievement levels that cover different aspects (like the AVID notebook rubric below), use the rubric comment feature to let students know which specific element impacted the point score.

Sample AVID Notebook Rubric

Ultimately, rubric tools can be very flexible for looking at multiple elements for a single assignment.  Regardless of the whether or not you're grading digital work, you can still leverage a digital rubric for feedback, assessment, and data collection.

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: 3 Ways to Use Audio Accessibility Features to Support Students

When working in digital learning environments, technology provides quite a few ways to help students access and create content.  We had the opportunity to collaborate in the past week with specialists from our Student Achievement Services and Assistive Technology departments, and we thought it might be a good idea to post publicly about some of the accessibility options our students (and teachers) have when working with digital content.

1.  Voice Typing in Google Docs

This is a relatively new addition to Google Docs, and for students who could benefit from speech-to-text, it's a great option.  Only available when in Chrome (and right now, only in Google Docs), the "Voice Typing" option under the "Tools" menu lets you speak into your computer's microphone, and it will type what you speak.  While not perfect, it does a pretty good job. You can pause recording if you need to chunk material, and then you can make your edits.   

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2.  Read&Write for Google Chrome

We've posted about this before, but this free Chrome extension does a great job with reading text to students from a web page or from within Google Docs (the paid version has more features, like predictive text).  So, in the example above, a student could record their thoughts into a Google Doc and then use Read&Write to listen to their written work.  And for us, this can be used while students are taking assessments in Schoology.  Students can highlight the text they want read aloud, and Read&Write will both highlight the sentence and the words being read to the student.

3.  Audio Recording in Schoology

We've posted about this before as well, but since that post, Schoology made some enhancements to their video/audio recording tool.  In the Enterprise version of Schoology, we have the ability to record either webcam video or audio directly into updates, discussion boards, assignments, and assessments. For teachers, that means you can record yourself giving directions or reading portions of text out loud for students to hear.  For students, it means that they can provide an audio or webcam response in a discussion board or an assessment.

Any time you see a microphone icon in Schoology, you'll get this window when you click it.  You have 11 minutes of recording time with audio, 10 minutes of video recording time per recording.  

And, even better, we can provide audio feedback directly to a student when in a Schoology assignment submission.  While you can also type a comment, giving students audio feedback can make it more meaningful for the student and give comments a more personalized feel.

Bottom line:  for students who have accommodations as part of an IEP, these tools may not meet the needs of the student, so be sure to check with someone from the Special Education/Student Achievement Services department about your options.  However, when thinking about solutions for our students when audio can enhance learning, these are worth exploring.

Thinglink: Oh, The Things You Can Link!

Thinglink is an impressive digital platform that allows for students and teachers to create interactive and dynamic media using "hot spots". Get ready, it's time to display creative thinking! 

Enhance your student's learning experience by integrating meaningful sites and resources to make an even more awesome Thinglink! Smashing apps really pushes innovative thinking.








Here are some of my favorite things to link with Thinglink: 
       The Stars = Guides on the tech tool
       Red & Microphone = Examples and possibilities

 


As a teacher, you can embed your Thinglink into Schoology discussions, pages and even assessments! Using Thinglink is an engaging and interactive way of providing students with multiple sources and diverse media.
Students can create their own thinglink and share them in a discussion. Or, they can embed their Thinglink as part of their Schoology portfolio!




ProTip: When grabbing the embed code be sure to check the box for iframe embed.
 



Another option for accessing Thinglink is by copying and pasting your URL into a QR code generator.  Thinglink works really well on mobile devices and tablets. 

YouTube in Your Classroom

YouTube is a powerful tool.  It's difficult to argue with this statement.  We, at #CCSDTech, are here to support you in making YouTube a powerful tool in the classrooms of Cherry Creek Schools.  This post, more specifically, will focus on supporting teachers with using YouTube more effectively as a presentation tool.  Let's get right to it.

We've mentioned it before and we're going to mention it again.  One of our favorite, as well as easy to use, YouTube tools is Turn Off the Lights.

There is no doubt that the comments, suggested videos, and everything else that is posted around a YouTube video can be a huge distraction (or worse) when a teacher is showing a video to students via their computer through a projector.  Leaving everything up and easily visible while you show a video to a class full of kids can be a potential gamble.  Turn Off the Lights is a Chrome browser extension which hides everything but the window the YouTube video is playing in.  The chances to customize the view in Turn Off the Lights are numerous as well.  Easy installation and use as well as plenty of chances to personalize the view are two of the many reasons why we highly recommend and use Turn Off the Lights when we show YouTube videos.

Check out the difference below.

Traditional YouTube without Turn Off the Lights:

YouTube while using Turn Off the Lights, one simple click later:

Side note: We've already featured Turn Off the Lights in blog posts here and here.  Any tool worth mentioning over and over is worth exploring.  Check it out.

Adjusting the Start Time of a Linked YouTube Movie

Sometimes you'll want to begin a movie in the middle of a YouTube clip.  There's the option of actually dragging your cursor to a particular point in the video and letting it play from there.  Here's a more efficient option.  Pause the movie where you'd like it to begin, click on the share button below the movie window, click in the "Start at..." box, then copy the special link YouTube gives you.  Share/post the link to that movie with the special URL and it will begin right where you want it to when someone clicks on the link.  Magic.

For example, I want you to go straight to the chorus of this classic song when you click on this link.  Sing it, Teddy P.

Extracting the Middle of a YouTube Clip

If you require showing the middle of a YouTube clip (nothing more and nothing less) look no further than TubeChop.  TubeChop supports users with extracting the middle of any YouTube video.  Copy the YouTube URL of the video you'd like to share, paste it into TubeChop, decide when you want your start and end times to be, include your own description or "teaser" (if you wish), and get a unique link or embed code so you can share just what you want your audience to see.

I set up an example in TubeChop here.  Enjoy.

Exploring Code in YouTube

But wait, there's more.  We're actually just getting started with YouTube sharing and viewing options.  Google gives users some serious flexibility when it comes to embedding videos.  YouTube coding magic starts just underneath the video once you click on the "Share" option and then "Embed."

If you can copy and paste you're more than qualified to explore coding.  Check out this link for information for beginners all the way up advanced options. 

As you may have already guessed, there are plenty more YouTube features, tips, and tricks that we'll be sharing with you in the near future and throughout the year.  Student interaction while viewing videos, creating YouTube playlists, uploading best practices in YouTube, and more are on the way.  Stick with us.  We're here to help you be smarter with YouTube.  Stay tuned!  

Tuesday Tech Tip: New Schoology Awesomeness

Schoology is always improving what they do and how they do it.  The 2015-2016 school year is going to rock with some of the new features Schoology has recently released.  Check out the slides below for additional information and pictures.

Digital Portfolios

Students can actively participate in demonstrating their mastery by creating a portfolio that either displays the process or the product of their learning.  Portfolios can encompass the entire learning cycle or a selection of pieces that showcase their best work. Portfolios provide a space for students to create, celebrate, track progress, share and reflect. You can add text, images, Thinking Maps, embedded content, links, videos and so much more! Portfolios can be private or public. Check out the slides below and Schoology's blog Showcasing your Work in Schoology's Portfolios for additional information. 

Course Linking

Do you teach the same course multiple times? Perhaps you teach Geometry three times.   Now, you are now able to link your similar course sections together so you are really managing just one class! Yep, this is a game changer!  Link courses to manage all materials, due dates and gradebook settings.  Check out the slides below and Schoology's blog Your New Superpower: Manage Multiple Course Sections at Once for additional information.

Discussions

The new discussions look pretty sharp!  This new design will help teachers and students navigate through posts. Check out the slides below and Schoology's blog Six Glorious Reasons to Love Schoology's Redesigned Discussions for additional information.

Mastery Settings

Do you remember when you setup your Mastery Settings and students only had to meet or exceed a standard three times to identify mastery?  Yeah, that's changed.  You decide how many attempts now!  it will make earning that Mastery star more powerful!  Check out the slides below for additional information.

Tuesday Tech Tip: Suggestions for Setting Up the Gradebook in Schoology

As we're gearing up for the 2015-2016 school year, it's a good time to think about setting up our gradebooks.  We use PowerSchool as a Student Information System (or SIS), so that means that we need to give some attention to another spot where we may be collecting grades:  Schoology, our Learning Management System.

For the basics, Schoology's support area has a great article on how to use it, but some of the information doesn't apply to our situation.  So, we've put together some recommendations for our schools as they look at the new school year.  (If you need to enlarge the presentations embedded below, use the full screen icon, which is next to the settings wheel.)

Suggestions for Elementary Schools

Suggestions for Schools Syncing with PowerSchool (Secondary Schools)

Remember that with mastery, the best way to gather student data related to standards is to align items in Schoology.  However, the gradebook is another area you can leverage to collect and analyze student data.

If you need an overview of what the set-up screen looks like, see the embedded ThingLink below (click on the Schoology icons to see more information).

How to Embed Content When You Don't Have Embed Code

We've posted previously about the magic of embed code, but we had a question this week from one of our school technology coordinators about embedding a graphing calculator tool (Desmos) into an assessment in Schoology, our LMS.  While Desmos gives embed code for a graph that is saved and created (as a static .jpg or image), what if you want to embed the tool itself into a page?  How can you insert an interactive tool or webpage if you don't have the actual embed code?

In this case, an easy option is to create your own using a variation of code with iframe attributes.  When you embed media (like from YouTube, for example), the embed code looks like this:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qp0HIF3SfI4?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The basic components above are the width, the height, and the source URL.  If you want to embed something and you don't have the right embed code, you can just replace or change the parts of the code for what you want to embed.

So, in the scenario mentioned earlier for getting the graphing calculator into Schoology, I would change the code to look like this:

<iframe width="100%" height="400" src="https://www.desmos.com/calculator"></iframe>

Once you have the code, you can decide where you would like to place it. In web pages or blogs, you may need to look for the "HTML" option and paste in the code. In something like Schoology, it's even easier. You can paste embed code into a page, a discussion board, a test/quiz question, an assignment, and/or as a link. To add embed code to interactive student activites in Schoology:

1. In the rich text editor window, use the "Insert Content" icon.
2. Choose "Image/Media." 
3. Choose "From the Web" and make sure you choose "Media."
4. Paste in the code, and the embedded item will appear when you save.

When my modified code is pasted into Schoology (or somewhere else like Blogger), the embedded item below would appear.  Notice that I changed the width to 100%, which automatically adjusts your embedded content to fit the window, and I made the height number a bit bigger since there is a keypad tool that students can use.  If you need to change the width or height, you can always experiment with the numbers until it looks the way you want it to.


Pretty slick!  Now you can just copy and paste the code I included above and replace the URL with whatever you need.   While this doesn't work for everything (and you can find embed code for most things on the web), this is a good workaround when you need to embed something and aren't provided the code.

That's a Wrap: Ending the Year in Schoology

The end of the school year is near and now it’s time to save a copy of all course materials to Schoology's digital filing cabinet (Personal Resources). Here is a quick guide that highlights two end of year tips:

Save your course to your Resources:
You can save your entire course to your resources with just two clicks!  Before saving your course, I would recommend going into your personal resources and creating collections for each class or having some organized system in place.   Once you are ready to save you course follow these steps:

1. Go to your course

2. Click Options (next to Add Material)

3. Select Save to Resources.

Then, once your new course is created for next year you can bring in all of your saved materials by these steps:

1. Go to your course

2. Click Add Materials

3. Select Import from Resources

Access your Archive

Your class will appear to be gone once it is no longer in session.  But, it isn’t deleted.  It has just been archived.  You will have access to your archived courses by following these steps:

1. Click Courses in the top menu.

2. Select See All in the bottom-right corner of the drop-down menu.

3. Select Archived to see a complete list of archived courses sorted by grading period

For additional information, check out Schoology’s Guide on “How do I end a school year in Schoology?”