Remind Chat and Common Sense Media Partnership

For all those Remind users out there...read this article!
(Formerly, Remind 101)

So perhaps you have heard that Remind will soon begin offering a chat feature for teachers to stay in better contact with students and parents. When I first heard of this new tool I will be honest, I thought it was a horrible idea! My reasons for that thought are that communication between staff and students should always be of the utmost professional quality and, well, with chat I could see professional and informal lines becoming blurred as well as potential for putting educators and students at risk. Sorry, I'm just a very protective person and if I can help someone avoid a pitfall, I am compelled to do so.

However! Remind really impressed me by partnering with CommonSense.org, a respected non-profit that works tirelessly to protect children in this new digital age. What did CommonSense do for Remind? They developed a week long introduction to Remind Chat with daily subject material about digital citizenship while introducing new features within Chat. I really respect a company that has enough foresight to see that, used improperly, their product could cause harm and, therefore, took direct measures to teach users the best way in which to use their product.

If you are a Remind user and are considering using Remind Chat, I highly recommend that you read this article from CommonSense.

Good Luck and Safe Computing!

Comments

Google Docs: Fonts for Early Elementary

Sample of search results from fonts.google.com A couple weeks ago, I was sitting in a training with a bunch of my favorite lower elementary teacher friends, and several of them were lamenting the fact that it is hard to find "good" Google fonts for the little people they work with on a daily basis. Specifically, it is a challenge to find the single story lower case a and the open 4 . This conversation, of course, sent me out on a mission to remedy this for these fantastic people. So, the next day I put on my headphones, turned up the tunes on Spotify, and dived into the website fonts.google.com . This website lists all the Google fonts available. It also allows you to type in your own letters and numbers and see them in all the various fonts. For my purpose, I typed in "abckgy 1234 This is the font." From here I could see all 877 fonts, and look specifically for the a and the 4. It was quite an adventure, and I came across a lot of really awesome font

It's time to change your password!

There are several times a year when it is important to change your password. Your password will expire every 90 days. When your windows computer informs you that your password will be expiring soon, CHANGE IT THEN! It is also always a good idea to change your password before going on break so that you do not get locked out of your computer, email or gradebook. Here is how you change your password from the school windows computers. On your Windows desktop/TEC computer , press the Alt, Ctrl and Delete buttons at the same time. Click on "Change a Password" on the menu below: Enter your username, if needed, and follow the directions on screen. If you are off site or working solely on a Chromebook , you can use the VDI (Virtual Desktop) to change your password. Simply go to vdi.portageps.org. Click "VMware Horizon HTML Access." Click "Accept." Login with your portage username (leave off the @portageps.org) and password. Click "Login." Cli

Skyward Tech Tip: Unlocking a Closed Grade Period

Have you recently attempted to change a grade from last quarter only to be met with the statement “ This Grade Period is closed for Grade Entry “? This occurs because the date for the end of a marking period or quarter has past and that grading period has been locked in the Skyward Gradebook. Below you will find the process for changing term grades, assignment scores, and other information from past grading periods. Google Docs Version Go to your gradebook Let’s start with the gradebook for the class where you need to make a change. In this example, we will be adding a score to a missing assignment and removing the incomplete grade from the quarter grade. (Note: The process to open or unlock the gradebook is the same regardless the change you need to make.) This change will be made for marking period three, Q3. In that marking period column, click on the “Options” dropdown button. From the Options dropdown, choose “Grade Posting Status for Term QX”, whe

PPS Instructional Technology

Search This Blog