Ed Tech Tidbits Monthly Newsletter of Technology Integration ISSUE 01: November 2011 this issue PowerSchool P.1 Google Cloud Connect P.2 Bloom’s Taxonomy - New & Improved Bloom’s Taxonomy has been a staple in PowerSchool— educational pedagogy for nearly 5 dec- ades. We all know it and consider it as Comments Made Easy! we plan out our units and lessons. Like Power School has a great tool called “Score Inspector” which allows you to so many other aspects of our job, the make comments for just about anything, anywhere in your grade book. Some examples where taxonomy has been updated to put this might be useful are for a particular student’s grade on an assignment, test, or project. You emphasis on 21st century skills. In a time where we can Google anything, might also want to add a comment on a student’s final grade in a subject or class. the foundation of the old taxonomy, knowledge, has been removed. The To do this, select the Scoresheet tab and right-click on the grade where you want to make a pinnacle is now creating; the ability to comment, click on Show Score Inspector, type a message in the comment space, close the create something with knowledge is a box, then click Save in the grade book. These comments will now show up on the Parent/ highly valued skill in the modern work- Student Portal, which is great for documentation on why the student earned that grade. place. Finally, the grammar of the tax- onomy has changed from static to ac- You can also make a bank of statements to choose from as often as you want without having tive. All processes are action verbs to re-type them in each time for every student. In the menu bar across the top of the grade signifying a switch from passive to ac- tive learning. book, click on Tools, then on Preferences. A new box called “Comment Bank” will open up. Click on Add at the bottom of the box. Type in a code—this could be anything—a letter, num- Websites to check out... ber, whatever. Next, type in a comment. Finally, type in a category—again, this could be any- goanimate.com thing such as “behavior,” “work ethic,” or simply “comments.” Click on OK. Continue adding picnik.com more comments now or add them as you go through the year. Now you can right-click on a student’s grade, select Show Score Inspector, click on the “Comment” tab, click on the com- scratch.mit.edu ment you want to add, and then click on “Insert Selected.” Voila! Your comment was added. classroom20.com Comments can be added to a whole class by clicking on the Class Content tab in your grade RCampus.com book and typing your comments into the description box. Google Cloud Connect A new way to think about storing documents The “cloud” is the ethereal space between hither and yond that is otherwise known as the web. Google Cloud Connect is an app that allows us to store our documents in this space. There are several ben- efits that come with this ability. OneNote Efficiency First of all, documents that we work on are stored in the cloud. As we continue to work on Microsoft OneNote is an application built to keep track of all your important information the documents, Cloud Connect automatically syncs your work with the cloud making the in one place such as documents, emails, most recent version available to you anywhere. If you are not on a school computer, you can PDFs, journal entries, clippings, lists, meet- ing notes and more. still access the documents by going to the district website, clicking on the Gmail icon, and It is basically like a 3-ring binder in digital logging in. All the documents are stored in the Documents tab on the top menu. form. You create a new ‘Folder,” add tabs across the top for the various sections with- Second, Google Cloud Connect works directly with Microsoft prod- in the folder, then add “pages” within each section. You can start typing anywhere on a ucts: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This allows us to use the pro- page without needing to add text boxes or keep a floating note open on your desktop. grams that we are familiar with, without having to use Google Docs With OneNote you can insert tables, pic- programs. tures, screen clippings, file and scanner printouts, images, video clips, PDFs, email Third, each file can be shared with staff or students, and each docu- messages, documents and more. It even has a section for working with math symbols ment has a direct URL link that others can use to access the docu- and equations. ment. All participants can edit the document and changes are auto- You can also record audio and video, use a matically synced to the cloud. Revision history can be viewed easily. If there are edits to the host of drawing tools, connect through Outlook Email, set up meetings and appoint- same section made simultaneously, participants can choose which changes to accept. ments through Outlook Calendar, and assign tasks through Outlook Tasks. Finally, there is not the multitude of emails that typically are exchanged when several people The best thing about OneNote is that you collaborate on a document. The changes are made directly on the can store it on the web or a network so you can access your information from any- document, so there are not multiple versions of the same document where, anytime, and share it with others. causing confusion and hassle. Google Cloud Connect is on district computers now. It is available and needs only to be set up by entering in your KPBSD login information. It looks like a toolbar menu when you are Other Websites to Check Out: using Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. All the settings can be adjusted using this Clipart.com—The district has an toolbar. Enjoy the convenience! open account for this site. Chocked full of useable art. Log- in: kpbsd, Password: technology Evernote.com Skitch.com Interested in topics mentioned here… Flipsnack.com Would you like more information or do you have suggestions for the next newsletter? Boomwriter.com Please contact [email protected] or [email protected] Vocaroo.com .