Mountain Lion and Software Compatibility

A student came to see me today after upgrading to Mountain Lion because her Microsoft Office icons in her dock no longer worked. The reason for this is that Mountain Lion does not support PPC applications.   Few students will have this issue because only Sayre Bundles prior to 2009 had a version of Office earlier than 2008.   If you are unsure and want to check your laptop configuration before upgrading follow these instructions:

1. Click "Apple" menu and choose "About this Mac"
2. Choose the "More Info" button
3. On the left hand column select "Applications", under the software section
4. Under the kind section in the menu bar you can see if the application is "PowerPC" or "Universal".  PowerPC applications will NOT run under Mountain Lion.

 You will need to find an upgrade or replacement for that application.

Connected Educator Month

The US Department of Education has declared October "Connected Educator Month," aimed at broadening and deepening educator participation in online communities and networks. Connected Educator Month will be celebrated with a month of online events and activities sponsored by more than 150 major national education organizations, communities, and companies.  If you are interested take a look at the Connected Educator calendar.  Also, edWeb, one of the communities joining in the event, is giving educators one free webinar during October, take a look at their calender, edWeb Google Calendar, and see if there is anything of interest.

Quickoffice

Quickoffice is now free for IOS and Android users.  This may be a nice tool for the MS iPad users who are also teaching in the US and working with Office.  Take a look and see how it compares with some of the other apps you have been using.  I played with it a bit and really liked it for the excel spreadsheet but not as much for the documents.  Take a look and let me know your thoughts!

iCloud: iCloud storage and backup overview

A faculty member came to me today unable to use her iPad because icloud was unable to back up her data.  We had to force quite her iPad by holding down both the sleep/wake button and the Home button until the screen turned black and the Apple logo appeared.  Once we restarted we were able to see that she had used all her iCloud allotment.  

Here is what Apple says about iCloud. Your iCloud account includes 5 GB of free storage for iCloud Mail, Documents in the Cloud, and your iOS device backups. Your purchased music, apps, books, and TV shows, as well as your photo stream, don’t count against the 5 GB of free storage. If your iCloud storage starts to get full, you can make more space available by removing items you don’t need to store in iCloud. For example, you can free up iCloud storage space by not backing up specific iOS apps or removing the backup of a device you have replaced. Go to Settings>iCloud>Storage & Backup>Manage Storage, tap the name of your device under Backups, then under Backup Options turn Camera Roll to Off.  However, it may be best to keep it turned on and use it how it was intended and to rather remove the pictures from the iPad as suggested below:

1. Back up the pics to the computer (done)
2. Remove the backed up pictures from the iPad
3. Learn about and utilize PHOTOSTREAM (including its limitations like no videos, only 1000 pics and only for 30 days) to make backing up and saving the photos from the phone easy and simple.

Alternatively, you can also increase your storage by upgrading your iCloud storage plan. 

Here is a great resource page for iCloud support, http://www.apple.com/support/icloud/.

Thoughts on Blogging

I lay awake last night thinking about Blogging.  Blogging has been the best professional development I have engaged in this year.  I started a blog two years ago and it took me a while to find a voice.   I felt it was contrived and I really had nothing about which to Blog.  I later came to the realization that it is just a platform for getting out information and it did not need to be a venue for collaboration at least while in its infancy.  I transitioned from my newsletter to a blog and over the course of a few months I began to have so much to say.  Every day as I answered student and faculty questions, many of which were repeat questions, I realized I had essential material for my blog.  The added bonus was that I could create a culture of independent learners by referring teachers and students to my blog.  Here are some of the points I thought about that night while lying awake thinking about what makes blogging such a critical and important tool for students and educators these days. 

Professional

As educators we need to integrate the tools that students will be expected to use in their jobs.  Every job in communications, marketing, writing, media seems to have blogging as a prerequisite.   It is a given, you should know how to blog.

Practice

Practice, practice, practice, makes perfect.  Writing begets writing.

Portfolio

Student bloggers applying to colleges or moving to other schools have a whole portfolio of their thoughts and ideas.

Publish

Everyone likes to see their writing read, not necessarily by their teachers but by a wider audience, their peers and those across the ocean.

Portability

Graduated?  Got a new job?  Guess what, your blog is yours it still remains in the cloud if you wish.

Professional Development

For those of you looking for a little Professional Development but were not able to get away and attend some conferences this summer, below are three links to conferences I was able to attend.   Each conferences was very useful and I have included the links to the resources so that you can  browse the presentations and the literature that was made available. I will continue to post Professional Development opportunities in my PD section for upcoming events.


Innovations for Learning at Bryan Station
https://edtech.fcps.net/ifl/resources.aspx

KET Multimedia Professional Development Days
http://www.ket.org/education/video‑mm‑event‑infopage.htm

Tech, Teach, Learn conference at KCD in Louiseville
http://www.techteachlearn.org/2013‑post‑conference‑resources.html