Technology Medley

Have you noticed the new options that show up when you do a Google search? Typically, you search for a term, reach the main Google page, and start clicking. But now you have more information right at your fingertips! First, click on the Show Options link at the top of the search results page.

You’ll notice numerous new options on the left side of the page. Now you can narrow your search by the most recent pages, forums, videos, etc.  Take a look at the Wonder Wheel near the bottom.

When you click here, Google gives you a visual of related links that may help you narrow down your search results. (The actual search links still show up on the right side of the window. If you click on one of the spokes of the wheel, Google will display a new wheel of related topics. Each of the former wheels moves to the bottom of the screen, so you can always return to your original search.

Another interesting option is the Timeline link. Clicking on this option when searching for Salem yields the following results:

So, the next time you’re searching for something in Google, check out all of the options in the left sidebar. Hopefully, these will lead you to your desired results in record time!

You will soon see a new technology word wall in the computer labs at both of my schools. Each word is either the name of a web site, a program, or a technology term that you and/or your students might find interesting. Each word also includes a link to a site with further information about that particular topic. The VoiceThread below contains each of the words along with links for you to explore as you have the time and interest.

Back in the summer, some discussion arose in Twitter and Plurk about the idea of a technology ABC poster (I’m sorry, I can’t remember exactly who started the discussion to give credit.  If it was you, leave me a comment please).   Through those discussions, Tina Coffey and I came up with the idea of a Technology Word Wall and started adding items to the list that our teachers might use.  If you think of other terms that should be added to our word wall, please leave a comment. If you’re interested, you can also view or print the slides from here.

Want to create a fun video that will make your fellow teachers envious of your editing skills? Head on over to Animoto.com and request an educator account. You can create 30 second videos with their regular free account, but these helpful folks provide free unlimited access to educators! You do have to request the account though and wait a few days for them to send you a link and instructions.

Once you have an account, simply upload pictures from your computer, select music from their library or upload your own, and wait for the magic to occur. They say that every video is different, so if you don’t like the way yours turns out, simply try again. This is such a fun site! Once you create a video, you can copy the embed code (I’ll show you how!) and then place the video on your own class web site to share with your students and their families.

Here’s an example of a video I just created from some pictures I had of South Salem’s 2008 beach party.

All of the teachers and administrators in both of my schools were recently issued brand new (or gently used) laptops for use at school. This is amazing in and of itself, and we’re all very grateful to our school division for making this happen!

There are still several user specific settings that need to be taken care of on an individual basis when you are logged in as yourself.

Adding a Network Printer

Using Files from Your “H” Drive from Home

Using a Projector

Removing the SmartBoard Toolbar

Changing the Power Settings

Qwizdom Settings

Touchpad Software

Internet Explorer Settings

Adding Software

Adding a Network Printer

Here are the directions in a previous post. This only applies to printers on the school network, not to printers connected directly to your computer.

To change your default printer, click on Start, then select Printers and Faxes. Right click on the printer that you will use most often and select Set as Default Printer.

Using Your H Drive Away from School

Some of you asked about being able to work on documents in your H drive from home using your school laptop. Since your H drive is part of the school system network, you can’t actually access it from home, but there is a work-around.

• From school, open My Computer.
• Right click on your H drive.
• Select “Make Available Offline.”
• Go ahead and take all defaults in the offline wizard that opens. Notice that the wizard provides an option to create a shortcut to offline files on your desktop.

When you shut down your computer at the end of the school day, it will sync your H drive contents, copying the contents of this drive onto your computer. Then from home, you’ll just open My Computer and should be able to work with your H drive materials. When you log back in at school, it will sync again.

You can change these offline settings by going to the Control Panel on your computer, then Folder Options, and finally select the Offline tab.

Usage with a Projector

If your computer does not detect the projector and you have double checked all of the connections, try this:

On the Dells, hold down the Fn key and press the F8 key until the image shows both places. On the Gateways, hold down the Fn key and press F4.

SmartBoard Toolbar

The new SmartBoard software has lots of cool features, but it also creates a toolbar that always sits on the left side of the screen. You can click the arrow and it will slide off the screen, but it leaves the tab there. I prefer to make it go away completely. If you find it annoying, try this:

• Log in as yourself
• Click Start and then Run
• Type in msconfig and press OK
• Click the Startup tab
• Scroll down and uncheck anything that says SmartBoard tools
• Click OK

The new settings will take place when you restart your computer. The first time you restart, you’ll see a message saying that a configuration utility has run. Click in the checkbox that says do not run configuration setup or show this message again, and click OK.

Power Settings

To change the power settings so your laptop does not go to sleep on you,

• Right click on the desktop
• Select Properties.
• Click on the Screensaver tab
• Click the Power button.
• Change the monitor and hard drive settings to meet your own preferences and click OK.

You might want to select different settings when the computer is plugged in and when it is running on batteries.

Qwizdom

Before you use Qwizdom for the first time with these computers, please check all connections a couple of days ahead of time. If you get a message saying you need to install more software, you’ll need the cd, so give me a call. Here are some other things to check:

Remotes don’t respond:

Click on the Remotes tab and look at the type of remotes listed.
Click the Change button if necessary.
South Salem should say Q3 blue with 19 buttons.
West Salem should say Q4 red.
Clicking the Test button is a simple way to make sure that all batteries are working.

Only 15 numbers at the bottom of the screen:

Click on the Students tab
Select Class from the Menu bar
Select Edit Teachers
Select Sample Teacher
Click Delete
In the same window, click Add New
Enter your information as desired
Click Update and Done

Then click Class again and select New Class
You should see your name beside Teacher
Add a Class Name
Beside Type, select Normal
Click Done

Your class will now always be the default when you use the remotes.

Touchpad Settings

The touchpad software was not updated on some of your computers, and you will not be able to scroll by sliding your finger up the right side of the touchpad. Here are the directions for correcting this problem:

• Open My Computer
• Go to the P drive
• Select the Drivers folder
• Select Laptops
• Select Dell
• Select Dell830
• Double click touchpad
• Take all defaults.

Internet Explorer Settings

If you’re asked about the Phishing Filter, select Turn it On.

Home Page

• Go to the page that you would like to set as your home page (the one that will show up when you first begin Internet Explorer)
• If you don’t see the Menu Bar at the top of the screen, click on Tools on the right and check Show Menu Bar
• Click on Tools at the top of the screen
• Select Internet Options
• At the top of this window, in the home page box, click Select Current.
• Click OK

Search
This version of Internet Explorer has a small search text box in the top right corner.
To set this to Google, or another search engine:

• Click Tools and Internet Options again
• Beside Search, click Settings
• Click the Find More Providers link
• Click Google or another search engine name
• In the next window, check Make this my default search provider
• Click Add Provider

The next time you open Internet Explorer, your new search engine will show up in the top right corner.

Tabs
To open a new tab, click on the partial tab that extends to the right of the open tab at the top of the screen.
Navigate to any site you wish.
You can open links in a new tab by right clicking on the link and selecting Open in New Tab
You can also set up more than one home page by opening multiple pages in tabs, and then follow the previous directions for setting your home page.

Making Software Changes

Please do not uninstall programs from these computers. It’s fine to rearrange or even delete shortcuts from your desktop, but as these are school computers, the programs should stay basically the same. If you need a new program installed, I’ll be happy to help you with that.

Wordle is a fun web site that will create a word cloud from any text that you insert. You can also enter a url from any site that has an rss feed and it will create a cloud from the text on that page. Then you have several options for changing the layout, fonts, and colors.

Here’s an example I created by entering my blog address:

The larger the word, the more times it was found in the text. So, I can quickly see that I’ve used the terms “teachers” and “training” quite a bit, which did not surprise me. However, the words “new” and “year” appeared frequently also, and I’m not sure why I’ve used those so often.

This might be a helpful visual when teaching about the overuse of common words in student writing. Either type in or paste in some text from student projects and let the students analyze the results.

You can also enter the username for anyone who uses Delicious for bookmarking and see what tags they are using. Here’s mine:

 

It’s simple to see that I have lots of sites tagged with Web 2.0! Enter anyone’s Delicious username and quickly see if they’re interested in sites that you might also be interested in exploring.

One final example: Use this cool tool to create colorful word clouds of student names at the beginning of the year. You can also designate that the words be displayed in “almost” alphabetical order. I created the following cloud using first names of the classroom teachers at my schools.

Classroom uses:

• Visualize overuse of common words in student writing
• Enter vocabulary words and let students practice reading them.
• Enter a passage from a story and see how often particular words are actually used.
• Enter text from a historical document and analyze the results.
• For younger students, use this to practice typing in spelling words. They don’t need an account to use the site, and they’ll love playing around with the results!

Update (8/22) Tina Coffey has a post with several terrific examples for using Wordle in the elementary classroom. Be sure to check it out!

What other ways can you think of for using Wordle in the K-5 setting?

Wireless issues can be very frustrating because teachers often don’t know what to look for or how to troubleshoot. Here’s a quick checklist of things to look for when problems arise, and there is a handout with more information that you can download from the Box widget in the sidebar.

1. Check the Power

   Are both of the black electrical cords are plugged in?
   Are both power switches on the back turned on?

2. Check the Network Connection

   Is the Ethernet cable (the one that looks like a phone jack) plugged in?
   Is it plugged into a “hot” port?

3. Check the Wireless Access Point on top of the cart

   Is the wireless access point getting power?

4. Make sure that the wireless is enabled on the computer

   Has the wireless been accidentally disabled?

5. Check for low, very low, or no connectivity

   Are some computers not picking up a wireless signal even though you have a working access point in your room?

6. Check for a cart in a nearby room that is not connected

   Is there a cart nearby that is getting power but the network cable is not connected?

Don’t ever hesitate to ask for help from your technician or ITRT! Hopefully, though, this checklist will help you out when help is not immediately available. Remember the handout in the Box in the sidebar too if you don’t already have a copy.

There are lots of keyboard shortcuts that may speed up your productivity, and here is a list of some of the most useful ones. Most of these work in any program, but they all work in Word and PowerPoint. You might want to print out a copy and keep it by your computer as a cheat sheet!

Control Z – undo (Office programs will let you go backwards numerous levels, but some kids’ programs will only undo the last action.)

Control Y – redo (This will undo the “undo”)

Control A – Select All

Control S – Save

Control X – Cut

Control C – Copy

Control V – Paste

Control P – Print

Control drag to duplicate in Word (control D in Powerpoint)

Control + Shift + > to increase size of selected text

Control + Shift + < to decrease size of selected text

Control + E to center text

Control + R to right-align text

Control + L to left-align text

Control N – create new document

Control O – open

Control W – close document but not exit program

Control F – find specific word(s) in the text

Control B – Bold

Control I – Italics

Control U – Underline

Shift F3 – Change case (toggles from lower to upper to title case)

Control End – Go to End of Document

Control Home – Go to Beginning of Document

I hope this saves you some time!

Installing a network printer is easy, but if you have never done it, you would probably not figure this out on your own.

1. Click on the Start button
2. Click on Run
3. Type this: \\ps and click OK
   (the ps stands for print server)
4. Scroll down to the printer names that begin with “s” for South or “w” for West
5. Double click the printer you wish to install
6. When the small empty print window opens, you’re connected. Just click the red x in both open windows to close them.
7. Now your printer should be available to use from any program.

Just be aware that this is user specific. If you log as yourself on a computer that you have never used before, you will need to install a printer before you can print.