PPS Instructional Technology

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...

The comments section of the elementary report card is probably the section that is the most read by the parents.  Therefore, it is important to proofread your comments carefully.  Sometimes it is easier to proofread the comments when you don't have all the other parts of the report card distracting you.  Here is a quick way to run a report that includes only the comments.  To see the video directions, click here . Step 1: Open your learner behaviors gradebook Step 2: Under the REPORTS menu, select 'Standards Based Report Card' Step 3: Click 'Add a new Template' Step 4: Name the template and click 'Save' Step 5: Select the quarter you wish to view Step 6: Check the boxes for 'Print comments only' and 'Print for this class only' Step 7: Click 'Save' Step 8: If you only want to print for a couple students - click 'Select Different Students' and choose the students.  If you want to print for everyone - ignor...

Frequently we get questions from teacher that go something like this..."My office needs me to print a report card for Jane, but she has already been dropped from my class because she is moving to another class/schoool.  How do I do that?"  Never fear, it is not much different than running your regular report card, you just have to check one extra box. The steps below will show you how to run a report card for a student that has left or dropped your class. Please review the Skyward Tech Tip for Running Elementary Report Cards if you are trying to run a report card for your current students. NOTE: To find the printable version, click here . 1.  From your Gradebook, click on Reports > Custom Report Card 2.  Click Add a New Template 3.  Give your new Template a name (example = Report Card - Dropped Students), click Save 4.  Select the Current Term or Term that you need to run the report card for 5.  Select the Custom Report card that m...

This (2015-16) school year, PPS has made a few adjustments to our elementary gradebook. We are using year long trending.  This means that the final Q4 grade will take into account all events from the first day of school until the end of the academic year.  Don't be surprised when you see suggested grades showing up in Q2, Q3, and Q4 as soon as the Q1 suggestion appears. Skyward will not begin to suggest a trend grade until three or more event scores are entered for a particular skill.   These changes will help improve the overall suggested grade because it will take into account growth from the entire school year and it will provide more data points in order to make the suggestion.  That being said, it is still the professional responsibility of the teacher to double check the scores each quarter to make sure what the gradebook is suggesting aligns with how the child is performing on that particular skill.   Skyward makes this a fairly painless proces...

Clone From Existing Gradebook:  Allows you to copy one or more events from a current year or historical Gradebook of your own or copy an event from another teacher’s Gradebook. When selecting this option, you must be in the Gradebook where you want the event created. Step 1  Select the Gradebook with the events you want to clone. You can select from a prior year Gradebook  (ex: 2015), current year Gradebook (ex: 2016) or another teacher’s Gradebook (You would need to click the Select Different Teacher button).  After selecting the Gradebook, click the Next button. Step 2 Select the event(s) you want to clone; all events are defaulted to selected. You can click the Uncheck All button to select individual events. You are able to clone an event only when you have the identical category assigned to your class. After selecting the events, click the Next button. Step 3 You see the event(s) you selected in the previous step. This screen allows you to cha...

Our next post in our Learning Together at MACUL series, Sheila Clothier shares her MACUL experience as well as some great tech tools for supporting our readers. Sheila is a fourth grade teacher at Central Elementary School and is one of our Chromebook 1-to-1 Pilot teachers.  When you talk to Sheila, she will be the first to tell you that teaching in a 1-to-1 environment was a huge leap of faith for her.  She is an amazing, gifted teacher, but has never claimed to be on the bleeding edge of the tech world.  Anyone who states that they can't use technology in their classroom only needs to sit down with Sheila for 10 minutes or walk through her room and you will soon realize that tech isn't all that scary after all!  Here is Sheila's blog post on her MACUL experience.  Thanks for sharing, Sheila! I was amazed with all the possibilities of using technology in the classroom with language arts. During the conference, I refreshed my understanding of Google Cl...

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...

PPS Elementary Teaching Staff: We have received a number of questions the last few days regarding how the Skyward gradebook calculates the M, P, and L proficiency levels. This, admittedly long, yet important read, addresses these questions. The Skyward gradebook uses trend-based calculations when determining the M, P, or L for a student's level on any given skill in the gradebook. The theory is, we want to report out where a student is on a skill today, and not a simple average of their scores over time. However, there are cases where a trend calculation can produce a proficiency level that, while correct from a mathematical perspective, does not seem to make sense. ​As with any automatic grade calculation, we recommend you spot check gradebook. Overriding a Trend Calculation This is a simple process - if you click on a skill's title in the gradebook, you will see a view which shows all of the scores incorporated into the skill, the trend score the gradebook is rep...

As we figure out how the new math program and Skyward's standards-based gradebook work together, we have come across a few situations where you may want to attach multiple skills to one event and then give all the skills the same score. For example, in your mid-module, question #3 may be linked to three different standards. In this situation, you would add an event for mid-module question 3, then link it to three standards. (For directions on how to do this check out this tip: http://ppstechtraining.blogspot.com/2014/09/skyward-tech-tip-entering-event.html ) If you immediately click save and score it will take you to a screen that allows you to type in the score once and it fills across all the skills. If you hit save and add another, or save and back you will not have this option to fill across unless you turn on Multiple event scoring. Here is how you do it: Go to your mathematics grade book. Click on Display options Click on Event Display Scroll down unti...

It is October and soon it will be time to run your elementary report cards to send home to parents. Below you will find some resources to help you work through the printing of your card, as well as the procedure for adding comments.  For a printer-friendly version, click here . In this tip: Entering Comments Running Report Cards Setup Printing Entering Comments (not needed for 20-21 school year) Login to Skyward. Go to your Learner Behavior Gradebook by clicking on the blue book. Select comments from the menu at the top. Click Post Comments for the quarter you wish to enter. Click the icon at the right to get the larger editing window. Enter in your comments. Click OK when finished. NOTES: There is NO FORMATTING! To do a template, you can set up the basic information for one child, then apply to all. Then you can edit for individual students. Running Report Cards Go to reports menu and select Custom Report Card. Setup Select Add a new Te...

http://www.storylineonline.net/ Are you an Elementary teacher looking for some great online resources for listening to reading?  Do you want to expose your students to proficient readers reading great stories?  Then you need to check out Storyline Online.  This site, brought to you by the Screen Actors Guild, hosts videos of great actors reading 25 different stories.  Actors include greats such as Betty White, James Earl Jones and Melissa Gilbert. Check it out: All the YouTube videos have been added to our YouTubeEDU account, so students can access them when logged in with their PPS accounts. Uses in the Classroom: Expose students to quality reading during Daily 5 time, whole class instruction or the lab.  You can play the videos on your TEC, have students watch them individually with headphones in the lab, or set up a center in your classroom with a laptop/Desktop computer and some headphones.  Kids are sure to love listening to some of their fa...