JGMS Computing: “How To”

A JGMS teacher’s primary means of communicating information about your student’s grades to you is through the school’s Aspen web site. As a team, we strongly suggest signing up for “Aspen alerts” which will immediately notify you of any assignments that your student is missing.

How to Check Grades on Aspen
  1. Open Aspen using any Internet browser.
• Find the John Glenn Middle School web site (searching for JGMS on Google works well).
• Click on the words “Aspen Portal” located at the bottom right of JGMS’s home page.
• Click on the link “ under the chart on that page.
• Bookmark the sign-in page because you will use it a lot this year.
  1. Log on to Aspen by entering the “Login ID” and “Password” that you will receive from the school. Both students and parents will have an Aspen ID and password. (E-mail ) if you need this retrieved for you.)
  1. In Aspen, choose the “Academics” tab (at the top of the screen). Next, click on the blue course number beside the subject you are checking. Next, click on the “Assignment” tab to the left side of the screen.
  1. Please see the corresponding class web page for explanations of non-numerical grading codes such as “ex,” “abs,” and “pnote.”

How to Sign Up for Aspen Alerts
(Copied from district website.)
  1. Log into your Parent or Student Aspen Account.
  2. Click on Set Preferences in the upper right.
  3. Click on the Security Tab.
  4. Enter your email address in the Primary Email Address field.
  5. Click OK to close Preferences window.
  6. Parent Accounts should then click on the Family tab at the top, then click on their child's name. Student account users should click on the My Info Tab at the top.
  1. Click on the Notification side tab.
  2. Check off the Notification(s) you want to enable.
  3. Enter a grade threshold if you are activating the grade notification.
  4. Please note that parents with multiple children need to activate these notifications for each of their children. The grade notifications only apply to assignment grades on the Academics Tab. Transcript grades posted at the end of each quarter or at Progress report time do not trigger these notifications.

How to Access the Earth Science Class Web Page
and Upload Assignments to Aspen
Students can use the class website to keep track of homework assignments, download homework instructions, and upload some assignments.
  1. Follow steps #1 and #2 from “How to Check Grades on Aspen.”
  1. In Aspen, choose the “Pages” tab (at the top left of the screen), click on the word “Classes” under the “Home” icon, and select “Ms Ferri’s Earth Science.” You will see a link entitled: Ms. Ferri's 8th Grade Earth Science Home Page which will take you directly to my website. I highly recommend that you bookmark this site, as it will be used on an almost daily basis and contains links to every resource that your child will need in science this year.
  1. To upload an assignment to Aspen, use the box called “Submit Assignments” located just under the “Welcome” box, to the right side of your screen. Click on the up arrow beside the title of the assignment and upload your homework document. Uploading assignments in the “.doc” format works the best. Our school computers unfortunately cannot read “.pages” documents. You may also upload PowerPoint presentations and Excel documents by this method. Keep in mind that once the due date is passed, this window will not be available and you must hand in a print copy of the assignment, or email it to me as an attachment: .