Comments for Teaching Hacks.com

Comment on Administrative Note-Taking Hack by Erin Steeley

Erin Steeley — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 23:48:09 +0000

This is a truly critical task for teachers to keep up with, and I love the idea of using a voice recognition software program to make the task easier. I use Dragon Naturally Speaking for my own work, and it speeds up my work quite a bit. There are so many instances when a teacher needs to document something: a conversation with a parent, meeting with an administrator, the behavior of a child, a conversation with a colleague, and so many others. By recording it during it down time, such as during a planning period or another quick moment, the teacher will record the information while it’s still fresh in his her mind.

Waiting too long after the fact causes errors that can be detrimental later on when the documentation has to be used. Teachers should also always keep a small notebook and pen with them to record notes about an event if they are unable to get a recorder quickly enough. This is really crucial when having to record the number of times a behavior occurs or what a child says. With the liability that teachers often face, documenting is an important skill to learn. Thank you for your post and great idea on this subject. I encourage all teachers to document regularly, as it can also help to find patterns in a child’s behavior.

Comment on Smart Notebook Hacks by Teqsmart

Teqsmart — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:43:49 +0000

Very good Hack. Yes the SMART Notebook software is pretty cool. It does allow the user to use the Notebook software when other apps won’t let you work. Any Flash file can be played in the Notebook. In fact, you should see how it looks on a SMART Board! For more shortcuts and quick tips you can try us at blog.teqsmart.org

Comment on Open Weekend GE Course Reflections by Helen

Helen — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:59:10 +0000

Quentin, I want to thank you for a great experience this last weekend at knowschools. Your postings here reflecting the wide range of resources that we explored and your willingness to share your expertise with us is greatly appreciated.

Comment on Smart Notebook Hacks by Dannynic

Dannynic — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:29:58 +0000

thanks. I’ve been having problems with the video downloader you linked… It used to work fine but now throws up errors.

I’ve just found a new one that I just had to share. I’ve just tested it with YouTube and it worked a treat.

It’s called fast video downloader and like the other one it’s a plug in for Firefox.

You can get it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3590

Danny

Comment on Smart Notebook Hacks by Quentin D'Souza

Quentin D'Souza — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:30:51 +0000

The method thast Dannynic is describing is going into the folder: C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\ if you are on Win XP. Locating the SWF file. And ensure that it has the .swf extension and save it somewhere else. The So Think extension allows download of any flash file not specific sites – which is where Video Downloader is limited.

Thanks for the Heads-Up on the Promethean files. Haven’t run into it not loading before, so that is good to know. Although sometimes I get mixed up text, that is easy to seperate.

Comment on Smart Notebook Hacks by Dannynic

Dannynic — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:18:07 +0000

The flash player is great. A very handy way of getting round schools blocking YouTube in lessons. Video downloader seems to have stopped working for me – but you can always grab the video out of the Temporary Internet Files.

Importing promethean files into Smart doesnt always work. It does depend on the specific version of ActivStudio that was used to create the file. Every now and then a patch comes out that makes the file unreadable in Smart (and vice versa)

Comment on Tips On Developing A Wiki Community by BostonBBS

BostonBBS — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 02:26:34 +0000

The BostonBBS admins feel the same way about anonymity – all of our members are asked to use their real names, and register with a real address. I have made some really good online friends there, and it is the first place I turn for advice of all kinds. It’s a diverse group of people, and because people use their real names they are responsible for what they say. Newcomers are surprised that we don’t hide behind user names, but it’s one of the things that makes the place work so well.

Comment on The Anatomy of “Contact” Spam by Susan Sedro

Susan Sedro — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 05:52:52 +0000

I’ve long been a fan of Wetpaint– from even before it was beta! However, this week they lost my admiration. They are mis-reading COPPA and are throwing off one of our fifth grade teacher’s sites because his students are under 13. We have parent permission slips– we can send the slips to them if they want. We are using parent’s login (email and user name) but still they will not allow the wiki to remain. We even sent them the relevant parts of the COPPA document to show that we are within its guidelines but Wetpaint is unswayed. Interesting that they are promoting themselves as so education friendly and then doing this.

Be very clear; they have no issue with the content of the wiki, only the age of the participants.

So, elementary teachers stay clear of Wetpaint!! It is yet another part of the web that won’t let our students in.
(Thanks for blogging about this! I was going to put it on my blog, but it will be seen by far more people here.)

Comment on Remixing Tools For Educators Using Video Sharing Sites by James

James — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:09:59 +0000

I found this amazing website it is a WEB 2.0 that supports all media files conversion it is called http://youconvertit.com, they can do the following:
1- Convert document, images, audio, video and Archived files.
2- Convert any Youtube and other Online Video to popular formats or download the video
3- Send file(s) up to 300 MB to friends or post it on any forum for 7 days
4- Convert any type of units (Acceleration, Area, Torque and others)

what makes them amazing is you can add up to 5 different file formats, i used them to convert a document and couple of audio files.

Try them and give me your feedback http://www.youconvertit.com

Comment on Gamemaker by sam

sam — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 21:28:32 +0000

not bad at all