Fall 2019 Tech News

Teacher Edition

Table of Contents

Non-Flash Reports Available in PowerSchool for Teachers

Teachers can access all of the reports listed on the right in PowerTeacher (where they take attendance, before going into Gradebook). After logging into PowerTeacher, click on 'sql Reports 5' on the left of the screen, then expand the link for 'New Reports.'

All of the reports have been updated to run in 'Non-Flash' mode -signified by the blue icon.

For any report, select parameters from the drop-down and click the Submit button. To export the results as PDF or as a CSV file, click the Select button, and then click to exclude any rows that you do not want included. Finally, click PDF or CSV.

Some of the more valuable reports include "Alerts List" which provides any Guardian, Medical, or Other (which includes SpEd Classification) for students in your class. K-5 teachers can run more detailed reports in Gradebook on Student Progress in Standards, but also view the data in summary form with "Standards Grades Breakdown by Section" for a Student. Teachers in 6-12 can run equivalent reports for Traditional Grading with "Current Grades."

All teachers can view student history in Standardized Tests with "Student Test Scores."

[Administrators have equivalent reports in the Admin Portal of PowerSchool, under System Reports, sql5 Reports, under expandable links for Admin, or Standards. Use only the reports with the blue icon for 'Non-Flash.']

Non-Flash

School-Wide Search for Students in PT

Now in PowerTeacher, just below the now available link for 'sQL5 Reports' there is a ink for 'Directory Search.'

This allows teachers to see a directory listing of all students at their school. They can do a search or filter on first name, last name, grade level, gender, or student number. On the row with the student name are links to popups that show demographics information (including photo), list schedule, weekly (bell) schedule, and where the student can currently be found (Find Me).

Simple Directions for Using Screencastify

We recently received an email from Screencastify, our application for creating videos on the Chromebooks and in Chrome browser:

We hope you’re FALLing 🍂 in love with Screencastify and taking advantage of the Premium features. For a lot of teachers, making your first Screencastify video can be a little scary 🎃- so we teacher-sourced the 2 easiest ways to incorporate video into your classroom (seriously, it’s super easy!).

Instructional Videos - Instructional videos enable students to learn at their own pace, whenever and wherever they prefer. It also helps save your voice from repeating instructions 🎉

Student Feedback - When grading essays, reports, or projects - try recording with Screencastify to give more personalized feedback. Students love hearing your voice and seeing your face (even if you don’t! 😊).

Got the hang of these? Check out the e-book: 50 Ways to Use Screencastify in the Classroom

Setting Up PK-5 Gradebooks Without Percentages

The single-page directions for setting up the Gradebook for PK-5 teachers grading with Standards has been modified to emphasize how to avoid displaying percentages in the Parent Portal. The steps are detailed and include screen prints.

But, if you are in a hurry - here are the steps in abbreviated form to both setting up and using the PK-5 Gradebook NOT to display percentages or any numbers in the Parent Portal -

For setting up the Gradebook -

  1. Go to Settings, Display Settings, and uncheck 'Show Traditional Grades,' be sure to check both 'Show Standards Pages and Links' and 'Show Standards on Assignments' and, most importantly, set 'Auto-Calculate Assignment Standards Scores Initial State' to 'New Assignments Start Checked.'
  2. Go to Settings, Standards Grade Calculations and for each class set 'Default Calculation' to 'Most Recent Scores' and the 'Number of Scores' to 1, or 2, or whatever.
  3. Finally, for each of your Categories, click Grading, Categories, and edit existing or create new ones under the tab for 'Assignment Defaults' to 'Points' and '4' points and be sure to uncheck 'Count in Final Grade.'
  4. (While you are in Settings, you might go to Display and Class Descriptions to enter 'Custom Class Names' for your classes, especially if you are a special area teacher.)

When using the Gradebook -

  1. Create a new Assignment with Category defaults (i.e., 4 points, not to Count in Final Grade) and be certain to select standards for the Assignment on the Standards tab and then under the sub-tab for 'Show Selected Standards' be sure to check 'Auto-Calculate Assignment Standards Scores.'
  2. When you score your Assignment with a 1, 2, 3, or 4, the Associated Standards will automatically score, but you can change any specific score.
  3. When finished scoring, SAVE YOUR WORK (i.e., save your standard scores). Then delete the Assignment Score and elect to 'Keep Existing [Standards] Scores.' This will eliminate the last and only number, so no percentage or numeric score will appear anywhere; yet you will have a full set of scored standards.

It really is a great practice to include Comments for individual students in your grade for the Assignment. Parents certainly like to see them. If you do include comments for students in their assignment scores, then you have to 'Publish' the scores -which is fine, as long as you go through the process above about deleting the Assignment score of 1-4 after you have saved the standards scores. If you don't delete the Assignment score of 1-4, then -when you publish the Assignment score- the parents will see for that particular Assignment a score of 4, 3, 2, or 1, and a percentage of 100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, or 0%, respectively. You do not want a number to appear anywhere in your Gradebook. However, if you are not using Comments in Assignments, you can opt to leave the Assignment score, as long as you do not Publish the Assignment. The Standards that you scored with the Assignment will be scored and visible in the Parent Portal, but the Assignment -while with a score of 1-4- will remain without a score in the Parent Portal, because you chose not to Publish. . . .So . . .It is great and good to include Comments for students with Assignments, but remember to delete the Assignment score, after saving the Standard scores. But if you do not use Comments, you could instead leave the Assignment score and simply choose not to Publish that Assignment.

If any teacher or group of PK-5 teachers would want extra instruction on this setup and use of the Gradebook with Standards, contact either Angela Brisini, or Tom Atkinson.

BTA Archive of Attendances

Over the summer, the Bloomfield Teacher Academy passed a milestone of 5000 attendances since the spring of 2016, when it started.

Altogether, over those nine terms (spring 2015 through summer 2019), 624 teachers and staff attended one or more of 537 courses, for a total of 5239 registrations.

Great, great thanks goes to Mrs. Carolyn Caggiano for single-handedly processing all of those compensation reports and correcting errors in even the most carefully automated process.

We can only fit up to 5000 records on one of Bloomfield's beloved SharePoint lists, so the 4366 attendances of all staff from spring 2015 to the spring 2019 are now available for recording PD hours here. You can filter for an individual attendances, or for a course, or an instructor. When this 2019-20 year is over, we will start another list to record this year's attendances.

First Meeting of District Faculty Tech Committee

Here is the list of District Tech Committee members for 2019-20. The first meeting of the year will be next week. Please contact them with any concerns or questions related to Technology -and please thank them for the service!

Tech Support Updates

  • There had been problems with the 'Submit' button in Spiceworks. That issue has been resolved. Please use Spiceworks for submitting all tech related support issues, including phones.
  • We continue NOT to max out our Internet bandwidth, so any latency that users experience in their classrooms are due to local issues, either excessive traffic on the floor or in the school, or with a particular Access Point. Please submit a Spiceworks ticket for such delays so that we can troubleshoot and see if the issue is related to a defective AP.
  • There had been a problem with GMail running in Chrome browser on Windows PCs and laptops. That issue too has been resolved.
  • Please continue to send any Smart Notebook files that you want converted to PDF, or Google Slides, or PowerPoint as attachments to smart@bloomfield.k12.nj.us.
  • It used to be common for pages or images scanned at the Ricoh MFC's to land in the SPAM folder, from which you had to retrieve them. That should not be necessary any longer. As long as you use your own PaperCut code, any pages or images that you scan at a Ricoh MFC will be delivered to your Inbox. (Thanks to Kamau Cooper for his work on that problem.)
  • Anyone still using a computer or laptop with Windows 7 MUST report it to Tech for upgrade. Please submit a Spiceworks ticket and be ready to surrender the device for a brief period of time. These Windows 7 devices have to be updated by January.
  • Anyone needing an updated ID card should send a selfie (suitable for ID card posting) as an attachment to boeid@bloomfield.k12.nj.us. Please MAKE SURE THAT THE SUBJECT LINE OF YOUR EMAIL WITH THE ATTACHED PHOTO HAS YOUR FULL NAME AND THAT THE BODY OF THE EMAIL HAS YOUR FULL NAME, JOB TITLE, AND BUILDING. Arrangements will be made for the staff member to pick up the ID.
  • PLEASE REMEMBER TO shut down the mini PC's attached to your SmartBoard or Epson projector every Friday and then start them up on Monday when you return from the weekend. There is no good reason to leave them running over the weekend.