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.

Now that we’re two weeks into 2009, and the holidays are well behind us, it’s time to think about setting some professional goals. Why not learn how to do something new in the world of technology? (You knew I was going to say that!)

Here are a few ideas to get your wheels turning:

Learn to use a new piece of software. All of the software currently installed in the lab and on the laptop carts is also installed on your teacher laptop. Select a program and start playing around with it on your own. I have handouts for several of these programs too, so just ask if you need one.

Use your digital camera to take pictures of your students on a field trip or participating in an exciting project. Use the pictures to create a fun PhotoStory and put it on your web page. If you don’t have a class web page yet, why not make that your new goal?

Become more familiar with the SmartBoard software. Search for ideas on the internet, and adapt files that you find to meet your needs. Bring the SmartBoard into your classroom for a week or two and try to use it in a lesson each day.

Create a wiki, a very simple web page that students can edit and add pictures to with your direction. We’ve already had a couple of teachers use wikis with their students, and the kids loved the idea of creating their own media. I’ll be posting more about those projects later on.

Use Google docs to share information and collaborate with others in your grade level. Visit another school or classroom virtually using Skype. Enhance your writing projects by having your students blog.  Go on a virtual field trip with Google Earth. Use Jing to create your own tutorials for students to use.

I have a couple of new goals for myself, too. I’ve had Camtasia for some time, and I need to take advantage of its ability to create tutorials and screencasts for teachers to use. I also want to learn how to create forms in DreamWeaver  to put on the web pages.

So, there you have it. What are your goals? What will you learn this year in the exciting world of technology?

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.

I need your help though. What formats work best for you? Do you prefer one-on-one training? Grade level specific training? After school workshops in your school? Division wide inservices at a central location? Credit classes? Online tutorials that you can use at your own pace? I would love to have your feedback in the comments section below!

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!

What is a blog? It started out simply as a log that was posted to the web. So, if you say “web log” quickly, it sounds like “blog.” I’m using my blog to communicate with the teachers in my 2 schools. You no longer need to try to keep up with emails or handouts that contain information you may need later on. You can just return to my blog page (http://blog.pamelgin.net) and search through the posts until you find the one you need

A blog is a very simple web page, but the readers can interact with the author by posting comments after any of the blog entries. Sometimes, whole conversations take place within these comment sections. Don’t hesitate to leave comments on any of my posts. I have this set so I have to approve comments before they actually show up though, so you may not see your comment immediately. You can also click on the comments links to see what other people have said.

To link to a blog, or to save it to your favorites, just choose the main blog address. For example, mine is http://blog.pamelgin.net. When you go to this web address, you will see the most recent post at the top. If you scroll down the page, you will see several other posts as well. But what if you want to see something that was written a few months ago? There are a couple of options in this case. In the right sidebar, you will see a list of categories. If you click on one of these categories, a page will appear that shows all of the posts that have been written about that particular category. So, for example, if you need some information about Accelerated Reader, you would click on the AR link. Underneath the Categories, you will see an Archives section. If you want to see what was posted earlier in the year, you click on one of the months and you’ll be taken to posts that were written in that particular month.

People add all sorts of extra things in the sidebars of their blogs called widgets. The blue box that contains handouts is an example of a widget. It actually links to another website where these handouts are stored

There is usually a Blogroll which is a list of links to other blogs that most likely are similar to the blog you are reading. There is often a Search textbox that allows you to search through all of the posts for a particular subject.

That’s about all there is to it! Blogs are very easy to create and maintain. If you’d like to create your own, let me know and I’ll help you get started!

MaxWrite

MaxWrite is the kids’ version of Word. Students can type, add pictures or borders, work with tables, and do almost anything you might normally have them do with a word processor. They can add images of Clifford or Ms. Frizzle, or they can draw their own pictures right within the program. They can also search for images from the regular Word images search. The documents are saved as a Word format, so they can be opened later on any computer that already has Office installed.

MaxShow

This part of Scholastic Keys is the interface to PowerPoint, and it’s probably my favorite to use with kids in the classroom. This is a wonderful program to use as a culminating event for almost any unit or story. We’ve had third graders create slideshows on their favorite animals, second graders create slideshows of their color poems, fourth graders create word problems shows….you get the idea. The possibilities are endless! After the children enter their information and images into their slides, they enjoy exploring other options such as colors, fonts, and animations to truly personalize their shows.

MaxCount

MaxCount is a spreadsheet program similar to Excel. There are several activities already built into MaxCount that can be used with the very young children. Older kids might enjoy creating multiplication tables or entering data and converting it to graphs. They love the “magic” of filling the columns with fomulas so the computer does the math for them! This is a great program for working with any type of data including practice with mean, median, and mode. It’s also excellent for showing various types of graphs using the same data.

There is a handout for Scholastic Keys in the blue box in the sidebar. Just click on the name of the handout and select download. I’ll be happy to come in and help you any time you want to use this awesome software!

In 2006, the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation requiring the integration of internet safety into the instructional program. They have created an online booklet entitled Guidelines and Resources for Internet Safety in Schools with a wealth of information as well as internet resources. The document is divided into sections for administrators, teachers, parents, and students and is worth spending a few minutes exploring. This post is divided into the five major sections found in the pages for teachers.

1. The Internet is exciting, rewarding, and challenging.

Our intent is certainly not to discourage the use of the Internet for research or for chatting with friends. There is great value in these activities, and this is the future for our students. We also want to be cautious that we do not frighten the children.

2. Monitoring is Crucial

I’ve heard it said that children are only one click away from an inappropriate site. Although I don’t necessarily agree with that statement, I do know how easy it would be for a student to accidentally stumble upon something that they probably should not be seeing. Any time we have students working on the Internet, we need to be constantly aware of what they are doing and what sites they are exploring. We have an excellent firewall in our school division, but firewalls and filters are not fool proof.

For example, Google Images is used often by teachers for picture searches, and it defaults to a Moderate Safe Search setting. However, it is very difficult for firewalls to filter images, and it is very easy to search for something that seems quite innocent and find inappropriate images. It’s fine for teachers to use Google images and other image storage sites (assuming the images are not copyrighted and you cite your sources) but please do not send students online to find images.

If you suspect that students have been surfing inappropriate sites, go into the browser history and check out what sites they have visited. Unfortunately, a particularly clever student will know how to delete the site from the history. That’s why monitoring is crucial.

3. Interactions in the Virtual World Can Be Negative

Cyberbullying is alive and well. Adults as well as students tend to say things in email messages and chat rooms that they would never consider saying in person. Students need to be reminded that anything they write on the computer can be copied and pasted multiple times and can get them in serious trouble as well as hurting feelings. They should not write anything online that they would not say in person. Here is an example:

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People Are Not Always Who They Claim to Be

It is all too easy for an adult to pretend to be a much younger person in order to win the confidence of a child over time. As students express interest in social networking sites such as Club Penguin and Whyville, they will most likely move on to MySpace or Facebook as they grow older. They need to have an acute awareness that even though chatting with strangers can be fun, they have no way of knowing who that person really is.

iKeepSafe.org has a fabulous video and book posted on their site that deals with this very topic. Watch Faux Pas, the Techno Cat with your class. We also have copies of these books and DVDs in the school libraries.

4. Dangers of Exchanging Information

Remind students that they should never share personal information online. This includes name, age, phone number, school friends’ names, family names, and anything that could be used for identification. When choosing screen names or email usernames, avoid using real first or last name, zip code, age, or any other personal information.

We never know who is reading what is being posted, as this video demonstrates:

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Students need to also be reminded that they should never post pictures that can be used to identify them or that they would be embarrassed for their grandparents to see. Once a picture is posted, it can be copied and recopied and never really goes away.

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In addition to the simplicity of copying pictures and text from the internet, there are archives of internet sites that keep copies of old web pages for research and historical reasons. Probably, the best known of these sites is the WayBack Machine.

5. Students Need to Hear the Rules Often

Use teachable moments to review rules for using computers with the students. A previous post on this blog reviewed the most basic information that students need to remember whenever they are online.

Helpful Web Links

NetSmartz Kids
Lots of games and activities that remind kids of internet safety rules
**This would be a great site to use during your computer lab time!

Surf Swell Island
Disney’s internet safety site with lots of fun quizzes and games

iKeepSafe
Activities and videos produced by iKeepSafe and D.A.R.E.

SafeKids
Lots of tips and tools for parents and kids

iSafe
Set up an account here for a wealth of information that will be helpful to all adults who work with children.

iLearn Online
This is actually part of iSafe. It includes excellent video modules, and after completing the modules, you will be able to download free materials to use as appropriate.

If you do a search for internet safety, you will discover numerous additional sites with more helpful information for students, parents, and educators. Stay informed, keep you students informed, and stay safe!

If you are using the school division’s webmail, are you taking advantage of the extra features? Email addresses of people in your contacts list as well as the school division’s contact list will be completed for you, but you need to check the following:

• Click on Settings
• Click on Settings again
  • Click on the Mail tab
  • Make sure that all 5 boxes are checked.
  • Click on the Mail Composing tab
  • Click the Choose Folders button
  • There are 2 different Contacts folders. They both need to be checked
    • The first one is your personal contacts.
      • You will probably see it just above your Deleted Items folder.
      • Make sure it is checked.
    • The second one is public (school division) contacts.
      • Scroll down until you see Public Folders
      • IF you don’t see anything underneath Public Folders, click the + sign
      • Scroll down until you see Contacts
      • This checkbox should also be checked.

Now you can type in just a portion of a person’s name, press the tab key, and the email address will be entered for you. This is probably my favorite feature of this entire program!

Calendar

You can keep your own personal calendar that you can access anywhere you have an internet connection. In fact, you can set up multiple calendars and share them with your coworkers. The instructions for this are included in the Kerio handout located in the Box widget in the sidebar.

Under Public Folders, you will find calendars for each school. If you would like to have information added to these calendars, the secretaries, principals, and I can all add items, so just let us know. You will also find folders titled South Technology Schedule or West Technology Schedule. These calendars are being used to reserve the laptop carts, so make sure you sign up when you plan to use the laptops with your students! You can find the instructions here.

Tasks

Keep your own “to do” list by using the tasks feature. Set reminders for your tasks and you’ll never forget to make that important phone call or send home a special message again. If you are memory challenged like me, this feature can be a life saver!

Notes

Notes are simply very small text files, but I find myself using them all the time! Any time someone gives me directions for something that I know I’ll forget but will need again, I create a new note. Then, all I have to do is open my email and find the note with those directions. This would be a great way to keep up with specific AR directions such as how to delete tests or clear locks. I’m sure you’ll think of other uses of this very cool feature. The very first line of the note will show up as the title, so make sure the beginning is something you will recognize.

Take advantage of all that our webmail has to offer!

Changing your email password:

You need to first add an “s” to the URL in the address bar, so the address looks like this:
https://mail.salem.k12.va.us
or this from school:
https://mail

Log in as usual
Click on Settings
Click on Change Password
Enter your old password, then the new one twice
Click OK and you’re  done!

Changing your network password:

Log into the network as usual.
Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
Click the Change Password button
Enter your old password
Enter your new password twice
Click OK

Keep your passwords secure, and try not to share them unless absolutely necessary.