Sharing vs. Delegate

Outlook folders can be shared with other uses, such as your Inbox, Calendar, and Contacts. You can choose the level of permissions you grant individuals or groups. For example, a Principal could share his/her calendar with their building staff and only give them Reviewer Permissions, which would allow building staff to read the calendar appointments, but not add or change appointments. The same principal could also give Editor Permissions to his/her secretary, so the secretary could add, change or delete appointments in the principal’s calendar. To share an outlook folder, right click on the folder, choose properties, and then choose the permissions tab.

Users can also give delegate permissions to others. This allows the delegate to send email on behalf of the user granting delegate permission. The delegate can also be delegated to receive, answer and send calendar notices for the user.

Most of the time, sharing allows the user to do what they need. Delegate permission should be used sparingly and only when the user wants someone else to have the power to communicate on their behalf.

Online Training

Microsoft has online tutorials for all levels of users and all their products. Bellingham Schools has a license for staff to use the online training. Each product has several lessons. Each lesson is about an hour or less. They are bits of information that are designed to be easy to digest, and broken up so that you can take lessons in small chunks. The lessons are interactive, self paced, and provide immediate feedback.

If you're interested in exploring the online courses, send an email to Lauri.McBeath@BellinghamSchools.org. You will get the directions and an access code to sign up.

Sample of courses for users for MS Word 2007

Collection 5258: Core Training for MS Office Word 2007

Course 5419: Getting Started with Microsoft Office Word 2007

Course 5420: Editing and Proofreading Documents in Microsoft Office Word 2007

Course 5421: Formatting Documents in Microsoft Office Word 2007

Course 5422: Working with Columns and Tables in Microsoft Office Word 2007

Course 5423: Working with Graphical Elements in Microsoft Office Word 2007

Course 5424: Working with Longer Documents in Microsoft Office Word 2007

Course 6787: Collaborating with Others and Personalizing Microsoft Office Word 2007

Course 6788: Working with Advanced Features of Microsoft Office Word 2007

Phoenix

Like the Phoenix this blog is being resurrected. I intend to add monthly (if not weekly) tips on technology in the Bellingham School District and using technology in education. Tips will also reference the "how to's" maintained on the district intranet at https://inside.bellinghamschools.org/Instruction/CompNetSvcs/Pages/default.aspx.

If you'd like to see a specific topic, please email me at Lauri.McBeath@BellinghamSchools.org.

Top 100 iPad Apps for Middle Schoolers

Just a repost from the blog "Edumic."

http://edudemic.com/2011/11/ipad-middle-school/

Google Calendar might make conference scheduling a little bit easier with "Appointment Slots"

Conferences are coming and that means lots of slips of paper moving back and forth between home and school and lots of scheduling by teachers. Last year Google released a useful addition to their Calendars service that might make this a little easier for you to manage.

In your Google Calendar (if you keep one already, you can use it; if you don't, you can make one just for conferences), you can set a region of time up as 30-minute appointment slots. Then when those slips of paper come back in, you can just click on a slot and enter the name.

If you want more automation, you can send the URL out to parents and they can sign up from home... no more slips of paper! Unfortunately, this only works for parents who have a Google Username (gmail, google docs, etc.).

Here is a video tutorial about using appointment slots in Google Calendar:

Use TEAM BLOGS to keep parents in-the-know!

The blog you are reading right now is a great example of a team blog. Janae set up a couple of different authors to be able to post on it so that many people can share what they learn in one place. You can do a similar thing in your school. It is especially useful if you are in a team such as in a collaborative specialist model at elementary, or in a team model like at middle school.

Here are the basic steps:

1. Create a blog at blogger.com.
2. Under SETTINGS tab, select PERMISSIONS.
3. Select the ADD AUTHORS button and add the Google Username of anyone you'd like to give permission to post on the blog.

Okay, so that's the basic series of steps. But you will probably want to make it so that parents can subscribe to your blog with their email address. That way, whenever you make an update, those updates will not only exist on your blog but will be pushed to the subscriber's email address. Pretty slick! So here's how you add that function:

1. Under the DESIGN tab, select ADD A GADGET wherever you'd like their email input box to appear.
2. When the gadget window pops open, select FOLLOW BY EMAIL and it will be added to the blog.

It's as simple as that! 

Cheers,

Brian

Are your students motivated by "badges" and such?

Edmodo just rolled out a new release last night and in it they implemented student profiles and badges [link to blog post]!

Um... what are badges? They're kind of like Boy Scout or Girl Scout merit badges. Online or in Edmodo, they're kind of like customized stickers that you get to create (whatever picture you like) and establish the criteria for (totally your call and discretion). When a student demonstrates proficiency or meets your criteria, you can award him/her the badge and it appears in their profile! The only people who get to see a student's profile and badges are that student, his/her teacher, and other students enrolled in the group (a.k.a. class).

I've already created two badges for my science students: "Data Cruncher" and "Inventor". I'm now working on criteria for "Scientist" levels 1-3 for designing different types of experiments and participating in a science fair (that doesn't exist yet... but might soon).

This is very similar to how the Khan Academy rewards students with badges.

I admit that I am not certain that I philosophically agree with these rewards and motivators. But I've seen some pretty apathetic students work for over an hour on basic math fact drills on the Khan Academy just so that they could get that badge!

Alfie Kohn and "Punishment by Reward" definitely have a point. But based on what I've seen amongst some of my own students I have to reserve judgement and even admit excitement!

Cheers,

Brian