ISTE 2018

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is a nonprofit organization that works with the global education community to accelerate the use of technology to solve tough problems and inspire innovation. The worldwide network believes in the potential technology holds to transform teaching and learning.

ISTE Conference & Expo registration includes year-round membership in ISTE where you'll find a global tribe of passionate educators and leaders who are committed to expanding the horizons of education technology. Attend ISTE 2018

Chicago

June 24–27, 2018
Chicago — McCormick Place West Building

Problems with downloading a batch file from Finalsite

A teacher was having trouble downloading her files from Finalsite, the zip file was turning into a cpgz file.   I have never seen this happen before!   When the .zip file is attempted to be unzipped, it extracts into a .cpgz file, which then can also be launched in Archive Utility, only to then turn back into a .zip file, which then turns into a .zip.cpgz file.   Ultimately, the archive gets stuck in an infinite loop as it’s being decompressed into one variation of the other, over and over again.  This could be that the download is corrupt, or it was not completely downloaded.  One suggestions is to use a different browser,  I will be curious to see if that resolves the issue.  Another suggestion is to use the command line tool.

• Launch Terminal, found in the /Applications/Utilities folder
• Find the .zip file in the Finder and have it easily accessible
• At the command line type “unzip ” followed by a space, then drag and drop the .cpgz or .zip file into the terminal window to automatically enter the full path to that file, then hit return

I am also curious as to whether or not this is a Finalsite issue as I know we had problems with Finalsite yesterday.

Saving iMovie files to external drives

Several students have recently asked me how to move iMovie files.  It is not very straightforward but luckily in version 11 all you need to do is to Command-drag the project.  Hold down the command key and drag the project you want to the desired external drive in iMovie. 

Files Types for music

For AP exams the kids were using GarageBand to record their music files, and the files saved as .M4a and the required AP format was to be .Mp3.  iTunes is suppose to be able to convert the files easily but I had no luck.  I was however able to use a VLC player to convert the files to an .Mp3.  Here is a I handy tool I found on the Dummies site:

File Type	Compressed?	What’s It Good For?
AIF	No	Audio CDs, iTunes, and archiving music in the file format that retains the most audio information. Can be used with iPod, but files are 5–10 times the size of compressed formats.
WAV	No	The equivalent of an uncompressed AIF file on a Mac, this format is used for sharing files with Windows users. File sizes are 5–10 times the size of MP3 files, which is the compressed file format of choice among Windows users.
Apple lossless	No	iTunes and archiving music in the file format that retains the most audio information. Can be used with iPod but files are 3–7 times the size of compressed formats.
MP3	Yes	iTunes, e-mail, the Web, and sharing with Windows users. Files are much smaller than either uncompressed format, making MP3s ideal for iPods.
AAC	Yes	Same as MP3 but is Mac-only. Slightly smaller files than MP3 and slightly better sound quality in those slightly smaller files. Most Windows users can’t use AAC files.

Setting up Groupwise on an Android

1.       First, add phone to wifi, depending on whether a student or faculty.

2.       Go into Settings->Accounts->Add account.

3.       Choose Exchange as the type.  May also be called Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. 

4.       Enter email address and password.

5.       Select manual setup. 

6.       Server address is mobilesync.sayreschool.org.

7.       Make sure that SSL encryption is checked.

8.       Continue using the defaults.

9.       Name the account.