Technology Medley

Here are some examples of teacher blogs at both South and West Salem Elementaries. Check them out, and if you like what you see, leave a comment! If you would like to create your own blog and need help getting started, let me know!

Books and More Books
Mr. Harrell has students and teachers at South Salem respond to questions about the books they are reading

Math Survivors
Mrs. Hollar has her students (and former students) respond to questions about her math class

Mrs. Edwards Fourth Grade Class
Mrs. Edwards is using her blog to post homework assignments and to communicate with parents

Mrs. Atkins Fourth Grade Class
Mrs. Atkins has her students comment on books they are reading

Mrs. Bowles Fourth Grade Blog
Mrs. Bowles just set up her blog, so stay tuned for more entries here later. She plans to use the comments sections for student responses to her questions and topics.

Mrs. Crotts Class Blog
Mrs. Crotts uses her blog to keep her parents informed about events in her kindergarten class

Mrs. Hall’s Blog
Mrs. Hall is planning to use her blog for student responses to novels they are studying in fifth grade.
If you have a class blog that is not listed here, please let me know so I can tell everyone about it. Blogging is easy, it’s fun, and it can be addictive. Check out the handout in the blue box widget on this page, and become a part of the edublogging nation!

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.

Clearing Locks

When a student enters his password incorrectly more than 5 times, he is locked out of the AR system until his account is unlocked. This is a security message to keep other students from entering accounts that are not their own. If a student in locked out, here are the steps to follow to solve the problem, but first and foremost, please make sure that he knows his password (his student number.)

1. Log into AR Management
2. Click on Go at the top of the AR menu
3. Select Students (right under School)
4. When the student list appears, click on Students at the top of the window
5. Select Clear All Locks (you can also clear just one student, but go ahead and clear them all while you’re in there)

Deleting Tests from Student Records

1. Log into AR Management
2. Click Classroom
3. Click on your name and OK
4. Click Reading Practice
5. Select a student in the top frame
6. In the bottom frame, select the test(s) the student failed. To select more than one quiz, hold down the Ctrl key as you click each title
7. Click the Delete button on the left side
8. Click Yes
9. Click on the next student and continue

Enrolling a New Student

I will be happy to enroll new students for you, but you need to send me all of the following information:

1. first name
2. middle initial
3. last name
4. student number

AR Not Hitting the Database

More often than not, logging out and logging back in will fix this problem. It usually happens when your computer has lost its connection with the network. However, if this does not fix the problem, please submit it to the Help database.

Do you have trouble remembering what all of those drive letters mean when you try to save something? Well, here’s a quick review of the network drives in our school division.  Remember that the drive letters show up at the end of the drive name. For example, Public on ‘fs’(G:) is the G drive.

• G - Common folders for each school
• H -Your personal drive; keep your documents here
• I - AR, Larson’s, etc., data is stored here. Please don’t save anything to I.
• K - Save student work to your folder here
• P - Software
• W - Your personal web space

There’s also a handout in the Box widget that you may want to download onto your computer. It includes much more information about each drive.

If you would prefer to have a simple slideshow without the bells and whistles, then I would recommend trying out Kodak’s site. Once again, you set up a free account and upload pictures. Then you will have the ability to view your pictures as a slideshow. This site does not provide the open sharing capabilities of the others, so in order to share, you will need to send an email to those who would be interested in your pictures.

Some others that you might want to check out are:

DropShots 

MyPhotoAlbum

SmugMug
This site costs $39.95 per year and is ad free. It has some cool themes and other nice features. Would you use it? We can use software money to pay for a subscription, but you need to let me know if you’d be interested in that. I don’t want to pay for something that will never be used. So, if you’d like for us to purchase a subscription for SmugMug, either leave a comment to this post or send me an email.

Rock You is another fun photo sharing site, but I’d like to remind you once again…please don’t send your students directly to the site. You will need to set up a free account and then upload pictures from your computer. After setting up your slideshow, you can share the address with your students, post the link on your website, or embed the slideshow in your blog. It’s much easier than it sounds, and I’ll be glad to help!

When you enter the Rock You web site, if you find the music annoying, there is a “turn off” button just above the intro slideshow. After you upload your photos to the site, you can select from a wide variety of transitions, colors, themes, and even music to add to your show. Even if you don’t plan to use it any time soon, you should at least so there and play around a bit. I promise that your creative juices will be flowing in no time!

Here’s an example:

There are numerous photo sharing websites that are free and simple. Just do a search for “photo sharing” and you’ll see what I mean. Let me say first though that you should not send your students directly to these sites. If you decide to upload pictures to them and create a slideshow, you can give the students the link directly to your slideshow.

Bubbleshare is probably the most widely mentioned photo sharing site used in elementary schools. The first thing you’ll need to do is set up a free account. Then you just log in, create a new album, browse for your pictures, and make your album Private so your pictures won’t show up for someone just exploring the internet. After you create your slideshow, you’ll have the option to record audio for each slide, add text bubbles, and insert cute clipart. When you’re finished, you can either choose the Email Album link on the side to send the link to your contacts. Or, better yet, click the Blog Album link, copy the code that appears, and add it to your class web site. It will be embedded right in your web page…Very cool! I’ll help you get this set up if you’re interested. Katie Crotts uses Bubbleshare to share her class pictures. In fact, she was the first person I knew of who used this site! Visit the photo gallery on her class site for some great examples of sharing pictures with Bubbleshare.

You can also embed the slideshow into a blog. It will look something like this:

You have taken lots of wonderful digital pictures of your students and plan to take more as the year progresses. What can you do with those pictures other than print them? (Remember, printing photographs can take 4 times as much toner as printing words, and we just don’t have the budgets to continue buying toner as often as we might like to.)

So, how can you share those pictures with your students and their families if you don’t print them out? One of the easiest ways to share photos is by creating a slideshow in either MaxShow or PowerPoint and simply inserting a picture on each slide. If you’re feeling a bit more creative, put more than one picture on a slide, rotate pictures, add text, add clipart, and just have fun! You could also let your students each create their own slide and then combine them all into one slideshow. If you’d like to give that a try, I’ll be more than happy to help you out.

A slideshow for PTA Back to School Night is a great way for parents to “meet” your class. You could have the show running on your computer(s) as they are entering the classroom, or project it using your TV or LCD projector if you have one in your room.

There are several photo sharing sites on the internet that I’ll tell you more about in my next post. Let me know when you’re ready to create that PowerPoint from all of your great pictures!

Welcome back to school! I’m going to start posting information on this blog that I think will be helpful to the teachers at my two schools. You will find a link to my blog underneath my signature on my email messages, and I will let you know when I make updates. You may notice an ever expanding list of categories in the column to the right. By clicking on a category item, you will be able to see all blog posts that relate to that particular tag or category. Watch for categories related to digital images, Accelerated Reader, and Kerio webmail coming soon.

By the way, blogs are a terrific way to communicate with parents without the time involved in creating an actual web page. Even if you already have a web page, you might want to consider a blog for posting homework and other information that changes with some frequency. You can always link your blog from your website.

In the sidebar of this page, you’ll see a “widget” called Box.com. If you look in that box, you’ll find a handout entitled Blogging which explains how to set up a blog right here at Edublogs.org. Why not check this simple and new form of communication for yourself? I’ll be happy to help you get started!