Tech Tips & Resources

One of the biggest problems folks encounter is trying to print pages from the internet. Web pages contain a lot of graphics, animations, ads, and other stuff that clutters up the print process, uses lots of ink, and sometimes slows the printing down to a crawl.

But now there is a better way! PrintWhatYouLike.com is a web site that allows you to customize any web page for printing. Just visit the website, enter the URL of the page you want to print, and you’ll get a copy of that page with options for including or deleting sections of the page. That way you can get rid of the ads, the extra text, anything you don’t really need…and print just what you want.

Give it a try!

You have a folder named MY STUFF on your computer. Inside MY STUFF is a bunch of other folders and documents. You want to print a list of all those things inside MY STUFF. But how? When you open a folder on your computer and pull down the File menu, PRINT is not an option.

The quick and easy solution.

Step One - Open Firefox. If it opens a blank window, you are ready for Step Two. If it opens some web page by default, go up to the File menu and choose New Window.

Step Two - drag your folder (MY STUFF) into the middle of the blank Firefox window and release the mouse.

Step Three - print! Cause you are now looking at a list of all the things inside MY STUFF.

Doesn’t get much easier than that!

This won’t relate much to what we do in our school, but the concept is just too awesome not to talk about! Two teachers at Woodland Park High School in Colorado have developed a teaching strategy using video podcasting that has completely changed how they educate their students.

Essentially, they’ve reversed the process. No more lectures in the classroom. And no written assignments at home. Now the teachers record their lectures in advance - both audio and any relevant video of the board, overheads, etc - and post those to the web. Students are given the assignment to watch the lecture as homework. Lectures can be viewed online, on their iPods, or on their cell phones. For any student who does not have easy access to those technologies, all lectures are also burned to DVD’s. That has met the needs of all students in the classes. And now all the kids come to class with a good overview of the subject and class time is spent in discussion, projects, group work, and all the other active learning. But now, with all that being done in class rather than at home, every student has the benefit of working with the other students and the teacher.

Results? Student scores have skyrocketed in those classes. The teachers enjoy having more time to actually work with the students. The students benefit from having the attention of the teacher while they work. And the students enjoy this creative use of technology.

This is a really creative way to utilize technology in education.

We all love iTunes for music, audiobooks, etc. But you may not have taken the time to explore all the free educational materials available on iTunes. And they have a lot! And it is growing. And the newest section features materials for all grades between kindergarten and 12th grade.

To locate the educational materials, look for the link to iTunes U on the main page of iTunes. It can usually be found in the upper-left box labeled iTunes Store. Once you arrive in iTunes U, you’ll be amazed at the quality and diversity of lectures, seminars, workshops and more that are there for you to enjoy.

But our real goal is hunting down the K-12 materials. So look for the little box of links in the iTunes U section called FIND EDUCATION PROVIDERS. And there you will find the K-12 link.

The states of Arizona, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Utah have all added some of their K-12 material to the mix, and a number of school districts and museums from those states have also contributed videos and audio recordings. Some states have contributed more than others at this point, but most have an impressive collection of materials there for you to use.

The content is being uploaded by the State Educational Technology Directors Association, which has been working with educators in member states to make more use of educational technology.

In addition, Penn State is leading the way in gathering and sharing additional K-12 materials from their collection on iTunes. Head over to the Penn State page on iTunes and look for the K-12 button. Right now they only have high school level materials, but K-8 materials are planned for this fall.

iTunes has become a wonderful resource for educational materials, professional development materials, and just great stuff for your own personal learning and enjoyment.

iTunes…it’s not just for music any more!

Today I’m just linking you right to a post by Angela Maiers. She is a terrific educational consultant and has put together a fantastic list of places on the internet where you can get free, unabridged books. Some you can read online. Some you can download right to your computer. All are a terrific resource for teachers!

The link to her post is here.

I’m often asked by folks how they can get a graphic of something on their screen. In fact, there are many ways to do this. Some involve free software. Some involve commercial software. But the easiest way is built right into your Mac.

At any time, when you see something on your screen that you want to save as a photo, just hold down the Apple and Shift key…and while holding them, hit the 4. Your cursor will turn into a set of crosshairs. Now all you have to do is move that to one corner of what you want to capture, click and hold your mouse button while you scroll to the opposite corner of what you want, and release the mouse. Your computer will take a photo of what you highlighted and will save it to your desktop. Then you can open and edit that just as you would any photo.

In fact, here is a screenshot of this screen…just as I was typing this post…

It is just that easy to capture and save what you see on your screen.

If you want more options, the capability of making a movie of a series of screen images, etc…check with me. There are some great software options out there for you.

We don’t use either of these in our school so I don’t do a lot of posts about them. But I know some of you are lucky enough to have one of your own, so I don’t want to ignore them completely. And this is one time it might be good to prompt you on something.

Apple just released an Update for the iPhone that includes at least eight security fixes. This update will not show up in your computer’s Software Updates nor on Apple’s Downloads site. It is only available through iTunes.

Also, iTunes is currently hosting the 2.1 Software Update for the iPod Touch.

So make a visit to iTunes and download the needed software if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch.

UPDATE: Apple has added the iPhone software update to their website.

It is almost time for this year’s K12 Online Conference! This is the third year where educators and technology enthusiasts have gone online to provide a free conference for anyone who wants to participate. Each keynote and breakout session is posted on their website. All you have to do is go read, listen, view, download. Some sessions are text, some are podcasts, some are videos. Some have elements of all three! And the presenters are some of the best in the field! Approximately 20 sessions and presentations are posted online each week.

If you’ve not checked out the K12 Online Conference, you can see/hear presentations from the past two years at the website. Go visit today!

The Library of Congress announced this summer that they would be releasing close to 3000 photographs from their collection via a Flickr page. The LOC has more than 14 million photos in their collection, so this is just the tip of the iceberg. But these are photos with no known copyright restriction so they are available to the public for downloading and using.

Thus far, more than 4,200 photos have been added to the page, so obviously their initial announcement was just an estimate.

Each photo is tagged with known information about where it was originally published, the format of the photo, and any notes about the photo.

This page is a wonderful public resource being provided by the LOC.

How many of you have a password that is easy to remember but hard for others to guess? Not many. In fact, most of us rely on very traditional password creations and then we never change them. So let’s talk for a few minutes about passwords.

First of all, you aren’t alone in having an easy password and/or not treating the security of your computer more seriously. In one recent survey, 71% of people stopped on the street were willing to give up a password to one of their online accounts in exchange for a candy bar! In follow-up discussions, 40% said they knew at least some of the passwords that their colleagues used and 55% said they would have no problem giving their passwords to their boss.

Wow. A lot of folks who aren’t taking this seriously at all!

Now what do most people choose for their passwords? Pet names. Street names where they live. Their birthday. Their mother’s maiden name. All things that seem secure…but would not be for someone activily trying to hack into your accounts.

And to make it even easier for the hackers in the world, two-thirds of people surveyed use the same password for their work and their personal usage…so discovering one password would let someone into your work computer and your online banking!

So what should you use for a password? And how worried should you be about someone trying to get into your accounts?

Well, my gut reaction is, most hackers aren’t interested in us. They want a bigger bang for their buck. On the other hand, “brute force” hackers have software programs that work for them and they will be happy with any account they can access. So there is always some risk. And as more and more of us pay our bills online, manage our checking accounts online, purchase and sell stock online, buy things online, and conduct more and more personal and professional business online, security becomes more important.

So how do you make a good password? Well, even the experts disagree. But often the disagreement comes from trying to make a password that is impervious (at least as much as possible) to an intentional attempt by a skilled hacker. But we’ll assume no hacker is going to specifically target you. You just need good, generic security.

With that in mind, start with a password that is at least 6 letters long. The longer, the better. But it also becomes more difficult to remember as the string of numbers and letters grows longer.

Next, avoid your kids’ names, your dog’s name, the street you grew up on, etc. In fact, many experts say don’t even use a real word in your password. But we aren’t going to that extreme. So one simple tip is to think of a two word phrase that has some meaning to you. For the purposes of this example, I’ll pick “tech dude”. Now, reverse the letters. That gives me “hcet edud”. Throw in a random uppercase letter and at least one non-letter symbol. That gives me “hceT edud#3″. I can remember that. And no one else is going to guess it.

Now that I’ve got a good password…what next? Well, every expert says one password is not enough. I should not use that as my AOL password, my banking password, the log-in to my Flickr page, etc. Different passwords for different functions. But you can make them related so they are easier to remember. Just not too related. Or find a couple of different patterns. In my real life (not the “tech dude” example), I have three sets of passwords. Each set does different things. And I really only have to remember three passwords as the ones within the set are very similar.

Next? DO NOT WRITE YOUR PASSWORD DOWN AND LEAVE IT NEAR YOUR COMPUTER!!! Fifty-one percent of people interviewed said the kept their passwords on a piece of paper on their desk or typed in a document on their computer. And the name of that document? In almost every case, it was “My Passwords”. Now just how hard is it to figure that one out! So keep your passwords in your head! And if you must have a master list somewhere, keep the list far away from the computer so that only you would make the connection between the words on the paper and the keyboard.

Finally, you should change your passwords on a regular basis. Again, how regular is up for interpretation. And I’m a bad role model for this one. I rarely change mine because I’m lazy. But that is the safest thing to do.

And if you decide to live the life of a hacker, trust me, most passwords really are as easy as possible. In fact, until just a couple of years ago, the most used password for all purposes was…”password”. Now, since many PDA’s and most routers and modems that folks use to install the wireless networks in their homes come with the same default password, the current most popular password for most people…”admin”.

But don’t say I told you to try it!

PS - “tech dude” and all possible variations of “tech dude” are NOT my password. Really.