June is Internet Safety Month

Celebrate with Be Internet Awesome! Be Internet Awesome teaches kids the fundamentals of digital citizenship and safety so they can explore the online world with confidence in an engaging way. New to the program is a Family Guide, which gives families the tools and resources to learn about online safety and citizenship at home; a Quick Tips Guide, which provides five quick tips to help you be safe, smart and positive online. Check these resources out!

WLCSD Cyberbullying Website Launched!

A new cyberbullying website aimed at providing helpful information for students, teachers, and parents. The website is organized into four age-range areas; little kids, big kids, tweens, and teens. Each section providing age appropriate resources and tools to help students understand the effects of cyberbullying and how to prevent it from happening. The site is a guide to educate the WLCSD community about cyberbullying. We feel it’s important to begin the conversation early and to continue to learn and talk about cyberbullying on a regular basis as kids interact in an increasingly online world. Check out the new cyberbullying website, along with its corresponding handout.

Google Classroom End-of-the-Year Recommendations

As you begin to wrap up the end of the school year, let’s do a couple things to clean up and prepare for 2019-20!

Here is a step-by-step handout to guide you through the process of returning all assignments, hiding Google Classroom Calendars, unenrolling students, and archiving courses. You will be able to access archived course content at any time.

Classlink Update

On Wednesday, December 19th, your App Library will look different. There will be a global library called All Apps. Your district library and Add Your Own App will show as usual. Searching will be smarter and categories are available in the search bar.

Info about the new App Library

Ditch That Textbook Digital Summit

Matt Miller hosts an online conference that is really good; it runs from December 14-31, with one presentation a day (45-60 min in length). You can attend one or all of them. The video presentations will be available until the summit closes on Dec. 31. If you are interested, click on the link below to register. You will receive the links to the ones that have already happened.

Register to attend

Learning Supports for all WLCSD Students

There are a number of new features that have been added to Snap&Read and Co:Writer over the past few months. These tools are available to ALL students and staff and can make a significant and positive difference in student learning. If you have not checked out these tools lately, it is time to take another look and share the benefits with students!

• Snap&Read is a universal learning tool for reading and study skills. It reads both accessible and inaccessible text aloud, levels vocabulary, and translates. New features: picture dictionary, reading line guides, distractions remover, and ability to write on & save PDFs. Additionally, this tool delivers usage data to teachers who then can more easily assess students’ reading needs individually. See more info about all of the features here.
• Co:Writer is a universal learning tool for writing. Co:Writer uses grammar and vocabulary-smart word prediction, translation support, and speech recognition to help get student ideas out in their writing. Co:Writer helps give them the words and phrases they are intending as they type—even if their grammar and spelling are way off. Students just type a letter or two and Co:Writer “predicts” words and phrases in real time. See more info about all of the features here.

Safari Montage Easy Uploader

A recent Safari Montage update included enhancements to the way users upload and share files on Safari Montage. Your dashboard now includes an Easy Upload icon.

You can now drag & drop or select a file for upload. Then you add info about the document and share it with your school or district (if desired) in one spot! You can save it or save and add standards correlations. This is a huge improvement. Check it out!

New Feature in Google Slides: Automatic Close Captioning!

Closed captions are helpful for people who are hearing impaired, but also for students in a busy classroom! The combination of audio and visuals create the best learning environment for students. Next time you are using a Google Slides presentation during a lesson, you have to try this out!

To activate this feature, put the presentation in Present Mode by clicking the Present button. A black toolbar will appear at the bottom of the screen. Click the "CC" button. You may be prompted to allow access to your microphone. Your computer's microphone will then pick up on what you're saying while you are presenting. It then transcribes your speech as captions, which appear on the slides you're presenting in real time.

WLCSD Chrome Startup Page Changes

Classlink is a one click single sign-on solution that gives students and teachers access to apps, files, and school work -- anytime, on any device. From ClassLink, users can create buttons that automatically sign them into all accounts and websites. Users can also access school H drives and any shared network folders.

• Student Chrome Home and Startup pages have been set to the WLCSD Classlink login page. This will make it easier for them to access educational tools and resources.
• Teachers Chrome Home pages have been set to the WLCSD Classlink login page. Teachers can click on the Home icon on the URL bar to easily access Classlink. Startup pages can still be customized.

Those who have never logged onto Classlink before, click the "WLCSD Get Started Guide" located on the red bar at the top of the page for simple instructions on how to access and use Classlink.

Hour of Code: December 3-9, 2018

Are you interested in trying out some coding activities during Hour of Code week? You do not have to know much about coding do it! See the participation guide for tips.

You might try a one-hour tutorial (there are a variety, designed for all ages). Join millions of students and teachers in over 180 countries!

Report your hour of code plan for a chance to win robots and circuits!

Hour of Code Tips and Resources from the Oakland Schools Digital Learning Consultants

Want to keep learning? Go beyond an hour.

Strategy for Removing YouTube Distractions: Embed the Video into a Google Slides File

Below is a simple strategy for removing distractions such as the “Up Next” videos that appear on the right or comments that appear under YouTube videos. Step-by-step instructions:

1. Find the YouTube video you wish to show or send to students and copy the URL.
2. Open a Google Slides file and name it with the topic of the video.
3. Change the slide layout to Blank.
4. Insert > Video.
   1. Click the “By URL” tab.
   2. Paste the YouTube video URL into the box.
   3. Click the blue “Select” button.
5. If desired, resize the video by dragging a corner out.
6. Share the Slides file with “Anyone in WL Schools with the link”
7. To view the video in full screen view, click the Present button.

October Tips & Tricks

Connectivity Issues

If you are experiencing a problem getting students connected to the Internet, try staggering the login process as a short term solution. Then it is very important to report the problem by using a helpdesk ticket. A network connectivity report can be run, and if needed, more wireless access points can be installed.

Classlink Tips

1. Be careful about logging onto Classlink for the first time. If, for example, you mistakenly enter your Skyward login info, and then give permission to your browser to save the (wrong) password, you will be locked out of the WLCSD network. If this happens, call the IT Dept Emergency line to get unlocked. Remember to log into Classlink with your network account (firstnamelastname/______).
2. Do not save your Classlink password in your browser.
3. Consider unlinking your Google account. It's easy to link and unlink your Google account in the signin options when needed.
4. When you are away from your computer, use Windows + L.

Google Classroom

New Features Summer 2018

See article from Technology and Learning magazine by Eric Curts. Updates include: new Classwork page, streamlined Stream page, new People page, new Settings page, depreciated About page, quick switch option when grading, feedback options when grading, ability to copy a class, and the ability to disable notification for an entire class.

Parent/Guardian Email Summaries

If a teacher invites a parent/guardian to do so, parents/guardians can join Classroom to receive regular, automatic email summaries for each of their children. They can choose the frequency of the emails, daily or weekly, and can unsubscribe at any time.

When guardians join Classroom, they receive regular, automatic email summaries for each of their students. Guardians choose the frequency of the emails—daily or weekly—and can unsubscribe at any time. Guardian email summaries include:

• Missing work—Work that’s late at the time the email was sent
• Upcoming work—Work that’s due today and tomorrow (for daily emails) or work that’s due in the upcoming week (for weekly emails)
• Class activity—Announcements, assignments, and questions recently posted by teachers

This how-to handout can be used if parents need help in signing up once they are invited.

What's New in GSuite: Quick Access Panel

You will notice a quick-access side panel to the Docs editors and Google Calendar to help you quickly access other G Suite products without leaving what you’re working on. You’ll be able to access three G Suite products from Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings:

• Google Calendar: Quickly reference, create or edit invites.
• Google Keep: Easily take notes, create lists, and see your other content.
• Google Tasks: Manage your tasks and to-dos.

Classlink: a One-Click Sign-in Solution for Websites, Files, and Schoolwork!

Classlink is a one click single sign-on solution that gives students and teachers access to apps, files, and school work -- anytime, on any device. From ClassLink, you can create links that automatically sign you into all your websites and your Windows software.

Log onto Classlink

WLCSD Quickguide

Update Your Staff Profile Page & Link Your Teacher Website to it

Please take a moment to look at your “teacher profile” page on the district staff directory. Remember this is the first place parents click to learn about you and get connected to your website or other means of communication. See instructions here.

Fall 2018 Updates to Google Classroom

• Single view of student work: To help teachers track individual student progress, there is now a dedicated page for each student in Classroom that shows all of their work in a class. With this new view, teachers and students can see the status of every assignment, and can use filters to see assigned work, missing work, or returned and graded work. Teachers and students can use this information to make personalized learning decisions that help students set goals and build skills that will serve them in the future.
• Reorder classes: Teachers can now order their classes to organize them based on daily schedule, workload priorities or however will help them keep organized throughout the school year. And students can use this feature too.
• Decimal grading: As teachers know, grading is often more complicated than a simple point value. To be as accurate with feedback as possible, educators can now use decimal points when grading assignments in Google Classroom.
• Transfer class ownership: Things can change a lot over the summer, including who’s teaching which class. Now, admins and teachers can transfer ownership of Google Classroom classes to other teachers, without the need to recreate the class. The new class owner can get up to speed quickly with a complete view of past student work and resources in Drive.
• Display class code: Joining Google Classroom classes is easier than ever thanks to this new update. Teachers can now display their class code in full screen so students can quickly join new classes.

See more info on the Google for Education blog.

Google Classroom: Clean up Last Year's Classes

• Return all work to students (otherwise you are the owner of the files, and if you delete the files, they are deleted for all).
• Remove/Un-enroll Students
• Hide the Classroom calendar in Google Calendar
• Archive your classes

See step-by-step instructions here.

Elementary School Playlists in Safari Montage

Pam Shoemaker has put together some resources and lesson ideas in Safari Montage that you can use. Playlist items may include short video clips, discussion questions, SmartBoard interactive learning activities, and more. Click the links below, and log into Safari Montage. Log in with your WL network username and password (not Google)

Digital Citizenship K-2 Playlist

Digital Citizenship 3-5 Playlist

Dr. Seuss Playlist. Featured item: One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish sorting activity

**Be sure to go to “classic view” to see instructions, attachments and lesson ideas (see screenshot on right).