Herman Wood

Offerings for Elementary

I'm occasionally asked exactly is it that I do. My daughter has the drill down so well that she will excuse herself, then proceed to explain in clear concise language exactly what my "mission" is ; ) Unfortunately, that doesn't always tell you, the teacher, exactly what it is I can do for you and your students.

With that in mind, I created a document that lists just a few of the things I have helped with in the recent past. Some items are tied directly to a specific area of the curriculum, others are listed which can be applied to multiple areas, and there are items listed which deal with teacher productivity and communications.

I am available to help in any of these areas, as well as other needs you may have. Many schools have reviewed these offerings, along with their School Improvement Plan, and put together a Professional Learning course to meet the needs of their school.

If you have interest, please talk with your colleagues and let me know. I'll arrange a meeting to gauge interest, assess needs, and make plans to set up training or to get a course started.

Download ES_InstructionalTech.pdf

Welcome Back!

Summer is almost over for you! Why am I happy about that? It means it's almost time for me to get to work with you again! I've been busy with two courses, iNtegrating iLife iNto iLearning and eXtending iLife iNto iLearning, as well as the National Educational Computing Convention in San Antonio.

I learned lots at the Convention! You can see the sessions I attended and my notes at:

http://edtech.typepad.com/theblog/

Of note, there was quite the brouhaha at the convention by a request from ISTE, the organization who puts on the convention, that they wanted podcasters to not only get the permission of presenters to record, but to get permission from ISTE. ISTE bowed to pressure to drop the request, but it started quite the conversation.

I'd like to wrap up by saying hello! Hello to two schools that are new to me, Barber and Lost Mountain. I look forward to working with you!

Problems Embedding into Posts or Pages

Some folks are running into problems embedding pictures or calendars into their posts or pages in their TypePad blogs.  I can't isolate the problem, as there is no problem on some PC's, but there is on others.  Seems to be no problem on our Macs in Safari.  Anyway, here's the fix:

On PC's, and in FireFox on Macs, there is a tab called Edit HTML that is visible to the top right of the editable area of your post/page.  If your code is showing (oh my!) instead of your picture or calendar, then edit your post/page.  Copy the code again.  Click the Edit HTML button:

Paste the code you copied a moment ago back in and save your post.  So far, it's worked every time!

Let me know if you need any help!

PS- Happened to me on this post in FireFox on the Mac ; )

Google's Calendar

Google Calendar is a great way to share important dates and times with your students and parents!  As always, you have to have a Google account.  See my prior post on PICASA for more info on creating an account.

Google gives you all the info you need to get started:  http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/topic.py?topic=8556

Once you have some events added, you can go through the process of embedding it into your blog.  Again, Google really comes through:  http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=41207&topic=8573

The help at Google will allow you to paste the code from Google into a TypePad post so that your calendar will appear in a post. If you want it always in the same place, you could give your calendar its own Page, if that has been enabled and set up for you. (Example in the right hand column of this blog under Pages.) Other options include putting it in the sidebar of your blog as a Notes Typelist. An example of that is on this blog on the left hand side. It's a public calendar for Dowell Elementary.

It takes some time and you have to change some settings, but it's a tremendous help to your parents and students.

Google's PICASA for Your Blog

Google provides all kinds of goodies that you can use with or without a blog.  We're going to deal with PICASA in this entry.  PICASA is a service that allows you to share pictures.  Pictures can be viewed in online albums or  inside a blog.  There are many examples on my blog, but here's one:  http://tiscobb.typepad.com/herman_wood/2007/08/basics-of-blogg.html

By pictures, I mean digital pictures or graphics.  Before you can get started, you need to create a Google account.  It's free!  Start by going to Google's account set up help page.

Once that's all set, go to the PICASA set up page.

Here's how to upload pictures from your web browser: http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=10753

You may want to place a work order to have the PICASA software installed on your computer, if it's not already installed.  It is approved, though it is necessary to place a work order for it to be installed.  Besides making uploading easier, it has all kinds of helpful features.

Once you have a few pictures uploaded, you can embed them in your blog!  Start by clicking on an album.  To embed one picture, click on the picture, then look in the right hand column where it says Link this Photo.  You'll need to click it, then it will look like this:

Use the pulldown to select the size you want your picture to be.  Keep in mind that the middle column of most blogs is set to 400 pixels.  Copy the line of code under HTML to Embed in WebSite and paste it into the blog where ever you want the image to appear.  As always, save your post!

You can also create a slideshow from an album.  The only real changes in the procedure above is that while you are in an album, the button for embedding a slideshow is on the left rather than the right.

Here's an example using some pictures I took:

One option you can explore, if it's been enabled for you, is to have a Page just for displaying pictures. Instead of New Post, click New Page, then paste your choice of the html code into the body of the Page. You can see the same slideshow on one of my pages. The link is off to the right.

Putting Images in Blog Posts

One of my colleagues, Lauralyn Sunseri, did a very clear post on inserting images into TypePad blog posts. Go check it out at: http://tiscobb.typepad.com/lsunseri/2007/08/inserting-image.html

Atomic Learning

Atomic Learning is a terrific resource available to you! Any employee can use it at their desk, in front of students, or even at home. They have tutorials on about any software available to us in the district. They recently added Lesson Accelerators, which take you through student projects all the way from planning to implementation.

The best way to get started is to use Atomic Learning to learn about Atomic Learning! Go to http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/support

You'll be asked to login. Your user name is your e-number, found on your check. If you've used it before, you have already set up a password. If not, then I'll share the default password for the district in person. You should change your password right away.

Once you've looked at the above, click on Our Tutorials at the top of the page, find one you're interested in, and take a look.

Finally, take a look at the Lesson Accelerators. Click on the Atomic Learning Home icon at the top.

In the right hand column, click More Lesson Accelerators to see what's available.

ROWS: Moving Files

Backing Up Files to Your Home Directory

Note: The Home Directory is the same as your H Drive (badge id)

IMPORTANT: Your Home Directory does not have as much space as your hard drive so be sure you are only moving the files you use. If you have large files (i.e., images, digital movie files, graphics-intense documents) contact your school refresh contact for alternatives to saving the files to your home directory.

Moving One File
1. Log on to the old computer with your network log in.
2. Locate a file that has been saved on the hard drive. A good place to look is in the My Documents folder or on the desktop.
3. Right click on the file and select Copy.
4. Double click on the My Computer icon on the desktop.
5. Locate and double click on your home directory (look for your badge id).

6. Click on Edit Paste. The file should appear in the home directory window.
7. Repeat the move above to save additional files.

Moving More Than One File
You can move more than one file at a time to your H: Drive.
1. Log on to the old computer with your network log in.
2. Locate the files that have been saved on the hard drive. A good place to look is in the My Documents folder or on the desktop.
3. Click on the Ctrl key on the keyboard.
4. While holding down the Ctrl key, click on each file you want to move.
5. Click on Edit Copy.
6. Double click on the My Computer icon on the desktop.
7. Locate and double click on your home directory (look for your badge id).
8. Click on Edit Paste. The file should appear in the home directory window.

Moving a Folder
You can move an entire folder of files instead of moving individual files.
1. Log on to the old computer with your network log in.
2. Locate the folder that contains the files that have been saved on the hard drive.
3. Right click on the folder and select Copy.
4. Double click on the My Computer icon on the desktop.
5. Locate and double click on your home directory (look for your badge id).
6. Click on Edit Paste. The folder should appear in the home directory window.

Download these instructions as a PDF for printing by clicking here.

Thanks to Tanya Ditty for this step by step!

Comments & Trackbacks

Comments are a way to allow others to have something to say on your blog. Our district requires that comments be moderated, and all blogs within the district are configured to do that. What moderation means is that the author of the post on the blog must approve the comment before it can be seen on the blog.

To allow comments, set the pulldown under Comments at the bottom of your post to Open:

To moderate comments, click List Comments:

You'll be presented with a list of all the comments on your blog:

You can approve or delete several at a time by clicking the check box next to the comment and clicking either approve, delete, or report spam (Yes, the spammers have found ways to create comment spam! I have seen very little on my blogs.) You can also look at each comment by clicking on the comment to read it and choose whether or not to publish it:

Trackbacks are a different animal. Essentially, it's a way for one blog to let another blog it's being talked about. For more, visit these two links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrackBack

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=93&p_created=1125521344&p_sid=rK3PliJi&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MzUmcF9wcm9kcz0mcF9jYXRzPTE4JnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9MS4xOCZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PXRyYWNrYmFja3M*&p_li=&p_topview=1

TypePad Blog Set Up

To become an author of a TypePad blog, you have to accept an invitation via email to become an author. There are several types of authorship, though we typically use guest for teachers and junior for students.

Watch the spam filter and any junk mail folders you have set up. Invitations have been caught in both. Once you receive the email invitation, open the email from TypePad.com. The invite typically looks like the one below:

The blue link will open a web page. If you're reading your mail in a web browser, you should right click and "open in a new window". The window that opens will look like this, except without my annotations:

If you have joined TypePad before, just sign in on the left and accept the invitation. If you've never joined TypePad, you'll need to click on "Register for Free" on the right.

When you register, you'll create a user name within the parameters TypePad allows, as well as a password of your choosing. Please keep a record of these. TypePad can help you with recovering a forgotten password, but the username can be more difficult to recover.

Once you've been accepted as a Guest Author, you're ready to post.