Gratitude

In this time of new beginnings how about taking a moment and thinking about what you are grateful for?
Here is a nice online gratitude journal that you can contribute to or just start one of your own!

http://www.iamthankful.com/gratitude-journal/

Wishes for a fun, happy and peaceful New Year to you!

Google resources

So many people are starting to embrace Google Apps for Education in our school district.  It is exciting to see all the ways that you can use Google Apps for things in your work and life.  I recently found 2 Google resources that I think will be very useful for you if you use Google Apps.

The first one is 100+ Google Tricks for Teachers.
http://www.teachhub.com/100-google-tricks-teachers

2nd is the Google Template area where you can find all sorts of templates to use in Google Apps.
https://docs.google.com/templates?hl=en_US

So browse around and see what you might find useful here!
 

Must Have Tech Skills for Teachers!

Just read a really good article from Kathy Schrock and she listed these as the Must Have Tech Skills for Teachers.  I totally agree with her breakdown.  These are things we often get asked at Helpdesk and teachers frequently need help with.   I am hoping to put this together in an inservice training which will be hands on, fun, and informative for teachers.  Is there anything else I should add to the list?  Comment below and let me know! 

•    Know what all the cords and plugs are for and attached to
•    Know how to hook up a document camera & projector
•    Learn how to create a CSV file for importing
•    Learn what the lights on your printer indicate
•    Understand the difference between the operating system, a browser, and a search engine
•    Learn how to upload files and download them to a location of your choice
•    Learn the three ways to use an interactive whiteboard
•    Know how to attach a document to an email
•    Know how to resize an image to decrease its file size before sending as an email attachment
•    Know how to get the photos off your digital camera
•    Know how to quickly create a PowerPoint slide show from images
•    Know how to get an answer to a question about using a computer in less than 5 minutes
•    Learn to conduct a good search and use alternate search tools
•     Learn to shoot and edit video footage
•    Learn the difference between .doc and .docx
•    Learn what makes an effective hypermedia presentation
•    When using email, know the difference between reply and reply all
•    Learn about cloud-based file storage
•    Become a proficient typist
•    Find the most important functions in an application to rapidly teach yourself the basics

21 Century Skills

This film was created by my friend and Principal Jen Botzojorns.  She and I collaborate on the 1 to 1 laptop program at Mount Mansfield Union High School along with other teachers and technology integration specialists.  Thought you might like this.

How to print a webpage as a pdf

Hi,
Have you ever been trying to print a webpage or blog or article online and have it chop off part or print it out in a weird way that doesn't look quite right?  Here is a link to a cool little online tool that will print a webpage as a pdf file and make it look just right!

http://joliprint.com/

SummerTime!

Hey, it is the last day of school for kids and Woot!  I am on my way to bliss out at a 4 day yoga Festival!
http://stratton.wanderlustfestival.com

There are no words to explain how we folks in education feel on this last day of school.  It is almost as much excitement as the kids have when they are done!  I work all summer long getting the technology ready for the next school year but just having it be the last day of school is sooo exciting!  It means time to slow down a bit and smell the roses.  Or read a good book.  Check out this site to give you some great reading ideas.
http://www.whatshouldireadnext.com

On these long hot summer days I hope you take time to renew and recharge and let your imagination go wild and have great dreams for what is to come!
Peace Out! Jean

New App Alert!!

New App Alert!  New App Alert!  If you have an IPad or IPhone try Leafsnap for f-r-e-e and start having fun identifying some trees in your area.  http://leafsnap.com

 I heard about this App from a few coworkers of mine and gave it a try and thought you might like to know about it.  LeafSnap is an electronic  field guides for trees being developed by researchers from Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution.  Leafsnap contains beautiful high-resolution images of leaves, flowers, fruit, petiole, seeds, and bark.

What is even cooler is that you can go outside and collect some leaf samples, then you place them on a piece of paper and take a picture of them.  Leafsnap helps you identify it by bringing up images of the likely tree it is from.  You can then see all these really cool images of the bark, flowers and parts of the tree.    Here is my picture of a red maple that I took:

Here is just a screen shot of some of the info that Leafsnap shows me about that species.  It is so cool and it has the scientific name and tons of details of about 185 species of trees.

Hope you get out and enjoy some summer weather and figure out the name of a tree or 2 with this fun app.   Peace, Jean

It's Jeopardy!

This post is thanks to my coworker Joanne.  She provided me with these links to create Jeopardy online or via a powerpoint presentation.  It is a cool and fun activity for you do as with a group of students for test review or just a cool way to deliver information!

http://www.superteachertools.com/jeopardy/

This runs with flash so you have to have it installed for this to work.  You can either download the template and make your own or play the already complete online version.  Have Fun!

Google to rent out computers to kids!

Rumors are flying that Google is going to be renting out their Chrome laptops for $20 a month and they intend to target students!  This is really exciting news for getting more computers out to kids that could otherwise not have one!  I will keep you posted as I hear more!


http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gadgetreviews/eyeing-the-enterprise-google-to-rent-out-chrome-laptops-for-20-a-month/24571

Unplug & Regenerate!

Here is a great article on unplugging from technology and regenerating from my yoga teacher, Shiva Rea.
Read it here

Whining isn't a scalable solution.

I have been getting a daily dose of Seth Godin emailed to me.  Seth has some pretty wise words of wisdom and today's ended with this:  " Whining isn't a scalable solution."
You can subscribe here if you are interested: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/


He talked in today's post about how in the past decade our lives have changed dramatically.  AND how we are slow to change.  We want things to be as they have been and they are not.  So it requires us to not just follow along as we always have done.  Change is messy and inconvenient and requires us to adapt however that may look for each of us. 

If change is inevitable, and I think it is, we need to change along with it and not whine, instead work on how to make the change better than what we have today.  My 2 cents.

When your phone dies

So I went to use my IPhone today and poof, it's dead.  So weird.  No sign of it going to die or anything.  I happened to be by the AT&T store in Williston and had to buy a new one.    My customer service guy, Michael, was really nice and helped me to get a new phone.  He said he has dealt with 1000’s of IPhones and only 3-4 has he seen just die like this.  Gee, I feel special.  Was it just a bad technology karma day?  I stayed with the IPhone3.  They were only $50.  I really love my IPhone and it wasn’t until I had it no longer that I realized how much.  I am SURE my Friends with Words (I am Jeanvt if you want to play) were wondering when I was going to play back to them.  It had me worried.  Does this call for therapy?!

Anyway, so I got the new phone in less than ½ hour and got home and synced it with my ITunes account and all was good.  I had synced my phone less than a week ago so I hardly lost a thing.  So just a friendly reminder to backup your data, be it a netbook, laptop, desktop computer, IPad, IPhone or whatever device you have grown to love because you never know when it is going to go down the tubes fast and knowing you have not lost all your important files, phone numbers, apps, podcasts, whatever is really really comforting with it does occur!

Take away?  Backup, Backup, Backup.....Now, please?  You can thank me later.

It's about social media people!

Socialnomics!

Cool Tools

OK, any self respecting geek likes to oogle at cool tools right?
Well I warn you once you start poking around on this site you could be here a while:
Cool Tools
Click any of the links on the left side of the page that interests you.

You can find stuff like this:

http://www.animatedknots.com/indexclimbing.php
Nice reference to give people learning knots

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/003947.php

Nice replacement for the canned air we use in the computer lab

Resize Pictures

Why you should resize your pictures when posting to the web!

Do you find yourself having difficulty uploading pictures to your webpage or blog?  Or do you find that once you get them uploaded it takes a long time for your page to load?  Then you need a quick lesson on how to resize pictures.  Resizing pictures to a smaller size will make the upload time and problems much less and it will allow faster loading of webpages when people come to visit your site!  You want this right??

Then go to this page and watch a quick tutorial on how to resize your pictures at school:

http://cesu.k12.vt.us/modules/cms/pages.phtml?&pageid=210304

Another great option is this online picture editing program that I recently found that is also quick and easy to use and does not require a login to use.  (We love that, right?  Not another password to remember!)  http://www.picnik.com

So when dealing with pictures on the web, remember to resize, resize, resize those pics!

The Tuesday I will never forget

On Tuesday our school suffered a tragedy of a loss of one of our students by suicide.  This occurred in our school with a gun.  This is complicated on so many levels.  As I think about writing in my tech blog this week it hardly seems appropriate to banter on about the latest in technology when there is a flood of emotions and heartbreak going on around and inside of me.  Not to acknowledge what has happened, is impossible for me to do.  Understand that there are many outside factors of why I can only talk about my feelings and not the event itself. I hope this explanation will give a little light of better understanding and the beginning of healing for me and slowly….for my school community.  Every person that has dealt with, heard of, or was somehow involved has been impacted by last Tuesday.   It is one of those life altering events, you will not forget.  Like when you are asked, where were you on 9/11?  You remember with vivid detail the moments and hours around that time.

I have been asked a lot, “How are you?”   I take a deep breath, straighten my spine and then wonder, “Does this person really want to know?  Are they just checking in to make sure I am not a train wreck inside?  Are they just asking this to be polite?  Do they want the short answer of - I am fine, thank you.  Or the real answer which could take up to an hour to expound upon?”   It is all such a complicated and involved wound up ball of yarn.

Here is the short honest answer.  I am deeply saddened that this young man chose to do what he did.  I cannot even fathom what his friends and family must be going through but my heart hurts when I even try to put myself in that place.  I am worried about the safety of our school.  The computer lab is the first door you can walk into as you enter the main entrance of the building.  I am now afraid of what might happen if another violent interface occurs in our school and my colleagues and I could be the first point of contact.  It is unnerving to know that this young man took his life just 20 feet from where I spend the bulk of my work life and his energy will forever be with us and remind us of what happened.  I feel helpless when I look in the eyes of people I am close to who were there. When I look in their faces, I can see they have been changed forever by this incident.  I feel helpless.  It is hard to know what to say.  It is hard to know what to do.  So we hug, we send a note, we stand by each other.  We try to work, we get distracted, we cry for no reason.  I have been moving my body a lot, praying and meditating.  I am so grateful that I was at another school that morning.  I have the tools of yoga, meditation and prayer to help get me and others around me through this and give me strength.  Today I will put one foot in front of the other.  I will continue to walk into school each day and do what I do but like my coworkers, we are all changed forever.

Facebook for Teachers and in school?

We are continually evaluating the reasoning for whether Facebook should or should not be allowed in schools.
Here is a site that gives many reasons to use Facebook.
http://jeffthomastech.com/blog/?p=6887

Our school feels that there is still a large amount of harassment and bullying that occurs in Facebook and they want our kids to not have to deal with that while at school.  What do you think?