Creating a Password Protected File

Creating a Password Protected File

In the age of privacy and security, we need to be very careful how we send confidential information – especially if it contains sensitive student information.  One way to do so, is to create password protected Word or PDF documents that can be sent with a separate email containing the password. 

​Please click on the link below or the image for the full set of instructions on how to do this.  It also includes how to create a Password Protected PDF file from a Word Document.

Password Protected File

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Give Credit Where Credit is Due-How to Cite AI

AI tools like Copilot, ChatGPT, and Gemini are becoming everyday helpers for brainstorming and writing, and students (and us as well) need to know how to cite AI properly in our work. Here’s a poster you can share with your classes. These instructions are my first attempt at this so I am hoping that I got it right. While I am an English/ Creative Writing major (believe it or not) I make mistakes-Please let me know if you any in this poster and I will happily fix it up and send it out again for you 🙂

​Please click here or on the poster for a copy you can print.

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Light the Torch! Fun Olympics Resources + Canva Classroom How‑To’s

​I don’t know if there are any other crazy excited Winter Olympics fans out there but I can’t wait to start cheering on Cassie Sharpe and watching our other amazing athletes!  To help you and your students follow along, we have started putting together some links to the Olympics, with printable​s and other fun information to help build momentum.  You can find the link under the  big buttons on the front of Learn71.ca. Please reach out to us if you know of any other good sites! We have also recently been trying out the Canva Classroom and I am happy to share some tips for finding the awesome teacher lesson plans available there and how to set your class up and assign work in Canva. Thank you Karla for your help with this 😊​

Where are the lesson plans in Canva? 

You can find full lesson plans with slide presentations and activities for most subjects and grades in Canva.  You can use pages from them or the whole unit and you can edit and assign the lessons to your class. The Magic Activity button is also amazing for creating activities for your class. Here’s how to find them:

1.  Log into Canva using your Comox Valley School District email address and password. You can find a link to Canva in My Apps.

2.  Click on Education on the Home page.

3.  Beside Education Templates, click on See All

Now you can see the Categories of the lesson plans and filter by Subject, Grade and Resource Type.  We also encourage you to try out the Magic activities.

How can I assign this to my class in Canva?

You can download the lessons and use them as you would like or you can use the Canva Classroom (also called Classwork). Every time I go in to find lessons I find more incredible things!

Here are some instructions to help you get started: 

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Template Links in Canva; Brightspace & MyEd Student Resources

Happy Tuesday! More and more teachers and students are learning about Canva and using it in their classrooms.  This is very exciting.  However, those who have used Canva before, ​know how quickly you can get caught in a rabbit hole . . . waaaay too many options.

To avoid this, teachers can go into Canva ahead of time and “preselect” specific designs they would like their students to use OR even customize a template, so all students have to do is add content and a few design changes.​

These designs can then be shared out using a “Template Link” so all students have to do is click on the click to create a copy of it in their own instance of Canva.

Click on the image to watch the video below to learn how to do this.

To learn more about how to insert the links into Teams (and more) visit the Canva page on learn71.ca

https://learn71.ca/integrating-technology/technology-support/canva/​

MyEd & Brightspace Student Resources

As the second semester is just starting for the high schools, I just wanted to point out some additional links that have been added to the teacher sites to provide more information to students.  Clicking on the “Learning at Home” red button will direct users to the pages created specifically for parents and students.

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AI Prompting Magic with AI for Education’s Prompt Library

Happy Tuesday! Anyone who is exploring AI quickly realizes that the quality of what you get from AI directly depends on the quality of your prompt.​ Say hello to the AI for Education Prompt Library—your new go-to resource for powerful AI prompts designed specifically for education.  This incredible library is packed with ready-made prompts that help you use AI tools for everything from generating creative writing ideas to crafting personalized study guides. There is even a page of prompts for AI Resistant Assessment. Whether you’re an AI newbie or an experienced user, this resource makes it simple to integrate AI into your teaching practice in meaningful ways and get the most out of Copilot.

On a more serious note, Safer Schools: Erase is offering free online workshops for students and parents about social media awareness, cyberbullying, dealing with violence, online safety and more.  Please send a message home encouraging parents to attend these workshops if they are interested.  Here are links with more information, dates of the workshops and registration:

Students: Separate workshops for grades 5-8 and 9-12 erase Gender Based Violence Student Sessions

Parents: erase Family Sessions

…or for both links visit https://learn71.ca/online/erase_family-resources/

AI For Education Prompt Library:

​Click here or on the image below to visit this fabulous prompt library.

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Embracing Winter with the New York Times Learning Network and Snow Crystals

Happy Tuesday! I hope everyone got a chance on the weekend to go out and enjoy the sunshine.  I sometimes have to remind myself that I like winter and try to embrace the chilly days.  I recently found two things that I would like to share with you that may help you enjoy winter.  The first was a lesson plan from the New York Times, titled “How Nature Comes Alive in Winter“​. This reminded me of all the wonderful teaching resources at the New York Times Learning Network. Here you can find up-to-date discussion articles, picture prompts and more! I will share the link below. The other neat site that I would like to share (thanks to Matt and his Ditch​​ That Textbook​ emails) is about Snowflakes. It is full of really interesting snow crystal facts, videos and information.​

New York Times Learning Network:

​​I encourage you to check out this amazing resource with stuff for almost any grade.  You can find contests, writing prompts, and opinion pieces that students can read with questions at the end to get them thinking and so much more!

New York Times Learning Network

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Exciting and New: Math Progress in Microsoft Teams

​Welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a restful and fun holiday 🙂 I came back to some exciting news from Microsoft: Math Progress is now released globally s​o we all have access! I was super excited when Reading Progress came out, a great program to help people improve their reading, and now Math Progress is available in Teams Assignments to help students ages 9-18 improve their Math skills. Math Progress will generate Math questions (or you are welcome to create your own), auto-grade them, track student progress and help you identify focus areas for more support and when you send the results back to the students, they can open them to see the steps that they should have done to complete the question (oh yeah, the computer does that for you). Can you tell my excitement by my run on sentences?  This is a great tool that you can use to create homework, quizzes and tests.  Did I mention that students can even submit the written work that they do to support their answers? 

Here is a short (ish) video explaining how it works:​

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Background Remover in Book Creator and Hour of Code for National Coding Week

We are excited to share that Book Creator has had some amazing new upgrades.  It is now equipped with Background Remover, a tool we use all the time in Canva. Read on to learn about their recent improvements. Next week is National Coding Week—a fantastic chance to enhance problem-solving skills while introducing students to coding, a valuable skill that could shape their future careers. Why not start with an Hour of Code?​  We have outlined some of favourites below (the Minecraft Hour of code is a fantastic way to introduce the School District Minecraft Challenge-hint hint 😉). 

Book Creator Update:

  1. Zoom Magic 🧐 – Published books now come with zooming capabilities in read mode! Readers can easily zoom in and out to catch every detail.
  2. Image Editing with the Pen Tool 🖌️ – You can now edit images right on your pages, using the pen tool to add your own personal touch to visuals!
  3. Transparency Slider 🌫️ – Adjust the transparency of text, images, and more to create custom looks that suit your style!
  4. Background Remover ✂️ – This might be my favorite update! Now you can remove backgrounds from images in a snap. Just imagine placing a cat on a tropical beach or a selfie with a concert backdrop!​
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Finding Time with Scheduling Poll and Some AI Lessons

We all have such busy lives, it can be super hard to find time to schedule a meeting with a ​coworker. To help make this easier, Microsoft has built Scheduling Poll (used to be called Find Time) right into Outlook email.  Instead of endlessly writing back and forth to get a perfect time, try this easy solution. Thank you, Sandra, for suggesting this Tech Tip 😊​ Please read on for how to use Scheduling Poll and some Ministry of Education AI Lessons for your classes!

How to use Scheduling Poll:​​

  • Open a New Email: Start by creating a new email to send to your group.  You need to have the names in ​the “To:” section for this to work.​
  • Insert the Scheduling Poll: Click on the “Message” tab, then click in the body of your email and choose Scheduling Poll at the top. 
  • The Scheduling Poll appears on the right side of your screen.
  • Select Meeting Times: Select the duration of the meeting and the date of the meeting then choose meeting times. If your coworkers use the Outlook Calendar, it will show if they are busy or not.  You can change the date and select options on different days. Choose several options that you think will work for everyone.
  • Click Next: Then you can enter the location or leave it as a Teams meeting.
  • Click Create Poll: It will add a graphic to your email.
  • Send the Poll: Send the email. The recipients will get a link to the poll where they can vote on the times they’re available.
  • Check the Results: You’ll be notified as people respond, and you can view the results to easily see which time works best for the majority.
Some AI Lesson ideas to use with your classes:​
The Ministry of Education has been collecting stories of how teachers in BC are using AI with their classes.  Click on these links to read the stories and get ideas for lessons:
These and more Ministry of Education AI information can be found here:
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Perfect Timing: How to Schedule Your Emails Like a Pro!

Happy Tuesday! ​Ever find yourself working late at night or early in the morning, only to hesitate before hitting “send” on an email because it’s not quite the right time? Or maybe you’ve crafted the perfect message for your students or colleagues, but want it to arrive at just the right moment. This week’s Tech Tip is all about the Scheduled Send feature in your email platform!​​​ Read on for instructions for how to schedule when your emails will be sent.  Don’t forget, if you are interested in learning Minecraft, join Kara this Friday and our ​Tech Survivor Dinner Series is almost full so please sign up soon if you would like to join us.  Jane and Shannon are putting on a series of workshops about Enhancing Student Learning with Inclusive Tech Tools​. Scroll down to learn more about these or register for them!

​Scheduling Email Sends Five Different Ways 

(Classic Desktop, Online Webmail, New Desktop, iPhone, Android):

Classic Outlook on  your Desktop:

1.  Write your email like you normally would

2.  Click on Options at the top and then click on Delay Delivery

  3.  Fill out the section on Delivery Options. Make the Do not Deliver Before time the time you would like it to send.

4.  You will need to have your computer turned on and email open at the time you would like the email to send.  Ex.  For the one above, any time after 8:00 AM that I open my email, that email will automatically send.

Outlook Webmail:

If you are using Outlook online follow these instructions:

1.  Compose your email as you normally would.

2.  Click on the arrow to the right of Send and choose Schedule Send​

3.  Choose one of the options that they give you or pick​ Custom Time and put in your own date and time.

4. Make sure your computer is on when that time comes.​​

New Outlook on your desktop:

If you are using the new Outlook on your Desktop computer, it is a little easier.  You are welcome to use the new version (click the slider in the top right to switch). It can be a little glitchy still
1.  Compose your email as you normally would.

2.  Click on the arrow to the right of Send and choose Schedule Send​

3.  Choose one of the options that they give you or pick​ Custom Time and put in your own date and time.

4. Make sure your computer is on when that time comes.​​

​On your iPhone:

1.  Compose your email like you normally would.

2.  When you press the send arrow, hold your finger down for a few seconds.

3.  Select the choice that you would like

On Your Android Phone:
Unfortunately, I don’t have an Android phone but this is what I found when I looked it up:​

  1. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Gmail app .
  2. At the bottom right, tap Compose.
  3. Create your email.
  4. At the top right, tap More .
  5. Tap Schedule send. select an option.​
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