paradise unplugged

After reading 2 of Ms Cofino’s articles on setting up her class blog, details on how she set up Linked Gmail accounts and then how she set up the class blog on Learnerblogs, I was sort of prepared for LG asking me about setting up a blog for her Stage 4 Core Class.

The only hurdle that we have in place is that G-Mail is blocked by our College’s Internet Filter. Now having recently seen a request to unblock this site be knocked back I had to think of a work around.

Luckily this is very easy. We run exchange 2003 at our campus, and this would allow me to create an email address for each student and attach it to LG’s mailbox. Then I can setup a rule so that when an email comes in for each student, it will then get moved to a folder set up for that student under LG’s mailbox hierarchy.

Once this is done LG can set up her class to use a Single Class Blog or even set up Individual Blog’s for each student.

Watch this space as we update the progress, the pro’s, and the con’s (if there are any that is).

Now all I need to do is get my hands on her Tablet…

Edit Sat 23rd Feb ‘08:

I was reading the comments to Kim’s original posts when I noticed that Lindajay had added the following to her comment:

“Another good thing to do when starting a class/students blog is to set up a spreadsheet to record details as you set up students’ blogs (names, passwords, etc.) so that can then be used to generate cards to hand out to students, and a list for later reference if things are forgotten!”

This should have been fairly obvious, but it slipped my thinking, though I haven’t had a chance to talk to LG about this yet. We’ve both had a busy schedule of late, which has made finding time to discuss our plans difficult.

I’ll get LG to give me her class list with preferred email details for her students “dummy accounts” and details of their blogs (in an excel file) and I’ll set up the rest for her ready for her class.

Now, will she want to use “live writer” too. Better follow that up next….

Just over 12 months ago we purchased 28 Laptops, on 2x 14 capacity trolleys for use in our Junior School. These have been met with great enthusiasm by our JS Teachers who are using them as much as they can.

When we set up these Laptops we purchased a product that sits on top of Microsoft Office and provides a user friendly interface aimed and the younger students. In the meantime we had upgraded the rest of the College to Office 2007.

There were 3 main problems that showed up.

1. Quite often the overlay wouldn’t open properly and you were left with Word (or whichever Office App was used) open showing every possible toolbar and leaving only 1 or 2 lines of page visible to edit (this has not been solved by their Tech Support).
2. These computers couldn’t open files saved by other staff using Office 2007. Even with the “Compatibility Pack” installed, things weren’t happening as they should.
3. The promised Office 2007 version of the product was not forthcoming

So this week we met with the Head of JS and some of his staff and have decided that usefulness is better than simplified functionality. We would rather our Teachers have a product that they can use, rather than trying to make it more user friendly for the younger Children.

This may mean a refresher for the staff in using Office 2007 so that they can pass this on. Let’s see how we go.

As it always seems to be, we will be spread very thinly across all the things that we need to do.

LG has limited period allocation for her ICT Coordinator role, on top of teaching some interesting classes full of “challenges” in many forms.

My role as Systems Admin seems to be jumping from one thing to another continuously. One minute I’m doing the administrative role, then fixing a Laptop or Tablet, then helping a class sort out Printers, then back to ore paperwork, then re-imaging our new SS Lab etc etc.

Ok, so I don’t want to sound like I’m whining, we do our best when we are under pressure. What we need to do is work out the best way for us to work around each other, and what is the best approach overall.

• Do we book a time to formally meet and discuss ideas and strategies?
• Do we use an IM client that will work in our environment and discuss as we go?
• Do we use a Blog or Wiki to share ideas, Do we do it here?
• Do we set up a Private Forum on our Portal?

As we look forward, through the fog of the here and now, we need to be able to function for the remaining 37 weeks of this School year. I want to help LG as much as possible. First we need to work out how best to do this.