Computer Calculators

Beware, beware! Although the calculator function in Acuity is disabled for this round of testing, the calculator function on the dock for the eMac's and laptops still works just fine. If kids have used it in their classes, as my fifth graders have, you may have a few students who will attempt to use what they know. I would imagine that this will be more of an issue in middle school, but if my fifth graders can figure it out, there will probably be more than a few others who will. Terry Gavagan

Math Symbols in Different Platforms

We have been doing the ELA test this week, so we haven't run into the math issues yet. Shouldn't we be consistent as a district in how we deal with the comma in 4th grade and the apostrophe on the 3rd grade test? Are we allowed to tell the kids about the problem ahead of time? It hardly seems appropriate to give kids test questions if the adults don't know what is being asked of the students. Clarification would be helpful. Thanks. Lois Eddy This appears to be a computer/platform issue. It has been sent to Acuity for their investigation of browser differences. I'm sure there won't be a problem if teachers clarified this for their students. Janet A Gillmeister

Procedure for problems and concerns

4/18/07 Once again, I ask that people be careful as to whom you are sending or replying these messages. Second, just a possibility, there may be a discrepancy of how tests look online with various computers and platforms. If you have true difficulties, email the information (specific - type of computer, platform, browser, grade, assessment) to Acuity so that they may improve the product. Thanks Janet

Students who Click Finished too Early

If a student clicks finished too early you must reassign them to the assessment. To do this, create an assignment using the same diagnostic form (you can name the assignment anything you want). You will have to give start and stop dates. When you assign the student a warning will come up asking if you really want to reassign the student. The new assessment will override the old one. Because the assessment (not assignment) is the same, that students results will be aggregated with his/her class. Although you can reassign a test to a student who has 'spoiled' a test, please keep in mind that you should not reassign a test for other reasons (ex. Do not give the same diagnostic form as a practice test, do not re- administer the test to get a higher score, etc.)--Kelly Malone

No test available

We've just logged a whole sixth grade class in and when they choose language arts there is no test available. They're taking the math test now since that came up when they chose that, but shouldn't they both be available? Pat Heydweiller Roberts School

Math Symbol

4/18/07 Hi!I was just helping with a 3rd grade math acuity assessment and a few problems came up. Question 16 (I believe) a number line with fractions - no matter how big we made it the fractions didn't get larger. Very hard to read. questions 24, 25 and 28 all involved the use of this symbol ( ' ) question 24 was 2 ' 7 = 7 ' b question 28 was 1 ' 4 = (choices are 3, 1, 4 or 5) I looked at it carefully to make sure it wasn't * I wasn't sure what the children were supposed to do. Did I miss the meaning of some math symbol ? Diane Dwyer Math IST

Students with no tests assigned

Tue 4/17/2007 4:16 PM Subject: Students who didn't get test assigned I have at least two students who do not have the district diagnostic test assigned to them. I cant find the test to assign it to them. How do I do it? I have three students who accidentally started the test when we doing a practice test and clicked on finish without actually finishing. Can I reassign the test to them? How? Aran Wonders Library Media Specialist Danforth Middle School I had these same questions, and one other...I know someone else posted this same question but I never saw an answer. I have a student new to my building since the upload. He is on a Franklin roster and I know that they unassigned him but the system is still telling me that there is a duplicate user and cannot be added. How do I get him on my class list? Thanks for all of the support, hope everyone is doing well! Rhonda Zajac I also have three students who accidently clicked on finish or were kicked out of the test without finishing. Can they be reassigned? If so, how? Karen DeGirolamo

McAfee Virus interruption during testing

4/19/07 We just had the McAfee Virus update begin to run on some of our laptops (wireless) while the kids are testing. If it happens to yours, just tell them to click on stop and the update window will close. I checked with Vlad and he said that it shouldn't come up again after that. Pat Heydweiller Roberts School Library

Assignment Status

Just a quick reminder. You can check the status of who has completed the test, in progress, etc. when you go to "TESTS" - the "ASSIGMENT STATUS" Then put in the search criteria. When "Syracuse City School District" appears in the results window, click on it and you can continue to select by building, then teacher/ class, then student. It will tell you who is still taking it and who has completed. I know when we take paper tests we keep piles of students who were absent with post-its and all sorts of notes. With this program all you have to do is check the status window to see who has not finished. Good luck! Laurie Holtsbery IST for Technology in ELA

Assignment Status

Just a quick reminder. You can check the status of who has completed the test, in progress, etc. when you go to "TESTS" - the "ASSIGMENT STATUS" Then put in the search criteria. When "Syracuse City School District" appears in the results window, click on it and you can continue to select by building, then teacher/ class, then student. It will tell you who is still taking it and who has completed. I know when we take paper tests we keep piles of students who were absent with post-its and all sorts of notes. With this program all you have to do is check the status window to see who has not finished. Good luck! Laurie Holtsbery

Testing Mods for Special Ed

Sent: Wed 4/4/2007 12:37 PM To: Gillmeister, Janet A. Subject: Testing Mods Janet,We are struggling with the issue of how special ed teachers are going to read the ELA test to a group of students who have that as part of their test mods...Is it possible for the students with disabilities, who as apart of their tests mods, have the ability to have the ELA and Math Exams read to them through the program? I don't remember from training feature how to turn on access to have the test read through the program itself. I have seen this feature automatically appear for the customized math practice tests that we created. Is it possible to have this feature available for the upcoming testing???I look forward to hearing from you. Maureen Kendrick, LMS LeMoyne Elementary School

ESL Students

Will we administer the diagnostic test to esl students who are exempted from the test and to the students who take the test in their own language even though the diagnostic test is only in english? Jean M. Van Doren Grant Middle School Library

Acuity and Laptops

4/5/07 I have had the similiar experience with even less wireless laptops being utilized at the same time in various buildings. At times, you actually are at a standstill and then may be totally dropped. Once dropped either from the website or wireless network, there are times you are not able to relogin. It does get very frustrating during professional development with adults and even more so when working with students. I think as Joy suggested a trial run would be a necessary step and providing for all variables that may be evident on testing days would help to ensure success. Again we all know with technology nothing is a given. Marie Pampinella 4/4/07 My experience has been that once you get more than 20 computers logged on to the wireless, the network is very slow. A trial run would tell you more about your building capacity. Try having a class of 25 or so students log on to the internet and see what happens. That may give you a fairly good idea of what you can expect. Of course, there will be many more people on the network during Acuity testing and that may slow down the system as well. Maybe this is a question we can address to the technicians. Joy Carlson Title IID IST Mathematics and Technology 4/4/07 Lois brought up a point that many of us are facing - using our laptops to allow us to get all students tested within three weeks. I had planned to use the laptops with our 6-8 students at Huntington and the labs for 3-5. I was recently told if all of our laptops (30) are in use at the same time (accessing the internet) it might cause the wireless network to become too slow to process through the test. Since our MS classrooms have 28-32 in class sections, this will be the most efficient way for us to test our students at this level. Does anyone have any immediate experience, comments or suggestions to the capacity of the wireless connection(s) within buildings? Perhaps this is not something I should worry about, but I want to be proactive now in finalizing our schedule rather than reactive during the three weeks of testing. Also, is there any room for allowing students to complete make-ups during the week of May 7-11? We have worked on our schedule for several weeks - to make it an optimal as possible while working around other commitments such as: NYS 4th & 8th grade Science, Scott Foresman Staff Development, Elementary Annual Reviews, and MS classes that are assigned to the computer lab as a special on a daily basis. While scheduling around these constraints, we still have a few groups testing right up until May 3rd & 4th. If students are absent in any of the classes that are testing during those last few days, will they be able to access their tests after 5/4? Francine Grannell, Reading Specialist Huntington K-8

To prevent copying

When I observed at Ed Smith yesterday for a sample test I saw that students were comparing answers on the final page. Obviously this would not blatently happen when the actual test was occuring - but Levy is doing a great idea to avoid copying. If students 1,2 and 3 are lined up next to each other in a lab, then student 1 takes the ELA test, student 2 takes the math test and student 3 takes the ELA, etc. This way a student is not taking the same test as the student next to him/her. Also, they are both about the same amount of time. Just an idea. Laurie Holtsbery IST for Technology in ELA I'd like to clarify Laurie's comments about kids taking the Acuity test at Ed Smith. What she observed were students taking the practice tests. Most of the students taking the test had never used laptop computers before. Our computer lab doesn't have enough computers to accomodate a class in grades 4, 5, or 6, so all those classes will need to learn how to use a laptop and will take their Acuity tests using the laptops. We used the practice tests to help get student used to the laptops and encouraged students to support each other as they learned how the laptops worked and how Acuity was set up. Don't worry: during the actual Acuity tests, we will observe strict test taking procedures, as we always do. Lois Eddy Ed Smith School 4/4/07 I am sorry, I should have mentioned that it was a practice test, it was not the actual test and was not an actual testing situation- my point was just that it could happen anywhere and it was a concern that came up at a couple trainings. I knew that this would never happen during the actual test. Good luck everyone and have a nice break. Laurie Holtsbery IST for Technology in ELA

ESL

From Janet Gillmeister Good question. I would say yes, but only for those ESL students who would normally use a translator (or take a test in a foreign language) on the state test. If students were exempt for this round of ELA state tests, remember that they will have to take the state test next year (for which this is beginning baseline data).Other thoughts? Sent: Tue 4/3/2007 2:00 PM To: Gillmeister, Janet A. Subject: ESL Since our ESL students won't have translators for Acuity tests, can they listen to the math tests as a student with "Test Read" modification would? This would allow us to assess their math skills, not their reading skills. Danielle Petersen Reading SpecialistFrazer School

Special Ed Students

Hello Everyone! I am having a hard time finding our special ed students in acuity. I searched every one of them and it says they are not found. I also tried to log in as a few and it says they are not set up. When I try to add them as a new student it says it is a duplicate student. There are 5 groups of students with this problem. Any ideas? Jennifer Harris Shea We have three self-contained sped classrooms. Should I just enter each class once as ELA or Math? Or enter each class twice? Molly Hartnett Library Media Specialist Clary MST Middle School

Shortcut to Acuity on MAC

Heather Buck is working on the image for the new Macs. She is going to experiment with putting an Acuity icon on the dock. This will only affect new macs but it will give us an idea of what can be done. Patricia Vilello, School library System From: Stephen Bittner Sent: Mon 4/2/2007 3:13 PM In icon could be added to the dock or a bookmark could be added on the bookmark bar on the browser. This might be better since it would not clutter up the desktop. Stephen F. Bittner Educational Technology Specialist Syracuse Teacher Center On Apr 2, 2007, at 2:44 PM, Lefever, Laurie A. wrote: Could an icon be added to the dock on the imacs/emacs so that it was even easier to get to Acuity? My VP is curious. Thanks. Laurie LeFever, LMS Frazer School Library

K-8 teacher assignment change

Has anyone had to change a teacher assignment within a K-8 building from Elem to Middle or Middle to Elem? I am having trouble changing some of our Spec Ed teachers to the appropriate level so I can add them on as an additional teacher to the classes they service. When I select the teacher name and try to edit it will not let me change what "school" they are assigned to (in this case she is assigned to Huntington Elem. but should be assigned to Huntington MS.) I would appreciate any help with this! Thank you, Francine Grannell Reading Specialist Huntington K-8 ******To change the building assignment of a teacher you will have to let either Kelly Malone or me know which teachers they are - only District Admin can change from school to school. Janet Gillmeister

Alternative assessment students

Sorry I thought I sent a message about this this morning -- nyssaa are spec. ed. students who get an alternative assessment, which is a very small part of our student body. Jean Van Doren From: Wonders, Aran B. Sent: Fri 3/30/2007 3:24 PM Subject: RE: NYSAA students in Acuity What are NYSAA students? Aran Wonders Library Media Specialist Danforth Middle School ________________________________ From: Gillmeister, Janet A. Sent: Thu 3/29/2007 11:25 AM Subject: NYSAA students in Acuity A clarification regarding NYSAA students: Unless you really want to, do not set up or test NYSAA students in Acuity. We certainly do not want to cause undue stress. We would like to thank all of you for the feedback you have been giving regarding the Acuity class lists. As a result, we have been digging deeper into the relationship between the Pentamation and Acuity systems in order to make the uploads more accurate next year. As we better understand Acuity, we can make sure that we accurately input information into the correct spot in Pentamation, and that correct information is extracted. Janet A Gillmeister Director of Evaluation, Assessment, and Planning

Reading Levels

Just a thought - It is most likely the same level that the State Assessments are on because the two assessments are both created by McGraw-Hill. This is an assumption - but the two are expected to mirror each other. Laurie Holtsbery IST for Technology in ELA -----Original Message----- From: Vandoren, Jean M. Sent: Fri 3/30/2007 2:22 PM Subject: reading levels on acuity as compared to lexile I have been given the task of finding out how the reading levels that are assigned by acuity compare to lexile scores (i.e., a conversion chart). I am surpised by this, because i was not aware that acuity had a report that correlated to reading levels. I have researched their web site, called their customer service and i have not found any information that would help me to ascertain if a reading level is assigned and if it is, what scale it uses. Any help, guidance etc. would be greatly appreciated. thanks,

Password problems

Wed 4/4/2007 4:26 PM To: soliver@scsd.usSubject: Acuity - Forgot Password Issue - 163795jld I finally heard back from the developers regarding the issue where the “Forgot Password” link was not working. It appears that this is a firewall issue at the school level (for now). The link requires that Port 25 be opened in order for the site to submit your request, in Syracuse’s case the port is not opened so the request is not leaving the Acuity appliance. The quick fix is to ask your tech to open Port 25; however the engineers plan to move the information off the actual appliance (stored at each district) and onto the host server. By doing this all Acuity teachers will be able to retrieve their passwords; not just districts who have Port 25 open. The scheduled date for the change is not until August though. So if you (and the other teachers) want the feature to work; Port 25 must be opened. Please include the following alpha-numeric record # in all responses regarding this issue: 163795Any new inquires should be directed to: acuityforschool@mcgraw-hill.com Thank you, Jennifer Detty Software Support AnalystSEG Software Support 4/4/07 I spoke with the woman at Acuity again yesterday. I can now login with the password she reset. She indicated that the problem with the forgot password link may be that the email is trapped by a spam blocker, but I don't buy that since all my other spam ends up in my Junk email folder. She asked me to click the link again and let her know what time I did it, so that they could have the programmers look at it. I did that yesterday but I have not heard back from her. Sharon Oliver This is from Sharon Oliver - update about passwords. Thanks, Sharon, for contacting Acuity for all of us. Janet From: Oliver, Sharon M.Sent: Fri 3/30/2007 12:18 PM To: Gillmeister, Janet A. Subject: lost Acuity passwords Janet,I was unable to log into Acuity yesterday. I thought this was odd, since I use the same password for everything, but I clicked on the link to have the password sent to me. The screen showed the correct email address, but the email never came. I called Acuity and had the password reset, but I still couldn't login. I told the woman I spoke to that others in the district had also been unable to retrieve their passwords. She said she would send a message to the developer to alert them to the problem with password retrieval and to try and figure out why I can't get logged in, even with the password reset by them. She said she would get back to me ASAP.

Adding Teachers

3/29/07

In the administrator manual is a good grid with the basic permissions of each role. No, teacher permissions does not allow assigning other teachers. School administrator permissions (even if a teacher) can add other teachers. When doing this, once again, remember to write down the user name and password that will come up on the summary page!!!!!! (Acuity assigns these when you add a teacher.)

Janet A GillmeisterDirector of Evaluation, Assessment, and Planning

Can a teacher (with teacher rights) add other teachers? Can an teacher (with admin rights) add other teachers? If yes, what do we use for a password for the newly added teachers? Jean M. Van Doren Grant Middle School Library

Editing class lists

Leslie et al, This is how to select multiple "other" teachers on the Mac platform in either browser. Click on the first "other" teacher. To add additional "other" teachers hold down the "apple key" also called the "command key". Holding down the command key will allow you to select or unselect names in the list. I hope this resolves the problem Stephen Bittner Educational Technology Specialist Syracuse Teacher Center From: Garcea, Leslie A. Sent: Thu 3/29/2007 9:06 PM Subject: RE: Acuity Access for Resource and Speech and AIS I was using a new MAC with Safari browser. I posted earlier that some browsers do not work with Acuity on the Mac platform. You should try using Safari or a new version of Firefox. Which browser were you using? Stephen Bittner Educational Technology Specialist Syracuse Teacher Center Great Job, Leslie! This is the kind of interchange we need to do on the listserve. Thanks for the information. I encourage everyone to post things if they find a "fix" to an issue. Janet From: Garcea, Leslie A.Sent: Thu 3/29/2007 2:39 PM Subject: Acuity Access for Resource and Speech and AIS Hello everyone,I had a problem editing the classes to allow special ed teachers access to their students in various classes. I'm using a MAC and was on the phone for quite a while with the HELP line at ACUITY. I could only add one person and if I tried to add more the original addition was deleted. SO... my LMS suggested that I try the IBM PC in the library and I was able to modify everything.So, that's my "heads-up" to you. If a MAC doesn't seem to work, switch to a PC and try again. Leslie Garcea, Van Duyn

NYSAA students

A clarification regarding NYSAA students: Unless you really want to, do not set up or test NYSAA students in Acuity. We certainly do not want to cause undue stress.We would like to thank all of you for the feedback you have been giving regarding the Acuity class lists. As a result, we have been digging deeper into the relationship between the Pentamation and Acuity systems in order to make the uploads more accurate next year. As we better understand Acuity, we can make sure that we accurately input information into the correct spot in Pentamation, and that correct information is extracted. Janet A GillmeisterDirector of Evaluation, Assessment, and Planning

Teacher password problem

And that is what happens when you do things too quickly! Thanks Terry, I meant to say email address! Janet A GillmeisterDirector of Evaluation, Assessment, and Planning From: Gavagan, Teresa M.Sent: Thu 3/29/2007 8:44 Subject: RE: forgotten password Hi, Janet.Actually, the more obvious question is "Did the teachers put their correct email address in their profile upon set-up?" Terry I know this is a silly question, but are we sure that they put their password in their profile upon set-up? Just want to make sure before I email Acuity. Janet A Gillmeister Director of Evaluation, Assessment, and Planning I ran into the same problem and it has been a week and no email - so that is not an option that works. You can go in to change the password for them if you are an administrator for that building. If you have the option to pick from several buildings on the first page when you sign into Acuity - then make sure you select the building you want to change the password for on the first screen. Then when you go to Management -> Educators and search for the person - you will have the rights to change it. If that was confusing, here is an example: When you log onto Acuity some people are given an option to select a building/entity. If you select Webster, for instance, then once you enter the site you are viewed as a Webster Administrtor and can only change the teacher password for teachers at Webster. Laurie Holtsbery IST for Technology in ELA I'm not sure. that's an Acuity question. Janet A GillmeisterDirector of Evaluation, Assessment, and Planning A teacher clicked the button you're supposed to push when you've forgotten your password. She kept checking her email all day, but she has not received notification of her correct password. Since then she did remember the password, but I'm wondering how long it should take to get the email message. (I know this will happen to others!) Bonnie French LMS, McKinley-Brighton

Special Ed and AIS

There should be other teachers who can view those students. Janet A GillmeisterDirector of Evaluation, Assessment, and Planning Can someone provide clarification for me... During our training we were told to have Special Ed and AIS teachers create their own classes. Does this mean that our resource teacher and our AIS teacher will create a class out of all the students they test, and that the students in that class will then be in two classes? Our ESL teacher tests as well - does she create her own class or just get added to classes as "Other Teacher" How about special ed. inclusion teachers? Do those students get broken out seperately or does the inclusion teacher just go under "Other Teachers" If you can offer any insight it would be appreciated. Teresa Sauro Porter

Special education students

3/27/07 A new Pentamation upload was completed last night. If you are still having problems, then Pentamation needs to be corrected. Let me know the names, grades and ID numbers of the students and I will see what I can locate. Janet A GillmeisterDirector of Evaluation, Assessment, and Planning I am trying to add our special education students to classes but they come up as not found at our school. When I try to add them as a new student, I get a message that says Duplicate Student, so they are in the acuity database but not assigned to our school. Solutions? Aran Wonders Library Media Specialist Danforth Middle School

Remember that grades 3 & 4 can do it in their classrooms if they have the Reading First laptop cart or the Title IID laptop cart. That frees up the computer lab for other classes. Bonnie French LMS, McKinley-Brighton That would be especially helpful to K-8 schools who also have the 8th grade science exam during that time. Roseanne Kinne I agree with Francine. It would be really tight to try to schedule all classes for two sessions with the computers in a three week time slot. We could do it much more successfully with 4 weeks. Lois R. Eddy Ed Smith Elementary School Ruva, Francine A. Sent: Mon 3/19/2007 Subject: April 16- May 4 Testing Window Could someone clarify for me please...are we giving both ELA & Math diagnostic assessments during the first 3 weeks? I developed a schedule for Huntington K-8 based on the ELA assessment only. I was told by someone today that we have to give both assessments during this time. Logistically we would not be able to accommodate two separate testing periods during three weeks. We would need at least 4-5 weeks if we are administering two separate tests.Francine GrannellReading SpecialistHuntington K-8

Class lists in Acuity

Our class lists in acuity are still wrong. Pentamation is correct, so I can't make changes in pentamation. Molly Hartnett, Clary LMS

Preview tests

I think the reason is that they don't change the diagnostic or predictor tests very often, so they only turn them on during the testing. The reason we could see them during training was a bug in the system, which they fixed. sorry. Jean M. Van Doren Grant Middle School Library Mon 3/26/2007 12:42 PM To: Acuity.turnkeySubject: preview of tests I am training our staff on Thursday and have noticed that you can no longer preview the predictive and diagnostic tests (previewing these tests was something that was suggested in our "Draft Training Ouline for Teachers"). Does anyone know if theere is a reason for this? I would like to be able to show the staff what the tests look like? Teresa SauroPorter

Pentamation upload

3/26/07 An upload has been made to Acuity today. Acuity has said that they will load the file into the system tonight.Please, once again, that you use student ID numbers when you add students, and that everything is reflected in Pentamation.I have had only a few people ask me to change students from one building to another in the past few weeks - I assume there are a lot more out there. Janet A Gillmeister Director of Evaluation, Assessment, and Planning

8th grade diagnostic

Some of my teachers asked if it will be necessary to test this year's 8th grade students with the diagnostic test? If the high schools are not using the data and the data will not help the middle schools prepare those students for the ela or math, can we spare them the stress of more testing? thanks, Jean Van Doren Grant Middle School Library Just like the ELA scores from the state are helpful, but always very late, I believe these scores will be equally helpful in getting 9th grade students on the right path academically, by properly placing them in the AIS program or intervention right from day one. Ella Briand ELA Coordinator

directions to assign a test to students

Revised Acuity directions from Bonnie French 3/22/07; How to assign a test to students Select TEST on left Select custom test Select Assign Select subject Show existing test Hit view the test Hit create new assignmnet PUt in assignment name Put in dates Save & proceed Grade level School Hit Update classes Select your class Hit Search for Students Scroll to bottom Select district where there's a + sign Hit Assign selected View summary That will show you that it's all done. Thank you, Kelly Raymond!

Pentamation update week of March 26

It was decided this morning that we will do another upload to Acuity sometime next week. The exact date is not determined, since it will take a little coordinating with CTB. I hope to let you know a better timeline soon. Thanks for all your hard work and cooperation. Janet A Gillmeister Director of Evaluation, Assessment, and Planning

Pentamation updates to Acuity

It looks like its time for me to weigh in here and clarify the issue about where corrections should be made. Please note that ALL corrections should be made in Pentamation. It is imperative that all corrections are made in this manner for a number of reasons. First - we will be doing uploads from Pentamation to Acuity on a regular basis. If you only update Acuity then the corrections that you make will be over written. In addition our student management system must be correct for reporting to SED on testing. The more accurate we can make it, the better off we will all be. Anita M. Murphy Deputy Superintendent

Student updates

3/21/07 To add to all the "Acuity Questions" I have one more... I am assuming from our emails that after our initial training at CT as turnkey trainers that a conversation between CTB McGraw and the District happened and it was determined that a pentamation upload would not occur. As a result, we are manually changing information on the Acuity server. The question I have is the scenario that if a student is added onto Acuity, and they take the assessments, if an upload occurs after will that students information be lost if they are not on Pentamation? Or if changes were made and there is still a problem with the way Acuity "talks" to pentamation (i.e. the "Staff,Staff" issue) then is all the organizing and assigning teachers are doing lost? Laurie Holtsbery IST for Technology in ELA

Pentamation update requested

We are currently going over class lists. Our class lists really don't jive with what pentamation says. The pentamation info in acuity is really old. We need the recent pentamation uploaded to acuity, otherwise we will be changing hundreds of students. Is this possible? The librarian's circulation system is updated daily with pentamation. Can you update acuity? Fay Burt, Clary Yes, a new pentamation upload to acuity would be very helpful - and efficient. It will take our K-8 school many hours to clean up the data in Acuity - which I haven't had time to start yet given other logistics we are taking care of such as scheduling, training and finishing up 6-8 NYS math testing this week. Francine Grannell Huntington K-8 School

From Janet Gillmeister: 3/21/07 FYI from Acuity - it may help for those classes under a STAFFSTAFF listing. Here are instructions to edit the teacher of an existing class:

• Logon to Acuity
• Click Management on the left hand side of the home page and then Classes
• Select the school from the dropdown and click Show Existing Classes
• Click on the class name of the class that you would like to edit and click edit class details
• Select the correct teacher for the class from the dropdown and click Save Class at the very bottom of the screen

Print Roster and multiple test assignments

Can a classroom teacher print a roster of student names that also tells what each student currently has assigned to him? (ie all the math tests assigned) Can you assign more than one test to a student at a time in a given subj. area. For ex. one teacher created 5 tests but only one of them shows up under a student's name (when logging in as the student) Bonnie French LMS, McKinley-Brighton

Student Lists

3/20/07 As a reminder, please make sure that you review class lists. If a student is no longer in your school, DO NOT delete the student, just UNASSIGN them from the class. This way, other school may be able to pick them up with ADD, if they transferred.Thanks Janet

Student Updates

FROM: Jean Van Doren Grant Middle School Librarian Before we start making individual changes, wouldn't it be more effective and efficient to upload the most current pentamation data (now) and hopefully that will minimize the number of changes. From talking to others and looking at the staff/student names, it appears that acuity is running off a pentamation upload from earlier in the year. If we are using the most up-to-date data, the changes should be minimized. (just my $.02)

Student conflict

Can anyone provide any insight... We have a 6th grade student who has been enrolled at Porter since Kindergarten. She is not showing up in the teacher's class roster or in our list of Porter students when I do a student search using her ID#. She DOES show up in our Building Census derived from Pentamation. When I tried to add her to our list of students (using her ID#) I get the following message: "A duplicate user was found within the district. You will not be able to add a new student with this id. Please check to make sure the id entered is correct" I do not have rights to search outside of Porter. The only thing we found that was wrong in Pentamation was that the student's grade was listed as "UP". This was corrected by our secretary. At any rate, I can't assign her to her class. If anyone can help please let me know. Teresa Sauro

LMS questions/answers

See below – questions were answered at TK training From: Vilello, Patricia C. Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 12:57 PMTo: Gillmeister, Janet A.; Acuity.trainersSubject: Acuity questions after LMS training We just completed the LMS Acuity training and I have a list of questions: Will staff Acuity logins/passwords be automatically sent to everyone or does each school need to contact Janet? Principals were emailed the logins/passwords on the wind chill day; if there are teachers missing, TK trainers and administrators have permissions to add staff. Are all staff being given Acuity logins/passwords including teaching assistants? See above – no, at this time TA’s are not included in the staff lists – only teachers. You can add if you need to, but students will be “shared” Where does the staff login info come from? Pentamation or payroll? Staff login is developed from Pentamation building staff class lists, with digits added when needed Should schools be correcting student data and classlists? YES Should they be corrected in Pentamation or Acuity? (we are worried that corrections in Acuity will be overwritten when Pentamation data is updated) both – make sure you use student ID’s – we have not asked to do another upload – might wait until after assessment is given – no decision yet Should school be correcting staff data and classes assigned? Yes Should they be corrected in Pentamation or Acuity? Both – Acuity is just information uploaded from Pentamation When you search for a student name using their ID it seems that you can only search the IDs assigned to the building that you are logged in to and that you have selected. Since our population is so mobile, would it make sense to be able to search all student IDs to locate a student who may have just moved to your school. Otherwise their record could exist at another school and you will create a duplicate record. I have emailed this concern to Acuity. That’s also why you need to use student ID Right now students can change their password. Can that feature be turned off? Email will be coming out today regarding student passwords How is it recommended the math and ELA tests be given? (one sitting or different days?) no recommendation at this point, however realize results may be better if kids are not tired What plugins etc. are needed to run Acuity. The PC requirements are on the login page of Acuity. What about MAC? Question needs to be addressed to Acuity – should not be an issue since it is web-based. Call number on log-in screen.

Hi all (again) I thought some of you might be interested in this (especially the reading specialists and IST’s)– I already forwarded it to Nancy and Ella. When you look at the attachment, make sure you scroll all the way to the top of the spreadsheet to see ELA and Math, and the various filters you can use. Begin at the bottom of the email to see the conversations thread. Janet What Cheryl is speaking about are the items in the custom test item bank. This effects a small percentage of the total items in the bank, mostly in the ELA area. The work around is to click "Any" at the grade level expectation (performance indicator) drop-down. The other option is to search for skills by skill group instead of by standard. Items will be realigned during our summer release. There should be no dead-ends for next fall. Items on the predictive and diagnostic pre-built test forms should already be properly aligned. If there is an objection to any of the items on the diagnostic or predictive tests, please report that to us asap including the test form, item number and description of the problem. Thank you!!! Tom From: Caraveo, Cheryl Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2007 8:49 PM Janet- I have a document that I have attached “Item Bank Count by Standard”. The dead end that your curriculum writer experienced is a glitch in the system and is being fixed. Tom do you have any additional information for Janet? Cheryl From: Gillmeister, Janet A. Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2007 9:28 AM To: Caraveo, Cheryl; Wynne, Dawn; Parsons, Thomas Subject: Question from the field Hi everyone. In meeting with various groups, and with the Curriculum coordinators, I have received the following question. One of the curriculum writers, who had also been trained to turn key trainer was surprised when she clicked on a subskill area of Acuity to find there were no questions. Back in October my goal was to align the curriculum power benchmarks to the subskill areas addressed on the state assessments. I had asked if it was possible to get a copy of Acuity’s subskills tested. Can I get this list, I’d like to check for consistency. Is it possible to obtain this for ELA and Math? Sounds like they would want this for the Diagnostic, Predictive, and Custom Test Item bank?????? Janet Janet A Gillmeister Director of Evaluation, Assessment, and Planning

Janet, At the training it was mentioned that CTB will be interfacing with our pentamation program to have the latest updated information. When I trained a few people the other day, this appeared to cause a great deal of stress to know when they were going to do it. Many people are already making the changes necessary with their building secretaries. Is it possible to have CTB do this at least a week before April break so buildings can do one final check to make sure all the information on Acuity is accurate. This may already be the plan - but I was not sure if it was going to be done over April break. If that happens, then buildings will have to make any corrections when the testing begins and that would cause a huge headache. Overall, as long as a student is in the system they can be reassigned after, when reports need to be run, but many people may not be happy without a clean roster prior to testing time. Just thought I would ask. I also checked out the place you can assign more than one teacher - it is on the second screen and pretty easy to do. Great for those inclusion rooms with two teachers and resource! Laurie Holtsbery IST for Technology in ELA

Hi everyone This attachment was offered from Laurie Holtsbery for student logon. Be sure to have the teachers print the class roster first, since some of the logon names may be slightly different from their actual name (for example: JOHNSMITH1). The jury is still out on unique passwords – use syra1234 for all students until further notified. Janet The attachment is posted on Library Links in Laurie's document format and Maria's PDF format

Hi everyone. I received this tip from CTB. I haven’t gotten into the Manage students screen as most of you have – so maybe this will help you. It also may help with the Beard/McCarthy concerns. Janet From: Caraveo, Cheryl Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 4:10 PM To: Gillmeister, Janet A.Subject: An Acuity tip! You may have already found this out! You can have a student in more then 1 ELA or Math class: I just asked the acuity people about this and they showed me a pop-up screen that has two radio buttons for Add and Replace. Add is the default. Have you seen these when you add a student to a second class of the same subject? They were showing me from the Manage Student screens, and that may be the trick.

2 new listserves have been created: Acuity.turnkey and Acuity.trainers Welcome! This list-serve has been developed to provide key constituent groups with the opportunity to dialogue about the implementation of the new Acuity Assessment system. Please be aware that this is a learning process for all of us. I ask that you be patient as we work through the system. The information that we will be able to extract from Acuity will be invaluable in helping to understand our student needs for instruction. Some reminders as you use a list-serve: Although this is a tool, it can also become overwhelming. Make sure that you choose “reply all” if you wish to receive feedback from the whole group (this will be helpful – someone else may have the same question but was hesitant to ask!). If you want to send a personal message to the sender, make sure you address the reply just to that person. Messages from a list-serve (especially as we get started in this endeavor) will tend to fill your mailbox quickly. Make sure you clean out your mailbox often, so that we all don’t receive a “mailbox full” message back! I’d like to thank Patty Vilello for facilitating the set-up of this list-serve for our use. Janet Gillmeister

FYI, some questions and answers that were sent to me. Janet A Gillmeister From: Parsons, Thomas Sent: Thu 3/1/2007 1:02 PM Subject: FW: Syracuse City SD training problems We had a school administrator create a custom test. When attempting to share it, we get an error that no tests are selected, even though it is selected. I tried to share it from the district admin login as well, but had the same problem. Go to custom tests and try to share the one that is listed. The sharing is not working because there is an apostrophe in the custom test name. There is another test out there without the punctuation and it seems to work fine. We have confirmed this is a defect and will get it resolved as soon as we can. In the short term, we should make it known that the use of punctuation in a custom test name may cause issues with sharing. We also had a problem when trying to edit several classes. You can see this by logging in as a school admin: Edit class 105 On the edit screen the class name changes to a different number. Also the teacher dropdown lists teachers from a different school. This behavior happened to several other people as well. I was unable to replicate this problem. I logged into their appliance using the username and password provided. The class name never changed and the list of teachers in the dropdown was consistent with the list provided when I searched for teachers under the manage educators section. Any additional details (hardware/browser being used) would be helpful. We also had a different school admin who could not see any of her classes in her school. When she logged in on a different computer she could then see them. Any ideas on why that would happen? Our minimum browser requirement for Acuity on Windows XP is IE 5.5. Any details on the hardward/browser will be helpful.