Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Website Not Loading Properly: Try Compatibility View in IE

Learned something quite easy today and new.  We have an IT work order system in our district.  However, it does not work using Internet Explorer (IE) so up to now we have opened Firefox to make it work.  Now, you are probably asking, "Why don't you use Forefox or Chrome all of the time?"  Well, IE works for most of our websites and the others do not.  I guess it has something to do with our Firewall, but I'm not a IT person.

So back to the original problem, we have to open Firefox to use our work order system.  One of our techs saw this and said, "Why don't you click on the 'compatibility view' in IE?"  What is the compatibility view you say?  When you are in IE, if the website you are at does not work fully in the current version of IE you are running, you will be what looks like a page break in the address bar.  You left-click on this once and Bam!, the website will become fully functional.

I'm sure those of us at GCSD will be happy to hear less to solve websites problems, "Try another browser."


Embed Voki into a PowerPoint

This short video gives you step by step instructions on how to embed a Voki into your PowerPoint presentation.  It's as easy as creating a Voki...sharing the Voki by "publishing" your avatar, copying the embed code, and inserting it into your PowerPoint.  Although it will look as though it didn't work when you first insert it, it will load and show as soon as yoou begin the Slide Show.

Watch the webcast below to see how easy it is to enhance your presentations.  If you want to download the step-by-step instructions, I have it in a PowerPoint, just go to my website and download the instructions.  Click HERE to get to my Tech tool of the Month.  The Tech tool of the Month will change in April, but the PowerPoint Instructions for this Blog will remain on the page. 

Friday, March 15, 2013

Using PADLET to Showcase Projects


We have been sharing with some of our teachers lately, a tool that allows them to showcase their student projects. The tool is called PADLET, formerly known as Wallwisher.  It is located at www.padlet.com.  Most often, we have created the sites or “pages” with teachers so the students can post notes to the page in response to a question or to share thoughts.  Now we have started using the online bulletin board tool as a way to share  things like the students' respose to an essential question, written documents, posters, Power Points and Weebly Web pages.  We make sure to adjust the Privacy Settings so a teacher has to approve a piece before it goes live on the web.  Be sure to observe all of the precautions for Internet safety for our students, conforming to the CIPA and COPPA laws. 
Watch the very basic video tutorial below and start showcasing your students’ work online.


 
 

Monday, March 4, 2013

Persuading: Being Buoyant in the Face of Rejection

Chapter 5 in Daniel Pink's book To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others is titled "Buoyancy." It is the second chapter of Part II in the book titled, "How To Be."

Many of you reading this post are teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators who are leading the way in integrating technology effectively.  As we are on our journey, how many of you can describe situations similar to that of a door-to-door salesman.  “He found door-to-door selling especially brutal.  These rejections came fast and ferociously, often in the form of a rude comment and a slammed door.” (Page 99 of 260, Loc 1190, Kindle App for iPad)  Now I’ve never had a teacher slam a door in my face but many emails go unnoticed.

In order to stay positive in our quest to integrate effectively, Daniel Pink suggests we stay buoyant.

1) Have Interrogative Self-Talks – Example – How can I best persuade the teacher to have his/her students write online?  “Can I move these people.” (page 117, Loc 1399)
2) Positivity Ratios – Be positive about what you are trying persuade teachers to do.  Negative emotions narrow people’s vision while positivity broadens it. (page 105, Loc 1286).  Also, you need to believe in the positive effect that technology integration has on the learning for students.
3) Optimistic Explanatory Style – “View your rejections as temporary rather than permanent, specific rather than universal, and external rather than personal.” (page 111, Loc 1369)

Practicing buoyancy is going to be important for me.  Many times, like today, I get dismayed when only a handful of teachers welcome me into their classrooms to share ideas of technology integration.  However, I need to be positive, have interrogative self-talks before entering a building, and be optimistic to help myself be persistent through the tough days.

Using Tagxedo in the Classroom


Finding ways to keep the interests of students is certainly challenging.  For years, “manipulatives” were hot items because they occupied the mind and hands of students, allowing them to connect the different modalities in one lesson.  Today’s students are a lot more tech savvy and seem to get bored quicker.  I continue to search for ways to engage students while exposing them to content.  With that being said, here’s an interesting way to use a “word cloud” tool to focus on content, vocabulary and spelling.  The site is www.tagxedo.com. Tagxedo lets you build word clouds, but with an additional spin.  You can import shapes and pictures, or choose from the stock shapes on the website to create a picture using words.  You’ve heard the expression, “A picture paints a thousand words” haven’t you?  Well here is proof!

 

Here are two project ideas:

1)      SELF-PORTRAIT. What you will need:  Laptops or computers, list of words describing themselves, a picture of the student either on a Flash Drive or on the computer hard drive. Part 1:  Have students create a list of words that describe themselves.  Have other students in the class contribute to the list by adding positive attributes that a student may not list about themselves.  This is a cool activity for programs like “Capturing Kid’s Hearts.” Next, have the students use all of the words created in the list to write an autobiographical paper.  Part 2:  For the follow-up activity have students open www.tagxedo.com.  Once there, students can import their picture, load the Tagxedo with the list of words or even better, the autobiography and watch as the words spin a likeness of the student using words.  Save, Share or Print out. 

2)      FAMOUS PEOPLE/SPEECHES IN HISTORY.  What you will need: a famous speech and a picture of the person who delivered the speech.  Part 1:  Find an important speech from history.  Discuss what was happening around the time the speech was delivered, and the importance of the speech.  Now, after doing your research about the speech, the person, what was happening in this time period in history, and the impact of the speech…use the words to the speech and load them into Tagxedo.  Import a picture of the person who delivered the speech.  Watch as Tagxedo spins a likeness of the person using their own words from the speech.

 

Watch the video for the basics of how to use Tagxedo.  The program is pretty intuitive, and in no time at all, you will be creating all kinds of really cool projects on your own.



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