First Day(s) of School

Tech Tips 2019

From Wednesday, October 9, 2019

  • Yesterday, there was an intermittent problem with Spiceworks where the 'Submit' button was not working. We think that is fixed now. Only if you are unable to submit a Tech Help Desk/Spiceworks ticket, please email jpullins@bloomfield.k12.nj.us directly.
  • TEACHERS AND STAFF SHOULD ALWAYS ONLY USE THEIR OWN PASSWORDS AND ACCOUNTS TO ACCESS POWERSCHOOL, AESOP, AND OTHER DISTRICT SYSTEMS. Be sure you are sending Gmail from your district account when emailing fellow staff or students or parents on school business. NEVER use another person's account for attendance, grade entry, or absence recording, etc. If you do not have requisite access, submit a Tech Help Desk/Spiceworks ticket, or report the issue to your Principal or Supervisor. In Spiceworks, there are dropdowns for reporting issues with SmartBoards/Epson LCDs, PowerSchool, Chromebooks, phones, passwords, and tech-related matters.
  • Mrs. Hughes Tech Tuesday on efficiently searching Google Drive: tips and tricks.
  • Last week, there was an intermittent, irritating interruption in Gmail on PC's and laptops (just Windows devices). We think that has been fixed. But if you see some kind of error message on your PC or laptop in Gmail Inbox -about 'Connectivity'- or your mail spins without delivering or sending email, try closing the browser session entirely and starting again. If that does not work, for just awhile, you might try using another browser: Firefox. If prompted, log into the filter with your username and password and run just Gmail from there. The system corrects after a few hours. This impacts only PC and laptop users.
  • Remember to send any SMART Notebook files that you want converted to PowerPoint, or Slides, or PDF (whatever is possible) as attachments to smart@bloomfield.k12.nj.us.

From Tuesday, September 24, 2019

  • Mrs. Hughes Tech Tuesday on a new feature with Google Forms
Google Forms Now Has a Feature to Import Questions from Other Forms

From Friday, September 20, 2019

  • School offices can generate a list of all students with current Lunch Status by following these directions:
  1. In the PowerSchool Admin portal for the school, select all students.
  2. Click on Quick Export.
  3. Into the box for 'Export Fields' type or copy/paste the following -
Student_Number
Last_Name
First_Name
LunchStatus
lunchapplicno
Balance1

4. Click Export and retrieve the file as usual.

Please note you can add as many other fields to the above extract as possible, including Homeroom.

LunchStatus will be F for Free, R for Reduced, or P for Full Pay. If the Lunch Application Number is blank with a status of either F, or R, then families have until 10/18 to reapply for the year. The Balance1 field includes the student's balance as of the previous night.

Note also that there are two Stored Searches in PowerSchool Admin Portal that can be run at any time: Lunch Status: Unsubmitted Free and Reduced, which show all students with carry-over status from last year who have not yet submitted for the new year.

Individual student Lunch Status information is found in PowerSchool on the Student Screen titled "Lunch" under the 'Administration' group of screens in the Admin Portal.

Karen will go over the process with Secretaries at the next monthly training.

From Thursday, September 19, 2019

  • Teachers with old Smart Notebook files that have to be converted to editable PowerPoints or Google Slides should SEND AN EMAIL TO SMART@BLOOMFIELD.K12.NJ.US WITH THE ONE OR TWO FILES TO BE CONVERTED ATTACHED TO THE EMAIL. submit a Spiceworks ticket, as Category, then select 'Smart NB Conversion,' and Please ATTACH ONLY UP TO TWO (2) OLD SMART NOTEBOOK files for conversion. Please note-
  1. The Notebook files will be converted as expeditiously as possible and returned via email;
  2. Please send only two files at most at one time and do not send any more, until the first two are returned (this will allow the techs to handle some from each teacher without being overwhelmed by a single teacher);
  3. The returned files will be in PowerPoint and/or Google Slides format, editable by the teacher, and the Librarians and Tech Coaches will be able to help with polishing them for classroom use.
  1. Copy the URL of the web site.
  2. Go to translate.google.com. You don't need a Google account to access it, because it's free to all.
  3. At the top, on the left, choose the language you want to see the website in.
  4. Click Translate.
  5. Then click the 'Pop-Out' link to view the translated web page.
  • Google's Translation Services are notoriously imprecise, but usually broadly communicate the sense of the original.
Pop-Out Button

From Tuesday, September 17, 2019

The published Tech Note from PowerSchool About the Demise of the iOS Mobile Teacher App applies only to teachers on the old gradebook (PowerTeacher Gradebook) not the newer, web-based PowerTeacher Pro. This announcement should not impact any Bloomfield Teachers.

Mrs. Hughes Tuesday Tech Tips for Today.

Update to T-Eval Observation System

  • It is unnecessary to print and sign completed observations. Follow these directions to generate digitally signed PDFs that will be retained by Personnel as the formal submission of the observation. Note that both the teacher and administrator must check the box acknowledging the inclusion of the digital time stamp before either can click "Submit."

From Friday, September 13, 2019

Keeping Parents/Guardians informed about student work. There are three (3) -soon to be four (4)- ways to keep parents and guardians informed about student work and performance.

  • First, have the parent/guardian sign-up for an account on the PowerSchool Parent Portal. Over 83% of parents district-wide (almost 100% in most elementary schools) already have these accounts for checking on student grades, homeworks, absences, school bulletins, emergency contact information, lunch and fee balances, teacher comments and other information from PowerSchool. All a parent has to do is obtain from the school office the 'Access Code' and 'Password' for their child and then go the PowerSchool Parent Portal and follow the directions on the "Create Account" tab.
  • Second, Parents and guardians can receive summaries of work assigned in Google Classroom. The only drawback to setting this up for parents is that you, as the teacher, must enter the parent/guardian email address for each student. You can obtain the existing parent email addresses for any student from the list on the T: drive in the file named Query1ParentEmails.xlsx in the folder T:\Universal\155BroadBOE\PS_GuardianEmails. Or you could just ask the student to provide you the parent email address to use in Google. You only have to do this once for your class. To enter this parent email address, just go to the Students menu on Google Classroom, and click the “Invite Guardians” link next to any student’s name to add their parent/guardian. Any email address will do—a Gmail account is not required, but does give the parents more options. The process is explained in more detail in this article. You might want to notify parents with the following information that they have to 'accept' the email invitation to setup and start receiving the Guardian notifications from Google Classroom:

How Guardians start receiving email summaries

As a guardian, you must receive and accept an email invitation before you can receive email summaries. Only teachers and administrators from your student’s school can send these invitations.

You have 120 days to accept an invitation before it expires.

  1. The teacher or administrator emails you an invitation for a particular student.
  2. They can send it to any email address.
  3. In your email program, open your email invitation.
  4. Click Accept.
  5. If you’re not the guardian, click I’m Not The Guardian.
  6. Click Accept again.
  7. (Optional) To access the email summary settings page, create a Google Account.

When you accept an invitation, you, your student, and the person who invited you (the teacher or administrator) receives an email confirmation.

See this link on Google Support for more information.

  • The third and fourth way to keep parents in the loop about their child's performance in school is through your use of SchoolMessenger to email parents directly from PowerSchool Teacher and inviting them to sign-up for a report on student behavior on their Chromebooks after school hours in the Securly Parent Portal. Librarians will go over the SchoolMessenger option during the October 14 PD Day and report back to their schools. The Securly report will only open to parents of students in 6th through 12th grade, and be available by January, when 6th grade students begin to take home their Chromebooks.

From Thursday, September 12, 2019:

From Tuesday, September 10, 2019:

From Thursday, September 5, 2019:

  • The District allows unlimited access to Teachers for YouTube, and limited access to Netflix, but no access to other high-definition, commercial content providers, such as HBO, Showtime, Hulu, etc. Allowing access to those services would cause bandwidth problems for the thousands of other users on the network at the same time. (By the way, teachers approvals of YouTube videos for students have been carried over from last year, but after a discussion with the District Tech Committee in the fall we will be purging the approval list and asking teachers to 're-approve' the videos to which students have access. We have detected some questionable videos available to students and want to start afresh, once everyone has been notified.)
  • Students and new staff do NOT have 'Home' directories on the networked P: drive. We ask everyone to use Google Drive, which provides unlimited storage to authorized education users, to store files. Staff here prior to 2017 generally have 'Home' directories on the P: drive, but may need to follow the directions below to map their computers updated to Windows 10:
  1. Log into your Windows 10 PC/Mini or Windows laptop.
  2. Launch File Manager (the folder icon in the task bar at the bottom of the screen)
  3. Click on 'This PC' (in the middle of the screen)
  4. Click at the top on the tab for 'Map Network Drive.'
  5. From the drop-down, select P: and into the second text box enter your usename (e.g., JSmith) after this \\ADS-FS1\Home\JSmith (If teachers receive a message about 'Access Denied' or 'Permissions Required' -and they are sure that they previously had files on a P: drive- create a Spiceworks ticket and indicate that you need 'permissions restored' to your home drive. Again, this presumes that you previously had files.)
  6. Leave the other fields as you found them.

Again, teachers and students and staff are asked to take advantage of Google drive for file storage and access, but 'older' staff can access legacy files on the network by mapping the above drive. (For added extra credit, for the intrepid, the mapped location of the T: drive is \\Bloomfield_ed\directory\share, but in general that shared T: drive would only be used by office staff, administrators and librarians.)

From Wednesday, September 4, 2019:

  • If you change your password in Power School (from the Personalize button on the left), it must be at least eight (8) characters in length. Network/Google passwords do not (yet) HAVE to be that length, but it is recommended.
  • If you inadvertently type your password into the text-box for Username in Power School, or any app, then -in Google Chrome- you have to go to Settings (from the three dots at the top), Privacy & Security, and 'Clear Browsing Data.' You must click on 'Advanced' and then be sure to check: Clear Passwords & Login Information. Click 'Clear Data' at the bottom of the screen.
  • SEE UPDATE ABOVE ABOUT SUBMITTING SMART NOTEBOOK FILES VIA SPICEWORKS. To use the Smart Notebook Express web site in Chrome, go to http://express.smarttech.com/# -note that there is a pound-sign at the end- http://express.smarttech.com/# . Click on "Activate Adobe Flash" and pay attention to the blinking or red notice at the top of the screen that you must 'activate' Flash. When the button appears to 'Manage' Flash, click on it, then change the setting to 'Always Ask.' THEN RETURN TO THE ORIGINAL WEB PAGE, WITH THE #: http://express.smarttech.com/# OR http://express.smarttech.com/# . If the same notice appears to "Activate," refresh the page and repeat the process. You have to enable the Flash extension in the browser and for the web page. Always return to the original page: http://express.smarttech.com/# or http://express.smarttech.com/# . When you refresh the page, the Notebook Express application will open. (Please note: The Express app is a discontinued Beta, and Adobe Flash is going away for good next year. Teachers with old Smart Notebook pages should follow the steps to convert their files to Google.)
  • Setting up the IPEVO document cameras -mostly in the elementary schools- requires two steps. First, be sure that "sync" is active on your computer. Go to your photo in the top right and click 'Sync' if it is not activated. Second, drag an icon from the Start Menu to your desktop, as Mr. John Walsh shows in this video.
  • Teachers of K-8 students can follow these directions to generate a list of student account usernames and passwords. The offices and librarians can also generate this list for you.
  • Please note: Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge and any other browser, other than Google Chrome, are not recommended for use with Power School or Google Education Suite. Chrome is really the only browser that you need.
  • Google allows you to export any Doc, Sheet, or Slides Presentation as a Word Doc, Excel Spreadsheet, or PowerPoint. Merely click File, Download and select the appropriate file type. Moreover, you can open any of the above Microsoft documents in Google. Merely upload the file into your Google Drive (File, New, Upload) and click Open. You can edit the file and let it remain as a Microsoft file,or convert it to Google for more options. In general however, since all the students, and most of the teachers have Chromebooks, it is strongly recommended that you work exclusively in Google and away from Microsoft. But you do have the option to work with Microsoft files, especially if a vendor requires submission of a file in Microsoft format.
  • If you have trouble printing from Chrome (whether on a Chromebook, or in Chrome browser on a laptop), update Chrome by following these steps (courtesy of Mr. Kamau Cooper):
  1. Go to the three dots at the top of your screen to access the Menu
  2. Click Help> then About Google Chrome.
  3. This will check for updates.
  4. If prompted, elect to install updates.
  5. You might have to restart the browser session.