tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83153315484151320042023-10-24T14:42:32.315-04:00NJ Tech Teacher MusingsMy trip through education with technology.Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.comBlogger278125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-44288221813607157092014-01-25T15:56:00.001-05:002014-01-26T16:20:14.719-05:00Moving DayI am in the process of moving my website from www.mrsoro.com to www.annoroteaches.com. Since I am making this move I will be using WordPress instead of straight HTML coding. Now that the website will be a WordPress installation, I am making the move from Blogger to WordPress.<br />
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I found a very good article <a href="http://www.labnol.org/internet/switch-from-blogger-to-wordpress/9707/">How to Switch from Blogger to WordPress</a>. By following these directions, I should not only be able to bring my articles and comments along, I should be able to maintain search traffic and existing subscribers.<br />
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You can find my past blog posts and new entries at: <a href="http://annoroteaches.com/wp/blog/">http://annoroteaches.com/wp/blog/</a> Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-9542620459875757132013-10-31T09:00:00.001-04:002014-01-25T15:41:00.615-05:00K12 Online Conference - Building Knowledge of Web Search<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am excited to share what I have been doing with students to build their knowledge of searching the Internet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I have my resources on a wiki page: <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/InternetSkills">http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/InternetSkills</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My personal website is: <a href="http://www.mrsoro.com/">http://www.mrsoro.com/</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you would like to contact me via email, please see the link on the left side of this page.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You can find me on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/njtechteacher">@njtechteacher</a> and <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AnnOro/about">Google Plus</a>.</span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-71063219577219565012013-10-21T23:58:00.000-04:002013-10-21T23:58:07.592-04:00Connected Educator's Month 2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://badger.connectededucators.org/badge/image/cem-blogger.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://badger.connectededucators.org/badge/image/cem-blogger.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I am a life long learner. One opportunity I have this month is Connected Educator's Month. It is almost the end of the month and I just hopped in to a few different items. I am doing it for myself. I am trying to complete some of the options so that I can talk about them with other educators over the next year.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">A Tweet Pulled Me In</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I was taking a quick look at the hashtag for #ce13 and saw a <a href="https://twitter.com/NMHS_Principal/status/391051073903149056">message from Eric Sheninger</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Join the FREE Leadership 3.0 community @edwebnet http://buff.ly/19KW5w1 #cpchat #ce13</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">As it happened, I was waiting for the laundry to finish so I poked around the site and found an archive of a <a href="http://www.edweb.net/leadership">Leadership 2.0: Essential Skills for Innovative Principals</a> webinar. It was well worth my time. I had heard Eric speak online and in person a number of times. The webinar also featured Joe Mazza and I enjoyed hearing his perspective as a lead learner (principal) of an elementary school.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Daily Emails</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I signed up for Connected Educator Month last year. As a result, I have been receiving daily emails detailing the events of the day. I followed a link to get in a <a href="http://pages.solution-tree.com/ST2013ConnectedEducatorMonthBookBundleGiveawayEmail_ST201339BENConnectedEducatorMonthBookBundleGiveawayEmail.html?utm_source=2013ST_ConnectedEducatorMonthBookBundleGiveaway_Homepage_Ad&utm_medium=online+ad&utm_campaign=14089">drawing for books from Solution Tree</a>. After filling in the form, I decided to look a little closer at the website and thought I would learn more about the <a href="http://badges.connectededucators.org/">"badges" event</a> that is running this year. I am not sure if it is the first year they are doing it. The actual reason I am writing this post is that it is required for one of the badges.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The badges led me to a Connected Educator's Starter Kit. I downloaded the PDF for use at school with the local teachers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">All in all, I am looking forward to completing more badges and being able to give first hand knowledge to teachers that are just starting on the connected educator journey.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Image Credit:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://badges.connectededucators.org/">http://badges.connectededucators.org/</a></span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-68564340468483197042013-10-20T16:57:00.002-04:002013-10-20T16:58:11.079-04:00Superhero Theme for 2013-2014<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h578mV6ae-o/UmRAdDpmf5I/AAAAAAAAA30/GjOnwz5oLo8/s1600/photo-3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h578mV6ae-o/UmRAdDpmf5I/AAAAAAAAA30/GjOnwz5oLo8/s1600/photo-3.JPG" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I have had different themes in my classroom over the years. This year I have been thinking about how I used <a href="http://www.classdojo.com/">ClassDojo</a> and <a href="https://www.sokikom.com/">Sokikom</a> <a href="https://www.edmodo.com/store/app/?app_id=1109">Classroom Management</a> in my room. I chose a Superman/Super Hero theme to explain our work together in the computer class.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Student as a Super Hero</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My first task this year had a duel purpose: understanding the student perspective and checking on their word processing skills. I posed the following: What super power do you wish you had and how would it make God proud of you? What is your everyday super power in class?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The responses I received were well thought out and often times highlighted great behaviors I have observed in the students over time.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Classroom Management Tools</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Last year I tried to use classroom management tools to track positive behaviors, like helping others with a project. I tracked behaviors that hindered others indirectly as areas to improve, such as forgetting to log off a web site or leaving an untidy workspace at the end of the session.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The reason I didn't use Class Dojo the entire year was that they required a student email address for accounts. I did not think that was appropriate. ClassDojo no longer requires an email address for the student. I next used Sokikom through Edmodo. It was a little better because it worked right through the student's Edmodo account. No extra sign on was required.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My current biggest problem
with the ClassDojo is that it is still not perfect. Students
can't see a range of data only what happened the current week. This hinders my students. I only see them once or twice a week. If they do not get to sign on at home, they lose their data at the beginning of a new week. The program has "parent" comments which I use to give further explanation such as the fact that the program they were logged on to was Diigo. The students do not get to see those comments unless I or a parent show it to them. I know these systems are
improving. They are very responsive to teachers. I received an email to let me know that they are continuing to add features to the program. It seems like a date range is close to the top of the list.</span> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Students Recognizing Other Students</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ietd-RvpbLw/UmQ9qB8GL7I/AAAAAAAAA3o/2oAr4mQ3cTA/s1600/IMG_2226.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ietd-RvpbLw/UmQ9qB8GL7I/AAAAAAAAA3o/2oAr4mQ3cTA/s1600/IMG_2226.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Within the class, one of the missing links last year was that I realized that I was not "catching" all the good that goes on within the class period. To fix this I have attached little slips of paper to a basket I keep next to each computer. The students fill out a slip when someone helps them and place it in a shoe box at the front of the room. For example: George helped me add layers in my Gimp animation ~Felicia 7A. I even got a special treat this week. You can see it in the photo at the bottom of the post.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It is working. Students are pointing out the help they are receiving from others. Not only that, but close to 100% of the students students logging out of web sites, fully closing out programs, and leaving behind a clean work area.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In an attempt to help them see the big picture, I took a screen shot of their points earned individually and as a class at the end of September. One class, with a positive rating of 92%, wanted to see how they measured up against the rest of the classes in the school. They were disappointed to find out that they were actually the lowest scoring. As a group they decided to try to top everyone next month.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Finding the Genius in Students</span></span><br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xvccpYmdWN0/UmRDNUYNFyI/AAAAAAAAA4A/uBHWKcgg_oM/s1600/SetUseTab.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xvccpYmdWN0/UmRDNUYNFyI/AAAAAAAAA4A/uBHWKcgg_oM/s200/SetUseTab.png" width="168" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I read a <a href="http://bobsprankle.com/bitbybit_wordpress/?p=4106">post by Bob Sprankle</a> this weekend. He is setting up the equivalent of the Apple Genius in his classroom. The more I think about it - the more I like it. I had created a printout (see left without names) of the super heroes in class who have mastered the ability to set and use tabs. The students really like to see their name up on the printout. I am going to tie it into the Genius concept. I am going to stop at the local store and get some tags and create my own Genius badge. When we revisit a skill, those students will don their badge and be the experts in class.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Every Student Has Something Special to Offer</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My goal is to find the special something in each student so that by the end of the year each child finds a new super hero power within. </span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N5iq8mUsXQQ/UmQ9qLJKj6I/AAAAAAAAA3s/pYx5I33NSc8/s1600/MrsOro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N5iq8mUsXQQ/UmQ9qLJKj6I/AAAAAAAAA3s/pYx5I33NSc8/s1600/MrsOro.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Image Credit:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Ann Oro. Images and printouts from around the classroom.</span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-78124635257775358762013-09-03T06:18:00.001-04:002013-09-03T06:18:10.401-04:00Editing Wikipedia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hZNMcu7yib0/UiW2gJFmGkI/AAAAAAAAA1Y/O2ZHOTAySds/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-09-03+at+6.14.05+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hZNMcu7yib0/UiW2gJFmGkI/AAAAAAAAA1Y/O2ZHOTAySds/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-09-03+at+6.14.05+AM.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">During the course of working with students, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikipedia</a> invariably arises. I do not discourage looking at Wikipedia. I do tell the students that it is not a trusted primary source. It is a great place to get overview information on a topic and to look at the links people reference in gathering their facts for the Wikipedia article.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Learning to Edit Wikipedia</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Last spring, I decided to give the seventh grade students the opportunity to understand what it takes to edit Wikipedia. The reasons were two-fold. First, they get to learn the wiki markup language. Second, they experience how easy it is for anyone to edit the Wikipedia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I started by having the students edit in the Wikipedia sandbox in anonymous mode. We, sadly, found that anyone - near and far - could modify what the students were doing. Wikipedia has a tutorial that uses a public sandbox that is erased on a fairly frequent basis.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I ended up creating an account for each of my students using the standard username and password they have for other accounts such as Edmodo, Diigo, and Google Docs. Each account has a personal sandbox. It is very unlikely that a stranger will happen upon the student sandbox page. The work is much more private and protected. Additionally, the updates are not deleted automatically by the system.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I had the students complete the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial">Wikipedia: Editing Tutorial</a> to learn the basics of the markup language. They followed directions in a <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/internet7-3">simple handout</a> and submitted screen shots of their edits to Edmodo.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Modifying the School Entry</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">After learning the markup language, the students compared <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Michael%27s_School_%28Cranford%2C_New_Jersey%29">our school entry</a> which is very sparse with another <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_Day_School">more robust school page</a> that covers the same grade levels as our school.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Each student proposed an entry for our page and wrote a potential entry in a word processor document. We ran out of time at the end of the school year, but we will make the edits early in the new school year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The students were really excited to learn this new skill. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">New at Wikipedia</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">As I was beginning to think about the lessons for the new school year, I had to edit our Wikipedia entry to update the link to our new school domain. There was a new link "Edit Beta". It seems that over the summer Wikimedia has been building a visual editor. It will give me something new to talk about as we head back to the project as an eighth grade class. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Image Source:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Screenshot of Wikipedia page.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-70767376376582724382013-08-13T08:51:00.001-04:002013-08-13T08:51:10.200-04:00Making Sample WordPress Pages Private<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i69tCCYCwc8/Ugop-p3tPxI/AAAAAAAAA0Y/Q49WbhFM_Gg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+8.43.15+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i69tCCYCwc8/Ugop-p3tPxI/AAAAAAAAA0Y/Q49WbhFM_Gg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+8.43.15+AM.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When I <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2013/07/avada-wordpress-theme.html">installed the Avada WordPress theme,</a> I chose to install all the <a href="http://theme-fusion.com/avada/">sample pages</a> so that I could compare what I wanted to do with the examples from the maker of the template. Now that the site is live, I do not want the 404 error page to display the samples pages.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">First Thoughts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I know I have to back up the WordPress site, so my first thought was to back up the files and restore files as I needed them. Then I began to think about simply making the pages drafts. As I was going to do that I noticed the option to make pages private. This will have three benefits. I can get to them easily, if someone at the school goes to change pages they will be able to just look at our published files, and I can quickly go to the private files to see the codes used in sample pages.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Making a Page Private</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Step 1: Go to the WordPress Dashboard and choose Page - All Page. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Step 2: Select the page you want private, for example Animated Counters, and edit the page.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-n0t7NFeDu8E/UgoqeVa7sEI/AAAAAAAAA0g/du1NGgDxvWo/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+8.44.45+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-n0t7NFeDu8E/UgoqeVa7sEI/AAAAAAAAA0g/du1NGgDxvWo/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+8.44.45+AM.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Step 3: On the right side of the WordPress page, locate the Publish options. Click the Edit button next to the word Public.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hwuZxPFKhsk/Ugoqw3mXAuI/AAAAAAAAA0o/lmyJ1UKpiSk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+8.45.55+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hwuZxPFKhsk/Ugoqw3mXAuI/AAAAAAAAA0o/lmyJ1UKpiSk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+8.45.55+AM.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Step 4: Changed the radio button from Public to Private, then click OK, then click the Update button.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JoN4sbxpdwE/Ugoq_pfUTvI/AAAAAAAAA0w/sBJBOzYTdWA/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+8.47.15+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JoN4sbxpdwE/Ugoq_pfUTvI/AAAAAAAAA0w/sBJBOzYTdWA/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+8.47.15+AM.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Step 5: When you go back to the Dashboard and look at All Pages the page (Animated Page) will now have the word Private following the name. In addition at the top of the list of pages you can filter the list by clicking Published, Draft, or Private.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CDy7sl4vsoA/Ugormng9AEI/AAAAAAAAA04/SgWAjhDgoQk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+8.50.19+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="77" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CDy7sl4vsoA/Ugormng9AEI/AAAAAAAAA04/SgWAjhDgoQk/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+8.50.19+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-24876205172451578232013-08-13T08:12:00.001-04:002013-08-13T08:12:27.730-04:00Making the Website Domain Show the WordPress Page<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I try to force myself to do what appears to be hard as the first project I attack in the day. To date, I have registered a new domain for my school, found and installed a WordPress theme, and customized the information. When I typed the domain name http://www.smscranford.com into the browser the HostGator temporary screen appeared. I had to type http://www.smscranford.com/wp to see the school page. I was ready to make the main domain display the WordPress page.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Google Search</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I performed a search to redirect domain to WordPress home page and found the following page as a r</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">esult: </span><a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory</a> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">. This set of directions was fairly simple to follow. I wanted to document the steps with images.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I knew that I did not want to move the entire WordPress installation to a new directory so I followed the steps for Using a pre-existing subdirectory install. I am using HostGator so the commands may look a little different for other domain hosting companies. The CPANEL for HostGator does look like the one I am used to for A2 Hosting and others I have seen.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MGLaf9xevd4/UgoZY48_80I/AAAAAAAAAx8/hN8rX7fxmwI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.30.50+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MGLaf9xevd4/UgoZY48_80I/AAAAAAAAAx8/hN8rX7fxmwI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.30.50+AM.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Steps 1-3 are completed in WordPress. I had to go to the WordPress General Settings section. Initially the WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) were the same.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8ZSXnMN-N3A/UgoZeRN65nI/AAAAAAAAAyE/NqRTso-d0Gc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.31.37+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="47" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8ZSXnMN-N3A/UgoZeRN65nI/AAAAAAAAAyE/NqRTso-d0Gc/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.31.37+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I changed the Site Address (URL) to http://smscranford.com. Step 3 does say not to worry about errors or try to see the domain at this point. I did look and got an error message. Step 4 fixes those problems.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Be Smart Backup or Rename Files</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">From many years of working with computers, I knew that I needed to make sure I could easily undo anything I did that would completely destroy the website. It was better seeing the HostGator temporary home page than trying to undo damage on my own.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the CPANEL for my HostGator account I scrolled down to the Files section and chose the File Manager icon.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-abPGS2c0tek/UgoamAmePhI/AAAAAAAAAyU/EFiERt8lHh4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.37.21+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="104" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-abPGS2c0tek/UgoamAmePhI/AAAAAAAAAyU/EFiERt8lHh4/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.37.21+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you are at all familiar with working with copying and pasting files on a PC, Mac, or other computer you will be comfortable with the following steps.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory">Step 4</a> in the WordPress directions that I was following says to copy NOT move the </span><tt style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">index.php</tt><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">and</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"> </span><tt style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">.htaccess</tt><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">files from the WordPress directory to the root directory of the website. Clicking the File Manager icon brought up a window.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-heztkqQjQ2E/UgobjtQOQBI/AAAAAAAAAyg/ZITQBfbN1lY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.41.15+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-heztkqQjQ2E/UgobjtQOQBI/AAAAAAAAAyg/ZITQBfbN1lY/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.41.15+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I knew the main files were in the Web Root (public_html/www) because from past experience I had installed index.html in that directory, public means the world can see it, HTML is the basis for web pages, www is world wide web files. The directions in step 4 noted that I might need to look at hidden files, so I made sure to check the Show Hidden Files check box.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On the left side of the screen are a list of all the subfolders for the entire website domain. I was viewing the entries in public_html/www. In addition to the cgi_bin and wp folders were a few files:</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o-YhtlWAHOo/Ugodcc62miI/AAAAAAAAAzQ/5dsZUhe7szU/s1600/yScreen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.14.07+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o-YhtlWAHOo/Ugodcc62miI/AAAAAAAAAzQ/5dsZUhe7szU/s1600/yScreen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.14.07+AM.png" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Since I would be replacing .htaccess and index.php I decided to rename them. In this </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q1ZtnP91lF4/UgodsgyktQI/AAAAAAAAAzY/Wt2Pgqxinmg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.50.48+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q1ZtnP91lF4/UgodsgyktQI/AAAAAAAAAzY/Wt2Pgqxinmg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.50.48+AM.png" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">way, if anything looked really bad I would just rename them back to the original names and it would be as if nothing ever changed. To rename the file, I clicked the file name (for example htaccess) and at the top of the screen I found and clicked the Rename icon.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It was handy to have some facility with website domain file names. There was not an existing index.php file. It was originally named default.html. I renamed the file with the word old following the period. So .htaccess became .oldhtaccess and default.html became default.oldhtml.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_K_JY_8_RJY/Ugoeqqh34EI/AAAAAAAAAzo/F5UPWEC_AbE/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.54.44+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_K_JY_8_RJY/Ugoeqqh34EI/AAAAAAAAAzo/F5UPWEC_AbE/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.54.44+AM.png" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hfE7JBg5eDA/Ugoe4zlvIDI/AAAAAAAAAzw/ZEYfaay7wfw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.56.08+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hfE7JBg5eDA/Ugoe4zlvIDI/AAAAAAAAAzw/ZEYfaay7wfw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.56.08+AM.png" /></a><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Next I double clicked the wp folder in the directory. I located the index.php file and chose the Copy icon at the top of the screen and changed the entry at the bottom of the Copy box from /public_html/wp to /public_html. I did the same for the .htaccess file. When I tested www.smscranford.com, I still did not get the right page to display but confidently moved on to step 5.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fRbcmFoQDso/UgofQgXaTDI/AAAAAAAAAz4/x-akpuWU33E/s1600/vScreen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.11.21+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="153" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fRbcmFoQDso/UgofQgXaTDI/AAAAAAAAAz4/x-akpuWU33E/s320/vScreen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.11.21+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As I read step 5 my confidence sunk a bit for a minute. It said I was going to have to use a text editor to change the index.php file in the root directory. I went back to the public_html folder clicked on index.php and noticed two icons at the top of the screen. One said Edit and one said Code Editor. I decided to try Edit. It gave me a slightly disconcerting message that said I could cause many problems by editing the file but decided that the worst that would happen would be that I would need to delete the file and copy it again from the WordPress directory. When I clicked Edit, my confidence returned again.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JNcwgdkxuUY/UgogkqPjqKI/AAAAAAAAA0I/x_K6AbM9Lds/s1600/uScreen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.15.22+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JNcwgdkxuUY/UgogkqPjqKI/AAAAAAAAA0I/x_K6AbM9Lds/s400/uScreen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.15.22+AM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The php file looked a lot like HTML. Step 5 said to change the </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">require('./wp-blog-header.php');</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"> to the folder that contained my WordPress files. I knew my WordPress folder was wp so I changed the line to </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">require('./wp/wp-blog-header.php'); </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">and clicked the Save Changes button in the upper right corner of the screen.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">This time, when I typed www.smscranford.com I received the new web site's correct home page! I did not need steps 6 or 7 since I did not set any Permalinks for the school website.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Doing the Hard Things First Makes Sense</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px;">It actually took longer to document this than to actually perform all the steps the first time. I always like to document things here in my blog. Someday I will want to do this again and I won't have to reinvent the wheel.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-8860499219528193142013-07-12T18:15:00.000-04:002013-07-12T18:15:22.759-04:00Why I Write These Posts<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This morning I was explaining to my son the reasons behind writing these posts. It's really for me. When I teach a lesson, or build a web page, and I forgot how to do something I turn to my blog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Updating the WordPress Footer</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I was unhappy with the way the PNG image of Saint Michael lined up on the page. This is the before picture:</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MyiClt8lpp8/UeB9UY7SAWI/AAAAAAAAAxE/4GDIDOO7Sak/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-12+at+6.03.04+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="141" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MyiClt8lpp8/UeB9UY7SAWI/AAAAAAAAAxE/4GDIDOO7Sak/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-12+at+6.03.04+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I did not like how the top of the large Saint Michael was uneven next to the words School News. I knew why it happened. In Gimp, the words were in the center of a 194x44 pixel transparent rectangle. I needed to drag the words so that they touched the first pixel horizontally and vertically in the transparent box.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Iv9NAhuDB0Y/UeB9x60YmkI/AAAAAAAAAxM/7I1xDt5Uk7I/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-12+at+6.05.48+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Iv9NAhuDB0Y/UeB9x60YmkI/AAAAAAAAAxM/7I1xDt5Uk7I/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-12+at+6.05.48+PM.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I took the time to make the adjustment and re-saved the Gimp file as a .PNG image. I couldn't remember where I needed to add the image. My first instinct was to go to Theme Options - Footer options. There was no place for an image; although I found out where the Copyright words for Avada are located.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My next instinct was the Widgets. I was correct. I uploaded the new image file and was slightly surprised that it did not overwrite the original.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I went to Media - Library and clicked on the new image. The information window on the right side of the screen contained the Permalink URL.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I67NECocAnw/UeB-qTmwxrI/AAAAAAAAAxY/O_3-y556e48/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-12+at+6.09.04+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I67NECocAnw/UeB-qTmwxrI/AAAAAAAAAxY/O_3-y556e48/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-12+at+6.09.04+PM.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The new file had a 1 appended to the file name. My footer HTML read:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><img alt="" src="http://smscranford.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/SMS-Logo-Large-Initial-White.png" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I added the number 1 to the file name.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><img alt="" src="http://smscranford.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/SMS-Logo-Large-Initial-White.png" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I clicked the Save button, refreshed the website, and had the look I was hoping for. Everything is neat and tiny and I can refer back here if I ever need to fix the footer again.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wBsRMQk4oeM/UeB_c_-IvGI/AAAAAAAAAxk/mnGrKoy0fLc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-12+at+6.12.52+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wBsRMQk4oeM/UeB_c_-IvGI/AAAAAAAAAxk/mnGrKoy0fLc/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-12+at+6.12.52+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-62209463711852108252013-07-10T18:05:00.001-04:002013-07-10T18:05:38.091-04:00New Home Page and Menus<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Today is home page and menu day. I am relying on the power of the ThemeFusion documentation and videos. Today I am also documenting as I do things. Take a <a href="http://smscranford.com/wp/">peek</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Home Page</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I had already created the file for the page that I wanted to be my home page. I needed to now show it instead of the Avada template. A quick check in the documentation and I navigated within WordPress to Settings - Reading. I set the Front page display to static page with the Front page being the page I created and named Saint Michael School - Cranford NJ. The posts page is called Recent Work. It is a blog that will work as our news page. Now when I type the URL smscranford.com/wp I see my school page. I still need to go over to HostGator to set smscranford.com to show the WordPress page instead of the HostGator menu.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Retina Ready Image</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This morning the menu was the sales pitch menu for Avada. I created an SMS Overview page. It will be part of the About Us drop down. For this page, I uploaded an image that is twice the size I need it. I hope I am doing this the right way. I want the image to be 903x305 so I made the original 1806x610.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">While viewing the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X7wM9_5y6-8">Avada Retina Ready video</a>, I learned about the <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-retina-2x/">WP Retina 2x</a> plugin. It checks to see if the images you upload are retina ready. When I did the check it showed that my image was still too small for <i>large</i> or <i>portfolio full</i> sizes. I still have to think more about this. It seems for large the image needs to be at least 2049x1054 and for portfolio-full it should be 1800x800. These numbers are hard to attain with cropping.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When I put the image on the WordPress page, I brought in the full size image and dragged it down to 903x305. I am not sure if this is what I should be doing, but now the full image is there in the file.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Menu Structure</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bYjTYr8nZj0/Ud2_mODe_HI/AAAAAAAAAwk/GU_ehoOLy70/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-10+at+4.09.27+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bYjTYr8nZj0/Ud2_mODe_HI/AAAAAAAAAwk/GU_ehoOLy70/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-10+at+4.09.27+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I knew what I wanted the menu to look like. I was able to make it happen. The Appearance - Menus section has the structure of the sales menu that came with the theme. I did not want to delete those items immediately for fear of losing the menu structure all together. I started by dragging my personal Recent News under the existing word Home. Then I removed the sample drop down entries for Home Version 1 through 15. I created three sample pages for the About Us section yesterday: SMS Overview, Brochure, and Philosophy. I quickly and easily changed the word Slider to About Us and continued on. At this point, I got brave, I deleted all the submenu items from the sample data and changed all the drop down headings to my wording.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l8VcVaqb3_k/Ud2_02aqrTI/AAAAAAAAAw0/XZ0susMEBsI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-10+at+4.10.46+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l8VcVaqb3_k/Ud2_02aqrTI/AAAAAAAAAw0/XZ0susMEBsI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-10+at+4.10.46+PM.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is where I ran into a problem. I had, potentially, 12 menu entries and the theme had nine. By looking through the ThemeFusion documentation, I learned that there is a custom links section. By typing # in the URL entry and a label I could create a menu entry that is not an existing web page on the site. I then added my pre-created pages to that choice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The 12 entries wrapped around and made two rows of menu choices. This did not look elegant. We were really happy with the Header Version 1 and it is what I initially chose. I ended up switching Header Version 4. We did not want that version initially because of the social icons in the header, but in true Avada style I found a check box in Theme Options - Header Options and was able to restrict it from showing. We will have those options at the bottom of the page.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Tomorrow I will be madly creating most of the content for the remaining pages. This has been a great experience overall!</span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-10531209990413558572013-07-09T20:36:00.001-04:002013-07-09T20:36:15.403-04:00Images and Learning About Retina Ready Images<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">My next task was to set up the image slider. Avada comes with <a href="http://theme-fusion.com/avada/layer-slider-3-0/">Layer Slider 4.0</a>, <a href="http://theme-fusion.com/avada/side-navigation/slider-revolution/">Revolution Slider</a>, <a href="http://theme-fusion.com/avada/elastic-slider/">Elastic Slider</a>, <a href="http://theme-fusion.com/avada/flexslider/">FlexSlider</a>, <a href="http://theme-fusion.com/avada/side-navigation/responsive-flexslider/">ThemeFusion Slider</a>, and <a href="http://theme-fusion.com/avada/side-navigation/custom-post-types/">Post Sliders</a>. I was a little apprehensive about the slider. It turns out that I didn't need to be. I dedicated Monday to the project and it was quickly solved. In hindsight, it was the photo work that has taken up more time.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Revolution Slider</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I liked the look and feel of this slider. It became my test subject. Once again the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnU2kdY9IaE">Avada YouTube tutorial</a> made it fairly simple. I set the video to full screen and paid careful attention to the file type and size of the images being used in the tutorial.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Setting the solid color background image on the slider becomes very important when containing the actual image and potential text layers. I would not have done that step without the tutorial. (See approximately 3:16 on the video.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Adding the photo layer and setting its exact location was another speedy tip to developing the slider (4:08 on the video).</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Retina Ready</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Avada is a retina ready template. I noticed the Avada Retina Ready Information video after I had edited six images and some graphic files for the school name. I wish I had found that first and I am grateful I had only a handful of graphic images already created.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">My younger son had been talking with me about retina ready images for some time now. He <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ipeters/id491167312?mt=8">develops</a> <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/family-road-games/id549884052?mt=8">apps</a> <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/press!/id592898894?mt=8">for</a> iPhone, iPad, and iTouch. I understood that he was making images twice the size he needed them, but I didn't think about that as I was creating those first images for the school website. You should play the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7wM9_5y6-8">Avada Retina Ready video</a> for a quick understanding of the concepts. What is amounts to is that however big your screen area is for an image, you need to upload an image that is actually twice as big. As the video says, if the image area is 100x100 pixels, the uploaded image should be 200x200 pixels.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I will be working on this concept tomorrow. There is a WordPress plug-in that I have to install that will check the images.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Image Editing in Gimp and iPhoto</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.gimp.org/downloads/">Gimp</a> has been my free image editing software for years now. I knew the types of images I would be seeking from the school marketing class I took in my now completed Masters program. The photos should show action not things. The photos should show the best of what we as a school want to represent. The photos should be tightly cropped on faces. The photos should be of the highest resolution possible.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">From years in working with photography as a hobby I knew I wanted crisp, sharp focus. I wanted the images color balanced. I wanted clean lines and no distractions behind the faces. If I can find leading lines in the images it is all the better.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I know I will improve my methodology over the next few months. Yesterday I found an exciting option in Gimp to help me get the size I thought I needed before I started to understand the implications of being retina ready. Even as I write this, I wonder if the Revolution Slider images are ok because mine are the same size as those that were used in the tutorial. I am being very careful to look at everything on the screen in the videos.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">First, the Revolution Slider needed a background image. This anchors the rest of the layers on each slide that revolves through the slider. The tutorial suggested a PNG file filled with the hex color #f6f6f6. <a href="http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colors.asp">Hex colors</a> are another concept I teach my students when we learn about HTML. In brief, colors are made up of red, green, and blue on monitors. Instead of counting in the base 10 system (0-9) we count in base 16 (0-9 then A-F). The hash tag symbol (#) denotes a hex number.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In Gimp I created a new image that was 940x434 pixels. I filled the background with #f6f6f6. I saved it as a Gimp (.xcf) file and a Portable Network Graphics (.png) file. I started a folder called smscranford to store all images that make it to WordPress in our domain.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ndDFbs7rMUc/UdyKzogjHjI/AAAAAAAAAvk/z2R5nCqJ4HU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+6.11.57+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ndDFbs7rMUc/UdyKzogjHjI/AAAAAAAAAvk/z2R5nCqJ4HU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+6.11.57+PM.png" /></a></div>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XDJtpbQVyw8/UdyLCvVKQVI/AAAAAAAAAvs/UWFyNvpU8xk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+6.12.48+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XDJtpbQVyw8/UdyLCvVKQVI/AAAAAAAAAvs/UWFyNvpU8xk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+6.12.48+PM.png" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Next, I gathered several images and brought them into iPhoto to do a quick color balancing. I need to learn more about this step too. In iPhoto 9.4.3 I click on the Photo then choose the Edit icon on the lower left side of the screen. Next I click on the Adjust tab on the top right side of the program. Finally, I locate the tiny color picker icon and click on a white or neutral color. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HUyZ9NwMwV8/UdyLUpaPpKI/AAAAAAAAAv0/Lyz5jQqy970/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+6.14.11+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HUyZ9NwMwV8/UdyLUpaPpKI/AAAAAAAAAv0/Lyz5jQqy970/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+6.14.11+PM.png" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I drag the newly balanced photo to an "Adjusted" subfolder in my Pictures folder.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The tutorial showed the actual imported images to be 940x434 pixels. I don't know how that squares with the idea that for the retinal display the images should be twice as big. For the moment, I am resizing my original images that range from 2048x1536 to 4000x3000 proportionally down to 940 pixels wide. If there is a lot to be cropped out I first use the rectangular selector and attempt to select an area that is in the neighborhood of 940 pixels or a bit larger. Once the area is selected, I Edit-Copy the selected area and Edit-Paste as New Image.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Next, as needed, I Image-Scale Image so that it is proportionally 940 pixels wide.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-si_wbglggzQ/Udyo4zr-EiI/AAAAAAAAAwE/oJJ5up34mJE/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+8.20.24+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-si_wbglggzQ/Udyo4zr-EiI/AAAAAAAAAwE/oJJ5up34mJE/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+8.20.24+PM.png" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Here is the new trick! I found Image-Canvas Size. I unlink the proportional resizing and leave the Width at 940 pixels and change the Height to 434 pixels. It then gives me the ability to slide the image up and down to determine which pixels will fill the height.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bsPoq7SmiDA/Udyqj5f_xKI/AAAAAAAAAwU/wL3hD9dwqIU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+8.27.20+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bsPoq7SmiDA/Udyqj5f_xKI/AAAAAAAAAwU/wL3hD9dwqIU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+8.27.20+PM.png" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I was really happy with this feature.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-36242292766103000112013-07-09T15:34:00.000-04:002013-07-09T15:34:47.831-04:00Avada WordPress Theme<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I have spent approximately 16 hours working within the WordPress theme at this point. I have followed the documentation index.html that came with the download from ThemeForest.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Downloading the Demo Data XML File</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I initially was not sure that I wanted to import the demo data. I am glad that I did. One of the things that I appreciate about the Avada theme is that the developers took the time to make screencasts of each step. The videos are posted on YouTube. Their written directions are very clear and include <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKVg4ugaOe8">links</a> to the associated YouTube video. Despite the fact that there are clear written directions, have listened to most of the screencasts. This is a great example in relation to good teaching in general. They give their "students" multiple ways to learn.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The video helped me quickly set up the menu, home page, post page, and widgets. The XML import does include all of the menu items and is really a sales page for the Avada them. It will not take too long to modify my initial content and pare away all of the demo words, links, and images.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">The First New Page</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i6Q8U0KGgqE/UdxhGhIpkVI/AAAAAAAAAvU/Z18yBNBt-Yk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+3.14.07+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i6Q8U0KGgqE/UdxhGhIpkVI/AAAAAAAAAvU/Z18yBNBt-Yk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+3.14.07+PM.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I set up the basic layout of the home page in my first attempt to learn how to apply the theme. The index.html file has great documentation. By signing on to the Theme Fusion website I was able to access more video tutorials. The tutorial quickly led me to understand how to select among different types of pages. For the home page I wanted to use the full screen. The Page Attributes on the right side of the screen gave me ready access to Full Width and many more other options that I will explore as I build more pages.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The first problem I encountered was figuring out where the <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Shortcode_API">shortcodes</a> were located. Shortcodes are macros that generate snips of HTML code that enable the editor to create pages within the Avada theme. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The video tutorial explains that once you edit the page and select the visual editor a series of short codes appear. I did not see the short codes so I went over to the Theme Fusion forum. I did a search for <span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">short code</span> and quickly found a thread with a discussion revolving around my exact problem. It had been posted just a half day earlier. One of the replies said to look for the Kitchen Sink. </span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NzHiol91lJk/UdxcL6hNdmI/AAAAAAAAAuc/enLZUJr2i-U/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+2.53.11+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="59" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NzHiol91lJk/UdxcL6hNdmI/AAAAAAAAAuc/enLZUJr2i-U/s640/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+2.53.11+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Clicking the Kitchen Sink icon still did not lead me to what I was hoping to find, but as I hovered my mouse over the new set of icons, I noticed the ThemeFusion Shortcodes drop down list.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cMOQ1lqw60g/UdxcujWJGwI/AAAAAAAAAuk/mEBnqvd1ujU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+2.55.19+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="52" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cMOQ1lqw60g/UdxcujWJGwI/AAAAAAAAAuk/mEBnqvd1ujU/s640/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+2.55.19+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">At this point, everything became easier.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">The First New Page</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In all honesty I am very glad that I understand the basics of HTML. When you choose a shortcode it dumps a bunch of HTML into the editor. When I begin to teach HTML to my middle school students I explain why they might find the knowledge useful in the future. Here in my own life is a clear example.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The tutorial demonstrates how to add a tagline. I used the school's philosophy as the tagline. The shortcode looks like this:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="color: #674ea7;">[tagline_box backgroundcolor="" shadow="no" border="1px" bordercolor=""
highlightposition="left" title="Saint Michael
School Philosophy" description="</span>Saint Michael School exists to promote
the spiritual, academic and personal formation of the whole child. As
witnesses to the teachings of Roman Catholic doctrine, the students are
challenged to achieve excellence in their relationship with God and in
all they do. The challenge of the Saint Michael student is to live these
teachings beyond our doors into the local and world community. Faculty,
parents, and students are the cornerstone upon which we build our
faith-based, academic environment. The deepened awareness of the
presence of Jesus Christ in our lives is fundamental to life at Saint
Michael School. <span style="color: #674ea7;">"][/tagline_box]</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">while the actual output looks like this:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VJAkzcHi3dI/Udxfw002PWI/AAAAAAAAAvE/F_i97ke6foY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+3.08.31+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="60" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VJAkzcHi3dI/Udxfw002PWI/AAAAAAAAAvE/F_i97ke6foY/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-09+at+3.08.31+PM.png" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The words I highlighted in light purple above amount to HTML codes with options embedded. It was easy to understand how the tags equated to the final product on the screen. The default shortcode includes a link and a button. I did not want those so I removed them from the shortcode. If you care to compare the original shortcode with my edited version up above, you can see how much I removed or replaced:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">[tagline_box backgroundcolor="" shadow="no" border="1px" bordercolor=""
highlightposition="<span style="color: red;">right, </span>left<span style="color: red;">, top or bottom</span>" <span style="color: red;">
link="http://themeforest.net/user/ThemeFusion" linktarget=""
button="Purchase Now" </span>title="<span style="color: red;">Avada is incredibly responsive, with a
refreshingly clean design" description="And it has some awesome
features, premium sliders, unlimited colors, advanced theme options and
so much more!</span>"][/tagline_box] </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">With a tiny bit of playing I realized the highlightposition was the think line on the tagline box.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We will be calling our "blog posts" School News. The tutorial gave very simple directions for using the Recent Posts and Title shortcodes. With these features underway the website began to take shape.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I learned that there would be more work to actual put the photo slider on the screen so I saved that for another day. </span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-363382372200337862013-07-09T08:53:00.001-04:002013-07-09T08:53:40.714-04:00Creating a Brand New School Website<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I am in the process of creating a brand new website for our school. I want to leave a breadcrumb trail behind so that if someone else from my school needs to learn what I have done, they will be easily able to do so. A bigger concern is that if I have to do it again for some reason, the entire path will be laid out here. Perhaps someone else will find it useful, too.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Getting the Domain Name</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Our school is associated with a parish. There are a multitude of hosting sites to choose from. My choice of HostGator was simple because the church had just set up their new site through this company. The parish chose a business account so the school followed suit. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Advantages of HostGator:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The website was very easy to use. We will be allowed to host unlimited domains on our own account. I am not sure how that will help us yet, but I will find out. There are unlimited POP3 email accounts. They have a one click installation of WordPress. When I had a question, I was able to call their 800 number and I received a quick response from an individual who was well trained and their spoken English was easily understood.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Minor Inconvenience:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The company sent an email requiring the principal to call in to "prove" that we had indeed requested the domain. It took a day between submitting the electronic paperwork and having the principal call the company to verify the transaction. This was not a disadvantage, but it did slow me down a little.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Setting Up the Initial eMail Address </span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-s3W25pk_y3Y/UdtTdPDmuLI/AAAAAAAAAtg/a4xDzvVrIPU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-08+at+7.59.29+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-s3W25pk_y3Y/UdtTdPDmuLI/AAAAAAAAAtg/a4xDzvVrIPU/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-08+at+7.59.29+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I believe that it will be advantageous to have an admin email address to capture all of the various sites and supports for the system. I created an administrator account in eMail. After signing on to the CPANEL (Control Panel) I looked in the Mail section for the Email Accounts icon. I created an account to administer the website creation project, an account with my own name, and there is a separate account that is automatically created as a "catch all" account for unrouted mail. </span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z-ptiSeSuIU/UdtUkm6AwuI/AAAAAAAAAtw/cZhubSjYL7k/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-08+at+8.01.35+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z-ptiSeSuIU/UdtUkm6AwuI/AAAAAAAAAtw/cZhubSjYL7k/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-08+at+8.01.35+PM.png" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The actual account creation is simple. The Email entry is the "address" of the email such as annoro. The Password must be at least five characters. It checks the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_strength#Common_guidelines">strength</a>. Mailbox Quota specifies how much storage space the individual will have in their account.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Installing WordPress </span></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aeHSLpLlrLg/UdtVLHi1WgI/AAAAAAAAAt4/JBKjctJDrNU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-08+at+8.09.25+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="104" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aeHSLpLlrLg/UdtVLHi1WgI/AAAAAAAAAt4/JBKjctJDrNU/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-08+at+8.09.25+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The installation of WordPress was fairly simple. I found the installation in the Software/Services section of the CPANEL. The Quick Install icon gives an array of choices. I found WordPress under the Blog Software heading. When the pointer hovers over WordPress a green arrow appears. Clicking on the green arrow leads to a Continue button to install the software. I did not capture all the steps in the installation of WordPress, but it seemed logical to me as I did it.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l3zrbbAq42Y/UdtW3Jow25I/AAAAAAAAAuI/GhnZn3zffBc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-08+at+8.15.24+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l3zrbbAq42Y/UdtW3Jow25I/AAAAAAAAAuI/GhnZn3zffBc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-08+at+8.15.24+PM.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Determining the WordPress Theme</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This step is quite time consuming. There are many free and paid WordPress themes. I have been taking a course through Team Treehouse. I applied for, and received, a <a href="http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/6-million-treehouse-scholarship-for-students-worldwide">two year scholarship</a> to learn on their website. The most recent course I have been working on is Building a Responsive Website under the Intermediate Website category. Team Treehouse deserves a post of its own sometime. I knew I wanted a <a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/04/16/10-developer-tips-to-build-a-responsive-website-infographic">Responsive</a> WordPress theme.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I did a search in Google for <span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">wordpress responsive theme education</span> and came up with several choices. I then removed the word <span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">education</span> from the search query and came up with a few more choices. My principal and I then sat a looked at theme after theme. We started listing what we liked and did not like about the themes. A pattern began to emerge. When all was said and done we settled on <a href="http://themeforest.net/item/avada-responsive-multipurpose-theme/2833226">Avada</a>. There is a one time fee for the theme. We needed a Paypal account to pay for the theme. After submitting payment I downloaded the theme and followed the 0 - READ ME FIRST.pdf directions. The developers really paid attention to the customer. They left a breadcrumb trail of files to get me to the documentation folder. This folder had a second 0 - read me first.txt with a simple message to open the index.html file.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The Table of Contents menu in index.html contains 24 major categories to get the user going with the theme. I signed up for the free forum support and began following the directions for the WordPress installation. I downloaded a free <a href="http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/exljbris/museo-slab/500/">Museo Slab</a> web font and installed it into WordPress. I imported the demo data into my site. This is a useful step. The demo data installed all I needed to get going with the development as well as the entire sample website. Another post will follow this with my foray into the development of the site.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Keeping Track of Various User IDs and Passwords </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">There are an interesting collection of new IDs and passwords. I opened a <a href="http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/">TextWrangler</a> file to log every website, user id, and password. There were more than I would have imagined: the new website has a CPANEL userid and password, downloading the Avada WordPress theme required an envato account, ThemeFusion required an id and password for the community forum, the new website has an associated default email account, the administration account and the one with my name and those associated passwords, HostGator has a billing system with a unique password.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now the Development Fun Begins</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I have already started developing the pages. As I was doing so the other evening, I realized that I was missing a big opportunity for myself by not documenting all the steps. This will serve as a record of what I have done and I am doing. I have a few most posts to get to where I am in the process now. From there forward, I can document as I create. In this way, I will not forget any steps.</span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-8211030882745952802013-06-18T07:41:00.001-04:002013-06-18T07:41:12.576-04:00EBSCO Search and Jersey Clicks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8437/8010607983_87ed9f07ea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="136" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8437/8010607983_87ed9f07ea.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This post continues the theme of my last five posts about teaching web search and evaluation skills from Kindergarten through eighth grade. Another important skill set involves understanding the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Web">deep web</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Deep Web</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We begin by discussing what the students know about icebergs. Their common explanation is that there is more iceberg underwater that what appears above the surface of the ocean. My explanation to the students in sixth through eighth grade is that there are resources available only if you have a public library card. The Internet is like an iceberg. What Google, Bing, or any other search engine shows is much smaller than what is available. In the state of New Jersey we have access to <a href="http://www.jerseyclicks.com/homepages/jclicks/jclicksclassic.asp">Jersey Clicks</a>. It is a website that verifies your membership in a public library and gives you access to <a href="http://www.ebsco.com/about">EBSCO</a> search.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I walk the students through Primary Search, Middle Search Plus, and Academic Search Premier. I explain that we will see results from magazines in our Jersey Clicks work. Magazines usually require a paid subscription. As a service through the public library we can view the articles online. The students in middle school have to read scientific articles for a report each trimester. With this example in mind, we search for electric automobiles.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">EBSCO Search</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It is very important to help the students locate the full text check box on the search screen. If they do not check the box, they will receive results that include items that cannot be read online. Once we view the results page, we look at the difference between HTML Full Text and PDF Full Text results. The major difference is that the PDF files are generally like scanned images of the magazine pages.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In Primary Search they will see magazines like <a href="http://boyslife.org/">Boys' Life</a>, <a href="http://scienceworld.scholastic.com/">Science World</a>, and <a href="http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/">Science News for Kids</a>. The content is appropriate for middle school students and elementary school children. In 2013 we found 56 entries for electric automobiles. Middle Search Plus located 906 entries. Its results come from magazines such as <a href="http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/">Time</a>, <a href="http://www.popsci.com/">Popular Science</a>, and <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/">Discover</a>. The reading level is much higher than the results from Primary Search. Finally, Academic Search Premier contained 3,849 results. It includes academic papers in addition to more complex magazines such as <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/">New Scientist</a>, <a href="http://www.wfs.org/futurist">Futurist</a>, and <a href="http://www.kiplinger.com/">Kiplinger</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Follow Up Activity</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This year, Margaret Thatcher had died the week before we completed this lesson. I had the students find three resources in Google and three from Jersey Clicks. I provided the students with the following prompts in a word processor document. They turned in their completed research as an Edmodo assignment.</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">How many entries are there for Margaret Thatcher in the Primary Search?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">How many entries are there for Margaret Thatcher in the MiddleSearch Plus?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">How many entries are there for Margaret Thatcher in the Academic Search Premier?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">How many entries does Google give you for Margaret Thatcher?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">How many entries does Google give you for “Margaret Thatcher”?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">What is the difference in the types of articles you get between Primary Search and Middle Search Plus?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">What is the difference in the types of articles you get between Middle Search Plus and Academic Search Premier?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">What is the difference between Jersey Clicks and Google?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">When might you use Jersey Clicks instead of Google?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Tell me three things you found out about Margaret Thatcher in Jersey Clicks.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Tell me three things you find in Google.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We held a class discussion following the research. They understood that they could receive more factual, targeted answers through Jersey Clicks. They were able to quickly see what Margaret Thatcher looked like in Google. The found 6 Primary Search, 292 Middle Search Plus, and 1,260 Academic Search Premier results and over 38 million Google hits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The end result is that the students recognized that they authority of the articles was much greater for Jersey Clicks/EBSCO and that they could go there for trusted research.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Image Citation</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Mjöbäcksvillan Barnaby Iceberg, Family Barnaby </span><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/80120017@N03/8010607983"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">http://www.flickr.com/photos/80120017@N03/8010607983</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike</span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-49284001052827831752013-06-16T23:11:00.001-04:002013-06-16T23:21:54.518-04:00Rating Your Research in the Seventh Grade<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3484/3312537516_d57201d572.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3484/3312537516_d57201d572.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So often school projects require the students to research a topic within a narrow range selected by the teacher. For the last two years, I have had the seventh grade students submit a proposal for a topic they would like to research. The results have been worth the effort. This year, I tied the results of their research into what they learn about authority, bias, content, and usability as sixth grade students. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">General Project Guidelines</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I ask the students to write a short paragraph explaining the topic they are interested in researching and why they would like to do the research. It is not a simple task for a seventh grade student. Over the last two years, my students have researched a variety of topics including photography, animal habitats, sports, and hobbies.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Once the topic is approved, they receive a Google Doc with a series of questions to guide their research. Each question will eventually turn into a slide in a presentation to be created in Open Office.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Slide 1: Topic introduction - what is the topic, why did you choose it, who else might be interested in the research you gather</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Slide 2: What did you know about the topic before you began your research</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Slide 3: What is one specific thing you wanted to find out and what did you learn</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Slide 4: Continuation of the one specific thing and what was learned</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Slide 5: What is a second specific thing you wanted to find out and what did you learn</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Slide 6: Continuation of the second specific item</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Slide 7: Wrap up - what other questions did the research bring to mind, in what other ways did your knowledge increase, who else will you share your knowledge with and why</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Search Skills Refresher</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Over the course of the previous years, the students have been working on skills with Sweet Search and Google. We learned how to construct a query to get the best answer to a question by including quote marks in the query and thinking about the words that would appear on a page that had the best answer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The students used their <a href="http://www.diigo.com/education">Diigo student account</a> to bookmark relevant pages. They must always find the content first. Some students need to be steered away from daydreaming by paging through images (depending on their research topic). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Once they find the content, bookmark it in Diigo, and type their answers into Google Docs they may start finding images for their presentation. The students continue to need direction in bookmarking the actual page containing the image. Some students bookmark the Google search result. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">By keeping the research results in Google Docs and the bookmarks in Diigo, I am able to easily check up on their progress from any location that has Internet access. The students are able to move to different computers and still have access to all their content.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The presentations reinforce the skills of presenting to an audience, being a good audience member, and designing slides that rely on images for the audience and speaker notes for the presenter.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Extending Analysis of Web Page Content</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This year at the conclusion of the presentations, the students were required to go back and look at the pages they bookmarked for content. We reviewed the concepts of <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2013/04/website-authority-bias-content-and.html">website authority, bias, content, and usability</a>. The students reported on up to five websites they used in their research and listed the strengths and weaknesses of each. It gave me useful feedback on where the students are growing or needing practice in evaluating websites. This is a <a href="http://saintmichaelcomputer.wikispaces.com/2013WebEvalSample">link to a PDF sample</a> of a student's analysis.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Student-Created Project</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This analysis led to a project request by a student. They thought it would be interesting to read the Terms and Conditions on a website and create their own terms and conditions. I selected Facebook, Tumbler, and Twitter since the students often have one or more of these types of accounts. First they chose to open a document with a copy of the terms and conditions. They worked with a partner to highlight sections they did not understand. They colored the font of those entries in red. They highlighted sections they wanted to include in their own terms and conditions and changed the color of the font of those words to green.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">They really enjoyed creating their own terms and conditions document. The idea was to then have the eighth grade students read their terms and conditions and agree or disagree to them in order to "use" a website. We ran out of time to complete that part of the project. I will do this in September of the 2013-2014 school year. We will then analyze how many students really read the terms and conditions and how many just click agree. We will probably do it with a Google form masquerading as an actual terms and conditions page.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Overall Results</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I do believe the students are becoming more critical thinkers in the selection of websites for research. I will continue to help them build their skills next year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Image Citation:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">http://www.flickr.com/photos/32625013@N00/3312537516</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Paula Bailey </span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-61693525248637637452013-04-03T09:23:00.001-04:002013-04-04T06:38:41.112-04:00Website Authority, Bias, Content, and Usability in the Sixth Grade<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QOYjSbzoY9c/UVwrmNlfXsI/AAAAAAAAAsw/9ExXEZWEC0I/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-04-03+at+7.54.13+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="95" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QOYjSbzoY9c/UVwrmNlfXsI/AAAAAAAAAsw/9ExXEZWEC0I/s320/Screen+shot+2013-04-03+at+7.54.13+AM.png" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I wrote a post about increasing skills in <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2011/03/web-site-evaluation-sixth-grade.html">selecting from web query search results</a> in March 2011. I continue to refine the investigation every year. This year instead of setting up twelve preselected websites I presented the class with a prompt. I asked the students to try to find the best website to learn who started the Academy Awards and the date of the first awards show.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Learning to Use Social Bookmarks</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In the fourth and fifth grade, the <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/internet5-3">students bookmark websites in Firefox's Bookmarks tool</a>. The bookmarks are placed in a folder but they are locked into whichever machine the students used when they bookmarked the site. I create student accounts through the <a href="https://www.diigo.com/education">teacher console</a> in Diigo. The students <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2009/10/musical-citation-project.html">create a music video</a> using Creative Commons licensed music. They use <a href="http://www.pics4learning.com/">Pics4Learning</a> to interpret the song through images. They bookmark the pictures in Diigo and learn how to give the bookmark a title (in this case a name that will remind them of the picture). They enter a description for the Diigo bookmark (in this case what lyrics in the song they will use with the image). Finally, they enter a tag (this year it was America for the song God Bless America). We post their final video with citations in Vimeo. Over time the videos have included <a href="https://vimeo.com/54335160">God Bless America</a>, <a href="https://vimeo.com/44113431">America the Beautiful</a>, <a href="https://vimeo.com/43904951">He Got the Whole World in His Hands</a>, and <a href="https://vimeo.com/43903698">Go Tell It on the Mountain</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">They continue using Diigo to bookmark images for their <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/ppt6dinner">Dinner with Guests presentation</a>. The students do not share the bookmarks with classmates in this grade level. They are just getting used to the idea of signing on and saving bookmarks. They can use Diigo from home or school for any project.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Deciding Between Web Queries</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The next project builds on the <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2013/04/paper-and-electronic-research-in-fifth.html">fifth grade queries</a> they practiced in order to write reports. As I noted in the opening to this post, I asked two classes of sixth grade students to find me the best website answering the question about the Academy Awards. There were a wide variety of responses. I labeled them A-L and posted them as tiles on a <a href="http://saintmichaelcomputer.wikispaces.com/symbaloo6">Symbaloo page</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I broke the students into four groups of four to five students. Each group received <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/internet6-1">a job sheet and a grid</a> to analyze their assigned sites.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Authority, Bias, Content, and Usability Experts</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Each student takes on an expert role after I walk them through the job sheets. As an example, I use Google to search for "george washington" biography. It gives us a way to tie into what was learned in the fifth grade about using quotes around search terms. I selected this <a href="http://www.oswego.edu/library2/archives/digitized_collections/granger/georgewashington.html">George Washington biography</a> which came up fifth on the list and <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/george-washington-9524786">a second biography</a> which was first on the list. We kick off the discussion with my question, "Why does Google list the links in this order?". The answers range from "it is the best answer" to "someone paid for it to be there" to "I don't know".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I shared information about how Google looks at the title of the web page, the URL, and how many times your words appear on the page. There is a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHR6IQJGZs">great short video by Google</a> about this topic on YouTube. We did a search for Jet Blue Airlines to see what an ad looks like as opposed to an unpaid search result.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We look at the job of the <span style="color: #38761d;">content specialist</span>. This person finds the strengths and weakness of the page based on how understandable the content is to a sixth grade student. They see if they can find out when the work was updated or created. They think about whether they would find better information in a book or encyclopedia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The <span style="color: #38761d;">bias/purpose specialist</span> finds the strengths and weaknesses of the site based on the purpose of the site. They think about why the site was created: to discuss, sell, promote, or parody information. We talk about the meaning of the domain of websites: .com, .org, .edu, .net, .gov, and country codes. We learn about personal webpages within sites that contain a tilde (~).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The <span style="color: #38761d;">usability/design specialist</span> concentrates on how easy or difficult it is to maneuver around the site. They see if other links work or are broken. They look for grammar and spelling errors. They determine how well laid out and easy it is to move around the site. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The <span style="color: #38761d;">authority/credibility specialist</span> has the most difficult job. They try to learn about the author of the site and their credentials. They try to find out who owns or sponsors the site. We learn to truncate the URL by cutting back from the starting site and removing part of the website address until we can determine who wrote the site. In the example from George Washington we started out with the original URL.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.oswego.edu/library2/archives/digitized_collections/granger/georgewashington.html</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.oswego.edu/library2/archives/digitized_collections/granger</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.oswego.edu/library2/archives/digitized_collections</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.oswego.edu/library2/archives</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.oswego.edu/library2</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.oswego.edu </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">As the URL is cut back to a smaller URL by removing the rightmost / and the words that follow it, the students can find out more information about who wrote the website. I point out that sometimes they might receive a message that they are not allowed to access that portion of the site. They can continue trimming the URL and they will again see more information.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The authority specialist also tries to find out who links to the website with a Google option:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">link:http://www.biography.com/people/george-washington-9524786</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We look to see if every link is from the main parent website (biography.com) or other sites. We see if there are a few links or many pages.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JZgcLC-o3Ew/UVwrgZVGPvI/AAAAAAAAAso/D1QRTFfaotE/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-04-03+at+9.13.39+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="48" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JZgcLC-o3Ew/UVwrgZVGPvI/AAAAAAAAAso/D1QRTFfaotE/s640/Screen+shot+2013-04-03+at+9.13.39+AM.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The students self select jobs by choice or rolling a die. The student who rolls the highest number gets first choice of job and so on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Solo Work and Group Work</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Students work independently to look at six websites and evaluate the site based on the job sheet. The type their analysis into a document with a chart. Once they are finished, they rank the sites from 1 to 6 with 1 being the best site and 6 being the worst. As they finish, they see if their partners need help analyzing the sites from a different perspective. Finally, all group members come together to decide which was the best site overall and which was the worst. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">When all analysis is complete, I call the teams up to the front of the room. Two different groups (which I call Group 1 and Group 3) analyze sites A-F and two other groups (2 and 4) have analyzed sites G-L. It is interesting to hear the students explain from the four different perspectives why they selected their site as the best. After group one presents their evidence, group three has a minute to ask clarification questions. Group one then has a minute to confer and respond. It was most interesting to find that the students in one class had chosen the same site as best in one group and worst in the second group. The search result in question was from the Wikipedia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My Goal</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I want my students to really start thinking about how to not only choose search terms but the merits of choosing one result over another.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-35646718260446940212013-04-01T10:30:00.002-04:002013-04-04T06:38:27.809-04:00Paper and Electronic Research in the Fifth Grade<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hw0knEx7jI8/UVmZdh38FII/AAAAAAAAAsY/2kd1svgdnx4/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-04-01+at+7.29.40+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="138" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hw0knEx7jI8/UVmZdh38FII/AAAAAAAAAsY/2kd1svgdnx4/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-04-01+at+7.29.40+AM.png" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The fifth grade students continue to extend their learning through presentations and reports. They write a report on an influential person around February and a president around April. The intention is to have the student complete all the work in class and learn how to independently find answers with a guide in the classroom. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> I include links to web sites we use and my project wiki with more detailed directions.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Who Wrote This Information</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We begin the year with a little research into <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2011/10/sharing-time.html">time zones</a>. In the <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2013/03/extending-search-skills-in-fourth-grade.html">fourth grade</a>, the students practice paging forward and backward through pages. They learn to do simple searches in <a href="http://www.pics4learning.com/">Pics4Learning</a> to find images. They copy citations for images into presentations. The students review those skills as they <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/internet5-1">complete a worksheet</a> about time zones.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">After they work, we regroup to review the answers and begin thinking about who wrote those pages. It is important to know that the Internet is a collection of pages that anyone can write. I chose two pages for the students. <a href="http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/gilded/jb_gilded_timezone_1.html">America's Story</a> is maintained by the Library of Congress. <a href="http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/mclass/Glossary.html">Mystery Class</a> is maintained by <a href="http://www.learner.org/about/">Annenberg Learner</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Digital Citizenship Skills </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Every year, I attempt to have the students collaborate with another class outside our time zone to collaborate and share through Skype and Edmodo. We need to work synchronously with our partner to have a Skype call. Skype allows us to work at the same time from different locations. This year, Vicky Sedgwick and I connected our students via a <a href="http://www.pernilleripp.com/2011/10/so-you-want-to-do-mystery-skype.html">Mystery Skype</a> call. The students used their geography skills to determine where the partner class was located. The students moved from hemisphere, to continent, to state, to county, to town. It was very exciting. We will eventually work on digital citizenship skills as the students connect with each other in small groups in Edmodo.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The students learn to communicate appropriately while on a Skype call. There is a lot of learning involved in inviting another class to join ours including speaking clearly, listening well, and behaving appropriately in front of a web camera. Mistakes are made in a learning environment. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">After the call, we talk about how to improve our communications the next time we work together, if necessary. </span>The students eventually collaboratively edit a Google Drawing and learn to respect the work of others by adding to, not destroying, another student's work. They communicate with posts to an Edmodo group and learn to type appropriate and respectful messages.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Research Skills</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The fifth grade teacher assigns each students a historic figure in late January. This is the first time I assist the students in finding their own answers for a teacher's essay. The students receive a template in a document to collect their answers. We have tried paper worksheets over the years, but the document seemed to really help them this year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The big skills in completing their research is learning <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/internet5-2">how to build a query</a> in <a href="http://4me.sweetsearch.com/">Sweet Search 4 Me</a> and Google. I want the students to begin to build on thinking about who wrote the website. The learn to use quotation marks around search terms to make sure the name of their historic figure is on the results page. They work to <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/internet5-3">bookmark the actual web page</a> so they can return a create their citation.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Citation Skills</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Through the searching phase, the students bookmark web pages and note the na<span style="font-size: small;">me of their bookmark<span style="font-size: small;"> or <span style="font-size: small;">encyclopedia in a word processing document. When the project is nearing comple<span style="font-size: small;">tion, the students and I practice <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/internet5-4">creating a ci</a><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/internet5-4">tation</a> for the encyclopedia <span style="font-size: small;">on <span style="font-size: small;">one</span> class day<span style="font-size: small;">,</span> the web sites on a second class day<span style="font-size: small;">, and format<span style="font-size: small;">ting of the entries in a word processing documen<span style="font-size: small;">t on the third day.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Giving Students Feedback</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The students turn their completed work into Edmodo. <span style="font-size: small;">I give the students feedback by marking up their documents<span style="font-size: small;">. When they open their documents with my highligh<span style="font-size: small;">ting I ask them to reply in Edmodo with <span style="font-size: small;">sentences about what they will improve in their next document. The<span style="font-size: small;">se are solid first <span style="font-size: small;">steps in looking for <span style="font-size: small;">information in encyclopedias<span style="font-size: small;">, on the Internet, and citing sources.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-44943919688865597692013-03-25T20:19:00.001-04:002013-04-04T06:38:17.090-04:00Extending Search Skills in Fourth Grade<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sn-teqJbrh0/UVDpb4cSlAI/AAAAAAAAAsA/6dqvkY_IZVk/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-03-25+at+8.18.35+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sn-teqJbrh0/UVDpb4cSlAI/AAAAAAAAAsA/6dqvkY_IZVk/s200/Screen+shot+2013-03-25+at+8.18.35+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In my last post<span style="font-size: small;">, I was recapping my path with Kindergarten through th<span style="font-size: small;">ird grade in introducing Internet <span style="font-size: small;">skills</span>. In the fourth grade I extend their knowledge and <span style="font-size: small;">u<span style="font-size: small;">nderstanding of searching on the Internet<span style="font-size: small;"> and begin working on <span style="font-size: small;">citations</span>. One of the reason I love this writing space is that it helps me remember project<span style="font-size: small;">s and lessons. As I was working on this post, I came across another piece <span style="font-size: small;">I do with the <span style="font-size: small;">third grade.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Third Grade </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I consistently find the need to focus students on the nee<span style="font-size: small;">d to actually read the pages </span>in all grade levels<span style="font-size: small;">. We <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2009/02/winter-wonderland-and-third-grade.html">practice reading skills</a> through working with a printout from the Enchanted Learning website. The students indiv<span style="font-size: small;">idually rea<span style="font-size: small;">d <span style="font-size: small;">the printout and <span style="font-size: small;">re<span style="font-size: small;">spond<span style="font-size: small;"> as a group through the <span style="font-size: small;">use of our Activote repon<span style="font-size: small;">se system.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Fourth Grade</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The fourth grade students are really third graders at the beginning of th<span style="font-size: small;">e year. We <span style="font-size: small;">begin with <span style="font-size: small;">the creation of a mission patch in Kid Pix (af<span style="font-size: small;">ter viewing <a href="http://history.nasa.gov/mission_patches.html">NASA mission patches</a>) </span>and write a "mission report" responding to the <span style="font-size: small;">lyrics in a s<span style="font-size: small;">ong<span style="font-size: small;">. I have modified it since the <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2008/09/space-crew-mission-patches.html">original rendition</a>. This year, we started t<span style="font-size: small;">he mission <span style="font-size: small;">by viewing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yefKX2onHI">The Planet Song </a><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yefKX2onHI">from Blues Clues on YouTube</a>. </span></span>I asked the stud<span style="font-size: small;">ents if they could find one error in the song. They <span style="font-size: small;">were also to find out why at least two of the lyrics were correct. The forms I use and a sample student report are <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/internet4-1">here</a>. </span></span></span>I give the students direct links to each plan<span style="font-size: small;">et via <a href="http://saintmichaelcomputer.wikispaces.com/symbaloo4">my Symbaloo page</a>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">In my second project, I begin with the idea that children are very visua<span style="font-size: small;">l. In the fourth grade, I want the students to begin to recognize the need to "thank<span style="font-size: small;">" people for the content they use from<span style="font-size: small;"> the Inte<span style="font-size: small;">rnet. </span></span></span>What I <span style="font-size: small;">do now s<span style="font-size: small;">tarted with a project in which every student created a PowerPoint prese<span style="font-size: small;">ntation on birds foll<span style="font-size: small;">owing <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2009/02/important-book-and-research.html">an idea I got</a> from Brian Crosby in Nevada. <span style="font-size: small;">Last year, the students wanted to <span style="font-size: small;">do the presentation on their choice of an animal. How could I say no? <span style="font-size: small;">I limit the choice to an animal they can find on the <a href="http://www.pics4learning.com/">Pics4Learning</a> web<span style="font-size: small;"> site. There have to be at least six different images of the <span style="font-size: small;">animal.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Once they have their animal. They write <span style="font-size: small;">sentences which become t<span style="font-size: small;">heir speaker notes and find im<span style="font-size: small;">age<span style="font-size: small;">s that relate t<span style="font-size: small;">o those <span style="font-size: small;">sentences. Pics4Learning makes it <span style="font-size: small;">easy to cite the source on the last <span style="font-size: small;">slide because the <span style="font-size: small;">citation is directly <span style="font-size: small;">below the image. We add t<span style="font-size: small;">he citations to the last slide. I imp<span style="font-size: small;">roved the project since <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2009/02/saying-thank-you-for-images.html">my</a><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2009/02/saying-thank-you-for-images.html"> original write-up</a>. When the students save their ima<span style="font-size: small;">ges to the hard drive, they open them using Previe<span style="font-size: small;">w and resize them to 640 pixels wide for landscape ph<span style="font-size: small;">o<span style="font-size: small;">tos or 480 pixels tall for portrait pictures </span></span>so they <span style="font-size: small;">are easier to fit on the slide <span style="font-size: small;">and take up less memory.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">I have examples from th<span style="font-size: small;">e 2008-<span style="font-size: small;">2009 school year o<span style="font-size: small;">n my <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/ppt4sevenbirds">project wiki</a><span style="font-size: small;">.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Work Continues in FIfth</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The next section I write will be about the work the students <span style="font-size: small;">do to write a report and find information in <span style="font-size: small;">paper encyclope<span style="font-size: small;">dias and the Internet.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-39815824802027991542013-03-15T07:10:00.001-04:002013-04-04T06:38:03.777-04:00On Being a Discriminating Searcher<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have been diligently working on taking my students through the ranks of learning to look for information and understand what they are seeing on the Internet. Here is a short list of ideas from Kindergarten through third grade. I will come back soon and write about our fourth and fifth grade projects. Finally I will conclude the article with sixth through eighth grade.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Kindergarten</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">We learn to use the mouse. I think things are coming full circle. Ten years ago, many Kindergarten students had a hard time operating a mouse. Then it became a skill I really didn't need to teach. This year, I am finding many Prek-3 through Kindergarten students don't understand the right and left mouse button. I think it is a result of so many tablet devices and smartphones. We begin the year with the adorable <a href="http://www.headsprout.com/code/launchMA.cfm">Headsprout Mousing Around</a> site. As time passes, we learn to navigate the Internet through <a href="http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/index/load.htm?f">Starfall's ABC</a> page. This year, for the first time, I found the free for teachers <a href="http://www.abcmouse.com/schools">ABCmouse.com</a>. The students are enthralled with it. It is free to private and public school teachers at this time (Spring 2013). You can share premium content that the students can use at home with the help of their parents.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">First</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">We begin to use the Internet to practice spelling words at <a href="http://www.spellingcity.com/mrsoro/">Spelling City</a>. The students learn to carefully read the words on the screen to find the links to move between lesson choices and practice levels. I followed the basic idea in a lesson plan on Common Sense's <a href="http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/lesson/sites-i-k-1">Sites I Like Lesson</a> (formerly www.becybersmart.org). The students use the <a href="http://www.starfall.com/n/level-b/me/load.htm?f">All About Me</a> portion of Starfall.com and then rate the site. We followed that lesson up by creating a bar graph in Kidspiration with the paper survey data from the Sites I Like lesson. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Second</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I use my <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/internet2-1">Little Explorer's Picture Dictionary</a> lesson to teach the students how to find answers on a web page by reading clues about birds and scanning the page for pictures of birds. We learn to choose a state from the list at Fact Monster's <a href="http://www.factmonster.com/states.html">Fifty States</a> page. The classroom teacher has the students find various facts about a state. They practice scanning the page for the key words and carefully copy the answer to their worksheet. It is important to learn to accurately copy the answer - including capitalization. Finally the students work to find answers to a biographical reading exercise when they follow a cloze activity for an assigned person.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Third</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The third grade students participate in a snail mail project called The Great Mail Race. The students are assigned multiple states. The teacher likes pairing up the students with a Catholic school. In advance, I populate a <a href="http://flockofresearchers.wikispaces.com/mailrace">wiki page</a> with two different Catholic schools per state. This helps us complete the activity in a 42-minute class period. The children look at the web page for each school and then they copy down the school's name and address. This extends their work on accurately copying information from the second grade lesson. The letter will not get to the other school if the address is incorrect. They try to find out what the children's uniform and school building looks like. They find out what activities the school has for the students. We use Little Explorer's Picture Dictionary <a href="http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/statesbw/">States page</a> to find what their state's capital is <a href="http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/statesbw/newjersey.shtml">on a map</a>. Next they follow the Facts, Maps, and Symbols link to the left of the map to answer an information sheet for their teacher. One year we had the students do a <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2010/05/great-mail-race-and-other-state.html">little tourism research</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Heading to Fourth and Fifth Grade</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">These projects get the students ready for more extensive web page reading, scanning, and analysis of what they find. It prepares them for the future middle school skills that include analyzing the strengths and weakness of web pages based on criteria; creating a Wikipedia entry to understand that site; and understanding copyright, Creative Commons, and public domain content. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-64515535817045025412012-07-05T09:14:00.002-04:002012-07-05T09:14:19.024-04:00Teaching Math - Four Years Later<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It has been four years since I had my own math class. This past school year I was asked to teach seventh grade math, pre-algebra, and algebra class for about six weeks. My computer classes were all shifted to the morning, several adjustments were made in the number of times per week I taught computer class, and the afternoon was dedicated to math. I am recording some new insights and how easy it is to reactivate old websites to quickly help students in class.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Math Podcasts</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-96PeYw8vxWU/T_WJf5V87YI/AAAAAAAAAnU/KVO1wsvaMw0/s1600/PodomaticAlgebra.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-96PeYw8vxWU/T_WJf5V87YI/AAAAAAAAAnU/KVO1wsvaMw0/s320/PodomaticAlgebra.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I made a number of screencasts several years ago. I use JingPro. I used to use screencasts for quiz and test prep for the students. I knew right away that I would resurrect my <a href="http://njtechteacher.podomatic.com/">Mrs. Oro's Study Cast</a> page on Podomatic. It was fantastic because the dedicated page was right there waiting for new uploads, it still feeds into iTunes, and is easy to use as a standalone page.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My aha moment this time was using it for test review. I take as much time as we need as a class to review tests. This year, I decided to post test reviews too. I still asked the students if they wanted to review specific problems. This was an added support. The value of reviewing the test in class is that students can show how they did the problem and as a group we can talk about alternate methods of doing a problem. The students still really want to have time in class to understand their mistakes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The value added by creating the review podcast is that students can, and did, take the test or quiz home and play the podcast to hear my explanation and try to do the problem again on their own.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Math Wiki</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I had a wiki, initially, as a class website. This year, I realized it was a perfect place to store files for the students to review at home or download. It is difficult hearing a student say they didn't do a review or homework because they forgot a paper in the locker at school. I had the use of an interactive whiteboard and would sometimes put up problems to work on in the evening on the spur of the moment during class. The wiki became a quick way to link to a PDF or image file.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This is an example of a <a href="http://mrsoromath.wikispaces.com/2012-8thPreFraction">screen capture from a whiteboard</a> assignment. This is an <a href="http://mrsoromath.wikispaces.com/2012-8thPreFraction">example of a PDF</a> created from a Word document. We use Schoolnotes to post homework assignments. It was simple to add a hyperlink to the wiki pages from Schoolnotes. The advantage to this method is the students go directly from <a href="http://new.schoolnotes.com/xpages/view/8888">my math Schoolnotes page</a> to the actual page containing the screen capture or PDF file. No need for passwords or remembering other websites.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Edmodo</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The students and I had been using Edmodo in the computer classroom for the entire school year. I immediately created groups for the math classes when I learned I would be teaching math temporarily. Edmodo gave me a very different and extremely useful way to interact with my students. I posted links to all of my supports for the students. I was able to ask them questions and store them electronically in one place. It is private and just between my students and I. The following two examples are from post-work on a test the students took:</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oMPLwsUkDns/T_WIbG-2BII/AAAAAAAAAnE/-ZpXrslVNXo/s1600/EdmodoMath.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oMPLwsUkDns/T_WIbG-2BII/AAAAAAAAAnE/-ZpXrslVNXo/s1600/EdmodoMath.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In this case, I was able to see what the student understood of their mistakes. Knowing the student in class combined with the response helped me see that they were ready to move on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Through
the next student's response, I was able to see where the student and I
needed to work one-on-one. The child came in at recess and with the
extra help and some more practice problem became confident in filling in
the gap in their knowledge.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N_YzU1SiwFs/T_WI5UMA1oI/AAAAAAAAAnM/eUROUDUNQ4g/s1600/EdmodoMath2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N_YzU1SiwFs/T_WI5UMA1oI/AAAAAAAAAnM/eUROUDUNQ4g/s1600/EdmodoMath2.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I could have done the same thing by having the students do their reflections on paper, but it saved valuable time. I was able to look at their answers that evening and know if there were still areas that needed addressing in the class the next afternoon. I also knew who I wanted to make appointments with at recess, before, or after school for extra support.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;">Interactive Whiteboard</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I did not have an interactive whiteboard when I was teaching four years ago. I did not integrate its use in the classroom in any particularly interactive way during the time in the math class from April through May. It was a great improvement for my lessons, personally, because I was able to save the flipchart and look at what we did right before the next class. At the end of class, it was so easy to see exactly what homework problems were assigned when I updated my Schoolnotes page. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The students enjoyed the chance to solve problems and choose different colors when they were writing. This was not a stellar use of the tool, but anything that gets a student more involved in their desire to learn is a good thing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The other positive side to the IWB was the ability to take lessons and narrate them for the podcast.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">If I was going to teach math on a full time basis, I would look to make the lessons more of an analysis tool and much more interactive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Voting Devices</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Gig2XIdIcwQ/T_WPsCD2pkI/AAAAAAAAAng/lul_8nwuTLk/s1600/ActivoteAlgebra.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Gig2XIdIcwQ/T_WPsCD2pkI/AAAAAAAAAng/lul_8nwuTLk/s320/ActivoteAlgebra.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">We have a set of 32 Activote devices in the school. I was really interested in seeing how I could use the devices to promote student learning in class. One method I tried was doing homework review with the Activotes. It took a lot of effort on my part to create good answer choices for the problems. It was actually pretty amazing to find where common mistakes were happening based on the pattern of responses from the students to the questions. Often I would find a number of students making the same mistake and it enabled us to discuss the difference between the common mistake the the actual answer and the reasoning behind the work. It served a second purpose in helping me remember when I reopened the files and looked at the work. Today as I worked on this post, I could still remember the day I taught the material. These files would be invaluable if I was preparing to teach this content again next year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Other Quick Ideas</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">There are so many quick ideas and tips I picked up by teaching math those few weeks.</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The cell phone camera is great for taking quick photos of the chalkboard. They can be added to a flipchart to continue work the next day.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Word Equation Editor - This is invaluable in the math classroom for creating tests, quizzes, and worksheets.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Upgrading to ActiveInspire 1.6.xxxx - ActivInspire now has a built-in math equation editor. I had been creating my work in Word and taking screenshots of the document to import into ActiveInspire. The built-in equation editor saved me a lot of time.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Some students are auditory learners, others are visual learners, still others learn best by doing. The screencast can be modified to give all three groups what they need.</span></li>
</ul>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-62080197399883801232012-06-30T11:57:00.000-04:002012-06-30T11:57:05.885-04:00Summertime and the Learning is Easy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y9RSGPYZHP4/T-8hnRPmbmI/AAAAAAAAAm4/OXijxW9Bj3g/s1600/EdCampLogo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y9RSGPYZHP4/T-8hnRPmbmI/AAAAAAAAAm4/OXijxW9Bj3g/s1600/EdCampLogo.jpg" /></a></div>
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I hope you’re enjoying some peace and rejuvenation over the summer months. I am writing to share some free and inexpensive professional development in New Jersey and New York. I will be at all of them, so please stop over and say hi if you attend.</div>
<br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Three of the events are of the <a href="http://edcampfoundation.org/category/upcoming-edcamps/">EdCamp</a> variety. As a recap EdCamp is a “do-it-yourself” type of conference. They are referred to as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference">unconferences</a>. There is no set schedule. The attendees build the conference session schedule the day of the event before the first session begins. You can post a session to lead or simply attend sessions. There is a “rule of two feet”. If you do not end up in a session that suits your needs, you are able to pick up and choose a different session. There are no hard feelings if you walk out of a session in progress and sit in on another that has already started. One time it took me two moves to find a session that fit my interests. The whole basis is getting out and having discussions with other educators.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">July 2012</span></span><br />
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<br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.edcampleadership.org/">EdCamp Leadership</a> will be held on Thursday, July 26th in Monroe Township at the FEA Conference Center. It is free. On their webpage they say: Edcamp Leadership is a free unconference for school leaders devoted to K-12 education issues and ideas. Its goal is to assemble forward-thinking school administrators, board of education members, classroom teacher leaders, parents/community members – anyone interested in K-12 education – for a day of conversation, reflection and inspiration. This is the first time this EdCamp is being held. I’m looking forward to hearing a variety of local leaders sharing their ideas about education.</span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Main website: <a href="http://www.edcampleadership.org/">http://www.edcampleadership.org/</a></span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Registration: <a href="http://edcampleadership.ticketleap.com/2012/">http://edcampleadership.ticketleap.com/2012/</a></span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a href="http://edu2012.stateofnow.com/">#140edu</a> will be held Tuesday, July 31 and Wednesday, August 1st at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. If you register as an educator the cost is $1.40. I went last year and it was fascinating, exhilarating, and exhausting, but so well worth my time. The structure is a full day from 9am to 5pm. Individuals and panels have 15 minutes to speak on topics of their passion centered on education. You can view videos from last year’s conference at http://edu2011.140conf.com/speakers-2 </span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Two speakers I really enjoyed were</span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">School Improvement One Character at a Time by Eric Sheninger (principal at New Milford High School) http://edu2011.140conf.com/school-improvement-one-character-at-a-time </span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The Tech Commandments by Adam Bellow http://edu2011.140conf.com/the-tech-commandments-ways-we-can-revitalize-education-using-technology </span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Main website: <a href="http://edu2012.stateofnow.com/">http://edu2012.stateofnow.com/</a></span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Registration: <a href="http://140edu12.eventbrite.com/">http://140edu12.eventbrite.com/</a></span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/edcampcommoncore/">EdCamp Common Core</a> will be held on Thursday, August 9 in Union, NJ at Kean University. It is free. On their webpage they say: This unconference’s theme is the Common Core. You will gain insights by hearing answers to these and any other questions you may have:</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">What are districts doing to implement the Common Core?</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">What am I expected to know about the Common Core Standards for the grade level(s) and content area I teach to prepare my students for the 2014?</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">What am I expected to know as a classroom teacher?</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Just how different are the Common Core from previous state standards?</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">What kinds of professional development are available to assist with implementing the Common Core?</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I believe that is the first EdCamp at Kean’s School for Global Education & Innovation. I am looking forward to getting more insight on the Common Core.</span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Main website: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/edcampcommoncore/">https://sites.google.com/site/edcampcommoncore/</a></span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Registration: <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3741791800">http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3741791800</a></span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.padcamp.org/">Padcamp</a> will be held on Thursday, August 16 in Galloway, NJ at the Galloway Township Middle School. It is free. On their webpage they say it is a: free unconference devoted to exploring the use of tablets, e-readers and other handheld mobile devices in K-12 education. I heard a lot of good feedback from last year’s event and I’m looking forward to attending as I begin thinking more about alternatives for sharing among classrooms.</span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Main website: <a href="http://www.padcamp.org/">http://www.padcamp.org/</a></span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Registration: <a href="http://padcamp.ticketleap.com/padcamp-2012/">http://padcamp.ticketleap.com/padcamp-2012/</a></span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Archived Learning</span></span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I am looking forward to having the time to view the archived video from the <a href="http://k12onlineconference.org/">K12 Online Conference 2012</a>. Today I enjoyed the presentation by <a href="http://kimcofino.com/">Kim Cofino</a> and <a href="http://teachingsagittarian.com/">Chrissy Hellyer</a> titled <a href="http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=872">Hardware is Not Enough</a>. It's given me a lot to think about in preparing for the new school year in September. Happy learning!</span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-37520914816447344252012-06-14T21:41:00.000-04:002013-04-04T06:39:10.845-04:00Back in the Saddle Again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SW-iOFGPaDc/T9qRGd433FI/AAAAAAAAAmY/2qT6tJSOmqw/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-06-14+at+9.33.55+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SW-iOFGPaDc/T9qRGd433FI/AAAAAAAAAmY/2qT6tJSOmqw/s200/Screen+shot+2012-06-14+at+9.33.55+PM.png" width="187" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I am happy to say that I graduated from Seton Hall University last month. I received my master's degree in Educational Leadership, Management, and Policy. I will sit for the <a href="http://www.ets.org/sls">School Leadership Licensure Assessment</a> in July. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I learned so much and have been integrating what I learned over the last two years into my daily practice. My posting has been minimal over this time period, but I'm back in the saddle again.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">When I signed into Blogger, I saw two paragraphs about Symbaloo I had written back in March. I have to be honest: I want to finish the post, but had a hard time picking up where I left off. I'll do the best I can and post more over the summer.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;">Switching to Symbaloo </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I've made a switch to <a href="http://www.symbaloo.com/">Symbaloo</a> on the computer lab computers. I used to use Delicious, but I wanted a more protected method of sharing links with the students. Symbaloo is a great site for allowing non-readers to select a website, too.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I first saw Symbaloo in the fall when <a href="http://www.edutecher.net/">Adam Bellow</a> presented at <a href="http://edscapeconference.com/">Edscape</a>
in October. I liked the look of the website and the multiple tabs that
can be set up. It took a little research to learn that he was using the
paid version of the site. I was not ready to jump into paying for the
service so I decided to see what I could do with the free version.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Symbaloo Trick One</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b2QsuYEZ6Cg/T9qRUh_DVSI/AAAAAAAAAmg/FpijRatVOQU/s1600/SMS-Mix.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b2QsuYEZ6Cg/T9qRUh_DVSI/AAAAAAAAAmg/FpijRatVOQU/s400/SMS-Mix.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I set up an account and have multiple tabs. There is a tab for each grade level from PreK-3 through eighth grade. In order to have it work, I have each computer in the lab use Symbaloo as the home page and I had the computer remember the user id and password. This could be a problem if students remove or add tiles. I only had one tile added by mistake once and never had a tile deleted.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">There is another <span style="color: #cc0000;">huge</span> advantage. I start almost every class with a quick demonstration. When I start the Internet, I click on the grade's tab and show the students what I want them to do. When they go to their computer and start Firefox, it automatically takes them to the last tab I was on. No matter what grade was in the room previously the students are automatically shown the correct set of links.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Even if I did not demonstrate beforehand, it is easy enough for most grade level students to click on the proper tab. If I am with the PreK-3 or other younger students, as soon as the first child gets on and realizes they are on the wrong tab, I can click the correct tab for them and as the rest of the students start Firefox, they are automatically taken to the correct tab.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Symbaloo Trick Two</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In order to easily have the students access the bookmarks at home, I embedded each tab onto a page on Wikispaces. It may not be elegant, but it works. It also relieves me of having to post eleven different links.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">At the bottom of <a href="http://new.schoolnotes.com/xpages/view/8886">my Schoolnotes</a> page, I have a link to the Symbaloo bookmarks. It actually leads to <a href="http://saintmichaelcomputer.wikispaces.com/symbaloo3">a wiki page with my school mix</a> embedded in the wiki. Above the embedded page, I have links from PreK-3 through eighth grade. These are actually eleven separate wiki pages, but since I have identical layouts, it does not look like you're moving between pages.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;">Other Tricks</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have to think about other tips that I have picked up on over the course of the school year. I have plenty of time over summer vacation to write. It is good to be back in the saddle again.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-7281182270608885832011-11-02T19:28:00.002-04:002011-11-02T19:28:24.527-04:00Using Edmodo in Fourth Through Eighth Grade<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Last spring I tested Edmodo with the students. We have been using it in the fourth through eighth grade <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2011/09/this-year-i-am-starting-to-use-edmodo.html">since September</a>. There are so many things I like about it. Someone asked me last year why they might want to use it if they were already a Google Apps for Education school. I've been thinking about this question.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Teaching Students About Formal vs. Informal Spaces</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">There are many views on how formal a teacher chooses to keep the Edmodo space. At this point, I am insisting on proper capitalization, punctuation and avoiding texting short cuts. I've spoken with the different classes about the difference between how we choose to speak in formal situations such as in the classroom and informal situations like a backyard picnic. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I shared the fact that people look at us differently in different situations. We need to become savvy about this in online spaces, too. I do not have the students using the Edmodo page like a Facebook wall. For my purposes, it fills up the screen with too many off-task messages.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Three Types of Assignments and Why</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have had three different types of assignments, so far.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Uploaded File </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The first type is a project that has work that will be handed in and graded such as a word processing task completed in Open Office. I use Open Office to teach the students a variety of skills. Some examples include using tabs to set up a heading, checking for proper spacing between words and after punctuation, and handing in a well proofread document. I am finding great benefits to handing in the assignment through Edmodo. When I get home, I am able to download the document and save it with a different name. I use the highlighter tool to highlight mistakes of the same type in like colors. Then I use the same highlighter color and provides notes to the student on specific ways to improve.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Next, I upload my new version of the file on a comment back to the student in Edmodo assignment. I ask them to download the attached file. Read all the notes in the revised word processing document and think about one thing they can do to improve their work next time. In Edmodo, they type how they will improve next time as another comment. The next time they do a word processing assignment, I send them to their note in Edmodo to remind themselves what they planned to do to improve their skills.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Reply as a Comment</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The second type of task is a project where the students do some research and provide answers to me in comments on the assignment. I have used this method in project work when my students researched partner schools in a collaboration. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">We are working on the <a href="http://writeyourstory.wikispaces.com/STORY+39">Progressive Story wiki</a> with four other schools. As an assignment, I asked the students to look at the school web sites for our partner schools and find one thing that is the same about both of our schools, one thing that is different between our schools, and one interesting thing about the other school.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Once they find their facts, they turn in the information as a comment on the assignment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Check Point </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The third type of task is a check point in the middle of a larger project. My eighth grade students are creating a presentation in Google Docs with a partner. The process involves finding and bookmarking images, importing images into the presentation, and writing speaker notes. I've added these three check points as Edmodo assignments. When a student completes one part of the assignment, they "turn in" that assignment with a comment that they have bookmarked all images, imported and added link backs to the images, or finished their speaker notes. In a glance, I can open Edmodo and see where each student is in the process.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Wrap Up</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">There are probably more things I can share. For now, this is a good recap of some of the aspects of Edmodo that are working for me in the computer lab.</span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-68776672628451150582011-10-22T19:36:00.002-04:002011-10-22T19:36:47.642-04:00Purposeful Work in Preschool<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This year I am delighted to have the preschool three and four year old classes visiting my room. They are coming to do whole group and individual work on the computers. It's going to be an exciting new look at student learning from my perspective. I want to begin tracking our projects.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Finding Resources</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The classroom teacher and I began thinking about the types of learning that the PreK3 students are doing in class. They are working on colors and shapes. I searched using Google's Advanced Search. My search terms were <i>preschool</i> <i>shapes</i> because I wanted both the word preschool and shapes on the page I would find. Under the File Type drop down list, I selected Shockwave Flash (.swf). A few hits down the list I came across an adorable game called <a href="https://sheppardsoftware.com/preschool/ngames/shapes.swf">Purpy's Shapes</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Here is an interesting aside: When I searched using the Advanced Search option and chose the link, I only get the game filling the whole browser screen. If I go directly to the <a href="http://sheppardsoftware.com/">sheppardsoftware.com</a> web page, I still get the game, but it is surrounded by advertising. This makes the web page so much better for preschool children.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Once I knew that Sheppard Software had a great game, I went directly to their web site to investigate other flash games for preschool. I found <a href="http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/preschool/ngames/colors.swf">Bloople's Colors</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Whole Group Work - PreK3</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The classroom teacher and I introduced the activity on the interactive whiteboard. We read the words on the screen and taught the children how to use the pen to select and drag items on the screen. They enjoyed the activity. I told the students we would work on my "big computer" this week and that they would return to work on the "little computers" next week. We started with Bloople's Colors.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Individual Work - PreK3</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When the students returned, they learned how to sit on their bottoms on the chairs with wheels. I had them all raise their left hand and explained that they would need to press the left side of the mouse (the same side they had raised their hand) to make the mouse work. Most students had no problem. About a quarter of the three year old students needed extra help. To make life simple, I went to those computers and disabled the secondary mouse button. They will build those skills over the course of the year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Whole Group Work - PreK4</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The four year old students were working on patterns. Rather than using Kid Pix or Tux Paint to build patterns, I decided to use Kidspiration. The screen is much less cluttered and I felt they would be more likely to concentrate on the task rather than trying to draw.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">As a whole group, I taught the students one step at a time how to use the Kidspiration program through increasingly more difficult patterns. I have <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/kidspk4-1">the entire lesson</a> on my lesson wiki.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Individual Work - PreK4</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">We followed up the group work one week later with individual work on the lab computers. The only thing I forgot to do was switch the icons to the bottom of the page to match the set up I used on the interactive whiteboard. They adapted quickly and had so much fun with their patterns.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Next Steps</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It looks like the PreK3 and PreK4 students and teachers are enjoying their work in the computer lab. I will post more ideas as we continue through the year. I'm so excited to work with this age group!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-58032133629021106072011-10-17T04:13:00.000-04:002011-10-17T04:13:41.444-04:00Sharing Time<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yFocQeW9EbU/Tpvi1RzXSII/AAAAAAAAAjE/abD0MBk_vro/s1600/SharingTime.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="353" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yFocQeW9EbU/Tpvi1RzXSII/AAAAAAAAAjE/abD0MBk_vro/s640/SharingTime.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I am starting up a new wiki called Sharing Time. It is a based on a wiki that I have been using for the last three years called <a href="http://njtechteacher.blogspot.com/2009/09/time-zone-experiences-year-two.html">Time Zone Experiences</a>. The previous wiki was originally set up by <a href="http://www.thelisaparisi.com/">Lisa Parisi</a> and <a href="http://christinesouthard.blogspot.com/">Christine Southard</a>. I'm moving to the new wiki because I want to take the project in a different direction. I still like the original premise, but thought I'd start anew. With Lisa's blessing, I'm looking forward to seeing where the project goes from here on <a href="http://sharingtime.wikispaces.com/">Sharing Time</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Looking for Partners</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The project is intended to help students and teachers work on <a href="http://sharingtime.wikispaces.com/standards">several ISTE NETS standards</a> and learn about time zones through comparing their school day with school days of other classes and students around the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The project begins within the walls of a school. Students do some research on their own into:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">1) Why we have time zones</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">2) The name of our time for our school</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">3) Where in the world is the home of Greenwich Mean Time</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">4) How many hours ahead or behind GMT is the school</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Currently, my fifth grade students are researching on their own and sharing their answers with me through a comment to an assignment posted in Edmodo.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Next I will break the two classes of fifth grade students into podcast teams.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sharing Our Day</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The podcast teams are going to write scripts about something that goes on during a time period of the school day. We will write about subject and specials classes and post the podcasts to the wiki.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My hope is to have several other classes in different time zones join with their own creative work to explain their time zones. It will be up to each individual school to decide how they would like to share their day. Some might choose to use Voki, others might use Voicethread, still others may choose a different tool such as drawings.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Once the sharing begins to happen, the teachers leading the projects can choose to set up a Skype session, Edmodo group, or other means to get the students sharing and asking questions about that part of the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Would You Like to Try This Project?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions. I will be working on this project throughout the year until May 2012. If international partners outside the United States join us the project can continue until September 2012 when I will begin the project anew for our school year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Sign up via the form on my wiki by either <a href="http://sharingtime.wikispaces.com/JoinUs">following this link</a> or clicking the Join Us link on the left side of the wiki. I look forward to Sharing Time with you and your students.</span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8315331548415132004.post-75587519850050544782011-09-13T20:35:00.002-04:002011-09-13T20:39:46.894-04:00Edmodo and the New School Year<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tX8c0T721yo/Tm_2113Y4gI/AAAAAAAAAjA/BxVKj-vbVb8/s1600/MrsOroAvatar.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tX8c0T721yo/Tm_2113Y4gI/AAAAAAAAAjA/BxVKj-vbVb8/s1600/MrsOroAvatar.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This year I am starting to use <a href="http://www.edmodo.com/">Edmodo</a> for grades four through eight. I used it for the first technology class of the year. I wanted to share some insights and ideas to keep in mind for next year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our Own Domain</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I attended about five hours of the <a href="http://blog.edmodo.com/2011/07/01/edmodocon2011-call-for-presentations-now-open/">2011 EdmodoCon online conference</a>. It was a great way to learn more about how other educators are using the program. One feature is the ability to reserve a domain name for your school. It allows the administrator(s) to get analytic information about the use of Edmodo and communicate across the teachers and students at the school or district level.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The students are learning to type ourschoolname.edmodo.com to go to the web site. I am enjoying the comments students are leaving in the evening in response to feedback I have given them about the first project.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Basics of Edmodo</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Many of the fifth, seventh, and eighth grade students tested Edmodo with me last May. We did not really scratch the surface of the program and there are new features that were released. My first assignment was similar across all grade levels. The students:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">* Answered a poll question - unique to each grade depending on the feedback I was interested in receiving</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">* Shared their favorite mode of learning and a future career goal which is an option on their profile</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">* Searched the calendar to find the date that the first trimester ends</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">* Sent me a direct message with the date</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">* Clicked the "Turn In" link and sent me an "all finished" message</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It's great to be able to send the students quick feedback on their work.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Submitting an Assignment File</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My next task is to teach the students how to submit their work files through Edmodo. I wanted a simple task for fourth and fifth grade. I realized that their profile could use an avatar. I decided to see if I could give them a template through Kid Pix. It is a program they easily use.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uEGerUjKjQg/Tm_1fkbKa0I/AAAAAAAAAi4/85NfREKvBgE/s1600/KidPixAvatar.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uEGerUjKjQg/Tm_1fkbKa0I/AAAAAAAAAi4/85NfREKvBgE/s1600/KidPixAvatar.png" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I created a square that is outlined in black and filled with yellow. I put the <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/edmodo-1">Kid Pix file in my resource wiki</a> in case someone else finds it useful. It needs to be downloaded and placed in the Shared - Idea Machine folder. I created a Grade4-5 sub folder to store the Avatar.kpx file.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">To use the file in Kid Pix Deluxe 4 for Schools, the students click on the Idea Machine. Next, they double click the Grade4-5 folder, then double click the Avatar.kpx file. </span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pyxudOc8cds/Tm_1nsTmM5I/AAAAAAAAAi8/RFUjfViAEaY/s1600/TuxAvatar.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pyxudOc8cds/Tm_1nsTmM5I/AAAAAAAAAi8/RFUjfViAEaY/s1600/TuxAvatar.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I know many teachers use Tux Paint, too. I created a <a href="http://smsteacher.wikispaces.com/edmodo-2">Tux Paint file and put it on my resource wiki</a>. This file is a black outline with a transparent center since that is what is required by Tux Paint to allow a student to have their work to display on top of the template. If the template is white, the drawings and stamps hide under the template. On an OS X iMac, this is not a simple task. You have to know the following trick. Go to the Tux Paint application icon and right click (control click). Choose Show Package Contents from the menu. Open the Contents folder, navigate to the Resources folder, then the starters folder. This is where templates are placed; in this case, the Avatar.png file.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Students would click the New icon then scroll down the list until they see the black outline of a square.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The students enjoyed designing an avatar. We did not finish the task today. During our next class, the students will flatten any stickers and words, save the file, then submit the file to Edmodo.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">There will be a follow-up assignment to save the image as a JPEG file. They will learn to use the settings link in Edmodo and browse for the image. In Kid Pix, I will place a shortcut to the Shared Users folder on the desktop for ease of locating the file. Kid Pix really buries the folder on the hard drive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I'm looking forward to seeing all the colorful avatars in Edmodo next week.</span>Ann Orohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137060994986827867noreply@blogger.com0