Minute Trick Monday: PowerGrade Parent Email

This week, all Emerson parents and students will be given access to the Parent Portal.  The great part about this tool is that it creates transparency for the parents and students to know where they stand in any given class on any given day.

However, we know that there is a lot about what is going on in our class that a Gradebook snapshot can't show.  Sending an email message out to an individual parent or all your parents is a great way to keep them feel more connected to what is really happening.

Fortunately, PowerSchool makes it easy to send an email to an individual parent, a group of parents, or even every parent on your caseload right from inside your Gradebook!  It is as easy as 1-2-3.

1. Launch your Gradebook.

2. From the "Tools" menu, select "Email Students and Parents."

3. Follow the directions on the screen. *

  

Hint: You may want to compose the message in Word or Google first. Once you have edited it, copy and paste the message into the appropriate window. Selecting the email addresses last will prevent accidentally sending the message before you are ready.

To learn more, check out the PowerSchool page on my ITC site.

CHALLENGE: For those of you who have been asking how to access these email addresses through Gmail:

1. Follow the Powerschool Startup Directions to export student names and guardian emails from your Gradebook.
2. On the CSV file, delete the entire Section Name row.  In the new header row, change "Student Name" to "Name" and "Guardian Email" to "Email."
3.  Follow the Google directions to import contacts from the CSV file you created.

 

Minute Trick Monday: Finder's Fee

COMMAND* + F

For today's Minute Trick, I am pulling out my favorite hidden keyboard shortcut.  We all know command+x for cut, command+c for copy, and command+v(Think Velcro) for paste, but do you know command+F?

This keyboard shortcut can be used on any document, website, or window to search for text.  First, a generic search bar will appear in the top right corner of the window.  As a you type, the matching text is highlighted.  It even gives a count of how many times your query appears in the window. You can use the up and down arrow to find the different places you appear.

This comes in handy whenever you are looking for a needle in an electronic haystack?  For example, looking for a specific name in a spreadsheet (a student score in building map score spreadsheets?) or a specific piece of information in an website article.  If you are writing the same email to different students' parents with the same information but have to use pronouns, you can copy the email text into a new email then find all of the "he"s and turn them into "she"s.

In my classroom, I had students use this shortcut when writing dialogue to find the very overused word "said" and replace it with more descriptive words.  You can also have them find all of the times they used pronouns or this/that to help improve their clarity.

Go ahead and try it right now.  Hold down the command and f at the same time.  When the search bar appears in the top right corner, type "command".  Do you see the highlighting?  Can you move through all the different places it is used?  BONUS:How many times do I use the word command?

*Remember, that the command button is the open apple button on older laptops.

Answer: 9 times, the word command was used.  Oops, now it is 10.

Minute Trick Monday: Command+Click

COMMAND + CLICK

How do I organize all the Google Docs that people have shared with me without moving them out Shared Folders? 

  This question is one that I have been asked a lot as people's "Shared With Me" list has been getting longer and longer.  The trick is to hold down the COMMAND key when organizing your files.

Here's step-by-step directions on how to take a doc that is in your "Shared With Me" list and move it into a folder that you create in "My Drive." 

1.  Find the desired shared file.  (Hint: You can search for it by typing any word in the doc into the Google search bar in Drive.)

2.  Click on the box to left of the File Name in the Shared with Me list.

3.  Click the File Folder icon above the list to open the ORGANIZE window.

4.  To add the file to a folder in your drive, hold down the COMMAND button and CLICK on the desired folder(or click "create a new folder") in your drive. 

You can use this same tip if you want to organize any Google Doc into more than one file at the same time.