Naming Your Mastery Manager Assessments

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"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet."

Well, Juliet did not have Mastery Manager in her mind when she uttered these famous words.  If she did, she would have known how important the name of an assessment is!

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Why Is This Needed?

As we prepare to end our first full year of using Mastery Manager at the secondary level in Unit 5, there are some things you should all know about how to name assessments, and why it is important to do so.  As it turns out, any assessment that you would like to use again next year will need to be duplicated and renamed.  Doing so ensures that you will not overwrite any previous data that has been entered by your students this year, and also allows you to compare assessment scores from one year to the next.  Imagine; in three years you will be able to run reports that show the percentage of your students who reached mastery of a skill each time you gave the assessment.  This allows you to reflect on your teaching style, implement new strategies, and see their effectiveness over time.  What a wonderfully powerful tool to have!

Having to duplicate and rename each of your assessments sounds like a pain, right?  Well, this is where having a common way to name things comes in handy.  A standard naming convention allows me to do the following...

1. Search for all of the assessments in the district with a certain keyword (say, "2012-2013")


2. Duplicate all of these assessments at one time


3. Rename them by replacing the "2012-2013" with "2013-2014"


4. Archive all of the old assignments so they do not clutter up your Assessment tab.  (note that archived assignments are not deleted, only hidden for organizational purposes)

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The Naming Convention

So, does Unit 5 have a standard naming convention?  It just so happens that one was created recently with the input of the high school assessment coaches.  Direct information will be coming to you soon from your PLC facilitators about renaming current assessments, but here is a sneak peek at the official naming conventions document if you want to get a jump start on renaming.

Click to view larger

You can also access the entire naming conventions document in the helpsheets area of Google Drive.

Map of Free WiFi to Unit 5 Students

As technology becomes more and more available to our students, teachers are often stuck with a nagging question; "How much can I expect my students to be able to do online outside of my classroom?"  Although this is not a direct answer to that question, I thought it would be valuable to make available a map of free WiFi for the students of Unit 5.  Now, families will have a resource (in the form of an interactive Google map) for finding the nearest free WiFi hotspot in their area.  This is by no means a finished product, and I encourage anyone who knows of a spot that is not currently listed to contact me so that we can put it on the map!  In fact, the true value of this resource will not be realized unless community members get involved in building the map.  The map can be found on the Unit 5 district home page in the Digital Conversion section under the Parents Technology Corner.

[caption id="attachment_1401" align="alignnone" width="285"] Click on the image to view the interactive map.[/caption]

New Preview in Google Drive

Google Drive has altered the way that you preview files that have not been created using Google Apps.  You will now be presented with a pop up window that previews the file, and allows you to download by clicking on a button at the bottom of your screen.  The first time you view this preview, there will be a simple tutorial that will be presented.  This should alliviate some confusion that students have when it comes to the inability to edit Word documents from within Google Drive.  These documents no longer open in a window that looks identical to the Google Document window.  You can read more about the new preview function below.

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