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Technology Tutorials

Sean Otterspoor - WHS Technology Professional Development Leader

Tech help from a moderately friendly-faced bearded man

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Quill.org

Quill offers free, self correcting exercises that allow students to learn English grammar by writing sentences and proofreading passages. Quill provides learning activities that engage students in the writing process through web applications teaching grammar, vocabulary, and writing skills. Using the teacher dashboard, teachers can pick from over 150 activities built from 42 Common Core standards and view the results through a mastery-based system. ELA/ELL

About: Quill.org

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Listenwise.com

Listenwise is an online listening skills platform. They “harness the power of listening to advance literacy and learning in all students.” Listenwise uses a curated collection of podcasts and public radio to provide authentic language to build listening while keeping teaching connected to the real world. While not limited to ELLs this site is particularly useful as listening to authentic language used in these nonfiction stories can help English learners acquire the types of academic language needed for college or career. ELA/ELL

About: Listenwise.com

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Prism

Prism is a tool for collaborative interpretation of text that works on: Chromebooks, iPads or desktop computers. Users are invited to provide an interpretation of a text by highlighting words according to different categories, or "facets." Each individual interpretation then contributes to the generation of a visualization which demonstrates the combined interpretation of all the users. Prism is a tool for both pedagogical use and scholarly exploration by revealing patterns that exist in the subjective experience of reading a text. ELA/ELL

About: Prism

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goformative.com

Formative runs on any internet connected device and allows you to build electronic worksheets to go beyond multiple choice. Students can read passages of text, watch embedded videos, manipulate images, view pdf files and then type responses or show their work with drawings or images. Formative allows teachers to assign work and then monitor progress in real time. Formative makes it easy to transform your paper worksheets into a interactive, multimedia activity.

About: Formative

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Google Input Tools

Google Input Tools is a chrome extension that makes it easy to type in the language you choose, using an on screen keyboard. Google Input Tools is also available as an offline program for Windows as an input method editor which allows users to enter text in any of the supported languages using a Latin (English / QWERTY) keyboard. Users can type a word the way it sounds using Latin characters and Google Input Tools for Windows will convert the word to its native script. ELA/ELL

How To: Google Input Tools

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Google Slides Q&A

You can now accept questions from your audience when presenting in Google Slides. Students to submit questions and vote on them during Google Slides presentations. A few things to note: The Slides Q&A feature works on desktop computers, Android mobile devices, and iOS mobile devices. You can only use Slides Q&A if you have edit or comment access to that Slides presentation. By default, any user in your domain can submit a question. You can allow external users to submit questions as well.

How To: Google Slides Q&A

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Kahoot Jumble

The popular game based review website Kahoot! has added a new game type called jumble. Jumble allows you to create questions where students organize the answer options in order. The answer options can be words or numbers (That's right Math, you can join in on the review game fun). Jumble is also ideal for answers such as timelines, sentence structures, summarizing stories etc.

About: Kahoot Jumble

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Google Drive Shared With Me

Google Drive’s Shared With Me Folder
TL;DR Summary: The Shared With Me folder should be thought of as an inbox and not a folder. Files in Shared With Me are not actually in your drive, they are just links to files in someone else’s drive. Use Google Drive's Search advanced search function when looking for shared files. If you like folders, use the Add to My Drive option (this is still only a link to, not a copy of, the file).

How To: Google Drive Shared With Me

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Google Cast for Education

Google Cast for Education is a free Chrome app designed for Google Apps for Education users that allows students and teachers to share their screens wirelessly from anywhere in the classroom. Cast for Education carries video and audio, has built-in controls for teachers, and works seamlessly with Google Classroom. Cast for Education will work from any computer using the Chrome browser.

How To: Google Cast For Education

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Android App Science Journal

Science Journal: Android App that allows you access to your phone’s environmental sensors Science is fundamentally about improving the world around you. It’s not just memorizing facts, wearing a lab coat or listening to a lecture. It’s observing the world around us to figure out how it works and how we can make things better through experimentation and discovery.

App: Science Journal

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Google Apps: Sharing

You can share files and folders with people and choose whether they can view, edit, or comment on them. Levels of access When you share a file with other people, you choose what they can do with the file. You can always change your mind or stop sharing completely. Choose if others can edit, comment, or view.

How To: Sharing in Google Apps

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Rewordify.com

Rewordify.com is a free website that can intelligently simplify difficult English, for faster comprehension. This website will work on chromebooks, iPads or any computer. You can upload or copy and paste hard sentences (or whole chapters) into the yellow box at the top of the page. The reworded words are highlighted— click them to hear and learn the original harder word. ELA/ELL

About: Rewordify

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Canva

Canva provides teachers and students with a simple, drag and drop way to create presentations, posters, one-page documents, and social media posts. Students can log in with their google accounts and create designs. They can provide view-only access or give classmates or their teacher an opportunity to collaborate on the same design. Canva has multiple timeline and infographic templates including, timelines, posters and trifold brochures.

About: Canva

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EDpuzzle.com

Not every teacher wants to spend hours editing videos for their classroom. Edpuzzle makes creating interactive videos easy. EDpuzzle allows you to embed multiple choice and free response questions into YouTube, Vimeo, Khan Academy and others. Instead of just posting a link to YouTube EDpuzzle makes it easy for teachers to add comprehension checks for students as they watch.

How to: EDpuzzle

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Screencastify

Coming Soon This chrome extension allows you to record your Chrome tab, webcam and/or desktop screen. Easily create video recordings for video lesson tutorials, video presentations, video coaching and role playing training, or just about anything else that happens through a computer. You can save your recordings locally or directly to your Google Drive account. The free version allows you to record up to 10 minutes per video up to 50 recordings a month.

About: Screncastify

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Google Classroom

Google Classroom is a free, web-based platform that integrates your G Suite for Education account with all your G Suite services. These services include Google Docs, Gmail, and Calendar. Classroom saves time and paper, and makes it easy to create classes, distribute assignments, communicate, and stay organized.

How to: Google Classroom

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Chrome Extension: Draftback

Draftback Works on Chromebooks or any computer using the chrome browser. This chrome extension lets you play back any Google Doc’s revision history (for docs you can edit). It’s like being able to go back in time to look over your student’s shoulder as they write. It turns your student’s work into a video that will play back back their work at double time. You can see every edit, spelling correction or change in their paper. Draftback will also create graphs of the time spent working the the document. ELA/ELL

How to: Draftback Video

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forms.google.com

Coming Soon Creating quizzes with Google Forms.

About: Google Forms Quizzes

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Google Sites

New Google Sites is a free, website builder that integrates with your G Suite for Education. These services include Google Docs, Calendar, Maps and more.

How to: Google Sites


PowerTeacher: How to see assignment averages

The December 2016 update added several features to PowerTeacherPro including the assignment metrics page. Teachers are now able to view their class averages for individual assignments by clicking on the Class charm on the left side of the screen and selecting Assignment Metrics.

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PowerTeacher: How to see a dropped student's grades

If you have added a student during the quarter and want to look at their grades from the sending class you can do so via the quick lookup screen in GRADEBOOK. If you have dropped a student during the quarter and want to look at their grades you can do so via the student screen in GRADEBOOK.

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PowerTeacher: Creating extra credit assignments

In addition to allowing for extra credit points to be awarded when creating individual assignments teachers can create assignments that are extra credit within a category by starting with a score value of zero.

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PowerTeacher: How to clear a manual override

Problem: The student’s average in the Grade column does not update when new work is added and/or the letter and the number do not match for a single assignment or final grade. There is a dark triangle in the upper left corner of the grade window. Solution: Clear the manual override using the undo arrow in the Grade Entry Window.

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PowerTeacher: How to grade connection time

Connection Time is graded on a Pass, No Pass system. Most teachers use attendance and participation to determine this grade. You must grade your connection time each quarter. Connection time does not receive a midterm (X1) or final exam (X2) grade.

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PowerTeacher Pro: Setup

PowerTeacher Pro is the new version of the PowerTeacher Gradebook. This version of the gradebook will work on any device with an internet connection including: Windows and Mac computers, iOS and Android mobile devices, and Chromebooks. In addition to improved access there are many new features such as: Standards-based and traditional grading,Student performance displayed in graphs and charts,

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PowerTeacher: All students have 59% averages for Y1 grade

Problem: Students show a 59% Y1 average despite grades to the contrary.

Solution: Set Y1 term weighting to "Exact Value Earned." Explanation: "Exact Value Earned" Uses the student's calculated percent or numeric value from the reporting term to calculate the final grade. Example: 95.3% not just A. "Term weighting points" Maps the student's calculated grade for the Reporting Term to centered locations in the grade scale.

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PowerSchool: Attendance Comments

Problem: Viewing attendance comments from prior weeks. Single day attendance only allows you to see the past two days. Multi Day attendance does not show you comments. Reason: Students skip class or comes late with a pass...again. The teacher adds a comment to the attendance window.

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PowerSchool: Extra Credit

To create an extra credit assignment within a category.

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Khan Academy and College Board Accounts

A step by step guide to linking a student account at Khan and College board to Westhill

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How to play media clips in PowerPoint using Windows Media Player

I use a wireless presentation remote to control my lectures as it allows me to always be out in the room facing my class. As I am away from my desk I also prefer embedding my video clips directly in my PowerPoint lectures as it allows me to move seamlessly between media as I am teaching. With a click of the remote I can go to the next slide, directly into a video clip, and then back to notes without having to climb over desks to get back to my computer. The problem is PowerPoint 2010 is terrible at playing videos without crashing.

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Google Classroom: Assigning work to selected students

New Teachers now have more control over who sees individual assignments—meaning easier differentiation. When you create a post, assignment or question, you can choose whether to share it with a subset of students, or with the entire class. This enables teachers to deliver different collections of resources or assignments simultaneously, depending on student needs (special education or targeted make-up work for example).

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Chromebooks: Logging into a WHS chromebook

The first time a person uses a chromebook they must add their account. Your Google account is stored in the cloud which means wherever you log into Chrome all of your saved files, extensions, apps and settings will automatically download to that device.

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Scanning to USB on a Copy Machine

New The Xerox copiers are already networked and able to scan to our network H drives but to do so requires that you log in first. It is easier and less time consuming to scan directly to a usb stick. The document feeder will allow you to scan single or double sided papers and save to pdf.

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