PPS Instructional Technology

In Michigan, the week before Labor Day is usually the week when all teachers report back for work.  We attend countless meetings and hours of professional development before heading into our classrooms to make sure everything is just right before the students walk in the doors.  As we approach the end of the week and head to our rooms to knock out the last few items on our to do lists, here are a few tools you may or may not know about that can make your life easier this school year. Classroom Screen Looking for a great web toolbox for your TEC screen?  Classroomscreen.com is a one stop shop for tools like... Random Name Picker Classroom Noise Level Monitor Quick QR Code Generator Drawing Tools for your Screen Type of the Screen Symbols for Voice Level Desired Traffic Light Timer Clock You can set the background image and leave the tab open on your TEC (Technology Enhanced Classroom) computer and leave it as your main "Homepage". Noisli : "White ...

Google has made several changes to Classroom that will affect teachers' workflow. These changes are welcome but do cause us to take pause as we learn the best ways in which to navigate its use. Here, I will list out and briefly explain those changes while also providing a few resources that you can use as you dig in. Major Updates New Classwork Page Assignments and Questions are now created and posted here. By making this change work is now separated from communication . The Stream is now strictly for announcements and responding to student posts. As you post assignments on the Classwork page, an announcement of that post is made in the Stream. Topics, Classwork Page Additionally, topics reside on the Classwork page, too. Topics have been around for a little while, but the beauty now is that assignments and questions can be organized within Topics. Alice Keeler has a lot to say on this in her blog post,  Google Classroom: Topics as Dates . I HIGHLY recommend you ...

Let's start with the FACTS! Your U Drive is here to STAY! (No worries about that tool going anywhere) Some buildings will get a TEC Refresh (Your Building Techs will let you know if that's you) Google Drive provides UNLIMITED storage space (No file too large!) You have a NEW storage drive on your Windows Desktop or Laptop... the Y Drive! All of these facts are very important to you! Why? Well, our files are precious. We invest enormous amounts of time into developing documents for educating our students and for managing our day to day operations at each of our schools. Files are important. Read on to learn about your NEW Y Drive and the TEC Refresh (at the end of this post) ... To start, Jessica sent an email out titled "Google Drive is now a Drive on your Computer". (You can search your inbox here if you wish to read it.) That email discusses your NEW Y Drive. Officially, Google calls this new service the Google Drive File Stream. We have already installe...

It's the end of yet another school year... So many happy moments! Our seniors are graduating. Our retirees, who have given us so much, are preparing to leave. Each person leaving Portage Public Schools is stepping into a new adventure. For many of you who will depart from our ranks, it will be important that you are able to take with you some, or all, of the products you have created. Most of these items live in the Google-sphere and you need to know how to pack 'em up and ship 'em out. So... today's post is about How to Take Your Files Stored in Google With You When You Leave . Quickly, let's mention your U Drive files. Simply grab a flash drive or log into your favorite cloud storage service and drag-n-drop or upload those files. Done. DISTRICT EMPLOYEES: Make sure you work with your supervisor to transfer ownership of any files critical to the success of your team. See how to transfer ownership in this article . With Google, there are three ways to t...

Many teachers over the last year have used Adobe Spark with their students to create great projects to demonstrate learning.  Now Spark has made it even easier for teachers and students to create amazing projects with Spark for EDU. Portage students and teachers now all have Spark for EDU accounts.  Help your students create professional looking graphics, web pages, and videos in minutes with this simple but powerful creativity, presentation, and storytelling tool!  If you’re looking to create narrated videos, printed materials, graphics, or writing assignments that students can quickly and easily turn in, you want Spark. Learn how to get your students logged in and creating with this getting started guide .

Google has been busy in the last month updating both Gmail and the look of Google Drive.  Many of you may have already noticed and explored the changes, but for those of you who would like the "cliff notes" on the updates, this tip is for you! Gmail The most significant of the changes have been happening with Gmail as Google rolls out a new look, and updated features.  The "new Gmail" is not on by default.  To switch to the new Gmail, click the gear in top right hand side and select "Try the new Portage Public Schools Mail".  This will switch you over to the new mail.  No worries if you don't like it once you are there, for now you can switch back to the "classic" style without issue. Now that you have switched over, you are probably wondering, what are some of the new features to check out?  Here is a rundown of some of my favorite new features that will help make your life a little bit easier. Take action on an email by simply ...

I’m here to tell you… you do not have to live in a mess! Break free! Find joy in cleaning out the clutter that is Google Classroom. If you have spent more than a year or two using Google Classroom you may have noticed your Classes beginning to pile up. Tripping over those classroom tiles is no fun. So, this tech tip is focused on clearing your Classroom home screen and managing your active classes. Let’s focus on two important ways to clean things up… Organizing Classrooms Archiving Classrooms And one optional way to help things run faster... Delete, if Not Using (Optional, of course) First, when teaching multiple classes, if you’re like me, they had better be listed in order and in the same place every time I want to get into one, any other way just won’t do. Good news, you can MOVE Classroom Tiles? Yep, drag-n-drop. Woot! Here’s a tip on how to Rearrange Class Tiles from one of my favorite bloggers, Alice Keeler . (If you don’t already follow her , here’s your chance ...