Seeing Eye Nerd

We shut down schools in March. We're re-opening schools in November. This data is from the Johns Hopkins University web site, COVID-19 Dashboard, Nov. 29, 2020. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Thanksgiving 2020

Verifying DNS w/ Hover, Nov. 26, 2020

  1. Log into Hover (or another registrar)

  2. If you have more than one domain, select the one you want to edit.

  3. Select DNS

  4. Add a record

  5. Select Type (CNAME, TXT, etc.)

  6. If TXT record, Hostname is @.

  7. Copy/paste text from Google into the Content Box.

  8. 15 minutes is ok for TTL.

PSAT College Board Teacher Training, Oct. 11, 2018

Teacher (proctor) training for PSAT Go to collegeboard.org Log in Go to My Dashboard Test Administration Training for the SAT Suite of Assessments view all training options PSAT 78501, 449760, 10/10/18 PSAT 8/9 PSAT 8/9 Coordinator Training Launch allow flash Proctor

Colorbands, Dec. 1, 2017

  1. Log into DMAC, go to Data Export

  2. Under Student, select Local ID, First Name, Last Name, Enroll Date

  3. Choose grade level

  4. Under STAAR Assessments, select last year’s math and reading

  5. Export Options (top right corner), under Local Assessment Fields, select Teacher. Under State Assessment Fields, select Percent Score, Met Standard, and Scale Score.

  6. Choose one Local Assessment, or the Teacher field will not be included in the spreadsheet. (you’ll delete this data later)

  7. Click Download (top right corner). You now have an Excel spreadsheet in your downloads folder.

  8. You will want to edit the spreadsheet before the mail merge. First, delete all fields with the word “Local” assessment, but keep the field with Local Teacher. You don’t need local test data, but do want teacher’s name.

  9. Delete (or ignore) STAAR MA05 PcntScore, STAAR MA05 MetStrd, & STAAR RE05 PcntScore.

  10. Open the Word file, labeled something like 8 Math Scoreboard. It’ll have this at the top: 2017-2018 Texas ColorBands™

  11. In Word, click the Mailings tab.

  12. Begin the mail merge. Select Normal Word Document.

13. Under Select Recipients, select Use an Existing List (this may seem counter-intuitive, but the ‘recipient list’ is the place you’re “mailing” this information to. It’s actually the spreadsheet we’re pulling data from to fill into the Word document. If it helps, think of it like this: the Excel spreadsheet has all the address labels for people we’re sending Christmas cards to. The Word document is the Avery address labels we’re printing.


14. You can use the Highlight Merge Fields to see what fields on the Colorbands sheet you’re merging.

15. Next, scroll through the pages by clicking the arrows next to Preview Results.

16. If you’re satisfied that all is well, it’s time to print.

17. Go make a sandwich and take a nap. Printing takes a while. I used a new Windows 10 laptop with a Dell Color Cloud Multifunction Printer – H625cdw, which is a very fast office printer. Took at least an hour to print each subject (reading/math) per grade level.

Tests I Administer, October 4, 2017

  • Exam for Acceleration/Credit By Exam – summer, and every 3 months

  • iStation – for 7th grade students who did not pass 6th grade Reading STAAR

  • NAEP – National Association for Education Progress – 8th grade only

  • PSAT 8/9 – Preliminary SAT – for 8th grade only

  • TELPAS

  • STAAR

  • STAAR Alt 2

  • District Benchmark tests

  • Local DMAC tests


New Chapter, July 29, 2017

As of July 2017, I am no longer the webmaster at region15band.com. I created the site back in the 1995-1996 school year. It went through many different designs and styles. In the beginning the site was hosted by AOL, something like aol.com/members/rbx550 (I think). RBX550 refers to the model of my bass guitar.

At some point I taught myself HTML and how to register a domain name. Not easy, but it made the site much more interesting. Learning how to code nav menus was really trying. Then along came WordPress. I began using it somewhere around 2010 or so. I’ll never forget the feeling of editing the site in the browser. That was a huge game changer, considering what I had to do before that (write code on one computer, ftp it up to the site, etc.)

Then in 2014 I got the crazy idea to get my masters in educational administration. Somehow I graduated and I’m now the Campus Testing Coordinator at Cathey MS, where I was previously the assistant band director for 7 years and head band director for another 7 years. Now that I’m not in music any more, I had to give up publishing the site. Very sad, as I miss publishing (and teaching band, tabulating contests, and all that went with that) but I am now looking forward to a new career where I don’t ride school buses, keep grade books, or deal with unruly students. New career, new challenges, new beginnings.

this site: https://sites.google.com/view/jonkingston