Tech tip #23 - Acrobat(ics)

Dear Colleagues,

One of our colleagues suggested that I send out a tip about using Adobe Acrobat (please let me know if you have any questions/ideas/suggestions for tips!)

Adobe Acrobat has been a standard format for sharing documents in a consistent format for many years now. PDF is the format to use if you want anyone else to see your document the way you want it. Pretty much every device and computer can read .pdf files.

At SMUS we have the Adobe suite of products installed which includes Adobe Acrobat pro DC (by the way you can get a license to install this software at home for $9.75 US instead of $600! See SDS for details: https://sds.smus.ca/index.php?next_page=admin/mis/access_adobe_hup.php ). This means that not only can we read pdf format files and fill forms etc that we are sent, but we can also create, edit and otherwise modify pdf files. If you want to learn more about how to use Acrobat, I recommend following the “learn Adobe Acrobat pro DC” link in the program’s help menu or following the links on the “get started page” (there is a short video on how to edit pdfs there).

Amongst other features, the program will read documents out loud to you!

Most programs installed on our network allow you to print to PDF, which is a great way to make a document suitable for emailing or posting to your MOODLE or Google Classroom site.

If you have a pdf that you want to convert to Word, Exel, PowerPoint etc, it can also do that via the “File-Export to” menu.

You can also take multiple single-page or smaller pdf files and combine them into one document or conversely split a larger document into smaller ones, or single pages

There is also a tool that allows you to compare the contents of two pdf files to see what differences there are.

If you need help figuring any of this out, please don’t hesitate to contact one of the ed tech specialists on your campus.

Cheers

Mike

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca

Also, please let me know if you have any tips you would like to share!

Michael Jackson

Science teacher, Technology Coordinator

St Michaels University School

Tech tip #22 - last year's tech tips

I decided that the first tech tip of the year should be a table of contents of last year’s tips. Each tip is linked to the original article on http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca/

(I also added a table of contents list to the blog page)

Please let me know if you have a suggestion for a tip, or a question you would like answered.

Cheers

Mike

2015-2016 tech tips:

POST TITLE	POST DATE	LABELS
June Solstice - non tech tip	2016-06-20
Tech tip #21 - to clutter or not to clutter?	2016-05-17
Tech tip #20 -SDS email tip and more	2016-05-12	email, screen viewer,SDS
Tech tip #19 - Google Slides	2016-05-06	Chrome, Google Drive,Google Slides
Tech tip #18 -Chrome tips	2016-05-02	Apps, Chrome,extensions, Google,incognito
Tech tip #17 - apps and web tools for the classroom	2016-04-22	Apps, Blooms digital Taxonomy
tech tip #16 - projector tips	2016-04-06	projector, remote
Tech Tip #15 - sharing documents with Google Drive	2016-03-07	Google Drive, sharing
Images for Google Drive sharing post #15	2016-02-29	Google Drive, sharing
Tech tip #14 - Email suggestions	2016-02-29	email, email charter
Weekly tech tip #13 - searching for stuff	2016-01-25	Google, searching
Weekly tech tip #12 - stuff.smus.ca (and morning planets!)	2016-01-19	planets, SMUS domains,URLs
Weekly tech tip #11 - I am locked out of my account	2016-01-11	locked out, password
Weekly tech tip # 10 - tab, tab, tabbing away	2016-01-04	astronomy, tab
Weekly tech tip #9 - checking the SMUS SDS schedule/calendar	2015-12-15	calendar, SDS
Weekly tech tip #8 - releasing papercut print jobs - options	2015-12-08	Papercut, printing
Weekly Tech tip #7 - searching when there is no search bar	2015-11-26	CTRL keys, searching
Weekly tech tip #6 - Logging in and out of Chrome	2015-11-19	Chrome, Google
Weekly tech tip #5 - my google drive does not work properly	2015-11-10	drive, Google
Weekly tech tip #4: my shortcut doesn't work any more	2015-10-28	desktop, shortcut
Weekly tech tip #3: Copy/Cut/Paste - CTRL-C/X/P	2015-10-21	copy, cut, paste
Weekly tech tip #2: My classroom screen is black/blank	2015-10-16	blank, projector, screen
Weekly tech tip #1: If Chrome won't start for you	2015-10-07	Chrome

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Mike Jackson, Science Teacher

Senior School Technology Coordinator

St Michaels University School, Victoria, BC

June Solstice - non tech tip

Hello all,

 

Instead of a tech tip this week, I decided to send out an earth science one …

 

A few minutes ago, 3:34 PM, it was the June solstice (summer solstice for the northern hemisphere).

We also had a full (strawberry (June)) moon last night. The 2 events haven’t occurred on the same day since 1967 and won’t happen again until 2062…

The following website has more information on the solstice and related phenomena: http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/june-solstice.html

In a few weeks (July 4^th, 9:24 AM) we will be at our furthest point from the sun (just over 152 million km) and just over 5 million km further away than we were on January 2^nd.

(http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/perihelion-aphelion-solstice.html) This shows us how much effect the distance to the sun has  on seasons – basically none!

 

Happy Summer!

 

Mike

(who was looking for an excuse to avoid writing reports!)

 

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Mike Jackson, Science Teacher

Academic Technology Coordinator

St Michaels University School, Victoria, BC

 

Tech tip #21 - to clutter or not to clutter?

Dear Colleagues,

Many of you may be aware that our email system has a “clutter” function, which moves emails that it thinks are not interesting to you into the clutter folder. This may or may not be what you want it to do…

If you want to change this, go to the “gear” settings icon in the top right of the screen (near your photo if you have uploaded one) and then search for “clutter”

You can then choose whether to separate clutter items and also whether to send you emails about items identified as clutter. I personally prefer to not use the clutter option as I find it catches too much wanted email. If you are using the clutter folder, be sure to check it every now and again for missed messages.

If you want to learn more about the clutter function, please visit https://goo.gl/Trsmr4

Let me know if you have questions.

Mike

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca

Also, please let me know if you have any tips you would like to share!

Michael Jackson

Science teacher, Technology Coordinator

St Michaels University School

Tech tip #20 -SDS email tip and more

Dear Colleagues,

Here is a tip for using SDS more efficiently…

Using SDS to send regular emails.

If you would like to send an email to a group using your regular email, you can do this easily with SDS.

For example: On the student info (links and reports) page...

Right click "(Regular Email)" beside "Email [Student's] Teachers

Select "Copy Email Address" from Drop down Menu

Paste into the To: field of your Outlook Web Email.

Boom! Everyone is emailed without being Bcc:ed!

 (PS, let me know if you have found any other SDS nuggets you would like me to share!)

Bonus tip – using the screen viewer in computer labs

If you are in a computer lab and need to see what is on the screens of your students (without getting out of your seat!), you can use the lab monitoring function that is set up for all the labs. To access this, go to the SMUS network menu (W7- Start Menu) folder (which should be on your desktop!), choose “faculty staff” and then “monitoring” and then pick your lab. You will then see a screen that shows thumbnails of each computer in the lab. Clicking on a thumbnail will give you a full screen view of that screen.

If you are logged into a school computer, this link might take you straight there: file:\\smus.local\dfs\smusmenu\w7-Start Menu\Programs\Faculty Staff\Monitoring

Bonus- bonus tip – filling in forms with required fields…

If you find yourself being asked to fill in a required field in a web page form, but you don’t have anything to say, a trick is to just enter a period. This should convince the form that you have answered the question (unless the form is really clever!)

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca

Also, please let me know if you have any tips you would like to share!

 Cheers

Mike

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Mike Jackson, Science Teacher

Academic Technology Coordinator

St Michaels University School, Victoria, BC

Tech tip #19 - Google Slides

Dear Colleagues,

If you are in the habit of making PowerPoint presentations, you may want to take a look at Google Slides which are part of our Google Apps for Education (GAFE) suite.

Some of the key features that Google slides adds:

• Google Slides presentations are  stored in Google Drive (http://docs.smus.ca) which means that they can be accessed from anywhere with an Internet connection
• They can be saved to PDF or PowerPoint if you need to use one off-line.
• They are shareable, allowing you to collaborate with colleagues on a presentation asynchronously or in real time
• A group of students can be working on a presentation together: see http://alicekeeler.com/2015/09/10/google-slides-collaborative-group-projects/
• They are good for setting up a “jigsaw” activity see: http://alicekeeler.com/2016/03/09/google-slides-jigsaw-activity-template/
• They can be used interactively with students during a presentation: http://alicekeeler.com/2016/03/23/google-slides-ask-respond-template/
• New feature as of yesterday (!): asking questions or run a poll during a presentation and gather responses: http://alicekeeler.com/2016/05/05/google_slides_questions/  and http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2016/05/how-to-use-new-q-and-laser-pointer.html
• Another new feature is the “laser pointer” which can be used to draw attention to part of the screen during a presentation.
• Commenting and suggesting are built in as they are for Google docs.
• I am sure there are more

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca

Also, please let me know if you have any tips you would like to share!

Michael Jackson

Science teacher, Technology Coordinator

St Michaels University School

Tech tip #18 -Chrome tips

Dear Colleagues,

I was at the Google Apps for Education (GAFE) Summit at Mulgrave School over the 23^rd /24^th April weekend as a presenter and attendee. Details of the summit can be found here https://bc.gafesummit.com/2016 . And the programme can be seen here https://goo.gl/g20OHa (the programme has links to details about most of the sessions and their resources),

I attended sessions on Google Chrome, Google Search, Google Docs, Google Classroom and more and I shared some tips on using Google Chrome at a Senior School staff meeting this past week.

Here are some of those tips again:

Signing in – If you “sign in” to Chrome, you can then share bookmarks, apps, extensions etc between devices and computers as well as many other features. To sign in you can begin by going to “settings” from the “hamburger” (also known as 3 hot dogs!) in the top right corner.   You can tell if you are signed in by looking to see if there is a name in the top bar:

Incognito window -  useful for letting someone else log in while you are logged in. You can get an incognito window by going to the “hamburger” or by pressing CTRL+Shift+N.

History: The Browser history is available via the “hamburger” also and shows sites you have visited on your current computer and on other devices. You can also clear your browsing history here. This can be handy if you remember vising a site recently and want to go back.

Chrome Apps: Chrome apps are basically programs or packaged web pages that work from within Chrome. The app chooser is the coloured square thingy in the top left corner of your browser. There are so many good ones.  To search for apps go to: https://goo.gl/9G30I

This site lists 22 apps for educators: http://goo.gl/wQKimZ

Chrome extensions: You can see extensions as little icons up in your tool bar and basically extensions add functionality to regular pages. To search for extensions go to:  https://goo.gl/H3odH . One of my often used extensions is the goo.gl URL shortener, and one that many of us have at SMUS is the “read&write” extension which provides reading assistance. Last pass password keeper is another useful one.

This site has a list of 12 handy extensions: http://goo.gl/BTTXiZ

This is a good page with links to recommended apps and extensions from one of the presenters at the GAFE summit:  http://powerbrowser.weebly.com/apps--extensions.html

Chrome tab pinning: You can make often-used tabs take up less space in the tab bar if they have a unique icon by right-clicking on the tab and choosing “pin”. (You can also do the reverse.) This basically gives you room to add lots of tabs!

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca

Also, please let me know if you have any tips you would like to share!

-------------------------

Mike Jackson, Science Teacher

Academic Technology Coordinator

St Michaels University School, Victoria, BC