When students send their homework as .docx files - Word 2007

If a student sends you homework via WebCT and it has the .docx file extension, don't double-click to open, but save it instead.

To do this:

• open the email
• click on 'view attachments'
• tick in the box next to the relevant file
• click on 'Save to folder'
• choose destination (best to My Computer') and save the file

The software you need to be able to read it has been installed on the staffroom PC and the two PCs in Room 212A. This should allow you to open and read the file by double-clicking on it.

The link for the necessary software is http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en

If this is too much trouble, you could always ask the student to re-submit in Word 2003 format!

David

When you can't see the whole PC screen on the WB

Sometimes, the bottom edge of the PC screen (where the taskbar lives) does not show in full on the WB.

What can you do?

You could, as a temporary work-round, use the Alt and Tab keys to step through all open windows, and then choose the one you want to work with by letting go of the Alt key.

Otherwise, try pressing the aspect key on the projector remote control - that's probably how the screen got that way in the first place. Again, step through all the options until you find the one you want.

It is also possible that the screen resolution has been altered - change it back to 1024 x 768 and see if that helps.

One final comment: the 16:9 aspect gives a smaller screen display on the WB, which may be more suitable for when you don't want the WB to dominate the classroom, or when you are fed up with reaching to the full height of the board.

When the keyboard/mouse won't work

With wireless equipment, all sorts of things can stop or impair the working thereof - for example, people or furniture between keyboard and receiver, distance and direction, although these vary from one room to another!

When the mouse or keyboard stops working altogether:

• take the batteries out, warm them in your hands and put them back
• move people, furniture etc
• re-introduce the kit (mouse or keyboard) to the wireless gizmo by pressing the black oval button on the top of the gizmo and at the same time pushing the small grey connect button on the bottom of the kit - you will need a pen or a small child to do this.

When all else fails, just hitch up a steam-driven old-fashioned cable-connected keyboard to the purple port on the back of the PC.

David

Hiding or closing flipcharts

If you have only one flipchart open, you don't have to reach all the way to the top right corner to close it at the end of a class - instead, close the whole thing by hitting the X in the top right corner of the Main Toolbox. Much easier and not so much stretching!

If you want to hide a flipchart while you are using something else, like the internet or word processing, again no need to reach up to the top (for the minimise button) - this time tap the Flipchart icon just below the main menu on the left of the Main Toolbox.

This icon works like a toggle switch, so tapping it again will bring your flipchart back up.

David

Starting to use the EAS materials on WebCT

Did an introduction to EAS/WebCT with the class and thought it went OK. I realised after a few minutes that I should have spent more time trying the material out myself beforehand. That aside, it went fairly well. Most students had ID and password and had no problem logging on.

It was difficult to know how much time to allow for each bit of the Week 1 materials, as you want people to try things out, but you also want to cover as much as possible to give them a good introduction.

At the end, I felt the students had grasped the basics but needed more time/practice. It's very easy to give them some of the tasks we hadn't covered in class to do as independent work, because of the way the materials and instructions have been put together, and the design/layout in WebCT.

It all makes it easier to encourage students to work independently. I can confidently tell them: 'All the instructions are there for you to read, and the Help files too' and leave them to get on with it. Particularly useful with one very able but very 'Teacher, tell me what to do' student, who finally worked it out for himself.

After checking on WebCT this morning to see what they had done, I sent an email to remind them of the tasks they still needed to do over the weekend. It's beginning to come together, but I also thought I had better go into the class this morning to remind them to look at their emails.

One final thought - it is all there and it is all coming together, but I think we could do with a joining-the-dots session to clarify what is there, (EAS materials on WebCT and R drive/WebCT induction+computer ID sort out) and what we expect teachers and students to do with it.

David

Those three questions

I posed three questions for discussion during the two training days at the end of September. Here they are again:

• What does the term 'learning technologies' mean to you?

• What can we do better with learning technologies?

• How will this change learning and teaching in EISU?

If you made a contribution during the session, could you do it again here, as a post or a comment, so that others can see it. Then we can carry on the response over the course of the term.

David

What I have learned this week (part 2)

Some tips of all sizes - I don't claim credit for all of these, as some came from other people.

log on early: as it can take a long time to log on for the first time on a new PC, do it the day before you use it with a class. If it keeps on taking a long time, try removing some of the clag from your desktop - use shortcuts to big files and programs instead of keeping the actual doc/app on the desktop

holding the pen: don't hold it too tightly, especially over the small round right-click button, to avoid being surprised by strange menus and the like

Activmarker: using this pen/highlighter for annotating over microsoft apps (esp Word) avoids the problem of scrolling the text and leaving the annotation behind. Switch it on via the dashboard - it also has an undo/eraser icon (strange-looking box with a red X) on the toolbar. This toolbar won't budge from the middle right of the screen, so you may need to move the toolstrip (page-turning etc) across to the right

always have a Plan B (more on this later)

David

Why the blog?

I have set up this blog as a kind of online, ongoing staff development session, giving us the chance to record, reflect on and share what we find out.

It's a way of carrying on from the plenary session of last week's training days, when people were able to start sharing experiences and thoughts. It also gives those who were not there last week the chance to catch up a bit with what was said.

It's also a way of recording what we learn from week to week, so that when we have a Friday afternoon staff development session later this term, we don't struggle too much to recall what we did.

Asking teachers to record lesson plans for a Resources Bank is OK, but there are many other micro-skills that we will all pick up and this seems like a good way of passing them on. Also, this is different from the Blue Room experience: the learning curve is steeper and it's every day, not once a week; we also have more teachers working different days now and so it seemed easier to use a blog to keep in touch.

I hope people will use it to comment and to post about their experiences and thoughts, on PCs and whiteboards, on WebCT, the R drive, on teaching in classrooms without an interactive board and anything else related to learning technologies.

David

What I have learned this week

Taking my cue from Neil Warnock's columnn in the Independent on Saturdays, I thought it would be useful to note things (big and small) that I have learned before I forget them.

It might be a good thing you can do with the remote control for the projector, something I've noticed about how working with technology changed things in the classroom or maybe about how I've started feeling more comfortable with some part of the technology package.

Start small - I like the mute button on the projector remote control as a way of changing the focus of the class away from the WB.

Also found out how to set up and do this blog, how to change the font size and remembered to put my name at the end of the post.


David

starting out on the whiteboard journey

We decided to move to interactive whiteboards in all our classrooms this year. That makes it sound very clear and simple, but in fact the decision came about piece by piece.

The first piece in the jigsaw was putting one whiteboard in a classroom/self access room a couple of years ago. People tried it, liked it but didn't feel we had to use it all the time. It was useful for training, for showing film of presentations and for demonstrating programs and stuff on the web, but it was never fully used as a whiteboard, let alone an interactive one. We didn't have time to develop skills as we could only book it once or twice a week. The rest of the week we were back in the classrooms with boards and marker pens, tape players, CD players, flipcharts, printouts.

The next piece was hearing of another language school which had cleared out all the old whiteboards and changed over to electronic boards in all classrooms. Sounded very positive, very brave and very exciting - glad it was someone else doing it and not us! We talked about it, put all the plans and costings into longer term budgets and wondered if it would ever happen.

Suddenly, earlier this year, it was time to find out what the impact would be. The funding suddenly became available, and we had to do all the work on specifications, quotes, ordering and getting everything delivered before the end of July.

Then we had to find the right time to do the installation - difficult if you have summer schools and other courses going on throughout the vacation. Managed that in the second week in September.
Some problems with equipment not working - one whiteboard had to be replaced- and the usual teething problems with any new equipment. Some brave teachers volunteered to start using the whiteboards straight away before we started the training. Thanks to them for doing that.

Two days of staff training last week went well - very busy, very enthusiastic and mostly positive. It was good to see people getting stuck in, trying things out, asking questions, imagining how it would work with our students, our materials.

Some people are still asking what we do if it doesn't work, but I guess that's not surprising - it's a big change, learning new skills, trusting in technology and doing it while trying to look cool, calm and confident in front of a new class.

I'm hoping this blog will give us chance to record how things go, say how we feel about the changes and pass on any tips to each other.