Dearborn Public Schools
Troy Patterson Well, I’m surprised by this one. Google Docs has seen a recent update that brings columns as an option. Now, you can format your Google Docs with up to three columns. Simply pick “Columns” from the Format menu item.
*Note, select text to mix multiple and single columns.
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Click on course topic below to learn more and to register.
Many of our students love to read. However, they may not be able to get to the library. Dearborn has brought Open eBooks into the district via a federal grant.
At this point, students need to use a mobile device to access the Open eBooks. Here are the directions.
That’s right the Holiday season brings an uptick in Malware, SPAM and Phishing attempts. (Phishing attempts are emails that try to “trick” you into clicking on a link and/or stealing your credentials). The following information should help you stay safe both at work and at home. These guidelines are applicable to general email usage.
Here are a couple that we’ve seen:
So many things wrong with the one above. First of all, I don’t know the individual who sent the email (it is a real person, their account has probably been compromised). Secondly, the email is actually an image, not plan text. If I hover my mouse over the email, the URL that it points to is not Google Drive but “snipli.com” (snipli.com is a URL shortener – which may be fine OR can be used by hackers to obviscate the real destination). Thirdly, I’m Bcc’d. Fourth, there is very little real information in the email “Please review it and get back to me if interested.” without an explanation of what it is or why I’ve received it is a red flag.
Anytime that you have an attachment that is a .zip file, do NOT click on it. Next, notice that there is no specific information about what I’m “paying” for. This type of message should be marked as SPAM immediately.
Another popular phishing attempt comes from “Amazon”. It may even have the Amazon logo. If you see one like this never click the link. Instead, go to https://amazon.com and sign in there. By the way, clicking on that link would take you to the page below:
Looks pretty legitimate doesn’t it (except for the words Phishing being added). This page would have everything that a thief needs to use your credit card. Again, DO NOT CLICK on the link. Open a browser, enter https://amazon.com in the URL bar and then sign into your account.
The bad guys are trying to do one of the following:
Security is extremely important. Stay safe “out there”.
Many people are using AutoCrat to share information or create mail merges automatically. This is a fantastically efficient way to share information. Please be aware that Google has just made a change that may effect these forms. If you automatically collect user names, Google is changing the name of this field from <<username>> to <<Email Address>>.
It appears that Google has recently made a change to the field that automatically collects email addresses, changing it from <<username>> to <<Email Address>>. As Autocrat basically creates merge messages, it’s still looking for <<username>> and will generate an error in the send status column (e.g. Error: Invalid email: undefined).
To fix this you’ll need to go through all of your spreadsheets and edit your templates. Unfortunately, it appears the changes are rolling out arbitrarily (I have a mix of spreadsheets that have been updated).
Thank you.
Open eBooks is a mobile app that provides thousands of popular and award-winning books free for students in Title I schools. These eBooks can be read without checkouts or holds. Students enrolled in Title I schools can download Open eBooks and access books for free from their mobile device.
Follow these four easy steps to get Open eBooks on any mobile device – including tablets, iPads, and on smartphones of all types.
Step 1: On an iPhone or Android phone, open the app store and type in “open ebooks”
Step 2: Click GET then click INSTALL to download the app.
Step 3: Open the app and click Log in with Clever.
Step 4: Search for the student’s school to log in with their username and password.
The app is currently available on iOS and Android. Subsequent versions will be optimized to support as many open platforms as possible. There will be a web-optimized version coming in 2016. Open eBooks uses the EPUB3 standard but will expand to include PDFs in early 2016.
At this time, the Open eBooks app is only available for the iOs and Android platforms.
In-need youth can borrow up to 10 books at a time and replace each book with a new book as many times as they’d like. The contributed eBooks will include Adobe Digital Rights Management software, which means that the book will be visible only to the student who is accessing it and cannot be shared.
No personally identifiable information is captured about the children using the Open eBooks application. First Book captures educator information through its registration process, but protects this information under its privacy policy. For more information, see the Open eBooks privacy policy.
No, individual readers’ activity are not tracked. Reading will be tracked anonymously and in the aggregate. A student’s privacy is paramount and the partners will work tirelessly to ensure that student privacy is maintained at all times.
Yes. Built with Readium’s rendering engine, the Open eBooks App takes advantage of the accessibility features that are native to the EPUB3 format in which the books are rendered. Open eBooks is compatible with Apple and Android’s Text to Speech (TTS). In the future we plan to improve the implementation of Readium to make this even more robust.
We’re working on improving the experience and accessibility in future updates and versions of the app and its content. Again, making this content accessible is a top priority and we are working with all our industry partners to make progress in this area.
We also encourage families, teachers and librarians of readers with print disabilities to try applications like BARD, BookShare, and Learning Ally. These great resources can help students build an even bigger collection of eBooks.
Open eBooks supports Open Dyslexic Font for those with Dyslexia.
To enable:
In order to make signing out easier for students, we’ve added a red “Sign out” button along the bottom of our Chromebooks. Students should use this to sign out when they are done.
HiveSchool is a connected learning application that lets teachers provide an engaging, collaborative and effective learning experience for their students.
The application enables teachers to present digital content to the class, monitor student activity, keep students on task and assign a variety of learning resources. Designed for ease of use, it requires only a very short learning curve for teachers and students.
I’ve written up a HelpSheet, but I need feedback to improve it before sending it out to all teachers.
Check it out here.
Some students have complained that a headset (headphones) won’t work with a Chromebook. Usually, there is a very easy fix:
When using a headset with a Chromebook, the user may need to specifically choose the headset. In other words, by default the Chromebook will play sounds through the internal speaker, even when a headset is plugged in.
If a headset is plugged in, but the user is not hearing sounds:
All set. Now the sound will go to the Headphones.