First, just a reminder that you can print report cards at anytime. You do not have to print them while the grading window is open.
Second, there are new instructions for doing a mass-print of your English language report cards! If you have not received them from your principal, the instructions can be found here. Finally, printing Spanish language report cards remains the same. Remember, if a parent has indicated they would like their communications in Spanish, then a Spanish report card will generate; if they have not, a Spanish report card will not generate! Instructions for Spanish report cards can be found here. Have a great Spring Break, everyone! After meeting last week with our district's customer service rep from Infinite Campus, I was reminded of the many features of IC that are rarely spoken about and severely under-utilized.
Student Groups This is probably one of the coolest things Infinite Campus has for our teachers. Throughout the year, you may split your students into groups for various projects. If you set these groups up in IC (Instruction > Student Groups, or find the training document here), you can then create assignments specifically for that group. For example, if you are a Lit/Comp teacher, and it's time for the quarterly book groups, you can assign your students to groups based off the book they have chosen. This way, you can enter assignments that are specific to the student's book group instead of a blanket assignment. Daily Planner This feature allows you to have an at-a-glance view of the day, week, or month. By combining student attendance events (as in, which students are absent and tardy) and assignments, Daily Planner allows you to review days past, and to see upcoming events. Reports Teachers have access to a lot of reports in Infinite Campus, but one of the most handy would be the Roster Label report. This allows teachers to generate a variety of labels for students. Additionally, the report under the Attendance module, called Day Count, can help teachers who need to calculate attendance for student cumulative files. Do you have any fun IC hacks for teachers? Share them in the comments. I'll be out of the office the week of February 3-7, 2014 for a training conference. Stay well!
Attention, middle school and high school principals! Did you know you can communicate with your parents (and high school students) through Portal? It's actually pretty easy to set up! In Infinite Campus, in the User Communication module is User Notices. Here, you can create notices and choose to have them published to the Portal, where your parents (and high school students) can see the message! For detailed instructions, click here and download the Publish to Portal training document.
How will you use this communication tool? Share with us in the comments! Just a reminder, you can print report cards at anytime. The grading window does not need to be open. :-)
For my elementary friends, as promised in one of my last blog posts, some reminders about grading:
- Grading by Task is less labor-intensive than Grading by Student. - Make sure to grade all of your active students for each grading task. If a grading task hasn't been covered yet in your classroom, simply grade everyone N/I for Not Instructed at this Time. - The Grading Window is open for a few days; grading early will help insure that you have plenty of time to complete the task. - Check each student's Grades tab to be sure that you have completely graded that student in each subject and for each standard. - Comment only in the grading task called Comment Comments. If you comment on each standard, the two-page report card will turn into a four-page card, and will alter the alignment of the standards and grades, making it difficult for parents to understand their child's report card. ![]() From all of us in the Information Technology Services department, we would like to wish you a wonderful holiday season. May your break be restful, and may your days off be cheerful. We hope that you get to that project you've been meaning to start for the last two years; we also hope that the newest season of your favorite show just became available on Netflix. Most of all, we hope that your winter break is what you want it to be!
We'll see you in 2014 with even more tech tips and training docs! Baby, it’s cold outside! And that means that inclement weather is right around the corner. To be sure that you will indeed get that wonderful robo-call informing you of a snow day, scurry over to Inside Edition and update your information as soon as possible (and anytime it changes, too). To update your information, log into Inside Edition. Along the far left column, you will see the My60 heading. Under that heading you will find a link called Manage My Credentials; click that link.
Remember, if you don’t update your information, you won’t get the phone call!
I feel famous! I was asked to write a short instructional article for this week's Superintendent's Bulletin (check out the December 2, 2013 issue here), and figured, well, it might be a nice tech tip to include here on the training site. And so, my friends, on this blustery Friday, here is the foolproof way you can get rid of those pesky old email addresses that insist on hanging out in your 60Mail lists:
60Mail remembers which email addresses you have sent messages to in the past, including the misspelled or outdated addresses. This can create confusion when these wrong email addresses populate in the auto-fill. The fix for this issue is simple: In the example below, the email address [email protected] is not a real address, and I would like my email account to forget it. To forget this email address, click the Forget link. In the future, when you type in the same criteria (sampl in the below example), the email address will no longer auto-fill. Please note that the forget feature does not work on active WPS email addresses. Do you have a great 60Mail tip? Share it in the comments! |