Trial access to Gale Virtual Reference Library

NCES and Gale Publishing Company have been working on putting together for the North Country area a  consortium for the purchase of  Gale Virtual Reference Library. I was positively impressed by the presentation and several schools are already on board.
Please use this link for the free trial.
I suggest to start with the video basics in the help area and then invite teachers and students  to use it and get their feedback. Pricing is not finalized yet but it sounded very accessible. My impression is that this has the potential for completely replacing the print reference collection of the typical Elem, MS and HS library. Please note that this trial will end on Feb 26 and will be replaced by a longer one at this point. Also, it includes more than just the GVRL collection. Focus on this one only! Don;t hesitate to contact me if you have any question.
Jude

Showing and hiding the content of your monitor on SMARTBOARD

- If you are using a laptop, keep in mind the magic Fn/F8 combination.

There are three settings that you can navigate by holding the Fn key and the F8 key at the same time:
1. Showing your content on both your laptop screen and SMARTBOARD
2. Showing your content only on SMARTBOARD
3. Showing your content only on your laptop screen.

- If you are using a desktop, use the SMARTBOARD remote: press "hide" to hide the content of your screen, and press it again to show it. This is faster than turning your smartboard on and off and waiting for the projector to cool off before restarting.

Of course, you can also use the remote with a laptop.

Jude

Powerteacher: Problems with Gradebook

Powerteacher users (that is to say, all Profile teachers),

You need to get all your Windows recent critical updates to get your gradebook app running. If you cannot run Gradebook anymore, go to Windows update, install the updates, restart your PC and you should be all set.
It is also a good idea to set up your PC for automatic updates. If you are not  sure how to do this,  use Atomic Learning tutorials. The logon and password are in the Google Drive shared folder "Profile E-Subscriptions passwords."

If you still have difficulties with Gradebook, contact me.

Jude

Computer seems like it is not booting up

If it looks like your computer is not starting up, or that it  starts up only after 5-10 minutes, it's just because of a recent Microsoft update. 

If your computer was not closed properly ( for instance, if you are using a laptop and closed it by just closing the lid, or did a hard shutdown on your desktop), things get even slower. 

So, next time you shut it down, gently let it do so on its own sweet time, and when it starts up, be ready to wait (one last time) for a few minutes and have a nice cup of coffee :)  

It'll behave normally after that.

Jude

Many JSTOR Journal Archives Now Free to Public

From Katie G.

The archives of more than 1,200 journals are now available for limited free reading by the public, JSTOR announced on January 9, 2013. Anyone can sign up for a JSTOR account and read up to three articles for free every two weeks. This is a major expansion of the Register & Read program, following a 10-month test, during which more than 150,000 people registered for access to an initial set of 76 journals. The new additions bring more than 4.5 million articles from nearly 800 scholarly societies, university presses, and academic publishers into the Register & Read offerings.Teachers and K-12 student may register.

                                                                                  

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