Shortcut to Gradebook

Profile teachers,

Here is an easy access to the grade program within Power School. 

Go to your downloads folder and copy launchgradebook.jnlp and paste it to the desktop. 

After it is pasted, double click the icon and enter your username and password to use the program.  This will skip the steps of launching a browser and logging into Power School. 

                                                                                    Jacci 

Four videos to introduce you to the flipped classroom

These short videos provide a good intro to the flipped classroom and also include common Q&A:

Why I flipped my classroom
What if students don't watch videos?
What about students with no internet access?
A flipped lesson on the flipped classroom

My next posting will address the simple screen casting tools  to use for recording a lesson.

Jude

CNN David Houle: Predictions for the next decade of education: more technology-based than ever

Enjoy! and see the link about flipped classroom:

http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/28/my-view-predictions-for-the-next-decades-of-education/

Jude

Sample Flipped Class Session Agenda

The flipped classroom is one of the most effective ways to use technology to boost Differenciated Instruction and student achievement. It is worth giving it a try for one learning unit and see how it goes. This example of class agenda can be applied with small changes to virtually any grade level:

Sample Flipped Class Session Agenda [INFOGRAPHIC] | University Business Magazine

Jude

Solving Runtime Error in Explorer

Profile teachers and students:

Bad news: When opening Internet Explorer, you might see an error message starting with "Runtime error..." Good news: it is easy to solve: 

.  In Explorer 8, go to Tools>Internet Options>Advanced>Reset. Click on reset. 

- In older versions (which you need to update) of Explorer, look for Internet options and  follow the same process.

. In explorer 9 (Windows 7), go to control panel, type Explorer in the search vindow, and follow the same process.

Any question, send a Tech Support Request!
                                                                                    Jude

Best way to deal with Microsoft Word on your ipad

After trying and spending about $30 in apps, I found out that the best app depends on the complexity of your text format.
I had to work on a native Word  +30 page doc  with footnotes and comments,  no graphics. In this case, CloudOn, a free app, turned out to be the best one.
- Pages does not handle footnotes nor comments.
- Office 2HD does not let you edit or add comments nor footnotes.
- QuickOffice does not handle footnotes but does a good job with comments and the navigation throughout the document is the smoothest of all apps.
- You can edit Google docs with the Drive app, but this only works for native Google Docs document; you will hit a wall trying to edit a native Word document stored on Drive.

Only CloudOn will let you create and edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. The only flaw of CloudOn is the delay between uploading a document and being able to edit it. It took 15 minutes for my +30 pages document before it was made accessible on CloudOn. The layout is almost completely similar to Word on a desktop, so the learning curve is minimal. It would be useful to hear from teachers using also pictures in their document and see how CloudOn responds to the challenge.

Jude

EasyBib tool bar

Profile teachers,

this will be useful to all students writing papers.

EasyBib added a browser extension for Google Chrome. You can download it here.

Once it’s installed, you can cite anything on any website you’re browsing. Just click on the red EasyBib book in your toolbar and you’ll see a drop down menu.

If you click “Cite on EasyBib” you’ll get a pop up window that has all of the citation information formatted and filled out for you. From there you can browse to EasyBib or hit the “View Bibliography” button to see all of your citations.

You can check out the extension in action on YouTube!

Credits go to Emily Gover, M.S. University at Albany

Jude

Ps: EasyBib is a web tool for creating work cited lists using standard formats such as ALA and Chicago style. The main site is here