PDC Agenda Additional Sort Options

 PDC Members, you can now sort your PDC Agenda and New Requests list by "Category" or "Level". 

If you select "Category" your list will be sorted by Content, Professional Education, and Service to the Profession. If you select "Level" your list will be sorted by Knowledge, Application, and Impact.

Thanks, Lottie, from our newest PDP Toolbox District, Kansas District LCMS!

Jay @ Greenbush.

Download Your Teachers' Official PD Transcripts

When your teachers are needing license renewal, downloading a PDF copy of an Official PD Transcript is only a few clicks away!

Manager > School/Group > Teacher Name > Print PD Transcript...

 

 

This brings up a Print Dialog box. Now you have the option to Save As PDF for download to your computer, or print a hardcopy.

And here's what you get:

 

> View an example Official PD Transcript!

Thanks, Tammy, for calling, and Cindy for commenting—your feedback is a huge help!

Jay @ Greenbush.

Keep College Transcripts in Your PDP Cloud

When your teachers send you their college transcripts you can now upload and store them in the PDP Toolbox "Cloud" for centralized safe-keeping. This not only streamlines access for you and your teachers, but the transcripts also follow your teachers if they go to another PDP Toolbox district—just like PD transcripts! (And, as always, we are happy to provide non-PDPTB districts teachers' PD and college transcripts.)

Anyone with the System Manager role can now navigate to a Teacher's Preferences page and upload College Transcripts to their PDP Toolbox account.

To get there, follow these steps:

Manager > School/Group > Teacher Name > View College Transcripts...

 

 



See that in action!



Jay @ Greenbush.

PDC Members, Get Points for Approving Points

Hey PDC Member, Building Rep, Chair, do you know you can request professional learning transcript activity points for the time you spent reviewing and approving PDC activities in your PDP Toolbox PDC Member section??

To help estimate the time you've spent doing PDC Member duties in your PDP Toolbox account you now have a PDC Member Activity Report.

Here's a quick link to your PDC Member Activity Report. 

(Sign in, then click. Or scroll to the very bottom of any of your PDC Member Activity pages: New Requests, PDC Agenda, and Chair, and look for the tiny PDC Member Activity Report link.)

This is an example of the report from our "dummy district":

You see the PDC Member actions sorted by Year, Month, and Day, with each period and grouping reporting the total estimated time spent performing PDC Member responsibilities. The idea is each single action, such as "points chair", gets 5 minutes, and each group of actions get at least 5 minutes. (Groups of actions, such as "points agenda, post, points chair", get the amount of time from the first action to the last plus 5 minutes.)

Great idea Heather F., and your help fine-tuning is much appreciated!

Jay @ Greenbush.

Get Daily "Teacher Out, Sub In" Email Report

Now you can get delivered to your email box a daily report showing the teachers out for the day and the name of the substitute teacher. For example:

Each day, see who's out, what for, what time of day, the type of leave, who's filling in, and maybe even a special note from that cute sub clerk.

If the no additional charge, daily Substitutes Report email option added to your PDP Toolbox account tickles your fancy, just ask!

Thanks Julie U. for asking!

Jay @ Greenbush.

More than 10 Points Requires Date Description

It was reported, professional development activities have been denied by KSDE when having more than 10 points and no range of dates was provided. :(

The Date and Time Description field already appears in the transcript Ginger @ Greenbush prepares for license renewal, along with each activity when that activity is more than 8 points.

So enter the range of dates for these activities in the Date and Time Description field on your PDP Toolbox Transcript Points Request form, and you're golden! :)

https://pdptoolbox.org/staff/?page=points_knowledge_form.php
(Sign in to the PDP Toolbox before following this link.)

Thanks to Jan H. for sharing! :)

Jay @ Greenbush

Evaluation Instrument Links to Your PDP Toolbox

Goals Browser

Have you noticed the new "Goals Browser" in your PDP Toolbox account? In addition to some layout improvements, there's a Cross Reference to McRel, KEEP, and Greenbush Evaluation Instruments.

Take a look: click on "Your Account" to go to your activities page. Then, in the "My Goals" box, located in the upper right corner of the page, you ought to find the Goals Browser. Click to open and find the consortium and your district and/or building goals. In the "Consortium" group, after each goal, find the text "Show Eval. Cross Ref.". Click "Show" to reveal the Evaluation Instrument options: McRel, KEEP, and Greenbush. Now click "Show McRel", for example, and this expands the cross reference between that particular Consortium goal and the McRel standards. Same goes for KEEP and Greenbush.

Evaluation Standards as Parent Goals

Here's a further option for your district: when you (and your teaching colleagues) are developing personal goals, your district Evaluation Instrument can be made available for selection as parent goals to your individual goals, in the same way you have been linking your personal goals to building and district goals. The idea here is to use your recent evaluation results to shape your current Professional Learning Plan by directly linking your PL goals to your focus areas in your Evaluation Instrument.

Jay @ Greenbush

Upload Multiple Files with Points Request

When you make a PDP Toolbox transcript points request, you can now upload multiple files along with your request.

In your PDP Toolbox activities page, open a new Transcript Points Request and scroll down to the "Artifacts" field located in the Post Activity Information box. Here, each time you add a file to your request, another file browse button ought to appear immediately below the last one. Keep adding files and the PDP Toolbox keeps adding an extra file upload option for you. :)

Thanks Madison M. and Nancy M. for your multiple file upload requests!

Jay @ Greenbush

Clerk, Cancel Requests or Change Time of Day

Do you have the Clerk section in your PDP Toolbox account? This might help. When an approved Leave Request has been not been used, or the time of day used has changed, whoever has access to the Clerk role in the PDP Toolbox can now mark the request "canceled", or change the time of day.

CANCEL REQUEST
To cancel a request, in the Clerk section of your PDP Toolbox account, open the particular leave request and in the "Request Leave:" box (first one) look for the "Status:" item. If the request has been approved you ought to find a select list with the options "approved" and "canceled." Select "canceled" then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the "Update" button. On the way there, you can leave a comment in the comment box to make a note of the reason for the cancelation.

What does this do? Canceling a request removes the request from your Clerk list. To find it again click the "Search by Date or Name" link near the top of your clerk section and find it there. The request remains in the Learning Coordinator history list, and the teacher's leave history...just marked 'canceled'.

CHANGE TIME OF DAY
To change the time of day, open the particular leave request and in the "Request Leave:" box (first one) look for the "Activity Date:" item. Again, if the request is approved you ought to find a select list after the activity date. Same thing, hit "Update".

There's also a time of day select list in the "Substitute Information:" box.

Thanks, Jami A., for taking the time to call about getting rid of the vagrant requests cluttering your Clerk list!

Jay @ Greenbush

Clerk, Limit Leave Requests to Current School Year

Is your clerk page stuffed up? Well, this new option ought to cure that ill. 

On the Clerk's site, on the Leave Requests page, there's a new little checkbox. If you look in the box that holds the label "Leave Requests" and after "Show:" you ought to find a checkbox labeled "Current Yr." Check that and click "Update" to limit your clerk page to activities occurring only during the current fiscal school year.

Thanks Sheila M. and Stacy B. for taking the time to let your requests be known. Clerks rock!

Jay @ Greenbush.

PDC Members, Points Request Notifications Expanded

Thanks to Sue B.'s request, the Points Notification option to receive the daily digest email now allows PDC Members to receive both a daily digest AND the individual email when a request for Points is made in the PDP Toolbox.

If you have already activated this option, the default setting was to turn off the individual emails. So you will now have to adjust your preferences to include them.

To add this option to your account, go to "Your Preferences", scroll down to the PDC Options box (only appears if you have PDC Member status in the program), and check the appropriate checkboxes.

Jay @ Greenbush.

Supervisors, View Staff Transcripts

If you supervise staff and need to see points transcripts, you have that option through the "Manager" section, now with added functionality thanks to Jim Mc.! (If you don't see "Manager" when you sign in but want that option, let us know.)

After you sign into your PDP Toolbox account, click "Manager," then click a School/Group, then click a staff name. You should see the "Staff Preferences" page. Look next to "Staff Preferences:" for the "View Transcript..." link. Click.

By default the Transcript page lists current, approved points. To see learning activities available for points, pending points, or old points, uncheck the "Approved" and "Current" checkboxes after "Show:" and click the "Update" button. (Look next to the "Transcript of Points:" label for these.)

Jay @ Greenbush.

Add Files to Group Activity Notifications

Do you set up Group Activities? Have you ever wanted to include an agenda or flyer? Jessica K. did, said she did, and now, you can!

What happens is, if you add a file to a Group Activity, a link to the file is added to the e-mail that goes out for that activity AND those invited to the activity can download the file from the Group Activity details page in their PDP Toolbox account.

To add a file to a Group Activity, first, sign into the PDP Toolbox and navigate to a new Group Activity.

New Group Activity

Scroll down a bit and look for the box labeled "Resources," right under the Staff box.

Mac Upload Resources

Here, on Mac, click the "Choose File" button to open a file browser dialog box.

PC Upload Resources

And on PC, click the "Browse..." button to do the likewise. Find the file, select it, and click "Open." When you Announce or save the Group Activity the file is uploaded and made available to invitees.

Hey, the thought occurs this is a great way to distribute professional development material, sort of a virtual in-service. Just make a new Group Activity, attach some reading material, give a couple weeks to accomplish, and send it out. After the "activity date" passes, the activity becomes an opportunity to request points. How's that?

Jay @ Greenbush.

Supervisor—Evidence/Reflection Overview Now Available

Supervisors now have the option to view their certified staff points activities, including evidence and reflection. Just ask, and once the role is added to your account, and after the next time you sign in, you should see the "Points Review" link among your other roles.

Administrative Roles Page

Click "Points Review" to load the Points Review page. (Brilliant.)

List of staff points activities including evidence and reflection.

You should see a list of approved points activities sorted by activity date. There may be more points activities than comfortably fit on the page. If so, click "Next >" in the yellow page navigation bar to view more activities. You can alternatively sort the list by staff, activity, or date requested if you like. (Click the column header.)

If, like Linda S., you think this will help, contact Ginger, the program coordinator, and ask her to add the "Points Review" role to your account.

Jay @ Greenbush.

Send Group Activity Reminders to Individuals!

When you view your list of Group Activities you now have the option to edit, remove and remind staff regarding a particular activity. Click the "Edit (#)" link under the "# Attend." column in the row of the activity you want to affect.

Group Activities List

You should see a page that looks something like the one below. Staff you've already included in this activity are highlighted in yellow, and if you roll your cursor over each row you will get the options to Remove this activity from, or send a reminder e-mail to, that particular account.

Group Activity Attendees Edit Screen

For example, as is depicted in the screenshot above, the cursor is highlighting "Wantsome Points." If "Remove" is clicked, then "Wantsome Points" is removed from the attendees list and this Group Activity no longer appears in that account under "Upcoming Activities" or, if the date of the activity has passed, under "Points" for a points request.

And here's a video demo:



Jay @ Greenbush.

Teaching License Term Not Set Alert

Krystal was the latest PDP Toolbox participant to report some people were not getting Group Activity requests in their PDP Toolbox Points list. Turns out they did not have their Teaching License Term set, so the points activity appeared to be outside the current period (0 in length). This was not the first time this happened and a quick database query showed there were many others that do not have their Teaching License Term set.

So, to help bring this to the attention of those who may not be aware of it, an alert was added to the PDP Toolbox Activities page in case the term is not set:

Notice the yellow box just below the "PDP Toolbox: Staff" header? In red is written, "Teaching licence Term not set!"

To remedy, go to "Your Preferences" and set the "Term" in the "Teaching License" box.

Jay @ Greenbush.

Manager—Printer Friendly Staff Transcript

In the Manager section, the staff transcript page now includes a "printer friendly" option. To use, click the "Printer Friendly" link in the upper right corner of the transcript page. A lean version of the page should load and open a print dialog box. When finished printing, click the "Return" link (where the Printer Friendly link was) to return the page to normal mode. Thanks, Dan D., for the trouble report and suggestion.

Jay @ Greenbush.

PE Standards Added to Points Request

A list of the 13 Professional Education Standards, shown here:

http://www.pdptoolbox.org/staff/common/category_definitions.html

...are now available for selection on a points requests. If you click the "Prof. Ed." option under "Category" a form select list element appears containing the standards.

After the request is submitted for approval, the selected standard shows up in the PDC Member section as "PE Standard:", followed by the standard # selected, along with the rest of the points request information.

Thanks, Dee, for bringing this to our attention.

Jay @ Greenbush.

Program Updates Here!

After several requests for program development "heads up"s (thank you all for your patience, and thank you Becky G. for the latest), the thought came to mind a blog may be an effective tool for keeping you up-to-date with tweaks, changes, additions, and major surgery. :)

It seems the blog will also provide a way to explain the purpose and how to use the announced update, and give you a feedback mechanism (your feedback drives the PDP Toolbox!).

So be it!

Jay @ Greenbush.