SMSBGS Digital Learning Newsletter June 2012 by Chris Wyatt

This edition of the Digital Learning Newsletter highlights another comprehensive list of resources available for learning with technology. Thank you to all of those who contacted us with feedback about the previous issue. We would love to respond to the needs of staff, so feel free to email us with ideas for future issues. - Digital Learning Committee

Contents: St Margaret’s Senior School Newsletter Page 2 – Links and Shortcuts -

Website of the Issue: Titan Pad

Page 3 – Tutorial: How to use Linked Notes in OneNote 2010. Berwick Grammar School Newsletter Page 4 – Links and Shortcuts -

Web of the Issue: YouTube

Page 5 – Tutorial: How to use Firefox and Video Download Helper to download video from websites. Junior School Newsletter Page 6 – Links and Shortcuts -

Web of the Issue: Armored Penguin

Page 7 – Tutorial: How to access ClickView files for your lessons.

Interesting Blog Post:

On the Video Feed:

Social Bookmarking:

June 2012 Issue 2 Website of the Issue Title- Titan Pad Link:

http://titanpad.com/

Titan Pad has been selected as this issue’s top website. It is a great free online collaborative tool which allows multiple users to edit a text document. This may be handy for use in collaborative essay/story writing or planning for a major project. The final product can be copied into a word doc. You can also view the experience using the timeline to see who has edited the page and where the major developments took place.

More Useful Links:

Shortcuts/Tips:

Poll Everywhere

Control+D

Location: http://www.polleverywhere.com/ This site is a fantastic free polling tool. In the free version you can have up to 40 participants and they are able to submit to the poll using either the internet on any device or a text message from their mobile phones. The poll provides instant graphed feedback and can be embedded in a PowerPoint.

In most web browsers this will save a page as a bookmark. You can then organize it into the preferred folders.

Science Fix Location: http://www.sciencefix.com / A creative commons middle school science site from a science teacher in the US. Most of it is the YouTube clips of his experiments, but they could be handy in sharing the experiments or getting ideas for how to run them.

Space or Shift+Space You can tap the Space bar to scroll down on a Web page one complete screen height. Add the Shift key to scroll back up.

Tube Chop Location: http://www.tubechop.com/ A clever tool which allows you to chop You Tube clips to display only the important content that you want the students to see. You can then save time figuring out where to start stop during the lesson.

Dabble Board Location: http://dabbleboard.com/draw Another collaboration site for students to work on a shared document. This one, however, supports illustration, shape, image and text. This could be a fantastic planning tool for visualising their thinking. The final product can be printed, saved or downloaded to their computers as an image file. I recommend setting up the lesson with discussion about shared workspaces (not editing other’s work, designating individual segments, etc.)

PD News: Please let us know if you would like the DLC to help investigate where technology can be embedded into your lessons or units. We can work with you one-on-one or you can submit a planner for discussion at our next meeting.

©2012 Digital Learning Committee (Chris Wyatt Head of Digital Learning) Please let us know if there are any tutorials you would like us to add to the next issue or PD/Workshop ideas for us to share next time. wyattc@stmargarets.vic.edu.au

This is a guide to using the linked notes function in OneNote 2010 to help organize your research. This is particularly useful for helping students to stay organized and keep track of numerous references for a research task. Please note this only works with OneNote 2010 and Internet Explorer.

Step 1: Open the website you wish to take notes from.

Step 2: Click on the OneNote Linked Notes Icon either in the command bar or Tools menu. Step 3: Select where you would like to complete your notes. This will require you to nominate a OneNote 2010 section. Students can set up a designated section or use one already there. Then press ‘ok’.

Step 4: The linked note will then be created as a little icon next to the paragraph showing the precise website and section of the page that was visible when typing the notes.

Cool Fact: You can even change the webpage and take notes on another source and it will update the view.

Step 5: To end the linked notes session click on the link in the top left corner of the notes panel and select ‘Stop Taking Linked Notes’.

Please feel free to contact us at any stage if you have any queries, concerns or suggestions. We’d love to hear from you!

June 2012 Issue 2

Website of the Month Title- YouTube

Link: http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, view and share videos. It now operates as a subsidiary of Google and uses Adobe Flash Video and HTML5 technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content. Although much of the content is deemed inappropriate for school, which is why the site is currently blocked for our students, YouTube can be a great teaching and learning resource. Register to upload videos and to easily bookmark videos to watch online later. Ever wonder how to do something around the house, how to take that perfect photograph, how to solve complex mathematics equations or how to remember how to spell “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”? The chances are someone has created an entertaining video to help!

If you would like to have a particular video added to click view to enable students and staff to access it then email the URL (web link) to Karen Fitzharris to have it added to the click view playlist.

More Useful Links:

Shortcuts/Tips:

Smart Copying – Use of YouTube in Schools

Alt + Tab

Location: http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/scw/go/pid/856 This is the official guide to copyright issues for schools. Follow this link to learn about how you can legally use YouTube within your classes.

Use this key combination to quickly change between open programs and files.

Teacher Tube Location: http://www.teachertube.com/

Ctrl + P

Teachertube is a video sharing website similar to, and based on, YouTube. It is designed to allow those in the educational industry, particularly teachers, to share educational resources such as video, audio, documents, photos, groups and blogs. The site contains a mixture of classroom teaching resources and others designed to aid teacher training. Registering for free enables you to download videos.

This key combination opens the print dialog box in most computer programs. Change the print settings, click “print” and you’re away!

TED Location: http://www.ted.com/ TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment and Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The site contains videos of some intriguing and thoughtprovoking presentations. Various download options are available without registering.

PD News: Andrew and Scott will continue to conduct PD sessions in groups as well as on an individual basis over the duration of this term. These PDs are in response to the digital learning survey completed earlier in the year. Please check your email regularly to see what PD is on offer.

©2012 BGS Digital Learning Assistant Heads of Department (Andrew Lardner and Scott Chittenden) Please let us know if there are any tutorials you would like us to add to the next newsletter or you have any PD/Workshop ideas for us to conduct. lardnera@berwickgrammar.vic.edu.au ; chittendens@berwickgrammar.vic.edu.au

This is a guide to using Firefox’s Download Helper add-on to download and convert video files from the internet. Please note that although the guide below uses the example of YouTube as the host site, downloading videos is a violation of their terms and conditions. The Digital Learning Committee does not advocate this and suggests viewing the videos online within your classes or alternatively embedding them (for more on copyright issues click here). There are many ways to download videos with some sites allowing this to take place more easily through the provision of a “download” button. Two alternative methods are being outlined below:

METHOD 1: Firefox with Download Helper add-on Step 1: Ask Rich, Sodi, Scott, Andrew or Chris to install Firefox with the Download Helper add-on. Or attempt this yourself using the video clip found here. Step 2: Navigate to your preferred video sharing site and locate the video clip to be downloaded.

Step 3: Click on the drop-down arrow next to the three coloured dots to the left of the video title.

Step 4: Select one of the formats to download the clip. Mp4 will give good quality playback, .flv will play on VLC media player and you can use format factory or freemake to convert to other formats. Step 5: Locate the saved file and watch it using one of any number of programs. See the FormatFactory tutorial in the Term 1 issue on how to convert to different video formats.

METHOD 2: Copying from the cache (NB: This method is trickier but requires no initial setup) Step 1: Open Internet Explorer, navigate to the video sharing site and locate the video clip to be downloaded. Step 2: Open “Internet options” in Internet Explorer (click on the little cog next to the favourites star) and delete your browsing history, particularly the “temporary internet files”. This step will make it easier to find the video file but isn’t essential. Step 3: Play the video in full (you can turn the sound off and minimize Internet Explorer).

Step 4: Locate your temporary internet files folder by clicking on “Settings”, then “View Files” Step 5: Sort the files by size (right click on folder and select sort) and locate the relatively large *.flv file and copy/paste to a known location. Convert the file using FormatFactory (see issue 1) to a different file type if necessary.

June 2012 Issue 2 Website of the Month Title- Armored Penguin

Link: www.armoredpenguin.com This is a website that allows you to create word searches, crosswords, word jumbles and find-a-words easily. Fill in the clues in the supplied boxes, give the page a title and colour. Easy-to-save, easy-toprint, with access to a worldwide library of spelling and topical word lists.