Helpful Websites

Posted by Mr. Peabody on Friday, October 21st 2011

Here are the websites we talked about after our first project. Take a look and explore.

Website	Description and Educational Applications
hs.ismanila.org	The HS Student Portal serves as a one-stop resource for viewing teachers’ websites, teachers’, school photos, important information from the HS Office, CAS, Guidance, ATAC and ISSBA, ISM Portal, library resources, Powerschool and Google Docs. Everything you need for school in one location. Login with your ISM Google account
http://evernote.com/	Evernote is an electronic cloud-based notebook to help you organize yourself and document research. Because it is cloud-based, your notes, web clips, files and images are available on any computer. You can save a photo, record some audio, entire webpages (you get the whole page: text, images and links). You can also share your notes and collaborate on projects with classmates.
http://markup.io/	Markup lets you annotate (text or drawing) on any webpage. No download is needed. You just need to save markup in your bookmarks and you are set to go. After you annotate, you can publish these annotations along with the webpage and send the URL to a classmate for sharing.
http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/	Have you used Camtasia before? Well Screencast-O-Matic is similar but has the convenience of being web-based. It is an online screen recorder with one-click recording. You can record a maximum of 15 minutes, upload to YouTube, export your file to MP4, AVI, FLV movie. It will also record your web camera. If you are making a “how-to-video”, this is a nice tool to use.
http://www.stixy.com/	Stixy is a web-based bulletin board used for posting information, photos, documents, and to do lists. By posting information to the Stixyboard, users can organize and share information quickly and easily. The organization is up to you. Very much like an actually bulletin board.

http://only2clicks.com/

Simple and easy on-line bookmarking. This is for the visual person. Take your bookmarks with you anywhere.

category: Helpful Websites

Help! My computer is frozen!

Posted by Mr. Peabody on Saturday, August 6th 2011

Do not turn off your computer, that should be your last resort if all else fails.

Mac (you see the spinning color wheel)
hold down windows-alt-escape and select the application that is frozen and click ‘Force Quit’

Windows (you see the hourglass)
hold down ctrl-alt-del, select Task Manager and then click ‘End Task’ on the application that is not responding

If the computer does not respond in any way to the above two options, you need to hard boot the computer by holding down the power button to turn it off. (Note: a computer should only be turned off in this manner when something is wrong because the computer mayhave problems starting up if it’s not shut down the proper way).

If restarting the app still gives the problem, try logging out and logging back in.

If the problem still persists, start up another computer and reboot the computer you are using. Use whichever of the two computers boots up first. Let the teacher know about the problem on the computer so that an IT request can be made to fix the problem on the computer.

Firefox Settings on the Mac

Posted by Mr. Peabody on Friday, August 5th 2011

If you encounter problems trying to view websites on the Mac using Firefox, you may need to change your settings as shown:

1. Select Preferences from the Firefox menu:

2. Click on the ‘Advanced’ tab at the top and then select the ‘Network’ Tab below it. Click on the ‘Settings’ button.

3. Ensure that your settings match the ones shown below (including the checked box)

Troubleshooting

Posted by Mr. Peabody on Friday, August 5th 2011

Troubleshooting a problem is one of the most important IT skills that can be acquired. With the availability of information today, knowing the answer is no longer as important as knowing how to get the answer.

Steps to Troubleshooting:

Ask the person on your left.
Ask the person on your right.
Use the Google search engine to find an answer (this skill is the most important to learn so that you can solve your own problems when you’re at home by yourself)
Ask the teacher.

List possible solutions to the following problems (often in real life there is no perfect solution to a problem, so we have to use workarounds):

1. My computers won’t turn on.

2. I can’t open my mail in Internet Explorer.

3. My computer is on but I can’t see anything.

4. My monitor is on but I can’t see anything.

5. The document I printed isn’t coming out of the printer.

6. My computer is stuck on the Knight Rider screen of death.

7. My mouse isn’t working.

8. My keyboard isn’t working.

9. My keyboarding is typing an alien language.

10. I can’t access the folder ‘My Documents’.

Welcome to Computer Literacy 2011-2012!

Posted by collettd on Thursday, August 4th 2011

Enduring Understanding: Technology is dynamic and we must learn dynamism to adapt in our ever-changing world.

At ISM we believe that technology is a part of our lives and our learning. It does not replace us, nor should it surpass us. Rather, technology when applied through the human minds unique creativity and innovation, enhances us. As the world progresses into the 21st century we will experience changes that we never thought possible. Our world will look different decade to decade, year to year and day to day. The task that is in our hands is to prepare for this change. If we embrace the challenge of learning and improving as the world around us does, so we will be able to take full advantage of the opportunities that this change creates. The world of tomorrow is not about how much you know, or even what skills you have. The world of tomorrow is about what kind of learner you are.

As your teacher, I do not have all the answers. In fact many of your questions will require me to research alongside you. This is how fast things are changing. In High School IT, we are all learners and I look forward to learning with you this year.

Welcome to Computer Literacy!

Computer Literacy