Hello again folks,
I wanted to share a few of the things that I’ve noticed in
chatting with many of you and observing in classrooms in the last little while
– the world of Educational Technology has been a busy place…
What’s working:
- We’re seeing many teachers using blogs for
their classes. Cecilia has a Physics blog: http://nwsphysics99.blogspot.com/
Francoise is using her password protected blog once again to connect
students at NWS with students in France. And more people are jumping
in to try them for projects.
- Blogs are also useful as a reflective
practice to focus on professional growth. Here’s a great list of 100
blogs written by teachers about teaching. Don’t be intimidated by the
number, the list is broken down by location/subject with some quick blurbs to
help find the most useful info. Thank you Cecilia for passing this list
on: http://edudemic.com/2012/11/100-high-school-teacher-blogs-to-start-reading/
- A few teachers are using Pandora as a great way
to add music to their classes – just enter the artist, genre or composer you
like and it creates a radio station that plays music you’re likely to enjoy http://www.pandora.com/ Pretty cool!
What’s wonky:
- We have been seeing an increase in wireless problems,
our wireless network controller has been randomly rebooting itself – this
results in laptops (and other devices) losing their connection to the wireless
network and students losing their work (temporarily in most cases) – this issue
is obviously high priority and we are awaiting more information from our
vendors about the source of the problem. Here are the three steps
to make sure your use of the laptops is as seamless as possible:
o If
you are using laptops for a test, please send an email to helpdesk@northwestschool.org
with the date and time of the test - Karl will be watching the wireless
network during your test and able to respond as quickly as possible if things
go awry.
o Whenever
students use the laptops, have them save the document immediately and often
(MS Word, for example, auto-saves as soon as you save the document)
o If
the laptops lose wireless connectivity during a class do not panic.
Reassure students and tell them to put the laptop aside for the moment, DO
NOT quit any programs. We have been able to retrieve
student work once the laptops reconnect to the wireless when students have
followed these steps.
Again, we know this is a serious issue and are
working to resolve it as quickly as possible. If you have more questions
about the specifics I know Greg and the IT team are happy to go into more
detail with you.
- Lost remotes – if you know where the
Raven or Maya Lin Smartboard remotes are, please return them. We are
ordering more but these are important items.
What you wish for:
- A healthier, greener planet. You
can do your part by turning off your computer AND your monitor (it sucks
a lot of energy) when you leave.
Wild cards:
- The list of Teacher Pages is much easier to
navigate if you use a simple keyboard shortcut – hold down the CTRL key
and the F key (for Find) and you can then type the name of the person’s
teacher page. The appropriate text is highlighted on the page – a great
tip for general web browsing too!
- This weekend is the TEDx Youth Day
- Dream Big... Then Do It! At TEDx events around the world speakers and
performers share their great ideas with audiences of youth. Over 100 events
hosted by young people in 42 different countries, and many can be joined by webcast.
Check out the schedule here: http://tedxyouthday.ted.com/webcast-schedule/
Another great resource from this event is their list of recommended Ted
Talks specifically of interest to students: http://tedxyouthday.ted.com/suggested-talks/
- There is now a new Prezi interface – gone
is the finicky bubble menu – if you were daunted before you just might be
delighted now. http://prezi.com
Thanks so much for reading and stay tuned for hopefully more
frequent, and less dense emails in this Wired Weekday series (you notice I’ve
given up on Wednesdays – my favourite quote of late is: “Blessed are the flexible,
for they shall not be bent out of shape.”)
I hope this finds you well.
Happy weekend,
Catherine
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