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| How is student privacy protected? |
| TechCONNECT protects the identities of students by having them register with their first names and middle and last initials. Students cannot self-register with their full names. Students choose a password to which only the teacher and the TechCONNECT coordinator have access. |
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| Are the Web links updated? |
| Users of TechCONNECT will find that Web links in the activities and handouts are regularly monitored and replaced as necessary. |
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| Can the activity Checklist be printed? |
| All components of TechCONNECT can be printed through the Web browser that is used to view the program. The Checklist and the technology instructions have been specially formatted for printing. |
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| How are grade levels assigned to activities? |
| Grade levels for TechCONNECT's activities are determined according to national and state standards and guidelines, reading level, and technology proficiency level. Grade levels are recommendations. |
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| What audio is provided in the program? |
| TechCONNECT offers audio in conjunction with activity content, animations, and interactive quizzes. (For the benefit of hearing-impaired students, scrolling text accompanies all audio narrations.) |
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| Can a student log on as another student? |
| A student can log on as another student only if students share member names and passwords. If students do not share this information, their privacy will not be at risk. |
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| Can the activity database be searched by state standards? |
| Currently, the TechCONNECT activity database can be searched by technology and core subject TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills), California content standards, and national technology and core subject standards, as well as grade, subject, application type, technology proficiency level, and keyword. |
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| What training and professional development are offered? |
| A series of articles, authored by T.H.E. Institute (a leader in providing professional development in technology education) is available under Teacher Tools. Additional professional development will be offered to TechCONNECT users either on-site or online. |
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| Registration and Import Spreadsheet FAQs |
| How do students register for Glencoe TechCONNECT? |
There are two methods:
- Students may register themselves. On the Log On page, students should choose "I am a student" and click the Register button.
- Teachers may register students by using the import spreadsheet in the Class Setup section. A teacher must set up a class before he or she can import students. On the Class Details page, look for the following sentence: "If you are registering students in TechCONNECT and assigning them to this class, click here." Then follow the directions on the Prepare File for Import page to download, complete, and upload the spreadsheet.
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| When should a teacher use the import spreadsheet to register students? |
| A teacher may want to use the import spreadsheet in order to assign member names and passwords to students or to register a large group of students at once.
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| What fields must be completed in the import spreadsheet? |
| The required information for each student is First Name, Last Name, Member Name, Password, and Identity Question. |
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| What guidelines should be followed to import students successfully? |
Please verify that the import Excel file meets the following requirements:
- The students’ information must be on the first worksheet of the Excel file.
- The first worksheet must be named “Sheet1”.
- The worksheet must contain just the number of rows for the students. There cannot be any rows that have the Identity Question filled in (automatically filed in by macro when a line is clicked on or accessed) without the other student information. To verify this, select the row immediately after the last student through the next 5 or 10 rows, click Edit in the menu bar, and click Delete.
- While the Identity Answer is optional, the Identity Question is required. This is automatically populated when a row is clicked (as long as macros are enabled). You do not have to change the default question, which is “What is my favorite food?”, nor do you have to enter an Identity Answer.
- There cannot be any spaces or special characters in any of the fields. Hyphens are acceptable and can replace spaces in the first name and last name fields, if needed.
- Member names must be a minimum of 6 characters and a maximum of 30. Member names must be unique within Glencoe TechCONNECT. If you provide a member name already in use, you will be asked later to provide a different member name.
- Passwords must contain at least six characters, including at least one number and one letter.
- All column headings must be present (even though only the required fields must be filled in: First Name, Last Name, Member Name, Identity Question, and Password).
- The Middle Initial field will only accept one character. You cannot enter a student’s middle name.
- Verify that your account has sufficient seats available to accommodate the number of students you are trying to import. This information is displayed at the bottom of the profile screen.
- Verify that no column headings have been changed. The headings should be exactly as follows and in the same order: First Name, Middle Initial, Last Name, Member Name, Password, Identity Question, Identity Question Answer, Student Identifier, E-mail Address.
- If a spreadsheet containing a large number of students is not imported successfully, try dividing the spreadsheet into smaller spreadsheets.
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| FAQs for Returning Users |
| How should returning teachers reactivate their accounts at the beginning of a new school year? |
Teachers with existing member names and passwords do not need to reregister.
- A returning teacher should log in with his or her existing member name and password.
- If the content key has expired, the teacher will see the Subscription Expired screen and will be prompted to enter the new content key. Administrators should provide the new content key to teachers.
- After entering the new content key, the teacher is allowed into the program immediately and can set up new classes for the year.
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| How should returning students reactivate their accounts at the beginning of a new school year? |
Students with existing member names and passwords do not need to reregister.
- A returning student should log in with his or her existing member name and password.
- If the content key attached to the student’s class key or keys has expired, the student will see the Subscription Expired screen and will be prompted to enter a valid class key. Teachers should tell students what class key to enter.
- After entering a valid class key, the student is allowed into the program immediately. The student will be able to view all portfolio documents saved previously.
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| How can new students be added to a class that contains students from last year, such as a coordinator class? |
| If the students have not yet registered, they can be registered by the teacher with the import spreadsheet. A teacher may create a new import spreadsheet for the new students or add new students to an existing spreadsheet. If an existing spreadsheet is used, students who are already in the system will automatically be excluded from the import to avoid duplication. |
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| What if I want all users to be new each year and do not wish to allow students to access their saved data? |
If you have an extremely large number of students, you may wish to start with a clean slate each year.
To do this, simply change each member name in the import spreadsheet slightly. For example, you might add the current year to the end of each member name. Be sure to add any new students to the import spreadsheet as well, following the same member name pattern. All students imported will then be recognized as new. Since the students will not be connected to old member names in any way, students will not be able to access any portfolio documents saved to the old member names.
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| How can teachers see the previous year's data if the clean slate method is used? |
| Student portfolio documents from the previous year will still exist and can be viewed by the teachers of the previous year's classes.
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| How should teachers name their classes? |
| Teachers cannot reuse class names from the previous year. A teacher is not allowed to have two classes with the same name. It is recommended that teachers create a new class for each year or semester and include as much detail as possible in the class name, such as the school year, class period, and/or teacher name. This will reduce the possibility of duplicating other teachers' class names. |
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| What if a teacher or student has forgotten his or her member name or password? |
- A user who knows his or her member name but has forgotten his or her password can click Forgot your password? in the login box. The user will be prompted to answer his or her identity question and will then be allowed to create a new password.
- A student who has forgotten his or her member name can get it from the coordinator or the teacher of a class in which the student was previously enrolled. The coordinator or teacher can find the student’s member name in the Class Details. If the student’s member name cannot be accessed, the student may be registered as a new user with a new member name.
- A teacher who has forgotten his or her member name can contact McGraw-Hill software support.
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Where do I get the plug-ins that I need?
NOTE: You may need administrator privileges on each workstation to install the plug-ins; please contact your network administrator. |
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| I am having trouble accessing Glencoe TechCONNECT through my firewall. |
| Due to the innumerable configurations that firewalls and filtering software can take, it is not possible for our technology support staff to adequately diagnose the specific difficulty you may be having with your network’s configuration. In general, opening ports 80 and 8080 will resolve the majority of issues faced by users behind firewalls. Please contact your network administrator. |
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| I was just alerted that Glencoe TechCONNECT was trying to place a cookie on my computer. |
Please see our privacy notice, specifically:
TechCONNECT does not use permanent cookies. However, TechCONNECT does use a temporary user session object or “temporary cookie.” This temporary cookie stores a user’s member name and password while visiting TechCONNECT. This user session object allows a user to visit various pages within the secure network without having to enter his or her member name and password on every page that he or she visits. The temporary cookie expires when a user logs out of TechCONNECT or after a period of inactivity within TechCONNECT. |
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| How do I change my cookie settings? |
| In Internet Explorer, go to Tools/Internet Options/Privacy tab. Set your security settings to Medium or Low. Or click Advanced; check Override automatic cookie handling. Under first-party cookies, choose Accept; under third-party cookies, choose Block; check Always allow session cookies; and click OK. Click OK to close the Internet Options screen. |
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| I have my computer set to block all cookies. |
| In order to use TechCONNECT, you will need to change your cookie handling settings to “prompt” and/or “Allow session cookies.” This is necessary to allow TechCONNECT to store your member name and password in a temporary user session object while you are visiting TechCONNECT. As previously stated, this object or “session cookie” immediately expires when you log out of TechCONNECT or after a period of inactivity within TechCONNECT. |
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| I cannot visit the external links provided in Glencoe TechCONNECT. |
| Please contact your network administrator. While occasionally one of the external links in the product may no longer be available or is broken, the inability to visit all of the links indicates that your organization’s firewall or filtering software is preventing you from doing so. |
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| Do you support AOL/CompuServe/Prodigy users? |
Although TechCONNECT is fully compatible with any Internet browser, a few scenarios, especially those involving AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy, may result in user difficulty. Most of these browser configurations prevent the user from changing and modifying certain settings, sometimes rendering the application useless with many Internet sites.
Users of AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy should connect to the Internet via AOL then open a separate browser window (Internet Explorer recommended):
Connect to the Internet by logging on via AOL.
Minimize the AOL application.
Open Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator.
In the address window of the browser, type TechCONNECT’s URL and press the Enter key. |
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| I lost my member name and/or password. |
| We recommend that users write down their member names and passwords and keep them in a safe place. Please contact software support, as support may be able to recover this information for you. |
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| Can a proxy server affect Glencoe TechCONNECT connectivity? |
Many large companies (such as McGraw-Hill) and many schools use a proxy server to help manage Internet usage by employees. Such a system provides increased security and control over what a user can view. However, this increased security often comes at the expense of a user’s ability to configure his or her system.
Therefore, some users will make proper and necessary adjustments to browsers and still not achieve success due to a setting at the proxy-server level. In this case, users should contact their system administrator. |
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| Why should I clean my browser’s cache? How do I do it? |
Often the reason a user’s browser is moving slowly or is not displaying the most current information is due to a full cache. Moreover, many schools configure browser settings to fetch the most current version of a page only once per session—that is, only when the browser is closed and reopened. Clearing a user’s cache and properly configuring the cache settings can improve system performance.
To clear the cache in Internet Explorer, click on Tools, then Internet Options. Under the General tab, click Delete Files in the Temporary Internet files section. Next, click on Settings and make sure “Every visit to the page” is the selected option.
In Netscape Communicator, under Preferences, you’ll see Cache in the Advanced section. After you clear the cache, check to see that Every Time is selected in the Document in cache is compared to document on network section. |
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