Non Tech Tip (#56) - seasonal astronomy

It is time for my seasonal astronomy "non tech tip". Some of this post is a repeat of last year's one, but I have made some updates.

 

As we approach the December solstice on the 21st at 2:22 PMPST (http://earthsky.org/earth/everything-you-need-to-know-december-solstice) it might be good to know that the coming season is the shortest of the four! (http://earthsky.org/tonight/years-shortest-season-starts-with-december-solstice) due to the Earth being closer and moving faster (fun physics!) than in summer. Our spring and summer are a few days longer than our fall and winter! 

Another strange seasonal fact is that sunsets are slightly longer at the solstices than at the equinoxes (http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/longest-sunsets-around-solstices) due to the angle of the sun's path to the horizon. At our latitude the sun will take more than 4 minutes to set at the winter solstice. Where I am off to next week, the sun sets in just over 2 minutes! 

The earliest sunset in Victoria will be next week (Dec 11, 4:18 PM) and we will have the latest sunrise right around the New Year (8:05 AM) - in time for return to school!

The shortest day in Victoria is still the 21st at 8 hours 18 minutes and 36 seconds! (almost 8 hours less than in June!) (https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/canada/Victoria) 

For the latter part of December, I will be in Antarctica where the day may be almost 20 hours long on December 21st

Have a wonderful holiday season! Make the best of those brief daylight hours! 
:) 

Let me know if you have any questions or would like more information.

 

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

You can see a list of all the tips here: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca/p/toc11.html

 

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

 

 

SMUS Tech Tip # 55 -starting tech tips again

It has been almost a year (December 18 2017) since I last sent out a tech tip – somehow these slipped off my radar! My goal is to send these out regularly again.

 

I thought I would start with a list of the previous fifty or so tips:

Non Tech tip #54 - seasonal astronomy news

Tech Tip #53 - 5 Google search tips

Tech tip #52 - Sharing calendars in Outlook/Google

Tech tip #51 - Google Classroom Updates

Tech tip #50 - cloud storage (and some astronomy stuff!)

Tech tip #49 - Finding free usable images (and today's supermoon)

(Not) Tech tip #48 - The great American eclipse August 21, 2017

Tech tip #47 - Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite software for teachers

Tech tip # 46 - Off-line maps for travelling with your phone or tablet

Tech tip #45 - new photocopier tips

Tech tip #44 - Pro D day materials

Tech tip #43 - Google Classroom

Tech tip #42 - Some Google slides features and updates

Tech Tip #41 - SDS updates

Tech tip #40 - filling in PDF forms (and some sunny stuff!)

Tech tip #39 - what does the XXX key do?

non tech tip - Sunsets are now getting later! (though the days are still getting shorter)

Tech tip # 38 - network start menu folder

Tech tip #37 - Making photo slide shows with PowerPoint

Tech tip #36 - Remote desktop access to SMUS network

tech tip #35 - the dangers of autocomplete

Tech tip #34 - The Windows 10 menu (and the tiles will be going!)

tech tip #33 - finding large files/folders with windirstat

Tech tip #32 - tech tip # 2 repeat - how to fix your blank screen

tech tip #31 - Youtube tips

Tech tip 30 - Wireless display

Tech tip # 29 - SDS - finding out who is free or teaching

tip #28 - uploading and converting Google docs

tech tip # 27 - practical ed tech guide

tech tip # 26 configuring Windows 10

Tech tip #25 Getting a high resolution digital copy of your school photo

Tech Tip # 24 - saving/printing a Google doc with comments

Tech tip #23 - Acrobat(ics)

Tech tip #22 - last year's tech tips

June Solstice - non tech tip

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

Tech tip #20 -SDS email tip and more

Tech tip #19 - Google Slides

Tech tip #18 -Chrome tips

Tech tip #17 - apps and web tools for the classroom

tech tip #16 - projector tips

Tech Tip #15 - sharing documents with Google Drive

Images for Google Drive sharing post #15

Tech tip #14 - Email suggestions

Weekly tech tip #13 - searching for stuff

Weekly tech tip #12 - stuff.smus.ca (and morning planets!)

Weekly tech tip #11 - I am locked out of my account

Weekly tech tip # 10 - tab, tab, tabbing away

Weekly tech tip #9 - checking the SMUS SDS schedule/calendar

Weekly tech tip #8 - releasing papercut print jobs - options

Weekly Tech tip #7 - searching when there is no search bar

Weekly tech tip #6 - Logging in and out of Chrome

Weekly tech tip #5 - my google drive does not work properly

Weekly tech tip #4: my shortcut doesn't work any more

Weekly tech tip #3: Copy/Cut/Paste - CTRL-C/X/P

Weekly tech tip #2: My classroom screen is black/blank

Weekly tech tip #1: If Chrome won't start for you

 

 

Let me know if you have any questions or would like more information.

 

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

 

You can see a list of all the tips here: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca/p/toc11.html

 

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

 

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

Mike Jackson, Science Teacher

Senior School Technology Coordinator

St Michaels University School, Victoria, BC

 

Non Tech tip #54 - seasonal astronomy news

As we approach the December solstice on the 21st at 8:28 AM (http://earthsky.org/earth/everything-you-need-to-know-december-solstice) it might be good to know that the coming season is the shortest of the four! (http://earthsky.org/tonight/years-shortest-season-starts-with-december-solstice) due to the the earth being closer and moving faster than in summer. Our spring and summer are a few days longer than our fall and winter!

Another strange seasonal fact is that sunsets are slightly longer at the solstices than at the equinoxes (http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/longest-sunsets-around-solstices) due to the angle of the sun's path to the horizon. At our latitude the sun will take more than 4 minutes to set at the winter solstice. Where I have been for the past few weeks the sun has been setting in just over 2 minutes!

We had the earliest sunset a week or so ago and we will have the latest sunrise in early January about when we all return to school.

The shortest day in Victoria is still the 21st at 8 hours 18 minutes and 36 seconds! (almost 8 hours less than in June!) (https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/canada/Victoria)

Today's new moon is the beginning of the longest month (time from new moon to the next new moon) of the 21st century! (http://earthsky.org/tonight/longest-lunar-month-of-21st-century) due to the distances of the moon and sun from the earth.

Have a wonderful holiday season! Make the best of those brief daylight hours!
:)

Let me know if you have any questions, or would like more information.

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca<http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca/>
You can see a list of all the tips here: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca/p/toc11.html

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

-------------------------
Mike Jackson, Science Teacher
Senior School Technology Coordinator
St Michaels University School, Victoria, BC

Tech Tip #53 - 5 Google search tips

Hello all,

I thought I would draw your attention to a nice blog article about “5 Google search tips”: http://www.alicekeeler.com/2017/11/28/5-google-search-tips/

This article has good tips on how to refine your search by:
using the menu
turning on “tools” to filter the search by time etc
search for images with the right rights
search by voice
and use advanced search.

By the way, in just over a week, we will have the earliest sunset of the year (December 7^th) – ater that the evenings will start to get lighter!
For more details, check out http://earthsky.org/earth/winter-solstice-and-late-sunrise and
https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/equation-of-time.html


Let me know if you have any questions, or would like more information.

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca
You can see a list of all the tips here: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca/p/toc11.html

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

-------------------------
Mike Jackson, Science Teacher
Senior School Technology Coordinator
St Michaels University School, Victoria, BC



-------------------------
Mike Jackson, Science Teacher
Senior School Technology Coordinator
St Michaels University School, Victoria, BC

Tech tip #52 - Sharing calendars in Outlook/Google

Hello all,

Many of us use an on line calendar and need to share it with someone else or a group and this is quite easily done using our Office 365 Outlook system. This could be useful for a department or a boarding house team etc.

If you would like to have a shared calendar for a group, our advice is to create a calendar in your account for the group and then share it with the appropriate people using the appropriate settings. If you want others to be able to add/modify items in the shared calendar, make sure you allow “edit” in the sharing settings.

I have created a short (2 minute) video showing how to do this: https://www.screencast.com/t/jAk8azhFBii

One of the things we have discovered is that sharing a Google Calendar with our system does not work very well and is not recommended.

Let me know if you have any questions, or would like more information. If you need help, feel free to contact anyone of the Ed tech team folks.

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

You can see a list of all the tips here: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca/p/toc11.html

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

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

Mike Jackson, Science Teacher

Senior School Technology Coordinator

St Michaels University School, Victoria, BC

Tech tip #51 - Google Classroom Updates

For those of you who are using Google classroom to manage your students’ Google docs, they have made a number of useful updates which are outlined in this blog post:

https://www.blog.google/topics/education/10-ways-were-making-classroom-and-forms-easier-teachers-school-year/

Some key features are:

• Single view of student work
• Reordering of classes
• Decimal grading
• Transferring class ownership
• Large display of class code – great for signing students up

Let me know if you have any questions, or would like more information.

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

You can see a list of all the tips here: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca/p/toc11.html

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

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

Mike Jackson, Science Teacher

Senior School Technology Coordinator

St Michaels University School, Victoria, BC

Tech tip #50 - cloud storage (and some astronomy stuff!)

This should be the last tech tip of the school year. I plan on starting them up again in September! Let me know if you have any tips to share.

Astronomy:

Firstly, tonight at 9:24 PM is the June, or northern, solstice when the northern hemisphere of earth is most tilted towards the sun. The sun itself will cross from the constellation Taurus into Gemini (though astrologers would have us think it is entering Cancer…) tomorrow morning. In a couple of weeks on July 3rd, (1:11 PM) the Earth will be at aphelion, its furthest from the sun), almost five million kilometres further away than in January (152,092,504 km as opposed to 147,100,998 km on January 4th this year). For more information on the June solstice and aphelion, check out: https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/june-solstice.html  and https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/perihelion-aphelion-solstice.html

Cloud Storage:

Many of you are using various types of cloud storage for storing files and I thought it would be worth a few words to explain what this is. If you use Google Drive or Onedrive, then you are using cloud storage. (Other well-known cloud storage services include Dropbox, Box, and iCloud). Basically cloud storage is where your data is organized logically into pools, but physically may be stored on several servers in several locations. The data is then accessible from any Internet-connected device (phone, tablet, computer etc). Interestingly, Iceland is a popular location for cloud storage since they have very low costs for “green” electricity.

You can access files stored in “the cloud” via a web browser (such as going to http://docs.smus.ca)  or using a client program which downloads copies of your files to your local device. If you are running the google drive or onedrive program on your computer, or the apps on your phone, these can store copies of some or all of your cloud files locally. Files stored in the cloud are also easy to share (see http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca/search/label/sharing) .

Personal Microsoft or Google accounts come with 5GB and 15GB of free storage with options for you to pay for more. Our school accounts come with a lot more: we get half a terabyte in onedrive and unlimited storage with Google drive!

If you want some information on other free cloud storage services, check this page out: https://www.thebalance.com/free-cloud-storage-1356638 . There are even services which allow you to combine the free storage from different providers (for example https://www.odrive.com/) and others that make all your cloud storage appear like a local drive (https://www.odrive.com/ not free!)

Cloud storage is great for making files accessible anywhere and easy to share and can provide a backup of files stored locally.

If you need to move a bunch of files from one system to another, this article (https://www.howtogeek.com/202484/how-to-move-files-from-one-cloud-storage-service-to-another/) has several suggestions.

Let me know if you have any questions, or would like more information.

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

You can see a list of all the tips here: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca/p/toc11.html

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

Cheers and have a great summer. I am off to be a naturalist in Haida Gwaii and south-east Alaska (as well as a trip to view the August 21^st eclipse!)

Mike