Tips & Tricks for TAC: Attendance

There is a great deal of information regarding student attendance available to teachers in TAC.   This data allows teachers to stay informed when making decisions on students (for clubs, leadership roles, exam exemptions, or scholarships) or planning ways to support a struggling student with a guardian or other teacher.

How-To information included in the “Tip & Tricks for TAC: Attendance” Google Slides

This shared Google Slides presentation will demonstrate how to read student alerts and how to generate bulletins and yearly attendance reports. Click here or the image above to get started.

The complete TAC handbook is available here as well.

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Quick IPR Grades into TAC

This quick, two-minute video will show you how to put grades into TAC for IPR reports.

Gradebook Batch Updates & Quick Edit Grading in ECHO

A question I received this week: “So…..what happened to the nifty little ECHO tool that we had last year where we could score a whole class the same thing all at once instead of having to individually enter a score for each person. Has it been relocated or did they just get rid of it?”

Sometimes it’s important to see each student individually when you are putting in grades, especially when you are providing feedback to the student.

 

I’m not sure about this particular student.

 

Other times, it is essential that scores are quickly recorded to save time (and energy) so that teachers can move on to the next learning activity.  Within ECHO, you are able to both Batch Update grades AND Quick Edit student scores to cut down the amount of time and clicks needed to update grades.  Batch Updates will apply the same score to groups of students, while Quick Editing allows teachers to see ALL students in an ECHO course and put in individual scores for each student from a single screen.

Check out this tutorial Google Slides presentation to see how to do this!

 

Chrome Extension: Keep Awake

I have had several people ask me, “What can I do about my computer and/or SMART Board going to sleep during a lesson?  I really hate having to stop, go over to my computer, and put in my password a million times!”  How often does this happen to you?  One adjustment you might make is to make sure your computer is plugged into power.  However, this will only extend the amount of time your computer is awake before it goes to sleep.   Luckily, there is actually a Chrome extension that you can use to tackle this problem without having to adjust the power settings on your computer or visit the tech office!

The Chrome extension is called “Keep Awake.”   With a few clicks, you can override the power settings on your computer.  Now your computer will not go to sleep and the monitor/projector will not go black (unless the battery goes dead… Don’t forget to watch your battery level!). Note:  Your computer MAY NOT sleep and the monitor MAY STAY ON EVEN when you close the lid.  Make sure you switch your settings for Keep Awake to normal power settings once you are ready to put up your computer.

For more information on how to install this extension and the three settings available within Keep Awake, visit these Google Slides.

ECHO Standards Tracker

The ECHO Standards Tracker will allow teachers to:

1. Attach standards to ECHO courses.
2. Attach specific standards being covered in a particular project/unit.
3. Attach specific standards to learning activities within projects or units.
4. Attach specific standards to individual questions within an assessment or practice question set.
5. Run reports on class and individual student progress in mastering learning standards.

By doing so, teachers will be able to monitor student progress across learning standards within their ECHO classes.  This information will better inform our instruction, remediation, and reteaching to fit the needs of our students!

ECHO Community Tool

Use the ECHO Community Tool to find resource shared from the New Tech Network, as well as view shared projects from other NTN teachers!

Putting Grades in TAC/Transferring Grades from ECHO

Classroom Issues & Conduct Referrals in TAC

Student Behavioral Logs and Office Referrals are now managed within TAC.  Student Behavioral Logs are titled Classroom Issues.  These reports are used to record teacher managed student behaviors.  Office Referrals are titled Conduct Referrals and are used for office managed student behavior.  I have included a related excerpt from the TAC handbook if you wish to read the step by step instructions, as well as three screen cast videos demonstrating the process.

Excerpt from TAC Handbook on managing Classroom Issues & Conduct Referrals.

Creating Roster Reports to Print in TAC 3.1

Taking Attendance in TAC 3.1

Teachers,

Starting tomorrow, we will begin taking attendance in TAC.  Remember that you do not mark a student absent in TAC until you have had the student present in your classroom at least once.  If you need to see a video on how to do this, check out the bottom of this post.

For teachers that have multiple classes listed for the same period in TAC, you might adjust your view to better organize your classes.

Click on the view drop down list on the home page of TAC.

Select My Classes.

Now, each of the classes for each period is grouped with the same color band.

If you need to see how to take attendance and submit it in the new TAC, check out this YouTube video I created: