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Page history last edited by Vance Stevens 1 month, 3 weeks ago

Naval College Professional Development

Curriculum and staff development sessions Oct 9-13, 2011

This wiki models one means of creating a portal for your students.

- this model prepared by Vance Stevens 

 

Use this Table of Contents to recall how to do some of the things we learned together during these workshops

  1. New stuff
    1. More about creating portals from June 2012  
    2. Minecraft
  2. October Workshop
    1. Print excel in landscape (or portrait) and make it fit just one page
    2. Chrome browser
      1. Install Chrome
    3. Google Docs
      1. Going from Arabic to English Google Docs
      2. Set up Google Docs for viewing offline
    4. Etherpad clones
    5. Jing
    6. Audacity
      1. Lame MP3 export driver
    7. The Compleat Lexical Tutor
      1. Concordance
  3. Participants

 

New stuff

 

More about creating portals from June 2012  

 

This Tiny URL is the starting point for the workshop on LINK-LOOPS: http://tinyurl.com/ncpd2012june

I blogged the step by step instructions for that workshop here:
http://vancestevens.posterous.com/teaching-teachers-how-to-create-simple-link-l

 

Minecraft

 

Get Minecraft from 

Learn Minecraft with

Learn about how educators use Minecraft

 

October Workshop

 

Here is a portal we are using for a demo professional development session at 9:00 a.m. on Wed. Oct 19, 2011

http://ncpd.pbworks.com 

 

 

Some of the tools covered, plus others

 

During the course of our sessions together, we touched on several challenges to fostering a creative learning environment whose users are trying to focus technology appropriately on certain problems and their possible solutions.  Here are some of the challenges that came up during our sessions and some online tools we learned about that might address these challenges

 

Print excel in landscape (or portrait) and make it fit just one page

 

You can make Excel files print in landscape and fit to one page.

Here’s how you can do it yourself in Office 2010

http://screencast.com/t/BglYNj5F

 

And here's how to print a file in Landscape, scaled to 1 page

on your office NC computer (in Excel, Office 2007)

 

There are several ways to do it: http://screencast.com/t/4qJQ4bDYL

 

1. Print PREVIEW / PAGE SETUP and set orientation and scaling.

    I like this one because you can see the result immediately.

 

2. Or use the icons in the Page Layout tab,

    and view the result in Print Preview 

 

 

 

Chrome browser

 

Challenge: Google Docs stores our files in "the cloud" (the big server in the sky). When we use cloud computing, we need to have a  means of backing up and accessing our documents offline.  Google have created a plugin for this purpose that works only in their browser, Chrome. can be used as one of your preferred browsers, or only for the purpose of synchronizing your online Google Docs with your localized backup repository.

 

Solution: Chrome works best with many Google tools, and is essential for viewing Google Docs offline (viewing only; editing must be done online or from standalone applications on your computer). Chrome can be installed in seconds, 

 

Install Chrome

 

  1. open any browser (takes seconds)
  2. search (in Google, Bing, Yahoo ... ) for Install Chrome (takes seconds)
  3. Select ENGLISH as your preferred language for installation if necessary (takes seconds)
  4. Click on the big blue DOWNLOAD button (takes one second) 
  5. Locate the installation window and click on RUN (takes seconds)
  6. Wait for the installation to happen (takes less than a minute) 
  7. Select your search engine (takes seconds) 
  8. Chrome is open, start using it :-) 

 

Google Docs

 

Challenge: Working in an environment reliant on email attachments means that not everyone is on the same page (document) where there are numerous versions being constantly updated.  Inefficiencies occur in maintaining distribution lists and in intended recipients misfiling documents, not having access to email, having to carry docs on flash drives, etc., and with old versions of documents resurfacing embarrassingly

 

One solution: Google Docs is a reliable, free, and secure system of keeping documents online in one place where explicitly specified users ('everyone' can be specified as well as particular individuals) have access to either help edit or view only the latest version.  (Users should be aware however that reformatting might occur in converting Word to Google Docs and visa versa)

 

Going from Arabic to English Google Docs

 

Sign up for a GMAIL account (not a Google one)

When logged on, find Documents

  • under More in the search engine window
  • as one of the choices at the top of a Gmail window  

 

The direct link is http://docs.google.com. If it comes up in Arabic, force it to English  in these steps

  • Replace the URL in the browser with simply 'google.com' - this might redirect you to google.ae
  • Scroll to or look in the bottom of the screen for links to Google.com or the word English

 

Once you have Google.com in English, replace the browser URL with http://docs.google.com

Google Docs should now appear in English

 

Set up Google Docs for viewing offline

 

In case of Internet failure or to have backups, you can store your Google Docs on your computer through an app that plugs in to Chrome. Here's how to install it:

 

  1. Open your listing of Google Docs at http://docs.google.com 
  2. Find the gear-shaped settings menu in the upper right
  3. Pull it down and select "Set up Google Docs offline"
  4. Follow the instructions

 

See the screencast to be shown how: http://screencast.com/t/lcwzBNtE6W 

 

Etherpad clones

 

Challenge:  Many activities in class focus on individual students one at a time while the other 20 students are not particularly engaged.

 

One solution:  Etherpad tools allow students to work synchronously in online spaces, engaging all the students in collaborative work that can be directed or monitored by the teacher.

 

Another class of collaborative writing tools is the Etherpad clones.  Etherpad was a company that created an open source writing tool similar to Google Docs.  Google eventually bought the company, whose employees not work to develop Google products.  Meanwhile, the original open source software is being hosted by several companies.  These spaces can be found by Googling 'etherpad clones'; e.g.

 

 

Reliability and functionality of each such space varies.  Here are some I have used and my impressions:

 

 

 

 

Jing

 

Challenge: Sometimes it's hard to explain in steps how to do things. on computers.

 

One solution:  Now it is possible to make screenshots and video recordings of screencasts of things on your computer that you want people to learn or understand, and share them online, for free. This is a step far beyond the Snipit tool in Windows 7, which allows you to make screenshots and store them as files on your computer.

 

The above screencast was made from Jing, a free download from the makers of Camtasia and Snaggit

 

Download from http://www.techsmith.com/download/jing/

Install and create an account at http://screencast.com 

 

The tool resides as a sun-like globe in a corner of your screen (you can move it around)

You can make a screen capture or a short screencast with audio (limit of a few minutes)

You can store either result as a file on your computer or as an object in the cloud with a URL you can share

 

With this tool you can show people how to do things, record the demo, and give them the URL to see the recording seconds later (assuming robust internet for uploading to screenshare.com, but the object will go to your history)

 

Audacity

 

Challenge: We want to work with student speech but lack the time to meet with each student for adequate practice one-on-one

 

One solution: There is free software that students can download and use on their own computers which will allow them to record their voices for a variety of purposes.  The program allows for export to mp3 format which means it can be used by students or teachers for podcasting.

 

Audacity is available here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ 

 

Lame MP3 export driver

 

In order to make Audacity export to mp3 format a separate download is necessary.  When downloading the program you should also download and install the LAME encoder. To go to the download directly, browser here: 

http://lame1.buanzo.com.ar/#lamewindl and click on the link at the top.

Note where the program installs (where on your computer)

 

Now create a recording in Audacity (anything, just a few seconds) and under file, select Export to mp3.  This will force Audacity to ask you where the Lame DLL file is (it's at the location above, remember?).  Browse to it, click on the file with the DLL extension, and next time you do this, Audacity will remember and won't ask you again.

 

Instructions for this are here:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&i=lame-mp3

 

The Compleat Lexical Tutor

 

Challenge: Teachers and students frequently have questions about numerous issues of usage in English.

 

One solution:  Now it is possible to find in one place a huge range of tools that allow your readings to be checked for vocabulary and reading level, and where you can access huge corpuses of text which can be searched for instances of real, authentic usage  Developed by Tom Cobb, the Compleat Lexical Tutorcan be accessed at http://www.lextutor.ca/

 

Concordance

 

We looked at the concordance program

 

  1. Click on CONCORDANCE to arrive here http://www.lextutor.ca/concordancers/
  2. Click on ENGLISH to arrive here: http://www.lextutor.ca/concordancers/concord_e.html 
  3. Enter a 'string' to search on
  4. Select a corpus of text to search in (a particular genre, or a really big one)
  5. Run the concordance

 

I was unable to upload my screenshare to screenshare.com due to persistent network error, but I was able to upload the swf file to this wiki, and you can download it at this link and play it on your computer:

 

2011-10-12_1622lextutor.swf  

 

 

 

 

Participants

Amy Subaey

Frances Kelly

Keith Taylor

Kevin King

Patrick Kelly 

Vance Stevens

 

 

 

PBworks reclaims URLs when they have not been revisited for a year.

This wiki was visited and altered by adding this text on October 11, 2021

wiki edited April 21, 2023

edited March 4, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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