Reserve a Room / Lab with Google Calendar

If you need to use a computer lab for a lesson, be sure to reserve it ahead of time.  Just follow the directions below.

• To make a reservation, just make an appointment on the calendar and add the room to the event.  Do this by clicking on "Create" on the left.

• Then type your name as the title (where it says, "Untitled event"), enter the date, and select start and end times.

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• Then over on the right, click on "Rooms, etc." and click "Add" next to the room.  This will add it to the "Guests" list just under the list of rooms.  If the room isn't listed, then someone else has already reserved it.  (To confirm, you can uncheck "Show only available".  Then you should see the room with a red "X" next to it instead of the green square.)

• Then click the red "Save" button in the upper-left.

Email Vacation Mode

If you are going to be away from your email for a lengthy period of time, this tip is for you.

By activating "vacation mode," anyone who emails you will get a message stating that you're away from email.  This message can say things like, "I'll be away for the next week.  If you need a reply before then, contact my coworker at..."

Setting this up is quite easy.

1. Login to your email.
2. Click on the gear icon above your inbox on the right side.
   
3. Select "Settings" from the menu.
   
4. Scroll down to "Vacation responder" and fill things out.
   
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Save Changes"
   

Make sure that you fill in start and end dates in "First Day" and "Ends."  By doing this (and checking off the box next to "Ends") the system will kick in for your vacation.

I recommended starting this on your first day before you leave, just in case someone emails you late that afternoon and you don't have a chance to respond.  Likewise, you may wish to set "Ends" to the day you come back, in order to let people know that you're working to catch up with your backlog.

A great time to use this is during any school recess, so that people know you might be slow in getting back to them.

eDoctrina Scanning From The Copier

Note:  This one is for the teachers.  "eDoctrina" is our 21st century version of "scantron" or "bubble" answer sheets.


When using eDoctrina, you can scan in the answer sheets on our photocopiers.  The process is only four quick button presses.  A quick walk-through follows.

• Login to the copier, if necessary.

Before Logging In

After Logging In

• Press the "Quick Menu" button on the side.

"Quick Menu" is a physical button

• The Quick Menu screen has two modes:  "Personal" and "Shared".  Press the "Shared" button.

Many have been thrown off by the lack of large buttons here.
Just press "Shared" and they'll appear.

• Press the "eDoctrina" button.

You're almost there...

• Now load the sheet-feeder on the top of the copier and press the "Yes" button on the screen to start the process.

The forth and final button press.

That is it.  Once the papers are scanned, you can logout of the copier, make regular copies, pick up printouts, or do anything else that you might need to do.

The answers should show up in your eDoctrina account soon.  The length of the wait can vary based on many factors, but if the scores haven't arrived by the next morning, please contact the school technical support at the usual email address so they can check it out.

Keeping Google Docs

If you are graduating or moving soon, you may be interested in knowing that you can download all of your files in Google Docs.  Putting them on a flash drive or emailing them to yourself allows you to keep them after you leave the Cairo-Durham schools.

The directions haven't changed from last year, so you can follow those directions.

Shopping Tips, 2012

This is my shopping advice update for 2012.  Much of it is the same as last year's.  Please be sure to read that first.  Its all still valid and points to way to a lot of discounts.

This year, I want to add three new tips to save you money and stress:

1. Don't bother with Black Friday.
2. Use your phone.
3. Don't forget your points.

Black Friday

No one likes fighting crowds of anxious shoppers.  Good news:  You shouldn't bother.

Black Friday sales actually cost more than routine pricing from online stores.  There are exceptions, but that is not the norm.

Smart Phone = Smart Shopping

If you do decide to go shopping in a physical store and have a smartphone, download a couple of comparison shopping tools first.

There are a number of apps that will use your phone's camera to scan barcodes or even search based on a picture of the product.  They look up the price on Amazon, Google, eBay, and other services.  This is amazingly easy and quick.  Look on your phone's App Store to see what I mean.

Here are a few examples for iPhones:

• SnapTell
• Red Laser
• Price Check By Amazon
• Google Shopper

If you have an Android phone and can recommend an app like these, please put it in the comments below.

Credit Card Points

Lastly, it your credit card gives you "points," consider trading them in for gift cards.  For example, you could trade in 10,000 points for $100 at Amazon and then buy several gifts.  You could also trade in points for several small iTunes or Amazon gift cards.  These would make great gifts for children who are about to receive an iPad or Kindle Fire from their parents.

As stated at the beginning, don't forget to check last year's tips for more advice.

Taking Google Docs With You

If you're graduating, moving, or otherwise leaving Cairo-Durham CSD soon, you might be interested in taking your Google Docs files with you.  This is a lot easier than you might think.

1. Go to the Start Portal.
2. Click on Docs and login, if necessary.
3. Click on the check box for any file or files.
4. A "More" button should now appear.  Click on it.
5. The "More" button should pop-down a menu.  From that menu, select "Download..."
6. You will see a new window.  In that window, there are two tabs named "Selected items" and "All items.  Click on "All items".
7. There will be three options in small print.  They are "MS Office", "Open Office", and "PDF".  Select the format that you want to convert your files into.  If in doubt, you can do this process once for each option and then save all three copies of your files.  Most people find "MS Office" to fit their needs.
8. Click "Download".
9. Follow any additional directions that appear on the screen.

Soon you should have copies of your files downloaded.  You can place these on a flash drive, email them to someone, upload them to your personal Google Docs account, or upload them to any number of other services such as DropBox or SkyDrive.

(Note:  This is an update to the old article "Saving Google Docs" from June 13, 2011.)

Changing PowerSchool Login for Parents (March 5)

On March 5, 2012, the way that parents login to PowerSchool changed.  If you're having trouble logging into our PowerSchool system as a parent, please check out the directions on our website or you can download the directions.