Learning 2.0

Holiday Gift Guide from Common Sense Media

john@maklary.com — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:12:48 -0800

holiday_gift_guide_111511_02.pdf Download this file

Introducing Our 2011 Holiday Gift Guide

'Tis the season for wish lists galore! But how do you know what's best for each of the kids, tweens, and teens on your list?

We've made it easy with more than 70 of our editors' favorite picks in movies, games, TV shows, books, music, website memberships, and apps to go with their new tech toys.

Browse our recommendations online, or www.ec.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/recolists/holiday_gift_guide_..." target="_blank">download the full version of our 2011 Gift Guide to share with family and friends.

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The Greatest Teacher!

john@maklary.com — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 08:20:26 -0700

I just love that Maria!

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Great music at Metz House!

john@maklary.com — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 17:26:18 -0700

p101.mov Watch on Posterous

Greg would've been proud. After wedding party for Claire and Wade.

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Important Update From Edline

john@maklary.com — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 07:56:29 -0700

This is interesting news if you are an Edline customer. http://app.email.blackboard.com/e/es.aspx?s=2376&e=18195&elq=798f1a0db5ed4f5c...

Sent from my iPhone

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Minecraft as a Virtual Reality Tool

john@maklary.com — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:26:00 -0700

I teach an 8th grade Digital Media class at my school. I don't have a real syllabus or structure to the class. It is a pure elective and I am given great latitude to rely on my discretion as to what happens in class. The ONLY goal for the class is to allow students (10 of them this year) to explore ways to promote their school, community, faith, church, family, etc using digital tools that are available to them. So the tone of the class depends much on the composition of the students enrolled.

Currently, there are three projects going on:

Class blog to chronicle and document everything that happens in class (we use Posterous as our tool). It's private right now as they get more accustomed to posting.
School calendar - fund raising project to create a slick, glossy calendar that can be sold to school families.
Minecraft - a virtual world builder that is being used to create the school grounds property. One student, again an eighth grader, set up a Minecraft server in our computer lab and at any given time, there are up to 5 or 6 students working on sections of the school. They all paid for premium accounts and it is incredible to see them organize themselves and work together for a common goal.

Future projects may include:

Google Sketchup 3D rendering of our school grounds
8th grade tribute video
Programming using Scratch, Alice, or GameMaker - to help PreK and K students with basic skills

It's going to be a great year!

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Tip 101 - A Google A Day

john@maklary.com — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:24:00 -0700

via tammyworcester.com

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Tip 97 - Google Search by Reading Level

john@maklary.com — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:20:00 -0700

This week’s tip shows a new feature within the Google search engine - the ability to filter results by reading level!

It is very simple to do. Just follow these instructions:

1.Go to: www.google.com

2.Click the “Advanced Search” link at the right of the search window.

3.Enter the desired keyword(s).

4.Use the “Reading Level” pull-down menu to choose the desired reading level:
Basic (easy reading)
Intermediate
Advanced (more difficult reading levels)

5.Click the Advanced Search button at the bottom right.

6.The results page will show only pages with the desired reading level!

7.Click the links beside the bar graph at the top of the results page to switch to a different reading level. (See screen shot above.)

via tammyworcester.com

Thank you Tammy Worcester for this awesome tip!

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Bookmarklets Galore!

john@maklary.com — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 08:31:00 -0700

I like to consume information. I like to organize and categorize information. I like to share information. I like repositories of information. I like to do all this on a variety of platforms -- Windows, OS X, iOS, Chrome OS -- at anytime that suits me. I have different services I'm connected to -- Twitter, Google Buzz, several Posterous blogs, Google Reader, and Google Bookmarks/Lists.

So, at any given time, on any given device, I'll run into something that I need to read, digest, share, tag, and/or organize. Should I tweet this or bookmark this, or blog about it? The choices are numerous and sometimes it is difficult (at least for me) to decide what to do with all this information. But even more important to me is how can I quickly access the tools I need to do all this?

How many of you at ISTE right now are in this quandary...trying to do something with what you are consuming in an efficient and organized way?

It seems that most of the time I am consuming something, I'm on my iPhone or an iPad. There are a lot of JavaScript-based bookmarklets that are available to post to many different sites. I have them all stored in my synced Chrome bookmarks that follows me wherever I go and where I can use either the Chrome browser or Chrome OS.

Unfortunately, Safari on iOS doesn't seem to play nice with Chrome bookmarks. That is unless you use ChromeSync, an iOS app that syncs your Chrome bookmarks to an app on your iOS device. That actually was a cool app until I was warned that my Gmail had been accessed via the Ukraine. With this app, you have to directly enter your Gmail username and password. I'm nervous about that and I hope the developer eventually sets this up to access your Google account in a more secure way. But I'm getting off the point of this post.

I need to be able to post to different sites easily from my iOS device but manually managing javascript-based bookmarklets was a real pain to setup on each device I had.

Enter Bookmarklet Combiner

Through my Twitter feed (someone from EBC on Saturday), I found Bookmarklet Combiner, a neat site that allows you to bundle all your bookmarklets into one easy-to-access bookmarklet.

With this site, I created the following:

This list includes all the places I need to post to. You too can access mine as a starting place and then tweak/customize to your own personal needs. Note the Post It! link at the bottom. THAT is the link you would drag to your toolbar to access the list of bookmarklets. Once you do that, go to a site you need to do something with, click on the Post It! link you added, and this is what you will see:

OK, so that is all fine and good for sure. But, what about accessing this on your iOS device? The basic steps are:

On your computer, place the Post It! link where you can access and edit the link properties.
Get to the link properties and copy the huge chunk of JavaScript.
Paste it somewhere that can be accessible from your iOS device. I just email it to myself.
Copy the javascript you sent over to your iOS device from your computer.
In Safari on your iOS device, create a bookmark to a site -- any site will do just fine.
In Safari on your iOS device, edit the bookmark you just created above and paste the javascript into the URL field and then rename the bookmark itself to whatever you wish to call it.
Once that's done, each time you want to share a link, tap your bookmarks icon in Safari, select the new bookmark you created and share away!
There is an excellent step-by-step process you can and should look at if you need more detailed help.

And it will look like this:

Now that I have this, I can easily share anything I run across to all the pertinent places. I hope this helps!

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Article: Opinion: Why Facebook Isn't a Place for Kids

john@maklary.com — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 08:48:58 -0700

Opinion: Why Facebook Isn't a Place for Kids
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/We_Find_Them/facebook-place-kids/story?id=13846706

(Sent from Flipboard)

Sent from my iPad

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Test boo

john@maklary.com — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:56:03 -0700

Test boo (mp3)

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FREE SMART Summer Conference and SMART Board Resources for Planning Next Year

john@maklary.com — Tue, 31 May 2011 07:07:41 -0700

Hi Everybody,

I have listed some great resources below to help you if you intend on doing any SMART board planning over the summer. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

FREE SMART Conference

Houston Regional SMART User Conference — August 3, 2011

Where: Katy ISD, Morton Ranch High School (Map)

When: August 3, 2011 8:30 am – 3:00 pm (Check-in starts at 8:00 am)

Hosted by: SMART Technologies and Data Projections, Inc.

Cost: Free

Light breakfast and lunch provided

There are a limited number of spots available so register EARLY if you wish to attend.

*** Important Note: SLCS is offering GT training on this day so make sure you are NOT attending GT training before you register.

SMART Exchange

(from SMART Learning Summer 2011 Newsletter)

The SMART Exchange (http://exchange.smarttech.com) enables teachers to quickly find relevant resources, share lesson material and exchange tips and success stories about using SMART products in the classroom. When using the SMART Exchange, teachers can be confident that the content is relevant to the topics they are teaching and based on sound pedagogical principles, whether they need images, videos, SMART Notebook files or lesson activities correlated to curriculum standards.

The SMART Exchange also connects users with a variety of SMART experts including product managers, content specialists and technical support staff.

Content quality on the SMART Exchange

SMART takes a very active role in ensuring that all lessons are safe for classroom consumption. This means reviewing all lessons to ensure that they are classroom quality, and conducting the following assessments:

· Reading words and viewing images on every lesson page

· Opening all links to external web pages

· Listening to attached audio files

· Watching every video

The emphasis here is to make sure that teachers won't be surprised if they open a file in front of their students for the first time. SMART allows teachers to make their own judgments about instructional quality of the lessons, but our prerogative is to make sure that lessons are safe for classroom consumption.

Finding quality content

SMART does realize that the quality of content found on the Exchange can be very subjective. There are ways however to find materials that are deemed by other users to be effective or valuable. Tips for assessing the quality of files you find include:

· Always using a keyword when searching for a lesson. Keyword example might be "fraction" or "climate"

· Using the first lessons that appear in search results. Search results are based on “best match”, which is a combination of search terms, number of downloads, and number of recommendations.

· Filtering search results by “most downloaded” and “most recommended”. A good rule is that the more effective a lesson is, the more downloads it will have received.

· Using “Accredited Content” wherever possible. SMART Exchange hosts professionally created content from a variety of publishers including:

o Classroom Complete Press

o Intel Skool

o Scholastic

o Discovery Education

Extended SMART Community

(from SMART Learning Summer 2011 Newsletter)

Beyond the SMART Exchange, educators are constantly talking about SMART online. You can find hundreds of blogs, web pages and spontaneous conversations begun by teachers eager to talk about how they use SMART products to make lessons more compelling. A simple Google search for

“SMART Notebook” brings up thousands of results, and there are many sites dedicated to the use of SMART products in classrooms. A small selection of these sites include:

· SMART Board wikis -- http://smartboardresources.pbworks.com/

· Teachers Love SMART Boards -- http://www.teacherslovesmartboards.com/

· SMART Board revolution -- http://smartboardrevolution.ning.com/

· SMART Board Goodies -- http://www.smartboardgoodies.com/

· Harvey’s homepage -- http://www.harveyshomepage.com/

· SMART Board lessons podcasts -- http://pdtogo.com/smart/

· Center School District SMART Board resources -- http://www1.center.k12.mo.us/edtech/SB/SB.html

· SMART Board in the classroom -- http://www.eduscapes.com/sessions/smartboard/

· Mr Vizza’s Webpage -- http://www.mathvizza.com/

· Aegom Interactive -- http://aegom.com/

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Trombone Shorty on ACL AMAZING!!!

john@maklary.com — Fri, 20 May 2011 19:27:14 -0700

Check out this video on YouTube:

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Job Posting: Technology Administrator

john@maklary.com — Tue, 17 May 2011 11:22:28 -0700

St. Laurence Catholic Parish in Sugar Land, TX is accepting applicants for the position of Technology Administrator. St. Laurence Catholic Parish consists of parish offices, weekday children’s program, religious education center, and over 60 parish ministries which includes a PK-8 Catholic school. St. Laurence Catholic Parish is located at the corner of Austin Parkway and Sweetwater Blvd. in Sugar Land and is the church home of over 6,000 families.

For a complete job description, please visit http://tinyurl.com/slcctechjob

Please email letter of intent, resume, and references to jmaklary@stlaurence.org by June 10, 2011.

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Music to Share

john@maklary.com — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 18:57:44 -0700

One of the things I love to do is to just sit around and play with GarageBand. I have a few extra toys that I use to enhance the experience and have more fun:

M-Audio Fast Track - to get different audio resources such as guitars and microphones into GarageBand
M-Audio USB keyboard controller
My trusty Fender Stratocaster (American made thank you very much)
Shure SM-58 microphone
GarageBand loops - I have all the add-on track packs

With all this, I created some songs, tunes, ideas, interludes, whatever you want to call them and I decided to share them out for anyone to use for podcasts or other digital projects. Some of the songs are just a bunch of GarageBand loops crammed together and others are more involved with guitars and MIDI-controlled instruments (mainly keyboards and bass lines). All the songs are licensed with a Creative Commons license (non-commercial, share-alike, attribution) and can be sliced, diced, sauteed, or deep fried to your hearts content. Just shoot me a line or leave a comment if you like them and want to use them. I'd be thrilled for that to happen.

OK, so here they are. Enjoy!

http://db.tt/mK1XKxF

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The Eagle has Landed!!

john@maklary.com — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 09:17:11 -0700

Hi folks,

The Eagles are back!! Right now, you can visit

http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles

to watch a bald eagle tend her nest in Iowa. I don’t know the egg laying/hatching cycle of bald eagles but what a great resource if you do or want to show your classes.

You can also visit http://www.raptorresource.org/ for more resources and information. Pretty cool!

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Suggestions for protecting your Home PC & eMail Account Privacy

john@maklary.com — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 11:59:45 -0800

I was sent this by a family member yesterday. I know we all know to keep ourselves protected but this blurb is a great reminder of specific things you can do to protect your computer at home. Feel free to pass this on to anyone that might need it.

Protect your PC and your Privacy

1st Suggestion: Always have an Anti-Virus software running and keep it updated

If you own virus detection software (Norton, McAfee, etc.) make sure that you are subscribed to receive regular signature updates. Virus detection is useless if it is outdated - new viruses are created every day and the signatures are the only way that the Anti-Virus software can detect/cure them.

The listed websites offer free virus protection for your home PCs.

Please read the full documentation on the sites prior to downloading/using the software offered:

http://www.freeav.com/

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

http://www.f-prot.com/

http://www.microsoft.com/securityessentials

Again, whatever method used for Anti-Virus - Keep it Updated!

2nd Suggestion: Cleaners / Scanners

In conjunction with Anti-Virus software, it is recommended to use software that remove temporary files and junk from your system and also additional scanners for Malware. A couple favorites are:

http://www.ccleaner.com

http://www.malwarebytes.org

3rd Suggestion: Personal Firewalls

Personal Firewalls protect your PC from external intruders. More and more, people are trying to gain access to people personal information (Credit Card Numbers, Checking Accounts, etc) by accessing their computers over the Internet. If you can access the Internet - then there is a good chance someone on the Internet can access your PC. Firewalls block access into your PC from external sources. There are many types of Firewalls, some are just software others are complex pieces of equipment. It is recommended that you check with your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to see if they offer a free or inexpensive service or if they would recommend a service that would be best for your situation.

4th Suggestion: Keep your Windows Updated

Microsoft offers FREE regular updates to the Windows Operating System (Microsoft and free in the same sentence - WOW!). You can access the Windows Update either by pressing the start button on your desktop and choosing 'Windows Update' or going to www.microsoft.com and following the instructions. There is even an option to set this up automatically. Keeping your Windows updated protects your PC from some of the Worms that take advantage of 'holes' in the Windows Operating System Security and can cause problems with your PC.

5th Suggestion: Backup your PC

Many people do not backup their home PCs - only when it crashes or becomes corrupted due to a virus do they realize how important their data was (WAS being the key word). Many PCs today come with writable CDs & DVDs - this is a great way to backup personal files, email databases and contacts, digital photos, etc. Another great option is the use of an External Hard Drive. External Hard Drives are relatively inexpensive now and usually include free backup software. There are online services such as:

http://www.carbonite.com

http://www.ibackup.com

http://www.symantec.com

There are other options like tape drives, external writable CDs & DVDs - find one that works for your situation and use it.

Remember: If you want to keep it, back it up!

6th Suggestion: Online eMail Protection

Accounts on major servers, such as Yahoo, Hotmail & Gmail etc are susceptible to being hacked just due to the nature of their popularity. Suggestions to prevent being hacked:

Choose a password that is very strong in intensity, that is, use the combination of numbers letters and special characters.
Do not SAVE login information such as username or password - always enter your info even on private computers.
It is a good idea to change your passwords periodically to make it harder for password hackers.
To prevent hacking of important accounts don't use the same login information (esp. password) on shoddy and trivial web sites.
Take care of your login details and keep them away from prying eyes.

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Virtual Globe from HMNS in Sugar Land, TX

john@maklary.com — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 18:02:00 -0800

During a visit last year to the Sugar Land branch of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, we encountered the Big Globe. This orb had several projectors pointing on it to create the animations. The ability to quickly overlay different data sets allowed for some really visual analysis of climate and geothermal events.

HMNS_Virtual_Globe.mov Watch on Posterous

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Updated Unifix Cube Gallery

john@maklary.com — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:34:53 -0800

This just came in from Sandy Hill, our SMART ed consultant. Thanks Sandy!

A new gallery item was created for SMART Notebook that I wanted to share. This item was not created by SMART but is an awesome resource. If you double click on this gallery item it will automatically open SMART Notebook and the item will be in the My Content folder.

Enjoy and share with all your SMART friends who teach math and would appreciate the visual of unifix cubes.

Sandy

SMART Technologies

Sandy Hill
Education Consultant- North America

Phone: 832.330.5656
sandyhill@smarttech.com

http://www.smarttech.com

Ask me about becoming a SMART Certified Education Consultant

Unifix Cubes for Math.gallery Download this file

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Scholastic Teacher Express - Dollar Deals

john@maklary.com — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 06:45:00 -0800

via teacherexpress.scholastic.com

This looks like a great deal to obtain some very inexpensive books for your classroom. Got a buck, get a book!

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Spelling & Vocabulary Website: SpellingCity

john@maklary.com — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:58:00 -0800

via spellingcity.com

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