Wikis & Blogs

Just an FYI,
We will be deactivating & removing the outdated New Ulm Schools local Wiki & Blog server in the next several weeks.

If you still want to use Wikis and Blogs, wich is a great resource for many classroom projects, we recommend you use wikispaces.com to create Wiki's, which is a free education tool that works wonderfully to create and collaborate through wikis.

To create a blog, either as a teacher or as a student, check out blogger.com, which is a huge part of our Google Apps for Education suite of tools, and sign in with your New Ulm Apps account. 

If you need assistance on how to create or setup the wikispaces or blogger please contact the Technology Office, EVEN DURING SUMMER BREAK, and we will help you out!

Gmail search bar is powerful!

The search bar on the top of your Gmail does more than you think

Search emails, Google Drive, Calendar and more as you type | Official Gmail Blog

Getting ready to roll out chromebooks

We have a stack of these, and some settings like this.

Waiting for the management console licenses from Agosto.

Once we have those, think we'll be able to sign in for first time and auto-enroll devices?

Just trying to plan ahead this time, as it wasn't as simple as Google claimed last time.

Chromebooks came from Amazon.com

Bringing people together in Drive | Google Drive Blog

The chat window in Google Drive has been updated.

Checkout Google's blog post for more information:
Bringing people together in Drive | Google Drive Blog

1-21-2013 Network Upgrade: NEED TO KNOW

Our entire network is having a new Battery Back-up System system installed on Monday. 

Monday, January 21st is not an ideal day for this to happen, but this is an important upgrade we need done as soon as possible for more prevention of future internet outages during student-contact instructional days. 

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Installing new battery back-ups is a little like replacing the power strip between the wall and your tv at home... a little. 

The internet in your building will be down for around 15-30 minutes at some point on Monday. The vendor installing this system the will check into the office and have an announcement sent over the PA before turning off the power to your building network, which will then shut down your access to the internet. 

We apologize sincerely for the inconvenience this causes during grading. 

For those interested and a much more amateur version of what is being installed, we found "Jim" on YouTube Demonstrating a smaller application of this process

TIES 2012 Resources

Minnesota's annual Technology in Education Conference took place December 10-11th, who had . New Ulm had six staff members participate in two days of fast-pasted technology focused conversations in Minneapolis.

Part of the beauty in educational conferences is the obvious willingness (well, need) to share and learn from those around you. A framework of collaboration at the TIES Conference is built on their CONFERENCE WIKI , which is a website build by the teachers presenting at the TIES Conference. 

Check out the conference wiki here for the schedule, breakout session descriptions, websites, presentations, videos and handouts from almost every session at the conference. If you see something on the schedule and want to know more, click on the links or search the web and you should find the presentation. I "virtually attend" many conferences for the free learning you can get just by lurking on a conference schedule and watching the links people post to twitter during sessions. 

The opening Keynote speaker Simon Sinek, talk about how to help those around you inspire one another to take positive action. Author of the book, "Start with Why," Simon's message was very well received and challenges everyone to ask themselves, "Why do you do what you do?" on a daily basis.  

Here is Simon Sinek's 18 minute TED Talk called, How great leaders inspire action, and is definitely worth a watch. 

When I attend a conference I use an approach taken from the Google Teacher Academies and the Superhero Tech Conference here in Minnesota, spelled out is this post by Sean Beaverson, Secondary Technology Coordinator in Bloomington, MN, I look at finding the Big Three take-aways from any education workshop:

#1 - AHA! What is one idea that you can implement in the next week. This is your aha moment. An idea that you’d been thinking about or working on suddenly became clear to you and you’re ready to implement it.

#2 - BIG IDEA - this is something you’re thinking about, but it will take some more planning and even learning to plan it. This is likely a collection of new ideas that you are working to synthesize into implementation.

#3 - Your Dream Project - You don't know how to do it, but you're pretty sure it can be done. You have new information and new ideas that get you closer to implementation, but it's a long term project and there is still more to learn. You let this one simmer.
Above Big Three Quoted from seanbeaverson.com/2012/10/superhero12_23.html

Here are my "Big Three's" from TIES 2012

1. Simon Sinek’s speech really connected with me when he was talking about how we need to purposely be using technology to solve a problem in our classrooms. I think his definitions and explanations for why it is so important for educators look at exactly how we are teaching in our classrooms and schools and what technology can be used to more or less speed-up or enhance daily tasks. To me, this pressured me to revisit the learning initiatives we are focusing on in the technology department in New Ulm, and look at how we need to do more with staff to support how first and foremost Google Apps can be more efficient and effective in how we communicate and collaborate with staff, but also share with and support teachers more to show how student learning can be enhanced by engaging and manipulating content in ways never before possible. While our district is working more with the SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition) Model below, his speech reminds me that it is always important how we implement, train, model and support technology throughout the district.

2. Tips for Staff: Technology is constantly changing and I often find or hear simple tech tips and tricks that might help someone. Right now I am only sharing these on a blog and emailing them out to staff in a list. I know that there is a limit to the amount of emails someone will read from you before they just create a filter for the emails and forget about them and I want to hit the happy medium for how to do share this with all staff. I want to follow the lead of a few teachers I met at TIES and create short videos that are 45 seconds or less that show 1) How to do something 2) Put it on YouTube where it can be accessed from anywhere.

3. Kite Aerial Photography: I realize I’m not in the classroom anymore, but I really want to do an Aerial Photography project (or find a classroom teacher interested) and stitch that photography to an interactive map. I listened to two teachers from Brainerd present about the photography balloons they have been launching with different classes around twice a year and think it would be a great way to explore the area immediately around you. The equipment includes a large weather balloon, a camera set to take pictures every 5-10 seconds (or flip camera), and some cheap prepaid cell phone that can text it’s GPS coordinates on a regular basis. The actual “thing” you launch in the air ends up created and being flown by your students. There are many sites with how-to’s and programs to make cameras take the pictures every 10 seconds, as well as stitching the aerial photos to an interactive map. General website info here: http://www.arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/kaptoc.html
What if the 2012 class picture was an Aerial Photo of every student standing outside the high school from a floating balloon-camera-gps they designed?

Jefferson's 3rd Grade Teacher, Travis Raske pumped out this long list of websites, Apps, and other links for his staff right after the conference. Link to Travis' Resources

We are collecting more "ready made" TIES resources to share our learning with you soon.

Have a great break!

Exports contacts from Kerio into gmail

This is a 5 minute video on how to export your contacts from Kerio to be able to import them into gmail. 

Here are step-by-step directions to follow this process written by Gail and Marion at Jefferson (links to a document with directions)

This is a multiple step process and does require you to use the apple address book to complete the import/export process.