Launching PowerTeacher Gradebook

If you have difficulties launching PowerTeacher Gradebook from Spotlight or a browser, try the following...

• Go to your Applications folder  (Click on the Happy face in your dock. Click on Applications)
• Find the Application "Gradebook" and drag it to your dock.
• Click on it to launch Gradebook.

If you have any problems, please let us know.

iMovie broken??? (and fixed!)

Recently, many of you may have witnessed a rather large number of students with iMovie "issues"...typically a variety of weirdness, anything from strangely imported clips, to software based green screen malfunctions, to audio problems...  and, most recently, the issues surrounding the use of the built-in iSight camera with iMovie (or lack there of).

Through a bit of research, we have come to understand that this is a known issue with-in apple.  Apparently their latest update actually broke some bits of functionality for the iSight camera and some of the software that uses it, like iMovie.  The malfunction is related to incompatibilities in the iSight "driver" (small bits of operating system software that tell hardware how to talk to each other and play nice with the software side of things).  From helpful article:

The latest OS X update has caused some problems with the FaceTime camera on the latest MacBook Air model, leaving certain third-party apps like Skype unable to use the camera. The problem apparently concerns 32-bit apps that use the camera, including Skype and iMovie. OS X 10.8.5 updated a particular plugin for the FaceTime camera, but not for 32-bit apps, according to a Skype for Mac engineer:The 10.8.5 update updated a CoreMediaIO plugin that accesses the MBA camera, but didn't bundle the 32-bits version of it. Other (older and newer) versions of the OS do include a universal version (32 and 64 bits), but not 10.8.5. This means 32-bits apps such as Skype or iMovie cannot load the plugin, making the built-in facetime camera invisible to these them.

I guess they are calling it "the FaceTime camera" now, instead of the iSight camera or built-in webcam....whatever the case, through the unrelenting and exhaustive detective work of Mr. Borchert, and the considerable "find and copy and paste" efforts of Mr. Dearborn (might seem like I make light of it, but it does takes considerable skill and experience to get it right, which we all know these tech guys have in spades, thankfully), we can now enjoy full functionality of the iSight camera with iMovie.  It appears that most of the other strangeness has cleared up as well, though we have not tested every scenario....that is, at least until Apple decides to break it again....har har.  Anyway, many thanks to those guys for diggin' in to find and fix the issue!

As always, run RadMind to pick up the tweak.

Thanks,

PS

Large Radmind

We recently put a large update out in radmind (Mac OS 10.8.5).   Please be aware that running radmind could take from 5 to 20 minutes on the wireless network.  If you are able to plug your machine into a network cable, it will run more quickly.

The update will take longer if you have multiple machines running radmind at the same time off of the same access point, so you will want to make sure you stagger, if possible, when your students run radmind.

Common Core Resources

In today's eSchool News I found an article that would have made ex-highlands science teacher Mike Zeman overjoyed.  It is a top 15 list (his favorite genre of on-line posts) of great common core resources.  It is a list complied from Twitter and contains three that I thought looked particularly interesting:

1. 6 Sources for Primary Source Documents - With its focus on informational reading, primary sources have increased their relevance beyond the social studies and science classrooms. Find some great ones at these sites.
2. New Common Core Resources for Educators - an eSchool News article that talks about Activate Instruction, an open platform where teachers can browse, search, submit, and rate common core aligned lessons.
3. Common Core Month with the Teaching Channel - A Youtube channel that will focus the whole month of September on the Common Core.

Spend some time and at least check out the 3 I highlighted.  If you think they were worth your time, pass them on and check out the other 12.

Playing Audio Files in Google Drive ---- Without having to download them first

Google Drive used to have a built-in audio player that would recognize common audio formats and play them back right from the browser, without having to download the file first.  For some reason Google took that feature out.  3rd Party addon developers have created some plugins to Google Drive to bring back that functionality.  You and your students can play audio files right from the Google Drive browser window by following the directions in this 2 minute video.

Why are tools like Google Docs important for us to embrace?

I recently had an "aha" moment on the subject when my son, following in his proud mother's footsteps, completed his engineering degree and set out to find a job. During the process, he quickly determined that there were some key skills that would give him the edge in obtaining the job he'd set his sites on, skills that had not been part of his university curriculum. To fill the gap, he completed a series of adjunct courses offered through MIT's online continuing education program. The story ended happily and he landed his dream job.

This is an excerpt from an article that I read recently discussing some if the reasons that schools haven't been fully embracing digital learning, and suggesting that there is, at least, one main benefit.  That benefit is a customization of learning that is illustrated in the quote above.  Customization in letting students have choice in what they learn, how they learn it, and how they demonstrate what they have learned.

Does any of this sound familiar to what you've been hearing around the Highlands lately?  Be reflective about what you are really trying to accomplish with your students.  I know you hear this somewhat regularly from different members of administration, most recently Mrs. Viniard at the opening day institute, but it is an important part of changing behavior.  Realize your strengths, and reinforce them.  Recognize areas that you need to improve and overcome them.

The article that the quote is from can be found Here.

Tech Committee Date Change

Mrs. Viniard would like to join us at our first tech committee meeting of the year and is unable to make the September 4th Date.  I would like to move it to 3:30 PM on September 5th instead.  Please let me know if you plan on joining the committee.