Monthly Archives: November 2007

Opening Office 2007 Files and Open Office files

7-large.jpgWe have no computers running Vista at school, but a few students have it on home computers. I learned I can open documents created on Vista machines with Pages on my Mac.

Just yesterday I downloaded the latest OpenOffice and burned it to a cd for a student to install on their home computer. The student created a presentation and brought it to school on her jump drive. It wouldn’t open with PowerPoint on a PC or Mac and I finally had to just open it in OpenOffice on my Mac and let the teacher view and grade it on my machine. I’m not sure it was because it was a new version of OpenOffice or if it was because the student had not saved it as a PowerPoint when she created it. I will download and install it on my PC to check it out.

It is always a challenge to deal with the issues that crop up as the public sometimes moves on to new technology before the school can completely catch up. Newer printers can only be hooked to the computer via usb and older computers like Windows 98 machines may have usb ports but they don’t seem to be able to use them. Unfortunately, printers tend to give out before computers do so this is getting to be more of an issue.

I also read a “just for fun” tip on A New Mac Tip Everyday. This is how to change your login screen background. If you are like me you don’t see that screen too often but you might want to put a picture as a background even there. Here is how:

1. Make a copy of the background you want and rename it to “DefaultDesktop.jpg”.

2. Go to /System/Library/CoreServices and find the file DefaultDesktop.jpg.
3. Store the file somewhere on your hard drive in case you want to go back to the original default background.
4. Place your new background called “DefaultDesktop.jpg” in the folder /System/Library/CoreServices.
This won’t actually affect your productivity but then if you use a Mac to work you are already productive!

New Bloggers!

We have some students who are blogging and I have started visiting their blogs to leave comments and encourage them. This is so exciting to see! I know that this is not a new thing in some districts but for us it is brand new and I feel like I have had a tiny bit of influence here. I don’t teach these students – I’m not even on the same campus. I was one of the first bloggers in our district and I have been an advocate so I feel a little like a proud mama or at least great aunt. I hope they find a new way to express themselves, a new way to communicate with each other, and new ways to find the common ground that connects us to each other as members of the human race. Then again, maybe all that will happen is their grammar and spelling will improve because they realize other people are reading what they write. I’m betting on the former.

Books and Tips For Windows and Word

I love Amazon’s used books. I got a box of paperbacks for Dale today. He has decided he wants to go back and start reading all of Sue Grafton‘s books in order. He has read A through F and I got an entire box in the mail today – G through N. For those of you who do not read mysteries Sue Grafton’s books have titles like “M is for Murder” and “I is for Innocence”. The main character is a girl private detective named Kinsey Milhone. These books should last him through the transplant process.

I got a copy of PowerPoint For Teachers by Ellen Finkelstein and Pavel Samsonov which looks pretty good. It walks you through creation of presentations to use in the classroom and I hope to learn some new techniques that I can post here. I am making a little collection of things to read and learn and blog about during Dale’s hospitalization and this will be part of that.

Part of my job is supporting teachers in their use of technology and I forget sometimes that while I get excited about Web 2.0 tools and blogging and wikis and skype, I forget that most people just want to know little tricks that make their job easier. Today I showed one person keyboard shortcuts – Windows/E for opening Windows Explorer and Windows/L for locking their computer and being able to log back in and have all their programs still open. Another person just wanted the steps for creating a folder on their desktop and instructions on how to save documents directly to it. Two people were made happy by something that took me just a few moments.

To make a new folder by the way – you right click on a blank space whether it be on your desktop or within another folder. Choose new and then choose folder. Rename your folder and then when you create a document you want to save in that folder click on File/Save As and using the drop down box navigate to the folder you just created. Voila!
I also learned you can link text boxes in Word. A class project entails some students creating a magazine type article that I mentioned in the previous post. While the Word column function doesn’t do exactly what they need another way to go is putting everything in text boxes and then “linking” them so that text will flow from one to the next if there is more text that will fit in the box.

1. Hover the mouse pointer over the border of the first text box. The pointer shape changes to the Move shape (looks like a plus sign with arrows at the ends of the lines)

2. Right click and choose Create Text Box Link

3. The mouse pointer will change to a “pitcher” shape.

4. Click in the box you wish to link to – the text will now “pour” from the first text box into the second.

5. You can link more than one text box but you must always link forward – you cannot link backwards.

This is still not an ideal answer but it gives you a some control and another option.

I love technology but I like making people happy too! New books, happy people – it was a good day!

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Microsoft Word Column Limits

A class was trying to do a project today and the idea was to use Word in three column format to create a magazine style article. The problem was that they needed to be able to insert a picture and the teacher wanted that picture to be able to span several columns and have the text wrap around it but still stay in column format. Microsoft Office 2000 and 2003 were being used. I tried to figure out a way to make it work and created a text box to use as the container for the picture. On my MacBook it worked like a charm. Unfortunately the text wrapping part didn’t work so well when I tried it on the PC.
Microsoft Word worked better on my MacBook than on the PC? That is just weird.

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K12 Online Conference Dean Shareski Presentation

I am slowly getting to more presentations from the conference and today I watched “Design Matters”. I have been thinking about this for awhile. Whether it be our classrooms, offices, textbooks, powerpoints – everything deserves our attention because as human beings we respond on a level that isn’t even always conscious to our first exposure to something.

My lab is straight rows of computers all facing the front. From the standpoint of me sitting at the back and being able to see if there is a problem it’s great. From the standpoint of an instructor being at the front with access to the data projector it works well.

Unfortunately it’s ugly. I hate it. I look at it from the perspective of someone wanting to learn and I have difficulty concentrating in there. Of course it was put together about nine years ago (I think). It has the obligatory chalk boards at the front with florescent lighting. The students bring their backpacks and have them between the rows so it is difficult to get to them if they need help. They bump the back of machines as they move down the row and loosen connections (and occasionally swap the mouse and keyboard for fun) I realize that there was no way we could foresee where we would be now and even less possible to imagine where we will be in twenty or thirty years.
I’d like to see some images of computer labs at other schools, particularly ones where thought was given to designing for aesthetics as well as purpose. In my mind I keep going back to a center oriented layout. I imagine centers for multimedia, centers just for wordprocessing, an area with something like study carrels where students who are easily distracted or just have a need to concentrate can work independently. I’d like adjustable lighting that can be dimmed as low as needed.

We need storage, both lockable for extra cables and equipment and open for backpacks and books. I’d like an area with a white board and a table where a group could sit comfortable and watch a presentation. It would be wonderful if there were a way for a group to have headphones that hooked to the same source for the group to use or a way to close the area off if needed for small groups to to staff development or view and hear media. One of the worst problems in the average lab configuration that I can see is that as more and more of the information on line is multi-faceted. It’s visual, audio and interactive and in a group it is impossible for an individual to see and hear and not bother everyone else around them. I’ll be talking about this subject in future posts – not just about my lab but about design in general.

A Foggy Fun Day

We drove up to Mena today to see the leaves which have changed colors and would have been gorgeous. Unfortunately a system that was supposed to move in tomorrow managed to arrive early and made it a cloudy, misty day.

mistlyleaves07We still got some nice pictures and ate at the Skyline Cafe which was packed for lunch as usual. I had the house omelet which was huge and had everything but the kitchen sink in it! After lunch we walked around town a bit, browsed several antique stores and got lattes at the coffee shop. We had also bought some books at the used book store.
We took some pictures in town and then headed up into the mountains where we took more pictures. I’ll probably post some here after I get them uploaded to Flickr. We would have gotten more pictures if the visibility had been better but we still took quite a few and had a great time. I took several pictures of signs. I want to start building a collection of images to use on the web and so I tried to keep that in mind today.

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We had a slight hitch with the BJs car. We had pulled off for pictures and when Dale went to start the car it wouldn’t do anything. We were a bit nervous as we were at the top and heading down some steep grades, had no cell service. Dale and BJ spent some time consulting the car manual and after a few minutes tried to start it again. something weird with a security thing had happened and evidently when this thing happens you have to wait til a certain light goes out before you start the car. The time they spent looking at the manual was enough time for whatever needed to happen. We still have no idea why it happened but we are grateful it got us home!

Despite the weather and car trouble it was a nice day and we laughed a bunch. We needed something just for fun before we get down to serious transplant time!

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Path To Unknown




rockin’ c ranch

Originally uploaded by Jessiboo

We can’t always see where life will lead us but we can see resting places along the way. I am blessed to have a great group of friends and family who provide that for me. I hope I do the same for them! Thanks for this wonderful picture belongs to my daughter.

Creating A StoryMap Lesson

I love maps. I love pretty colored maps, antique world maps, globes that light up, all of them are just cool eye candy to me. Here is a great project idea for using google maps. “Find a Story… Map a Story… Tell a Story…”

You will find an example of a story map, a rubric, and step by step instructions.

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Notice the little markers. You can hover on them and get a title or click them and get more information:

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There are links to tutorials for CommunityWalk , GoogleMaps and Wayfaring

“In the description area of the marker, write your memory of that location. Hint: It would be helpful to write your memory on a Word document first so that you can check for spelling. Remember- this is a story so your description should be more than “This is the park in my neighborhood“. Tell your readers what happened at the park- this step is the most important part of the project. Without interesting vignettes, the project will just be a about pictures and markers.”

You will want to have pictures of real places on the map to upload for your markers. This could be the actual neighborhood your students live in. You could make maps with markers for the travels of a character in a story or any historically significant area. Students could use a database to map the spread of a disease or they could map their family tree.

Transplant Itinerary

Dale got a letter in the mail yesterday giving him a general timeline. The day before the transplant he and his sister both go to the hospital at 8:00 in the morning for labs, chest x-ray, and EKG. After that his sister is free til she sees the surgeon at 2:00 but Dale will go to the transplant center to see the nephrologist. At 12:30 he will see the transplant surgeon at the Heart and Vascular hospital and then back across the street at the main hospital to turn in consent forms. Dale will have to go to a local dialysis center at 4:00 for one last dialysis (we hope) which takes about 4 hours. Both he and his sister have to be at admitting at 5:30 the next morning. He will need surgery to get a rest!

His sister is scheduled for surgery at 7:30 and he is scheduled for 9:30. From what we understand they do two a day so we are first shift which sounds like a good thing to me. We get the docs when they are fresh and not too tired!

This is getting real.  As long as neither Dale nor his sister catch a bug between now and then it will happen. One of the fellows that Dale knows from the dialysis center drove to Dallas after being called because they had a match.  When the center makes these calls they call the first three possible matched on the list.  By the time this guy got there they had already found someone higher on the list who was a better match.  I can’t imagine gearing yourself up for that and then having to drive back home.  We are lucky we have a living donor for Dale.

Homemade Bread Season

The weather is finally starting to cool here and that always makes me start thinking about vegetable soup and homemade bread. Someone asked me to share my bread recipe and I’m going to in this post.

The bread that I make is called sour dough but it isn’t a true sour dough. It is made with a starter and I will share that recipe first.

You begin with 2 pkg. of yeast and dissolve it in 1/2 cup of warm water. Next you “feed it with a cup of warm water, 2/3 cup sugar, and 3 tablespoons of instant potato flakes.

Cover and let mixture sit out on the counter all day, then refrigerate for three days. A plastic butter container works fine for this. In three days you will take the starter from the refrigerator and remove a cup (just throw it away this first time). After you have removed a cup of the mixture you will feed it again and this is how you will feed your starter from now on.

1 cup warm water

3/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons instant potato flakes

Let the starter sit out all day again and then place back in the refrigerator. The starter has to be fed every three to five days whether you make bread or not. If you do not wish to make bread, repeat the above procedure. If you wish to make bread follow the instructions below.

Remove starter from the refrigerator and feed it and let it sit out for about 8 hours. If you have a healthy working starter, at the end of the day it should look bubbly on the top and fill the house with a yeasty smell.

Now you will remove a cup of starter and pour it into a large mixing bowl. Put the rest of the starter back in the refrigerator.

To make the bread you will add the following to the mixing bowl containing the starter:

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 1/2 tsp. salt

6 cups of flour (bread flour works best but you can also use some whole wheat)
I usually add 4 cups of flour and using a wooden spoon mix the batter well till you can hold the spoon sideways and the batter kind of stretches as it drips off the spoon. This “stretchy” look happens when you have mixed the dough enough to release the gluten. You can then fold in the remaining 2 cups of flour. Cover the mixing bowl loosely with a dish towel and let rise in a warm place overnight. In the morning punch the dough down and turn it out onto a floured surface. knead it a few times and divide it into three. Knead each loaf and place into three greased loaf pans. Cover with a towel and allow to rise again for 4-6 hours in a warm place.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes.

The key is having a good warm place for the dough to rise. The level of humidity seems to have some affect as well.

The also makes wonderful rolls – just divide into nine mini-loaves, knead each and place in an 8″ X 8″ square dish and continue as you would if it were in loaf pans.

This bread makes the absolute best toast and smells soooo good!

Making Childhood Dreams Come True

Watch this video of a lecture by Randy Pausch. Be prepared. Get a snack and a drink – it’s about an hour and a half long but it is worth your time!

Pausch received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Brown University and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. He has been a co-founder of CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator, and a Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellow. He has done sabbaticals at Walt Disney Imagineering and Electronic Arts (EA), and consulted with Google on user interface design. Pausch is the author or co-author of five books and over 70 articles, and the founder of the Alice software project.

Battle with cancer

Pausch has been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and was told in August 2007 to expect a remaining three to six months of good health.

Pausch delivered his “Last Public Lecture”, entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”, at CMU on September 18, 2007. This talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical “final talk”, i.e., “what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?” Before speaking, Pausch received a long standing ovation from a large crowd of over 400 colleagues and students. When he motioned them to sit down, saying “make me earn it”, some in the audience shouted back “you did!”

Wikipedia

You can also go to his homepage and get a PDF transcript and more information
Dr. Gabriel Robins has a website with more links and a wonderful Halloween picture of the Pausch family.

That gives you the who and what but not the why. I completely forgot about the cancer as I watched and listened and even took notes. There is so much in this video and I will tell a few of the ones that remember best.

How about going out for football and showing up at practice and finding you will be playing with no football? If you know me at all you know I know nothing about sports. There are 22 men on a football field at one time. Only one has the ball. This coach was teaching what the other 21 should be doing. Fundamentals…

Sometimes you run into brick walls when you are trying to make your dreams come true. “Brick walls exist for a reason – they give us a chance to show how badly we want something – they stop the other people”

“Sometimes brick walls are flesh”

“most of what we learn, we learn indirectly (or by “head fake”)”

“If you are going to do anything that is pioneering you are going to get arrows in the back – put up with it”

(he got an award that consisted of a vest that had arrows sticking out of the back)

He advises that we learn to recognize the moments that change our lives, don’t bail – the best of the gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap, and don’t complain – just work harder. Jackie Robinson’s contract said that he would not complain even when fans spit on him.

Be watching for the two head fakes about this speech – he will explain at the end. After the video – go to Alice.org and download the software. It will walk you through and give you an idea of his his work. Anyone who wants to get girls more interested in programming…..

He is definitely someone worth knowing.

Big Bang Quotes

Heard on my new favorite show “Big Bang Theory” As Sheldon stomps out because Penny blew his head up in Halo:

Penny – “Wait Sheldon – you forgot something”
Sheldon – “What?”
Penny – “This plasma grenade – Oh look – it’s raining you!”
Sheldon – “Just wait til you need tech support!”

Sheldon – “OK this bowl of cereal has now lost all it’s molecular integrity. I now have a bowl of shredded wheat paste”

I love this show….

More Reasons to Love Google and Firefox

I recently added some plugins to FireFox that I love. One is Googlepedia which includes a relevant Wikipedia article with Google and Yahoo search results. Another plugin that plays well with Googlepedia is Google Preview. It adds a thumbnail of the website to the search results.

Another tool I have been using a lot is Gmail This. You can get it by following htis link or clicking on the gmail this link on my sidebar. You just drag the link to your browser bar and when you want to send the link to the website you are visiting you just click gmail this and a new window opens up allowing you to compose and send the email from your gmail account.

Here is a screenshot of Googlepedia and Google preview:

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