Welcome back to the 2015 – 2016 School Year!
Even though you have only been away for a couple of months, there are a lot of new things in the world of technology to explore in our district. Here are some of the new changes that have occurred.
Blog Upgrades – Many of you are now using the latest version of CompusPress by Edublogs. There are a lot of new themes and features to explore and discover. I will be creating screencasts weekly to highlight some of these new features. Be sure to download their mobile app to make posting photos and posts extra simple! Click here to find the app! If you need immediate assistance, check out their user guide by clicking here or email me to set up an appointment.
Google Classroom
- Ask and answer a question: Teachers can post a short answer question to students in the class stream at any time, with options to allow students to edit their own answer, and to see and reply to classmates’ answers. Students answer the question in the class stream, and teachers have the option to grade answers.
- Reuse a post: Teachers can reuse existing posts (announcements, assignments, questions) from a current or previous class.
- Move a post to the top of the class stream: Teachers can change the order of posts in the class stream by moving any item to the top of the stream to give it priority.
- Visual refresh: Classroom has a new simplified design for creating and posting assignments, announcements, and questions and for viewing assignment details. The design updates enable quick and easy access for teachers and students.
- Whitelisted domains: Now you can whitelist other Google Apps for Education domains so students, teachers or staff in different domains can effectively work together in Drive and Classroom.
- Mobile notifications: Students can see immediately when a teacher creates a new assignment or announcement, comments on a student’s post, or grades or returns an assignment. Teachers can see immediately when a student comments on a post or sends the teacher a private note and when the teacher is invited to teach a class.
