Spellingcity.com Adds Custom Sentences

When I first reviewed and recommended spellingcity.com last, fall, I suggested that one of its shortcomings was that it didn't allow the teacher to create his/her own context sentences.  That has now changed.

Tiling Windows

Those of us old enough to remember Windows 2 and 3 have little reason to pine for the "Good Old Days" of MS Windows, but one feature that was readily available in those versions was the ability to tile windows.  With one or two mouse clicks, one could easily arrange all active windows within a neat grid on the screen.

Inkscape - Vector Graphics for the Masses

Vector graphic software is probably one of the most underutilized technologies in education.  For those who may be unfamiliar with the term, vector graphics are images that are defined or created by lines, curves, polygons and fills rather than with individual dots the way bitmap graphics are defined.  The digital images produced by your camera or scanner are bitmap graphics; the images produced by CAD (Computer-Assisted-Drafting) software and other drawing programs (Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, Blender) are vector graphics.

Olympic Resources - wikispaces.com

Once every two years, as either the Summer or the Winter Olympics approaches, teachers usually try to incorporate the event into their classroom activities.  My colleague Rob Geiger passed on this site on wikispaces.com which provides teachers with links and activities related to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

While it's not definitive, it should serve as a good starting point for teachers.  Examine the menu on the right side bar to navigate the site.

Google Docs Allows Uploading and Sharing of All File Types

Many of you are probably already aware of the power of Google Docs, which provides the ability to create, share and collaborate on text files, spreadsheets, and presentations, all online.  Collaboration is probably Google Docs strongest suit, but up to now users were limited to storing and sharing files in Google Docs native formats or as PDFs, which were not editable.

Today Google announced that they will soon be expanding the Google Docs service to allow uploads of all file types, subject to a 250MB/file size limit.  Storage space for non-Google Doc files will be 1GB, making it comparable to the average USB thumb drive that many of us would otherwise carry.

The service expansion will be rolled out over the next few weeks.  If you are a Google Docs user, you can expect to see a notification within your Docs page some time in the near future.

One of the great features of this service expansion is that users will now be able to share many different types of files (Word, Excel, graphics, ...) with others, either as individual files or through shared folders.  While this isn't as powerful as the real-time collaboration of Google Docs themselves, it still has some interesting possibilities for teachers, administrators, and students.

Useful Gmail Labs Features

Most people who use Gmail find its interface improves their workflow over other email solutions.  But the folks at Google are constantly fiddling with Gmail to add improvements and customizations that might make the interface work even better for the user.  Many of these add-ons are experimental, so they are tucked away in the Gmail Labs section of Gmail.  You can access Gmail Labs by logging on to Gmail and choosing Settings > Labs. Once you have installed any Labs feature, you can access Gmail Labs by clicking on this icon () which will appear in the upper, right-hand corner of your Gmail window (to the left of "Settings.")

I asked my Elearning  colleagues to share some of the Labs features that they have found useful and compiled that with my own list.  Here are the results.  It's quite an extensive list, so we've placed asterisks beside the ones we believe are most indispensable.

Why Gmail?

In the few weeks that I have been running these tech tips, you have probably noticed quite a number of references to Gmail and other Google applications.  I suppose it's time that I explained why Gmail appeals to me and why I frequently recommend it to others.

What is RSS and What Good is It to Me?

A few years back I made a ritual of watching the nightly national news on TV to stay abreast of what was going on in the world.  Somewhere along the way, though, that habit gave way to watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report to get my daily dose of political, social, and media satire instead.

I still stay in touch with local and world happenings, but now I do it online, usually in conjunction with my morning coffee.  The technology that is largely responsible for allowing me to swap the evening news for Stewart and Colbert is RSS.

Forwarding Chinook Mail to Gmail - Revisited

Just one follow-up to our previous instruction on mail forwarding.  There is a potential disaster lurking here if you ever encounter a snag with your Gmail password.  Asking Gmail to send you your forgotten or mistyped password will fire that email off to your secondary email address.  If that's one of the addresses you've now configured to forward to Gmail, the email will immediately be shipped on to Gmail, which you can't access because you forgot your password, thus creating a futility loop.

There are a couple of possible solutions to this:

• Maintain an address which is not forwarded to Gmail and configure this as  your secondary email within Gmail.
• Always remember how to turn off forwarding in your secondary account and do this before you request your password from Gmail.

Just a thought.  I didn't want anyone blasting me because they locked themselves out of all their email accounts.

Citations - Revisited

In the last Tech Tips, I drew attention to easybib.com, a site that greatly simplifies creating MLA Works Cited pages.  Thanks to Marion Dueck for drawing my attention to another cite that provides a similar service, but with much greater flexibility. citationmachine.net allows the user to create citations in a number of formats (MLA, APA, Chicago, and Turabian).  It also includes a built-in ISBN lookup feature that streamlines the process even further.  Those two features give it a leg up on easybib.com, in my opinion.

Thanks again, Marion.

The MS Word Equation Editor

Whenever I have the opportunity to talk with Math or Science teachers, I always like to make sure that they are aware of some of the tools that can make their lives easier.  One of the most powerful tools that every teacher in the Division has access to is the Microsoft Word Equation Editor.  The Equation Editor allows the user to craft complex mathematical and symbolic expressions that would otherwise send them running for pen and paper.

The tutorial below will walk you through the basics of invoking and using the Equation Editor. Or you can view a higher definition version directly on Youtube.

Forwarding Your Chinook Mail to Your Gmail Account

Quite a number of Chinook employees consolidate their mail accounts within Gmail to take advantages of the many advantages that Gmail offers over other web-mail services and local-software email clients. If you are one of these, you may be interested in this tech tip.

Sometimes "Personal Security" isn't all it's cracked up to be

Sometimes Christmas brings unwanted visitors.  (And no, I'm not just talking about your obnoxious uncle.)

After a week's hiatus from work, my wife returned yesterday to find that, in her absence, her office computer had been infected by a particularly pernicious piece of malware called "Personal Security," which disguises itself as a virus protection package, but which is, in fact, anything but.  This little piece of software guano had crippled her computer so badly that she was unable to run any programs.

In conversations with her co-workers, she discovered that two of them had similar experiences on their home computers over Christmas, sort of the technological equivalent of finding a lump of coal in your stocking.

This made me think that there are probably others out there with similar experiences.  If you are among them, you may be interested in a solution.  Here is one method for scouring your computer of "Personal Security."