Dyslexic Accommodations Update 12.16.16

I added some information and a screencast to the post on Simple Accommodations for Dyslexic Students about the extension Force Font. Check it out!

New in Sapphire Tips and Tricks...

Information has been added regarding how to Set Gradebook to Show Community Portal Grades and Viewing Sapphire Portal Information and Logins. This information was provided by Kelly Yohe and Steve Vogelsong, respectively. Check it out!

Edit Calendar Notifications

Manage Your Calendars and Notifications

You can set notifications for all of your Google Calendars. You can receive notifications via email or SMS, depending on which you select. Check out the basic steps for changing your notifications below as well as quick screencast.

1. Open your Google Calendar through the app or calendar. google.com.
2. Click on the dropdown arrow next to the specific calendar for which you wish to set/change notifications.
3. Click Edit Notifications from the pop-up menu.
4. If you wish to create your own notification for each event, click Add Notification in this section. It will basically set a reminder however many minutes you choose before the event begins.
5. If you wish to create all day event notifications, click Add Notification in this section. It will basically set a reminder the day(s) prior to the event based on your specified information. You can also select the time of the notification in this section.
6. Select how you would like to be Kept Up To Date. This section allows you to choose notification via email, SMS, or both for each type of update--new events, changed events, cancelled events, event responses, and daily agenda. Be aware, if you select notifications for the daily agenda, you will receive an email, text, or both each day at 5am!
7. When you have made your selections, click SAVE at the top or bottom of the page. This is one of the few places in the Google Suite where you must click SAVE to keep your changes.

Adding a Google Calendar with Email

Adding Someone's Google Calendar to Your Google Calendars

If you have a friend, coworker, family member, etc. who has a Google calendar, it is quite easy to add that calendar to yours (provided you have access to see the calendar items). Follow these easy steps and check out the screencast below!

1. Open Google Calendar, either from the app or calendar.google.com.
2. On the left-hand side, look for Other Calendars.
3. Click on the dropdown arrow, selecting Add a Coworker's Calendar.
4. Type in the person's email address, and click Add.
5. Events in that person's calendar should now show up on your calendar.
***Remember, you can choose which calendars you want to see events for at any given time. You can also add or edit notifications for the calendar. ***

Using TOPICS in Google Classroom

Organize the Information in Your Google Classroom!

What Is It, and Why Use It?

Often, the inundation of information bogs down both students and faculty. This was easily the case in the past with Google Classroom. For instance, I post a daily synopsis of class each day for absent students. This is awesome if the student is absent, but it also makes finding other information such as assignments, reminders, and resources, much more difficult. Luckily, over the summer Google crafted the solution to this overwhelming onslaught of information: TOPICS.

What Do Topics Look Like?

If you previously used Google Classroom, the topics section is actually easy to miss. While it is very user-friendly, it assumes that the user knows it is there. Basically, the purpose of the topics, as far as I have seen, is to allow students and faculty to categorize the information within Google Classroom. This makes searching for a particular post or assignment a breeze. Let's take a look at how it all works. Here is a snapshot of my generic Google Classroom page.

On the left side of the screen, a box shows the following Topics: Absent Synopsis, Agenda, Assignments, and Resources. Clicking on any of these titles filters the Google Classroom page to show only stream items tagged with the particular topic. 

If you look at the post in the stream above, you will also notice that the post "Organizer for Infographic" has a box labeled ASSIGNMENTS underneath the directions. The box indicates this post belongs to the topic Assignments. 

Here is a scrolling screenshot of my RESOURCES posts:

Notice that only posts tagged RESOURCES appear in this view. 

How To Use the Topics Feature

When you create a post, assignment, question, etc., a box pops up that looks like this:

1. Fill in all of the assignment/post information as you normally would.
2. Click the drop down arrow beside the heading Topic.
3. Select Create Topic.
4. Type in the label you want to use for the topic.
5. Click post as you normally would.

***Once you have your topic labels created, you simply select them from the dropdown menu instead of selecting Create Topic. ***

Easily Convert Word Documents to Google Docs Using Save as (Leanne Sanders)

Using SAVE AS to Convert Word Documents to Google Docs

There is a Save As type that saves a Word document in a Google doc format. Thus, you do not need to retype or even copy and paste previous Word documents  into Google Docs. Follow the steps below to perform the Save As:

1. Go to File Tab in your Word document
2. Click Save As
3. In the Save As drop down box look for the Open Document Text format (.odt).
4. Click Save
5. Go into your Google Docs
6. Click on the Open File Picker icon (looks like a manila folder)
7. Click Upload
8. Find the saved .odt file
9. Click Open
10. Click Open again to exit the Upload screen.

Be aware that some of the formatting might be different but overall look similar. Hopefully, this helps some of you.

Many thanks to Leanne Sanders for this helpful tip!

Remove a Student from Google Classroom

It's not difficult to do, but you'll need to look in the right place to remove a student from your Google Classroom. Watch the screencast below!

Remove a Student Screencast

Adding Teachers to Your Google Classroom

Sharing Your Google Classroom with Another Teacher is Easy!

In certain circumstances like co-teaching or with ELL or Special Education students, you may want another teacher to have access to your Google Classroom. You could technically add this person as a student, but the person would not have the same "teacher" functionality as you.

Fortunately, Google Classroom allows you to easily add another teacher to your class. Once you know where to click, the process is actually rather simple.

• First, select the ABOUT tab in your Google Classroom.
• Then, click on the INVITE TEACHER button on the left-hand side of the page.
• Next, type in the teacher's name.
• When the correct teacher name appears, mark the checkbox beside his or her name and click the blue NEXT button.
• A box pops up asking if you really wish to give this person the same permissions as you.
• Click the blue INVITE button, which will add the teacher. 
• Now this additional teacher can access the same functions as you except deleting the class.

INVITE TEACHER screencast

Inviting Students to Google Classroom

Adding Students

• You can share your class code with students, so they can join your class.
• You can also INVITE them to your class as well.

To INVITE them, you simply need the student's name (or part of it).

   Here is a screencast of the process, which involves selecting the STUDENTS tab, entering the student's name, selecting the checkbox in front of the student's name, and clicking the blue INVITE STUDENTS button.

Screencast of Inviting Students

Simple Accommodation for Dyslexic Students

Dyslexic-Friendly Fonts, Who Knew?

I recently received an email about Dyslexie font and decided to explore it a bit. I had not previously known of fonts specifically designed to aid dyslexic students with their reading. When I checked out the website, I immediately noticed a big difference in the font's appearance. For me, it was actually difficult to read large quantities of text that used the font; however, I imagine that is how dyslexic students feel every time they try to read anything. With the Dyslexie font specifically, once you add the font to your computer, you can use it in most programs that allow you to choose a font such as Microsoft Word and ActivInspire. Additionally, students can find extensions in the Chrome Web Store that allow them to view web pages with a dyslexic-friendly font instead of the normal font.

Let's look at some samples of fonts:

Here is a font that students typically encounter.     (Arial 14 font)

Here is a font that students typically encounter.            (Times New Roman 14 font)

Here is a font that students typically encounter.             (Calibri 14 font)

Does It Help?

While the difference in the font is rather evident, I wanted to test the font with some students that I know have difficulties due to dyslexia. I printed out a sheet of paper much like the sample fonts above (minus the font labels) except that the sample sentence said something to the effect of, "Is this font easier to read?" 

TEST #1--The first student to whom I showed it, immediately responded by asking if this was a trick question. When I stated that I genuinely wanted to know his answer, he looked confused and pointed out that the dyslexie font version was obviously easier to read. I printed out the day's notes using the font, and he said it was a lot easier to copy the notes that way.

TEST#2--I showed a second student the sample sentences, and she also agreed that the Dyslexie font was much easier to read. When I gave her the dyslexie version of the notes, she proclaimed that it was probably the first time she ever really just looked at words on a page and could read them instead of  first seeing letters and then decoding everything. 

Chrome Extensions

The company that created Dyslexie font has an extension in the Chrome Web Store; however, I did not manage to make it work successfully on my Chromebook. It is supposed to allow users to alter the font on web pages in terms of color, font, and size. For more information about Dyslexie font click here.

OpenDyslexic is the extension that I successfully added to my Chromebook and instantly changed web page fonts. This extension has an on/off button, so you can switch back and forth between dyslexic-friendly fonts and standard fonts. Check out the pictures of my Google Classroom page with the extension off (standard) and on (dyslexic-friendly). What a difference!

  Another extension that I found is called ForceFont. Adding this extension allows you to set the default font on all the pages you view. This can help students who have spent years looking at the "regular" fonts and prefer something like Arial or Tahoma because that was the only option they had previously. The extension is quite easy to use and can be turned on and off if you so desire. Check out the screencast that shows the text changing on the page below.

Books!

I also learned that some books are now published in dyslexic-friendly fonts. Strawberry Classics is a collection from Barrington Stoke/Stokes Books that includes a number of classic works of literature. 

Conclusion

I had no idea that a simple font change could make such a drastic difference! I am very glad that I found out about the fonts; I just wish I had known about this sooner. Since the fonts generally add more white space to a page, notes and handouts appear longer, but that seems like a small price to pay for helping students read more easily. This is a very easy fix that could really help our dyslexic students.

One Tab--Control the 18 Tabs You Opened!

Organize Your Tabs!!!

One issue I've seen students struggle with frequently is keeping track off the myriad tabs they have opened while working on assignments. One Tab easily solves that problem and has other beneficial uses, too.

One Tab BASIC USE

One Tab is an extension that appears in your URL toolbar once you download it. Its most basic function is to condense the many tabs you have open at the same time. The extension then creates one tab (literally) with web links to all of your previously opened tabs. The links are much easier to read than clicking on individual tabs.

One Tab LISTS

Another nice feature of this extension is that you can SAVE your list of tabs. If you know you always use three sites/apps every single day, you can create and lock a list of those three tabs. You can also name your list for easier access.

To SAVE your list of tabs, click on MORE. One of the options should be to NAME the tab group. Give the list a name, and One Tab saves your list in seconds. Of course, if you want to repeatedly use the group without having to rename it, you can simply LOCK the group. To do this, go to MORE and select LOCK this tab group. Locking the group means that the links stay associated with the list, AND even when you open the tabs, they will not leave the named group. You can click the X on the actual tab, but the link will still exist in your saved lists.

SHARING One Tab LISTS

Additionally, you can share your list as a web page. This has been really helpful when we work on projects where students need to access numerous documents, sites, or links repeatedly. Basically, you create a list that has all of your resources and click SHARE AS WEB PAGE. This opens a new tab with your list of links and a QR code to accompany it. Others can scan the QR to access the list, or you can provide them with the web page URL.  You can add this URL or QR code to documents, web pages, etc. It is very effective for easily sharing a number of documents simultaneously instead of individually uploading each page, link, or document.

Setting Up Google Cloud Print

Printing from Your Chromebook!!!

This is an issue many of us and our students have struggled with, so I am finally posting a video with directions. Since my Google Cloud Print was already set up, I had to find a way to show everyone how to start at the beginning, which was largely the reason it took a while to create this post!

Basically, you can print from your Chromebook to any printer you can access from a desktop computer. The key is to make sure that you are logged in via Google Chrome on the desktop as well as the Chromebook. As long as that is the case, you should easily be able to choose which printer you want to use. Click on the link below to see the video.

Setting up Google Cloud Print

***Remember, however, to double check where your document believes it will print and adjust accordingly. Earlier in the year, I stared at my classroom printer in bewilderment only to realize that the document was trying to print to my home computer. By the way, when I logged on to my home computer later that evening, the document printed there! ***

Spell Check within Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc.

YES, It's Really There...

Despite what students may say, Google Docs and other file types DO include a spell check feature. You typically need to click on the TOOLS tab near the top of the window and select SPELLING. This creates a box (typically on the right side of the window) that looks reminiscent of the spell check feature in Microsoft Word.

Here's a Screencast of using the spell check feature:

Options

Within the spell check, similar options to Microsoft Word's spell check appear. These are:
CHANGE--change the misspelled word(s) to one of the listed suggestions (or type in the
                    correct spelling in the box).
CHANGE ALL--to access this, click on the arrow beside the word change, and you will
                 see how many times this error exists. To change all of them simultaneously,
                 click on the word(s) with the number.
IGNORE--don't change the spelling to any of the program's suggestions.
IGNORE ALL--to access this, click on the arrow beside the word ignore, and you will see
                how many times this word appears. To ignore all of them simultaneously, click
                on the word(s) with the number.
ADD TO DICTIONARY--this allows you to add the word to your personal dictionary so
                that the word does not always appear as "wrong." This is especially helpful with
                student names and places like East Pennsboro that you use frequently but
                would not typically find in the dictionary.

***The only Google apps I frequently use that don't have a spell check under TOOLS
      are Google Forms, Blogger, Sites, and Classroom. If I need to spell check something
      within these programs, I just use the Grammarly extension, which I have added to my
      Chromebook. You can easily find Grammarly in the Web Store ***