Fresh from the Help Desk!

Hi everyone! Here is a tip for you and your students that may help your run your class. A feature that we introduced this year to the Help Desk is the ability to connect your Google Account to the Help Desk.

If you or your students already have a Help Desk account, you can continue to use that. However if you do not, there is a new option available. It's really easy:

• To go the log-in page for the Help Desk in the upper righthand of the screen.
• At the log-in page, click "Sign in using Google"
• If you haven't signed in, sign in when prompted.
• Allow the Help Desk to connect your account.

When you preform these steps, if you don't have an account associated with that email, a new one will be created, and you can click the Google button to log-in.

If you already have an account, you can also perform these steps in order to log in with the Google button.

For more tips, check out the your school wiki's Help Center and the Help Desk's Knowledge Base.

As always, if  you have any questions, feel free to message the Help Desk!

Time for Time Management

"Time keeps on slippin', slippin',slippin' into the future."
- lyrics from "Fly Like and Eagle," Steve Miller Band

Sometimes, I think the members of the Steve Miller Band must have been teachers, because our schedules often feel just like that. As the pressures of the day go on, it can often become very easy to shortcut processes and projects; trying to fit it all in to our schedule. Even when it feels like an overload, it is all just a matter of time management.

In Globaloria, the Course Schedule is a great tool for planning ahead and it is easier than a standard lesson plan. Using this tool can help a teacher and their class feel more organized and secure in their delivery. For new teachers especially, this is a tool that can help a lot of the tension and insecurities in tackling new things like Flash and ActionScript. It allows us to plan ahead and take comfortable "bites" of material while still making forward progress. Just take a look at Heather's , Aaron's, and MCTC's schedules for different examples of how they can be used.

A second tool that can assist in time management is the Learning Log. This tool lets students and teachers reflect on successes and struggles. As a teacher, seeing what topics have stalled your class for an extra hour or day can help you adjust the future and make it easier for all parties involved. It can even help you to see what skills the students are mastering faster to alleviate extra time on redundant lessons.

In your experience with the program, have you discovered any special tips for time management in Globaloria? Please share your insights with the community!

-Bill