Important Employee Links

Our district website, emsisd.com, is hosted by ESC 11. This Saturday, October 3, ESC 11 technicians will be doing some routine server maintenance, which will results in a website outage for all hosted district sites, including ours. The EMS ISD website may be unavailable for as long as two hours.

This outage WILL NOT AFFECT Skyward, Eduphoria, Office 365, Canvas, or other web-based district systems, but if you use the links on the district page to access these resources, you will need to access them directly during the outage.  

Important Employee Links 

The following links can be saved as shortcuts on your computer desktop or to a list of bookmarks/favorites. These links will allow you access these district systems directly, rather than using the links on the district site.

Skyward | Educator Access (Gradebook)

https://web.ems-isd.net

Skyward | Employee Access (Financial Information)

https://web1.ems-isd.net

Eduphoria

eduphoria.ems-isd.net

Office 365 (Email, Calendar, OneDrive, etc.)

portal.office.com

Canvas

emsisd.instructure.com

Aesop | Teacher Login

http://www.frontlinek12.com/Products/Aesop.html

Getting Started in Canvas: Creating a Home Page

Are you just getting started in Canvas? This video will walk you through the steps to create a simple Home Page in a course.

If you have other questions about things you can do in Canvas, leave a comment below. 

OneDrive Changes in PERSONAL Microsoft Accounts

EMS ISD district employees have an Office 365 account that includes email, calendar, OneDrive, and more. The OneDrive in this account is technically called OneDrive for Business and is a very powerful tool that allows us to create, share, and store documents and files online. 

Many district employees also have a personal Microsoft account that includes many of the same tools as our Office 365 account, including a cloud storage solution that is also called OneDrive. Although district employees that have been here for several years may still access this personal account using a district email address, this account is a personal account and is no longer managed by the district.

If you got an email from Microsoft this week about Groups in OneDrive, this means that you are part of one or more groups in your personal Microsoft account. This email announced that GROUPS in the personal Microsoft account will no longer be available after October 16, 2015. This means that you will no longer be able to access any of the files shared in one of these groups.

If you would like to save any of these files, you can follow these steps from Microsoft to move them from Groups into your own files in your personal Microsoft account. Or, you can download them from your personal Microsoft account and upload them into your district Office 365 OneDrive account.

The following video gives a quick overview of the differences of the two OneDrives, and what you must do prior to October 16, if you want to save files in your personal OneDrive account.

What is the CHAT feature in Canvas? And do I really have to use it?

The Chat tool in Canvas allows students and teachers to interact in real time. It's available to all teachers and students in a course, and cannot be limited to specific students.

Teachers can use the chat tool to conduct group discussions or study sessions.

If you do not want the Chat tool (or any other tools!) to be available to the students in a course, it's easy to disable them.

This video walks you through the process, or keep scrolling down for the steps.

To disable the Chat tool (or other others) ...

1. Click Settings for your course (lower left corner of screen.)
2. On the Navigation tab, click the cog (gear) for the desired tool.
3. Select Disable.

If you change your mind, you can come right back here and enable it again.

REPLY ALL is the new default ... REALLY???

I'll admit it ... I've been guilty of hitting Reply All when I meant to hit Reply. Most of us have. That's what makes this recent Superbowl commercial so funny!

(Watch it, but then scroll down for the real reason you're here!)

If you access your email via Outlook on the web in Office 365 (as opposed to using Outlook 2013), you may have noticed a recent change. Apparently, REPLY ALL is now the default option instead of REPLY.

You can manually change this setting every time by clicking the small triangle next to the words Reply All and selecting Reply, Forward, or whatever you need to do for this particular email.

Or, you can go in and update your preferred settings so that REPLY is back to the default option. (Highly Recommend!!! Highly Recommend!!!) Follow these directions to change your settings:

• Click the Cog (settings gear) icon in the upper right corner of your O365 window
• Select Options

• Select Reply Settings from the Mail menu
• Select Reply from the Reply Settings options
• Click Save

Now, when you send an email, your default options should say REPLY again. 

Contact Lists in Outlook 2013

Creating and Sharing a Contact List in Outlook 2013 is easy to do. This video walks you through the entire process.

When someone shares a Contact List with you, you can add it to your own Contacts by following the steps demonstrated in this video:

Updating Eduphoria Forethought Planner to See Current TEKS in PDAS Self Report

In order to see the current TEKS in your Eduphoria PDAS Teacher Self Report, you will need to update your planner in Eduphoria Forethought.

Even if you actually plan with a team planner, please follow the steps in the video below to update your personal planner.



If you have questions, please contact your Campus Technology Integrator (CTI) or District Instructional Technologist (IT).