The BERC Group - STAR Online Blog

Fixed: Interface Redirect Issue [Building Account]

Wed, 09 Oct 2013 19:05:30 GMT

The temporary issue we reported yesterday in which Building Account users were experiencing a redirect to the Free Account interface has been resolved. Thanks for you feedback and patience!

Notice: Interface Redirect Issue [Building Account]

Tue, 08 Oct 2013 19:27:51 GMT

This is a notice to our Building Account users. Over the weekend we published a new module - which we will be sending the details out on soon - and, unfortunately, as a result you may be temporarily experiencing a redirect to the Free Account interface when when you sign in. If you are, you can access the correct interface by typing in the following URL:

http://staronline.bercgroup.com/UI/Home.aspx

We apologize for this and will have this resolved shortly.

Features and Fixes [7/26/2013]

Sat, 27 Jul 2013 00:11:01 GMT

"Never go backward. Attempt, and do it with all your might. Determination is power." - Charles Simmons

Features

No new features

Fixes

Lesson Planner: When a user creates a lesson plan and clicks "Finish" without clicking any other buttons - only adds text to text fields - all activity data is lost from the default activity.

Features and Fixes [6/14/2013]

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:01:39 GMT

"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes." - Oscar Wilde

I guess we gained some experience last week. Thank you to those of you who promptly contacted us regarding the Lesson Planner glitches.

Features

No new features

Fixes

Lesson Planner: An issue with the Lesson Planner timing out during long sessions and, in some cases, losing data has been fixed
Account Confirmation: A server error was thrown when attempting to confirm a user account via the email link when that user had a duplicate account

Lesson Planner Timeouts/Auto-Save Issue

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:59:42 GMT

It came to our attention last week that there was an issue with the Lesson Planner timing out during long sessions and, in some cases, losing data. We are very sorry to hear that this has been an issue and wish to apologize to all who have experienced difficulty with the system and especially to those who lost data. We did not catch this issue in our testing process.

This was our highest priority issue as soon as we learned of it. We immediately put our development team solely on this issue and are happy to report that a fix was released by the end of last week. Please let us know if you experiencing difficulty with timing out and/or data retention. Meanwhile, we will continue to work on an even more robust auto-save feature that will ensure you can have a lesson plan in editing mode for multiple hours, should you need that much time, without losing data.

Out of these discussions with users, who were primarily teachers, we also learned some new things, as always, about the Lesson Planner in general and how it can best serve teachers. We plan to incorporate this feedback into our development going forward. If you have any thoughts about the Lesson Planner or STAR Online, please share.

Features and Fixes [5/17/2013]

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:03:20 GMT

Teacher: “If you had one dollar and you asked your father for another, how many dollars would you have?”
Vincent: “One dollar.”
Teacher: “You don’t know your arithmetic.”
Vincent: “You don’t know my father.”

Another small update while we brew up some bigger things. Stay tuned.

Features

None

Fixes

Accounts: Added the Re-Send Email and Edit Email Address options for District Administrators as well

[joke via academictips.org]

Features and Fixes [5/4/2013]

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:42:51 GMT

"The search for the truth is not for the faint hearted." - Vincent D'Onofrio

All we can offer at this time is the ability to search for other users.

Features

Add Users/Members: We added a search feature that allows you to search for others when adding them to you buliding or team rather than having to rely on knowing their specific email and/or user name

Fixes

None

Features and Fixes [4/30/2013]

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:20:55 GMT

"Lost time is never found again." - Benjamin Franklin

Although this post is coming in a bit late, we still wanted to update you a little update on what happened.

Features

Accounts: Added “First name” and “Last name” fields to the account creation form
Learning Walks: Items in the Role Lookup option for Observation Fields are now listed as “” if the user has filled these out in their profile
Home / Documents: Updated the Focus on State Criteria forms for Hawaii buildings to include all five domain focuses

Fixes

None

This Week in Features and Fixes [4/19/2013]

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 00:07:13 GMT

"Adventure is just bad planning." - Roald Amundsen

Is it possible, then, to have a good adventure as the result of sound planning? Anyway, some updates to the Lesson Planner and other features and fixes for you.

Features

Learning Walks: Updated the design of the Learning Walk form to simplify the process
Lesson Planner: A new layout and modifications to the lesson plan editor - namely, an activities navigation at the left that allows you to edit one activity at a time
Accounts: Added Re-Send Email and Edit Email Address options for users on the Users and Permissions tab of the Manage Building page so that admins can ensure new users get their account information

Fixes

Learning Walks: Minor formatting tweaks to the landing page
Learning Walks: You no longer need to select a SMART Goal before clicking Go on a learning walk - the desired SMART Goal of focus can be selected within the form
Learning Walks: Minor formatting tweak to the View page title
Learning Walks: Reflection notes were not showing on the View page
Learning Walks: Fixed an issue in which overall scores from Reflection (Offsite) learning walks were intermittently affecting the Progress report
Lesson Planner: Minor formatting tweaks to the landing page
Lesson Planner: Fixed an issue in which plans that had been left sitting for an extended period of time with no data entered were saved as blank plans on Cancel

Three Types of Learning Walks

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 00:53:37 GMT

Over the last couple weeks we have released some pretty significant updates to the Learning Walks module. We realized that the original Learning Walk functionality was not allowing the entire staff the opportunity to observe and reflect online because only administrators had access to that functionality. We've remedied that by adding two new types of learning walks.

Three types of Learning Walks

The three types of Learning Walks are now : Learning Walk (Collection), Learning Walk (Live), and Learning Walk (Virtual). Each of the types allow you to safely observe instruction and reflect on your own practices. The differences are:

The Collection type is only available to administrators and funnels data to the reports on the Home tab so that administrators check progress against your SMART Goals and share out findings
The Live and Virtual types are available to all staff members and do not funnel to the building reports
The Live type is meant to be used in any situation where classes are being observed live, on-site or off-site (or from memory) and so does not have the Class Details panel
The Virtual type can be used in place of live observations as you observe a classroom clips for each observation

Collection

Learning Walk (Collection)

Live

Learning Walk (Live)

Virtual

Learning Walk (Virtual)

How to Select a Learning Walk Type

On the Learning Walks module landing page, select the type of learning walk you want to go on via the Learning Walk drop-down menu and then click Go to load it. The list you see may differ from the image below depending on your role.

Selecting a Learning Walk

See. Talk. Apply. Reflect. Enjoy!