Presented at the August 24, 2015 LCMS faculty meeting.

The Faculty 15… 15 technology ideas, thoughts, and reminders.

COMPUTER CARTS:

        1.  Please return mobile carts to computer labs and plug in at the end of the day. The carts may occasionally be delivered to you and/or picked up from your room for maintenance reasons, testing, etc. but that is not the norm. If you have signed out a lab, picking it up and returning it (and plugging it in please!) are part of your responsibilities.

        2.  The new large gray computer carts DO NOT charge all the computers at the same time. You may think a computer is not charging but it could be the charging rotation is not on that particular shelf at that time.

        3.  Slots on the three mobile carts available for checkout will be numbered this week to help students/staff return the computers into the right slots. If you have a cart in your room, please feel free to label the slots. Stickers or masking tape work well.

DRIVE:

4. Adding the “LCMS Staff Documents” from our school site to “My Drive” in your own Google drive is an option BUT if you do so, your computer will sync all the files in that “Shared” documents folder and may hold up your own personal files from syncing. Visiting that folder as needed through our school website is recommended. Another option would be to add only select folders from that main folder to your own Drive.

5. “Shared with Me” does not sync with your Drive folder on your computer. If a document was shared with you and you will need to access that document frequently, you may want to move it into one of your own Google Drive folders.

CHROMEBOOKS:

        6.  These computers are all web-based; students log in as if they are logging into Google Drive, with their full email address. They can access the internet and all it has to offer. They will not have Microsoft Office.

        7.  Save time with the Bookmark Bar by having students drag the website addresses of key sites to the bookmark bar that stretches across the top of the Chrome browser. This will allow students to access these sites easier in the future. This space is prime real estate and is limited so think about putting the frequently visited sites on your school webpage and having them add your school webpage to the bookmarks bar. I also recommend bookmarking the LCMS Student Start Page (https://sites.google.com/a/k12louisa.org/k12lcms/).

        8.  No delete??? There is not a delete button on the Chromebooks.

        9.  There are several ways to remove bookmarks. Some students already have many, many, many bookmarks in Chrome from elementary school or previous LCMS years. To remove them, click on the bookmark to get to the page marked and then click the yellow star and then click “Remove.”  Removing multiple sites is possible by using “Manage Bookmarks.”

TEACHER LAPTOPS:

        10. Installing a printer or software?  If you are asked for a login to do so, try  UN: teacher  PW: teacher1

DOCS: 

        11. Add-On: Thesaurus… In a Doc click on “Add-ons” and “Get Add-ons” and find the thesaurus one. Once installed it will be available in every Google Doc by clicking on “Add-ons” and choosing it. A window will open on the right to run it.

        12. Add-On: Translate… Same procedure as above only find the translate one.

        13. Breaking into a PDF… Picture files and PDFs saved to your Google Drive can be opened in Google Docs (right click on the file and choose that option). They become editable. The system isn’t perfect but it can be very helpful. Once open the picture of the original document is at the top and the text from it, ready to be edited, is below.

        14. Commenting… If you are reading a shared document and want to make suggestions, highlight the text and click on “Insert” and “Comment.” The owner can read the comments and resolve them… either by ignoring or changing the text.

CHROME BROWSER:

        15. No Wifi? While you are counting to 10 to calm down and decide what alternative plan you are going to use, open a new tab in your browser and type a non-Google address. When the page telling you there is no wifi shows up, you will see a dinosaur. Click the spacebar and make that dinosaur jump the obstacles!  Stress gone! :)