AKA Riptide Furse

Are you a brand new teacher? Are you an experienced tacher looking for new resources that the younger teachers alrady might know about. Here is a site that is part of Discovery that works both ways. Give yourself time to explore this web site. Loads and loads help and ideas.

http://www.discoveryeducation.com/survival/survival_tool_kit.cfm#a2

TEXTANIM - animated text generator

This is a really fast and easy way to get some movement (not too much now) to your web page or blog postings. Just make your different choices and click GENERATE. You are given a preview and then a download link. I also liked the Preview link for the fonts. Clicking the preview link opened a new page with a preview of all of the different fonts you can choose from. It made picking a font very easy.

Here are some samples.

Technorati Tags: sites, links, animation, animated, grphics

Here is a great resource for those that are or are thinking about doing a news show in their school. Here at my school we do a daily live news broadcast that appears throughout the school district on cable TV. We also do a bi-weekly news show that is broadcast out over the internet via Ustream.tv

Check out this resource for new ideas or even just basic introductions.

School Video News - TV Video Production for K-12 Teachers and Administrators via kwout

I gave my first intro to Twitter to my colleagues the other day together with Heather Hurley. I missed some very good advice that I might not have missed if I had a check list. So in a post for “don’t do as I do” here are some tips for new people to Twitter.

• Fill in your bio section. If you are an educator make that clear. Many of us, me included, won’t follow someone if they don’t have something to contribute to my personal learning network (PLN). *Please note that I follow some people outside of education because my PLN expands outside of education.
• Change your settings to see all replies. This is important because if you tweet a question and someone that you don’t follow answers your question, you won’t see it. You want to see all replies in case you don’t follow someone that may reply to your tweets. If you get a tweet from someone that is helpful it is good karma to follow that person in return.
• Follow others! Choose a person in your network and look at who they are following. You can build your network by following those that can be the most use to you. DON’T FOLLOW EVERYONE UNLESS YOU WANT TO AND KNOW WHY YOU ARE DOING IT! Some people follow others to increase heir numbers for marketability. When people reach into the thousands of people they follow very little info is used. they are just working on their numbers. Twitter is about learning and gaining useful info not about noise.
• If Twitter is blocked, consider using one of the Instant Messaging systems to get tweets and also tweet from. Twitter supports the major IM services and also offers extra features using IM. One such things is tracking keywords using IM. You can keep an out for people tha use certain keywords in their tweets. I have added many people to my PLN by tracking the keyword “smartboard” through IM. Unfortunately this doesn’t work for the web site or through applications like twitterrific or Twhirl. AIM yes and Google Talk yes.
• Your icon is your association. People do become familiar with your icon. Make sure you make it representative of yourself. I change my icon quite frequently. That’s me and it says something about me. Others choose a representative picture and stay with that as how they want people to view them. Any way you look at it CHANGE YOUR ICON from the default brown square with circles.

So those are the tips. I’m sure others might want to add to this and I welcome their advice either in the comments or via twitter. In addition, I have uploaded some tiles or backgrounds that you can use for your twitter web page background. Take a look and tell me what you think.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/krossbow/sets/72157604288361250/

Another thing you may want to add to Firefox is the Google Toolbar. This extension adds easy access to many of the Google’s services such as search, news and Gmail. There is also a form filler and a “send to” button for easily sending a page link to either Blogger, Gmail or as an SMS message to a cell phone. Make sure you read all of the agreement sections and then take time exploring and experimenting with the different options that this one add-on has to offer.

Ok I was going to focus on creating a howto on installing a different extension for Firefox to go along with the previous one for Del.icio.us but I was going crazy with the all of the ads on the web pages. Adblock Plus is one of the first extensions I install when I do a new installation of Firefox. Therefore I am not used to seeing very many if any at all advertisements on web page. If you follow this tutorial, you might end up the same way too.

If you have a favorite Firefox extension let me know in the comments.

Firefox allows you to add extensions. What these extensions do is make the browser your own. You can pick and choose the extensions or addons you want that make your browsing more pleasurable and more productive. If you have ever said to yourself “why can’t the browser do this?” or “There has GOT to be an easier way!” most likely there is and you just have to find the extension for it.

Here I have made a howto on how to add the Del.icio.us extension to Firefox. It allows you to easily tag web pages for your del.icio.us account.

How to Tell Which Direction the Paper Goes into the Printer

I was inspired by the post above to go through my building and create a little guide to the different paper feed icons for my staff.

This is a back to basics post.

Most printers, copiers and fax machines have icons to show which way the paper should go. This is helpful especially if you are using letterhead or envelopes when you need to put the paper in with a particular side to be printed on or have the print facing a certain direction.

For the most part remember:

• Lines on the icon show where the printing will happen. Make sure if using letterhead, form, or preprinted stationery that you face the paper the correct way.
• The fold on the paper icon indicates the top of the page. Again this may be important with letterhead, forms or preprinted stationery.
• Envelope symbols indicate printing side or closure flap up side. This is important not only for printing but may prevent jams. Best bet if the printer doesn’t have envelope icons to check the manual.
• Envelopes may also be preprinted to pay attention the stamp on the icon or the side of the closure flap.
• These rules also apply for when you are doing double-sided printing manually.

The numbers on the pictures don’t mean anything. It’s just the way Flickr uploaded them.

Paper Direction Icons-1

Envelopes allowed face up with stamp area away from you. Paper face up with top of the page away from you.

Paper Direction Icons-2

Envelopes allowed face up with stamp area away from you. Paper face up with top of page away from you.

Paper Direction Icons

Face down - the top of the page is toward you

Paper Direction Icons-4

Envelopes allowed face up with the stamp area away from you. Use the paper guides to ensure proper feeding. Paper face up with the top of the page away from you.

Paper Direction Icons-6

This one is a little different. 1st icon = adjust paper guides for proper feeding of the paper. 2nd icon shows the paper should be face down and the top of the page should be toward you. Don’t use envelopes in this tray.

Paper Direction Icons-3

Paper face down with the top of the page toward you.

Paper Direction Icons-7

Envelope icon showing envelopes are allowed face up with the stamp area away from you.

Paper Direction Icons-10

Envelopes should go face down. The envelope flap suggest the the stamp area be toward you. Paper goes face down with the top of the page toward you.

Paper Direction Icons-8

Paper goes face up with the top of the page away from you.

Paper Direction Icons-5

This shows loading the paper and adjusting the guides. The final picture indicates the paper should be below those holders. Don’t over stuff the printer. The paper direction is face down with the top of the page toward you.

Paper Direction Icons-9

Paper goes face up with the top of the page away from you. Steps 1 and 2 show that you should adjust the guides for size of the paper and to ensure proper feeding. Step 3 shows that the paper should sit down in the tray suggesting that you shouldn’t over stuff the paper tray.

Paper Direction Icons-14

Paper goes face up with the top of the page away from you.

Paper Direction Icons-13

Paper goes face up with the top of the page away from you.

Paper Direction Icons-12

Uhhh??! Paper goes face up with the top of the page away from you.

Paper Direction Icons-15

Paper goes face up with the top of the page away from you.

Paper Direction Icons-16

Paper goes face down with the top of the page toward you.

a quickr pickr post