PPS Instructional Technology

It's getting to be that next semester and you know you have classes you are suppose to teach, but you cannot find them in your gradebook anywhere, what's with that!? Well, it's possible that you are only looking at your "Current Term" classes and not "All Classes" . There are two places you may want to be able to view these courses. Location #1:   Teacher Quick Access Widget This teacher has a 2nd semester course that does not show up on her Quick Access widget. Hover over the curved arrow icon , which causes your widget menu to appear Click on the downward facing triangle icon (wedgie). This opens your widget options (below)   Check the classes you wish to see. In this case,  click on the class in term 3-4. Click Save When you return to your homescreen you will see your updated Teacher Quick Access Widget as does the teacher in this example. Location #2: Teacher Access From the home screen in Skywar...

As you prepare your classroom for the second semester, it may be necessary to see your second semester class rosters. We can accomplish this through the use of a report. Continue reading and I will show you how. (Update: This process is only necessary if you need future rosters. For current rosters you may use the existing templates.) From within the gradebook of your choosing... 1. Hover over Reports 2. Click on Class Roster (bottom) 3. On the report screen that appears, click "Add a new Template" 4. Provide a Template name (i.e. Second Semester Roster Report) 5. Choose "S2" from the dropdown for "Display Students Enrolled..." 6. Choose your report options (Note: I only selected "Last, First MI") 7. Save 8. Choose "Print" for a PDF version of your roster 9. Choose "Export to Excel" to generate/download a spreadsheet version (xls) This new report will be available for any class. Should...

Tired of the glazed stares and nodding heads in your classroom?  Could be that your students just need to activate their brains with some movement!   Check out these five great movement strategies to get students thinking from Teach Thought .

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/USMC-09611.jpg I always value the opportunity, as a teacher, to be able to teach my students about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  He was an inspiration who stood up for what is right, even though it wasn't popular.  In the classroom, we would do many activities involving Revered King in order to help my young students begin to understand how pivotal he was in our history.  We would watch the speech, read illustrated books on MLK, discuss what parts of Dr. King's dream have come true and what areas we are still working on as a society.  My kids would write their own speeches and present them to their classmates.  These would them be talking points that we could return through the rest of the year. In honor of Dr. King, here are some great ideas for sharing King's legacy with your students. 10 Inspirational Quotes fro Teachers from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - Have students pick one of these quotes and a...

Hey PPS Elementary Teachers! I know you are all anxious to get going on your report card comments.  As you begin working on them here are a few tips that should help make your life a little easier, and let's face it, we all can use tricks to help us work smarter not harder.  For a printer-friendly version of this tip, click here . Enter Comments in Learner Behaviors In order to have consistency and avoid repeated/lost comments, please be sure that you are going in to your Learner Behaviors gradebook to enter comments. Red means NOT saved! When you are adding comments in the individual child's comment screen and hit Okay, they will turn red on the main comment screen.  This means they are not saved yet.  Make sure you click SAVE at the top of the screen to save the comments.  Save often! Here is a quick video for PPS teachers to show you what I am talking about:  http://goo.gl/2MbBKx Want to create a template?  Use Apply to All button. Some...