Happy New Years everyone!!! With the new year comes new beginnings. Here at School Island, we ring in the new year with the latest additions to our family as well as features/updates thanks to your incredible suggestions. Also in this newsletter, find out about upcoming conferences and learn answers to questions from our mailbag.

Castle Software will start the 2007 New Year by adding three new members to our valuable team:

• Mr. Paul Andrews, who will be taking over the sales responsibilities in North and South Carolina. He and his wife reside in Cornelius, North Carolina, near Charlotte with their son, plus a new addition coming in January. Paul's extension sales background in technology and software sales should make his career move benefiicial for him, School Island and the customers in his territory. Paul is an avid sports fan and participates regularly in basketball.
  
  
• Ms. Tracey Simchick, who is joining the School Island Team as a Staff Development Specialist. The need for knowledgeable trainers who understand technology and the classroom is the reason Tracey will be a hit with our School Island customers. She is a certified educator, recently teaching science at the Middle School level in Buffalo, New York. She also has an extensive background in conducting Staff Development within the district, which will provide her with an easy transition to holding School Island workshops. Tracey will be working in multiple states on the east coast. She lives in the Buffalo, New York area and looks forward to traveling to warm climates to conduct training sessions.
  
  
• Mr. Jim Abraham, who will be joining the School Island Team as a Staff Development Specialist in North Carolina. Jim has been teaching Science at the High School level in Davidson County and was interested in helping make School Island a useful tool for more educators in the state. His knowledge of the classroom, technology, professional training, and School Island effectiveness will provide real life experiences for the attendees in his workshops. Jim and his wife reside near High Point, North Carolina and he is a big hockey fan.

Welcome aboard and best of luck in your new careers.

In the Administrator's Class Summary Report, the values in the Students column are now links. When clicked, these links display the names of the students in the class.

When creating questions for your Personal Content Sets, you can now create Fill-In type questions in addition to multiple-choice questions. Students type their answer into an answer box. Answers must be exact, with created questions having answers that are either a number or a single word.

To create Fill-In Type questions:

1. Open a Personal Content Set.
2. Add a new question.
3. Indicate the location of where the answer box will be displayed in the Question section of the question editor by typing the string "~~1~~" in the appropriate place.
4. Select the Fill-In option, specify the correct answer, and indicate how many characters the answer box will accept in the Answer section of the question editor.
5. Set the Answer Box Width to something larger than the actual answer.
   
   Note: While the browser may display a larger box than required, the number of characters the student can type will be limited to the value specified.
   
   
6. Optional: Set the font size of the answer box. This is useful if your question uses a non-standard font size, allowing the student's answer font size to match the font size of your question. The student sees the question with an answer box and an Accept button.
   

Public Question Sets are sets of pre-defined questions which can be imported into a teacher's assignment. While Public Question Sets defined by School Island have been available for a number of courses, teachers can now publish an assignment to the list of Public Question Sets. These teacher-published sets will be available to any teacher in the publishing teacher's school district. This feature makes it easier for departments to share assignments or for schools and districts to create benchmark assignments for students in various grades and classes.

To publish an assignment:

1. Display the appropriate Short Answer Assignment page.
2. Check the assignment to be published.
3. Click the new Publish link, which is located below the table of assignments. You will receive a prompt asking you to specify a name for the new Public Question Set.
4. Specify the name of the new Public Question set. This will default to the name of your assignment.
   a) If a Public Set with the specified name already exists, then you may overwrite the existing public set provided you are the "owner"; that is, you originally created the Public Question Set.
   b) If you are not the original owner of the Public Question Set, then you will need to specify a different name.
   
   Note 1: Other teachers who want to use the questions you published may do so by importing them into a new assignment.
   
   Note 2: Only Short Answer assignments may be published as Public Question Sets.

School Administrators Association of NYS (SAANYS) Sponsor Events:

• January 17, 2007 – Sponsor for the SAANYS Meeting from 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM at the Saratoga Holiday Inn, Saratoga Springs, NY, with Jeff Olefson presenting “Holding Staff Accountable for Performance.” Check for information at http://www.saanys.org/events/
  
  
• January 18, 2007 – Sponsor for the SAANYS Educational Conference Board Policy Conference – “Public Education in the New World Economy,” a one-day meeting from 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM at the Crowne Plaza, State and Lodge Streets, Albany, NY. The Conference Board is comprised of the “Big 5” School Districts, the NYS Association of School Business Officials, the NYS Congress of Parents and Teachers, the NYS Council of School Superintendents, the NYS Boards Association, the NYS United Teachers, and SAANYS. The program is open to all NYS educators, policy makers and child advocates.

One of my students asked me this question about School Island: "When I have no assignments on my School Island page, how can I access my grades on my completed assignments?"

Your student posed an excellent question! Students tend to rely on the incomplete assignment alert displayed on the Student Home page to tell them what to do next. However, when there is no outstanding work to be done, the alert no longer appears. School Island provides a direct means of accessing any course through the course drop-down menus that also appear on the Student Home page. Professor Bill draws attention to this area: "Pick a course to work on today." Let's say that a student named Jane wants to look up the results of her Math A assignments. Here's what Jane should do:

1. Sign into her School Island student account.
2. Select Math A from the Mathematics drop-down menu on the Home page then click Go.
3. Click Short Answer Review on the Activities page. The Short Answer Review page displays.
4. Click Assignments From Your Teacher on the Short Answer Review page. The Assignments page displays, summarizing assigned sessions in Math A, including scores for completed sessions.
5. Click the Report icon to see a more detailed analysis of an assignment.
6. Scroll down to the bottom to view the list of vocabulary terms related to the items that the student answered incorrectly. This sheet may also be printed out.
7. Click the Flash Card icon on the Assignments List to review all vocabulary terms related to this assignment.
8. Click the date of the assignment on the Assignments List to view the actual questions.
   If the assignment is still open, then the student may work on any previously unanswered questions.
   If the assignment is in review mode, then the student can review previously answered questions.
   

How can I include equations and formulas from Microsoft's Equation Editor or Math Type into my personal content sets?

We are glad to hear that you are making use of some of the more sophisticated features of School Island, in particular, Personal Content Sets! Equation Editor and the more comprehensive Math Type are two common Microsoft Word plug-ins that math and science teachers use to create equation graphics.

The advanced editor in School Island's Personal Content Sets allows you to insert graphics into the question, hint, or reason areas of Short Answer content, or into the definition area of Vocabulary content. To access the advanced editor, select Advanced from the drop-down menu for the Default Editor under Question/Vocabulary Set Options on the right side of the Personal Content Sets editing pages.

Equations typed in Equation Editor or in Math Type may be saved as graphics, which can then be uploaded and inserted into Personal Content Sets. To use this:

1. Create the equation.
2. Insert the equation into the Microsoft Word document.
3. Right-click on the equation in the Microsoft Word document.
4. Select Copy.
5. Paste the equation into a graphics program.
6. Save the graphic as a .gif or .jpg file locally on your hard drive with an appropriate file name.
7. Go back to School Island's Personal Content Sets.
8. Open a short-answer or vocabulary set.
9. Create a new set.
10. Click Add a Question/Vocabulary Item or Edit Question/Vocabulary.
11. Set the cursor to the place where you want to insert the equation in the Question, Hint, or Reason area of a short-answer item (or in the Definition area of a vocabulary term).
12. Click the Insert/Edit Image icon in the Advanced editor.
13. Click Browse Server in the Image Properties pop-up window.
14. Click Your Images in the Image Gallery window.
15. Click Upload Image Files.
16. Use Browse to locate the saved equation graphic on your hard drive.
17. Click Upload.
18. Close the window after the file has been uploaded. The Image Gallery page refreshes and now shows your newly uploaded equation graphic.
19. Click on its name. School Island returns you to the Image Properties window.
20. Adjust any other properties such as the alignment.
21. Click OK when you're done. You will now see the equation at the cursor in the appropriate editing area.

This may sound complicated, but after walking through the steps a few times, you should become more comfortable with the process. The Online Help is also available for assistance.

If you have any comments, ideas for future articles, or suggestions for a School Island product feature or enhancement, please send it to support@schoolisland.com. We would love to hear from you!