Yesterday, I emailed all teachers about a potential issue with Gradebook scores not being updated in PowerSchool. Assignments, assignment scores, and grades were not being updated on Powerschool (parent portal, emails, quick lookup) due to the glitch.

We’ve finished working with PowerSchool and I’m happy to report that the issue is now resolved. However, even though the original issue has been fixed, there are still a few things that Gradebook users must do to ensure that assignments and scores are correctly published to Powerschool.

How to re-publish assignment scores to Powerschool

1. Log into PowerTeacher Gradebook and select a section.
2. Modify any one assignment score to a different score. Save Web Gradebook.
3. Change the score back to its original value and Save Web Gradebook again.
   Note: Modifying one assignment score per assignment will update the scores for all the students for that assignment; it’s not necessary to do this for every student’s score, just one.
4. Repeat step 3 for each assignment added to the Gradebook since Friday morning 2/5. If the date on the assignment is 2/4 or earlier, skip it.
5. From tool bar, select Tools, Recalculate Final Scores.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 for each section.

UPDATE

Since the last update to this post, we’ve discovered that the instructions sent previously were insufficient to transfer new assignments to Powerschool.  This is a set of updated instructions that are more likely to fix the glitch.  The extra step here is that you have to open and modify an assignment to get the assignment to show up in Powerschool.  It’s not necessary to go as far as removing and re-adding assignments, but they do need to be modified and re-saved.

There is also an issue with Gradebook rosters being incorrectly different from the rosters shown in the attendance list, several teachers have mentioned this.  This is a separate (but known) issue that we are working to resolve with Powerschool.

• Log into PowerTeacher Gradebook.
• Select a section.
• Open the first assignment. Modify something on the assignment, such as entering a space after the title. Save Assignment. Repeat for each assignment.
• Select the first student. Modify assignment score to a different score. Save Web Gradebook. Change back to original score and Save Web Gradebook.
• Modifying one assignment score per assignment will update the scores for all the students for that assignment. Repeat for each assignment.
• From tool bar, select Tools > Recalculate Final Scores

We’ve recently set up a service where anyone with an @district6.org email address can sign up for a blog and have one automatically created. This is much easier than the previous setup where we needed to set blogs up one-by-one, which was very time consuming.

To get started: Just go to http://www.district6.org/, go to the “For Staff” dropdown, and click “Blog Login.” Enter your D6 username/password, and you’ll be logged into the Wordpress dashboard.

From there, you can use the tutorial on making a post in WordPress that Chuck made.  This is just a short (10 minute) tutorial on adding a post to a new wordpress blog, including pictures.  The pace is easy to follow, and you can rewind or skip through the video if you need to see something again.

While Wordpress does function in Internet Explorer or other browsers like Safari, we recommend using the Firefox web browser to log into this. If you don’t already have it, you can download and install Firefox from http://mozilla.com/.

Enjoy! And feel free to email us with any questions about WordPress, or respond in the comments.

Excerpt from Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites, by Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton.

Place yourself in the background

Start and end with the users’ interests in mind. If your site doesn’t provide useful things to the audience, nothing else matters. Design your web site with universal usability principles.

Work from a suitable design

Avoid the perils of the “ready, fire, aim” syndrome. The crucial part of the project is the planning. Know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and for whom you’re doing it before anyone touches HTML or Photoshop.

Do not overwrite

Small is good. A concise, high-quality site is much better than a big contraption full of broken links. Produce the minimum necessary to achieve an excellent result.

Prefer the standard to the offbeat

Web conventions are your friends. Always favor the tried and true, and save your creativity for the hard stuff: interesting content and features.

Be clear

Craft your page titles and content carefully, and make sure that the page title is consistent with your major headings.

Do the visuals last

Early visual design discussions can ruin any chance of a rational planning process. Louis Sullivan was right: form follows function.

Revise and rewrite

Design iteration in the early stages of the project is good. In planning, keep the team open to new ideas, feedback from existing and potential users, and the interests of your project stakeholders. However, development iteration—where you tear down and revise things late in the process—can ruin quality control, budgets, and schedules.

Be consistent

Consistency is the golden rule of interface design. Be consistent with the general conventions of the web, of your home institution if you have one, and within your site.

Do not affect a breezy manner

Avoid gimmicky technology fads. “We should use Ajax” is not a technology strategy, unless you know exactly why and how Ajax might benefit your site and help you achieve your strategic goals. Never use pointless Flash animations to “make the site more interesting.” To make your site more interesting, add substantive content or features.

Degrade gracefully

Apply universal usability principles in your site development and careful quality controls in your web applications. Provide a carefully designed “404” error page with helpful search and links if the user hits a broken link on your site.

Do not explain too much

Be concise, and be generous with headers, subheads, and lists, so the user can scan your content easily.

Make sure the user knows who is speaking

Good communication is always a person-to-person transaction. Use the active voice at all times, so the user knows who is speaking. Make it easy to find your mailing address and other contact information.

I have been asked more than once now on how to add images as a slideshow in Wordpress.  This is done pretty easily through websites that build them using flash.  Here, I have listed just a few to check out. 

http://www.slideroll.com/
http://www.123-slideshow.com/
http://www.iwebphoto.com/