WWPS Technology

Using Collections Like a Pro...Google Drive Permissions Once you've started to use Collections there are some easy tips that will allow you to use Collections like a pro! This blog post will review how to do the following: Set the Appropriate Google Drive Permissions Google Drive Permissions Collections are so visually appealing. You'll want to ensure that your resources take advantage of the screen scraping technologies built into resource curation in Collections. Whenever you add a resource to a Collection using the Add to Collections BookMarklet a screenshot of the resource is included as a visual representation of the resource. Whenever you're using an online drive such as Google Drive or One Drive you'll want to make sure you set your permissions to public. This will allow the resource to be displayed with a screenshot from the resource versus a generic login screenshot. Additionally, the description of the resource will contain information particular t...

You've Built your Collection, Now Let's Edit... Once you've learned how to build a Collection you'll want to edit the details of the Collections as well as, all of the resources curated in the Collection. This blog post will review how to do the following: How to Edit a Collection How to Edit Curated Resources How to Delete Curate Resources Each of these important tasks is very simple to accomplish and quite intuitive to use once you've started to use Collections. I'll be "Captain Obvious" in this blog post just to lay out the directions in a step-by-step process.  How to Edit a Collection Once you've created your Collection you may want to edit the basic settings in the Collection. If you create a Collection form the +Add a Collection icon you'll most likely fill-out each of the steps in the 3-step process (Title/Description, Grade/Subject, Image/Color). However, if you add a new Collection from the BookMarklet app you will hav...

How to Create a New Collections & Basic Settings... Once you've learned how to access Destiny Discover's Collections tool you'll want to start on your own Collections. This blog post will review how to do the following: Create a new Collection & Configure the Collection Details Add Resources to your Collection using the BookMarklet or the Upload a Resource Method Access Lesson 3 - Create a New Collection (prototype companion tool to Collections) Collections is an incredible way to collaborate with your peers on curriculum development. Our district uses GSuite to build collaborative documents for our units of study. Collections fit seamlessly into the process and provide greater flexibility during the creation process. Educators can add and curate resources during the brainstorming process without having to decide where or whether or not the item fits into the unit plan. Before we can get to the rich collaboration tools we need to first learn how to add, e...

How to Access Collections... In a previous blog I spoke about Destiny Discover's newest addition Collections. In this post I'll discuss the various ways to access Collections. As with most applications now a days, there are a variety of ways to access Collections. You can access Collections in the following ways: Via the Destiny Discover Chrome Extension or the Destiny Discover Homepage Via the Bookmarklet App Via the Collections URL Via Rhode Island's RICAT site (Only applicable to RI school districts) Destiny Discover Chrome Extension In our district we have added the Destiny Discover Chrome extension to all of our district's Chromebooks via the Google Management Console. This allows our users to access their school's Destiny Discover catalog once they do a simple Google Search.  Searching for Ecosystems using the Chrome Extension In the image above you can see that you can access resources directly from our school's catalog. End user...

What is Follett's Destiny Discover Collection Tool? Follett School Solutions describes their newest addition to the Destiny Discover suite of tools, Collections, as “A group of carefully selected resources. Think of a Collection like a digital scrapbook with audio, video, slideshows, along with documents and photos .” Simply stated, Collections, allows educators to curate all of their resources for a lesson or a unit of study in one simple place. Click this Link to Learn More About Follett's Collections The Anatomy of a Collection We have already started to use Collections to curate all of the t eacher-created documents, web pages, video clips, Open Educational Resources (OER), and paid content necessary to instruct our students day to day. The "Anatomy of a Collection" image below illustrates how resources within a Collection are displayed. The details of a Collection are located along the top-left panel of the Collection. Owners and editors of...

How We Use Aspen to Help Us Reissue Our Student Chromebooks Each September & Collect Them In June Each September the technology department in our district is responsible to reissue approximately 3,800 Chromebooks to our students across 6 schools. Our district uses Aspen to assist us with our management of over 4,200 Chromebooks for students, and every staff member. This blog post will explain how we use Aspen's Assessment tool to manage communication between classroom teachers, and the help desk.  As you can well imagine it is a tremendous task to move each student's Chromebook from their previous year's classroom to their new classroom in time for the new school year. What makes it even more difficult is that in the last weeks of August it's not uncommon for student to be shuffled from classroom to classroom, and sometimes moved to another school within the district. Why Use the Assessment Definition All of this movement demands that we have an easy way for...

Taking a Deeper Look at Pando  A Help Desk Technician's Perspective Pando provides a lot of power to our help desk technicians in performing their duties. Our district has two, full-time employees servicing almost 4,200 devices. Every student, and WWPS employee has a Chromebook device. These devices are taken home by our students, and all of our employees; one can imagine the amount of wear and tear inflicted on the devices. Our district is considered a self-maintainer shop, and we do all of the hardware repairs. The process for submitting a help desk ticket is a little different for our students and our employees. Our employees submit a help desk ticket via Aspen, and our students drop off their Chromebook in their school's main office. The secretary submits the help desk ticket in Aspen on behalf of the student. The illustration below is the simple help desk form that we use to begin the process. Submission Form in Aspen Once the ticket is submitted in Aspen it...