Posts with Tag: Staff Archives - Modern Pen
Leaving School District 21? Information about what’s in your CCSD21 Google Apps for Education Account
May 7, 2021
Tags: Calendar, G Suite, Google, Google Apps, Google Docs, Google Drive, Staff, Staff Laptop
At the end of each school year, students and teachers ask questions about taking their School District 21 materials with them. Due to issues of ownership, there are actually different rules about how students and teachers can take their documents with them. What happens to the account when I leave? School District 21 has […]
UPLOADING FILES AND FOLDERS TO GOOGLE DRIVE
June 1, 2017
Tags: Google Docs, Google Drive, Staff, Staff Laptop, Staff Laptops
All staff members should store their work related files and folders in Google Drive, and should be utilizing Chrome for everything from email and chat to word processing and spreadsheets. Please be sure, if you have not already done so, to upload all work related files and folders to Google Drive that are currently being […]
Leaving School District 21? Information about what’s in your CCSD21 Google Apps account
May 20, 2016
Tags: Calendar, Google, Google Apps, Google Docs, Google Drive, Staff, Staff Laptop
At the end of each school year, students and teachers ask questions about taking their School District 21 materials with them. Due to issues of ownership, there are actually different rules about how students and teachers can take their documents with them. What happens to the account when I leave? School District 21 has […]
Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga-Playing a DVD in Windows 8.1
November 13, 2014
Tags: DVD, Lenovo, Projector, Staff, Staff Laptop, Windows
Nearly all of the machines reviewed by the Staff Laptop Committee no longer included a CD/DVD drive. In our personal lives, many of us only watch and listen to digital audio and video content without the use of any physical media. The same will be true at school, though it may take schools, and their […]
Tax Time: Accessing your W2 through Skyward
November 10, 2014
Tags: Skyward, Staff
At the end of each calendar year, like all businesses and organizations in the United States that employ people, School District 21 must produce a W2 form. The W2 provides a summary of one’s financial records from the year for income tax purposes. In previous years, employees received paper copies of their W2 Form. Now, […]
Windows 8-Adding School Printers
November 7, 2014
Tags: Lenovo, Printing, Staff, Staff Laptop, Windows
By default, all staff laptops will automatically receive all of the major printers for the school to which the computer and staff member are assigned. Nevertheless, there are times that a staff member will need to individually and specifically add another school printer to her or his computer. These times include: Working at multiple schools […]
Google Drive: 2 Ways to Navigate
November 7, 2014
Tags: Google Apps, Google Drive, Lenovo, Staff, Staff Laptop, Windows
Nearly all of the time that School District 21 staff members interact with their Google Drive, they do so in the Chrome browser. This is the best way to use Google Drive and will work for nearly everyone, nearly all of the time. Additionally, during the laptop set-up process, all staff configured Google Drive in […]
Command & Control-Keyboard Shortcuts
November 2, 2014
Tags: Lenovo, Staff, Staff Laptop, Windows
For those staff members who use keyboard shortcuts frequently, the move from Mac OS X to Windows 8.1 may present the simple challenge of changing muscle memory. Rest assured that beyond that, your most frequently used keyboard shortcuts will easily transfer from one staff laptop to the next. On the Mac, the “Command” key was […]
Writing in Other Languages
November 2, 2014
Tags: Chrome, Google Apps, Google Docs, Google Drawing, Google Drive, Google Slides, Lenovo, Staff, Staff Laptop, Windows
Living in a the small global community that exists in our world today requires most people to have proficiency in multiple languages and to be able to use devices across those languages. Previously, instructions have been provided regarding how to use Mac OS X in languages (Typing en Español and 1 Computer, Multiple Languages) other […]
Windows Updates
November 2, 2014
Tags: Lenovo, Staff, Staff Laptop, Windows
Like our students with their Chromebooks, staff members are responsible for completing updates on their staff laptops when those updates are available. Updates on Windows staff laptops will prepare themselves in the background and will finish processing on either a shut down or a restart as pictured below. Typically, this is also how a staff […]

Each District 21 school is named after an American author, and learning and literacy is at the center of our Professional Learning Community. The Modern Pen provides a collaborative location in which District 21 teachers can come together to learn the skills that will enable their students to learn new skills and to understand concepts at an even different level than before.