The Swivel Chair

I don’t know about you but I am so tired of switching on my laptop the proxy in firefox from Manual for work to “Auto-detect” at home…………Not any more!!!!! And I have no idea why I didn’t seek this baby (add-on) out earlier. I think I became stuck in my old ways but having been given a brand new Mac from the Powers that be, I needed to find a quick switch………..Quickproxy does just that.

It sits as an add-on down the bottom right of my firefox window. I love it….very fast….very cool. The “Green P” is when the proxy is turned on for work, and when I return home I click the “P” and it goes red. Once you have installed it you will have to go to settings and use the Automatic Configuration and pop the URL for your work in there…….if I work with you, come and I will put the URL in once you have installed Quickproxy if you don’t know it.

1. Open Firefox.

2. Select Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks.

3.The Bookmarks Manager opens. Click Import and backup

4. Click Export HTML

5. Save the bookmark.html file wherever you wish.

Now you can use the file to import the bookmarks into another program.

Exporting your Favourites from Internet Explorer is much the same…
1. Click on File

2. Click Import and Export

3. Follow the Wizard through the steps……to save your favourites you will want to click the second one Export Favorites

Again, make sure you save it somewhere and with a name you will remember.

Good luck!

Now to import these onto your new computer is pretty much the same process just click Import…..but……..

As we are now all computer gurus…..now is the time to open an account with either Delicious or Diigo.

These 2 great sites allow you to store and share your bookmarks online, so you can access your bookmarks wherever you are in the world, not just on the one computer. We would be more than happy to help you set up an account if you don’t have one. You then could import all your bookmarks you saved earlier into your new account. The grade 5 team all know how to use diigo or delicious, so if you’re sitting next to one of them I am sure they can answer your questions!

As we only have 6 weeks left, let’s try and be ultra organized and have everything stored safely for the break. Over the coming weeks stay tuned for tips and tricks of how to back everything up and store it safely. I bought a 250GB external hard drive from best buy for 500RMB…..pretty good value I think.

This week let’s concentrate on looking after all your itunes music. Apple have two great pages with the whole process set out step by step, one for backing up to a hard drive and another for dvd’s/cd’s.

If you have less than 4GB of music maybe backing up to a DVD will be for you….I like to have everything in the one place so that’s why I am using an external hard drive.

John Couch at the Apple Leadership Summit

Throughout this exceptional day, I didn’t really have time to review some of the great sites keynoters either mentioned or actually used as part of their presentation….check it out it was worth doing then reviewing…………..

You can see all my bookmarks on Diigo

Tweetstats

Andy Tedd

Stephen Heppell

Canadian International School

Asia Society

Expat Educator

Hyphenated travels

Vivien Stuart

Tupperware

22 Intreresting twitter uses in classroom

Tom Kelley

Vivien Stewart presented a compelling view of education in The United States and the thinking that is required by all educational bodies as we find our world shrinking. Probably one of the most important details she emphasized is the need for our students to be global citizens. The need to be bilingual and engage in meaningful projects, connecting to people all over the world.

Tom Kelley delivered an exciting keynote on innovation. Tom began by explaining to us that looking at the way content is presented and using the Anthropologists approach to work will benefit you and your audience….. Actually sit down and look at the problem at hand . Investigate and question if there is a better way to address the problem at hand.

So once you have looked at the problem in another way, start experimenting….become the experimenter, and think, shape and deliver ideas and tools that can be used.

But the most important part of the process is having “cross-pollinators”. People that will share, people that collaborate and will happily look at others ideas and translate and build on what has already been developed. Use other industries and ways of doing things and adapt to your workplace.

Taking these 3 learning roles, Tom believes this will nurture and build a social culture unparalleled. A fantastic start to the day and one that I am sure will motivate all of us in attendance.

The grade 2 team here at school are an amazing bunch…..come to think of it all grade levels are amazing here….but after a quick conversation with Jackie Speece over lunch one day and her enthusiasm at sharing her students work with her 2nd grade buddy class back in the US, we were able to add that extra dimension to the monster project developed by Mike Romard. Using Powerpoint and the Jeopardy Powerpoint layout around on the internet I set about planning out how we could show the great pictures designed by the kids and the writing describing the picture……..what a lesson for the students exploring if their description actually looked like their picture…..Fun was sure to be had!

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by spower

And by all reports it’s been great. But how to do it? Hyperlinks!!!!!!! Setting up a template slide for all of the stories and only having one “Correct” slide and one “Oops try again” slide.

Once you have a picture you want students to click on, simply right click on the picutre and select “hyperlink” and tell it where you want to jump to…..Powerpoint is so well set up that it pretty much asks which slide you would like it to jump to.

The key to this picture layout was to make one slide with all the pictures hyperlinked as “Oops try again”…..copy and paste this slide as many times as you need then you only need to select the one slide that is correct and change it to “Correct”

But the possibilities seem to be endless with powerpoint and the games we could create……………

Just saw this over at Valerie Maltoni’s blog and had to replay it here……Hannah loved it and has been trying to get her eyebrows in time ever since!!

NOTE: LOOKYBOOK HAS COLLAPSED!!! THIS WEBSITE HAS JUST UP AND GONE………… A WONDERFUL TOOL FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS…….I WAS SAD TO SEE IT GO

My daughter is discovering the internet in a big way. Thanks to an amazing bunch of teachers at Shanghai American School, but also due to Webkinz.
Jackie Speece Hannah’s teacher, continues to post and develop links to the wide world, something that was a savior over our last break when the rainy, cold days hit. Posting links the family can enjoy together was a savior……with all of us fighting to explore and play the learning games.Next came Webkinz that is ruling the    roost at the moment with Hannah having to budget, and understand that to get money you must earn it. The biggest part is the social atmosphere it creates, with some huge concepts graspped in terms of her having an online space and her friends also having one. Again the games and ways to earn “kinz” (money) has had me enthralled for an hour or two as well!!!! Having been through the adoption process though we had to laugh at the ease at which it was possible to adopt your toy.
One further way to engage students, introduced to me today from Amy Hossack was Lookybook what a powerful tool for teachers and families to engage….. from individual students exploring a teachers “bookshelf” to a class studying a book together at school and home…….WOW!

This introduction to GE is simply that, an introduction. This resource sits idle at times in the classroom and using it regularly will build your skill base and the lessons we can share, to life. Use the following resources to help build your knowledge of the program.

Starting at the very beginning is always the best so make sure to bookmark GE User guide

GElessons is a resource worth visiting. With a ton of KMZ files ready and waiting for you.

Google UK Schools is another worthwhile place to start.

Now that you understand what kmz and kml files are take a look at these babies…….just a few that are out there for people to use…….

grapes-of-wrath_1

macbeth

night_2

sanjose