ALT and TITLE Instructions

Instructions for adding ALT and TITLE modifiers are now available in the Syllabus and Handouts portion of this blog.

Are You in Compliance With Accessibility Guidelines?

Check your blog and your website! Did you complete the ALT modifiers when you added a picture to your blog or web site? Steve Sullivan demonstrated the use of Wave 3.5 to check your blog or web site for compliance. Check yours now!

Accessibility Issues for the Internet

In Week 7 we heard from Mr. Steve Sullivan. His presentation Accessibility For All is now available on his blog Let's Tech Talk.who demonstrated several adaptive devices that individuals with disabilities can use to make working with a computer more efficient and effective. Mr. Sullivan also demonstrated an attachment to his computer which increased the size of the text on the page as well as Jaws which is a program that reads material to a blind person. We were then able to hear what students have put in ALT modifiers of an IMG tag.

Podcast Assignments

Podcast Assignments have been made and you have been sent an Email regarding your Podcast Topic and the names of the members of your team. You should contact all of the members of your team and begin preparing for your Podcast.

Here you can download a list of Podcast Assignments By Class so that you can see what topics others i your class have. Give them suggestions if you can.

Students in several classes are assigned to the same topic. Downoad Assignments Podcast Assignments Sorted by Topic here. You may want to contact students in other classes assigned to the same topic that you are. You can contact them through their blog. All student bogs are listed on the class blog web site. Look them up and send them an email. For students in W6 you will find them listed in the Class Blog for Ms. Jennifer Averitt. If their email links are not up now, they will be by next Thursday.

Oops! More on iGoogle Assignment

Sorry! I messed up and didn't show you how to do the second (student) iGoogle Page. So that assignment is delayed. I will cover this next week and have changed the draft due date to Week 8.

Week 6

In week 6 we:
1. Finished Presentations. If you have not given your presentation I will need your medical excuse and we will have to make arrangements for the presentation.
2. All students shared their presentations with me as a collaborator. (See previous post). They also published their Presentations and added them to their blogs.
3. All students added a link to allow email to be sent to them. A handout will be posted explaining how to do this.
4. We reviewed the new Blog Topic Assignments. See link under Syllabus and Handouts to the right for Blog Topics 2.
5. Students were sent a form requesting that choices be made for Podcasts. A reply is due no later than Friday 9/26 at midnight. Students will be notified of team members and topics by Sunday 9/27 midnight.
6. We reviewed the mechanics of using iTunes and iTunes U.
7. We added Google Talk to the personal iGoogle pages of all students.
8. In the Wednesday night Fairhope class we covered Picasa.

Next Steps With Your Presentation

1. Share Your Presentation
Click on the Share Tab in Google DOCS. Share your presentation as a collaborator with strange.john@gmail.com. You should also UNCHECK the two boxes below the box where you list those with whom to share your presentation.

2. Publish Your Presentation
Click on the Publish Tab in Google DOCS. Google will provide code that you can paste in any blog or web site in order to show your presentation. Copy the code provided by Google. You will need this in in Step 3.

3. Add Your Presentation to Your Blog
Open your blog and add a Post. In the Title put My Presentation. In the text area make sure that the Edit Html Tab is selected. Then paste the code you copied from Step 2 into the text area for your post. Publish Post. Your Presentation is now available through your blog.

Podcast Topics

In Week 9 you will participate in a podcast. Three or four students will discuss a topic for approximately 15 minutes. You must PREPARE for this conversation. I have prepared a list of Podcast Topics. Read over this Podcast Topics, select your five favorires and rank them in order of your preference. I have sent you an EMail with a form embedded. Fill out this form listing your topic choices in order of preference. This must be completed by midnight Friday September 26. I will notify you of your topic by midnight Sunday September 28. You can then get started on your research for your topic.

Week 5 - Presentations!

Presentations! Next week these presentations will be available on each student's blog. Evaluations will be posted next week on a Form. Bring your evaluation sheets with you to next week's class (Tuesday or Wednesday). Everything to do with Presentations will be completed in the first class session next week (Week 6).

Week 4

Tuesday/Thursday Classes covered:
Google Earth
iTunes
We also introduced podcasts and videocasts and began the exploration of educational podcasts and videocasts through iTunes (See Handout)
RSS feeds, what they are, why they are useful, how to use them (See Handout)

Wednesday Night Class covered:
Foliotek (See Handout)
Word processing
Introduction to Web Pages
Preparation for Presentation

Correcting Links That Do Not Work

The four most important reason that links do not work are:
1.The link is not correctly spelled. For example, I misspelled MY NAME in a link earlier today. Silas caught it and did not believe me when I said it was intentional. And he was right. I just made a mistake!
2. Nothing is placed between the two parts of an a tag. I will demonstrate this to you.
Apple's Web Site which you may find interesting.
3. You forgot to include http:// in the address. It must be included.
4, Sometimes Google doesn't like a / after the address. Try removing it.

New Articles

Ms. Averitt has located two very interesting articles about RSS Feeds and Podcasting. I have posted them under Syllabus and Handouts, but I am going to also put the links for them here.
The ABC's of RSSS Feeds
Podcasting: Just the Basics
I have also added a User Guide for Google Earth.

Week 3

Tuesday/Thursday Classes
In week 3 one class session was devoted entirely to working on the presentation project
In the other session we covered ...
1) Foliotek - see handout under Syllabus and Handouts
2) Google Notebook - See Google Help and Tips. Handout distributed and will be added to this blog soon.
3) Google Reader (as part of the using of RSS Feeds) - See Google Help and Tips
4) RSS feeds, what they are, why they are useful, how to use them

Wednesday night class (Fairhope)
1) RSS feeds, what they are, why they are useful, how to use them
2) Google Reader (as part of the using of RSS Feeds)
3) Google Earth
4) Google Talk
5) Google Notebook
6) iTunes
7) We also introduced podcasts and videocasts and began the exploration of educational podcasts and videocasts through iTunes.

Week 2

In Week 2 we covered ...
1) How to use Google Docs Presentation to make a presentation (Due Week 5)
2) How to search in Google using specialized Google search techniques including Images, Maps, Scholar, University,Blogs, Books, Groups, Video, Phone Numbers, Advanced Searches and Search Preferences
3) How to find the source of images taken from the wem and how to acknowledge the source on presentation pages
4) How to add a Google theme to a presentation
5) How to add text and images to a presentation slide and how to move them and resize them when necessary
6) How to rearrange the order of slides in Presentation
7) How to run the presentation
8) How to expand the presentation window so that the slide fills the entire window
9) How to move forward and backward in a presentation
10) How to conduct oneself when presenting
11) How to create an iGoogle page
12) How to find and add "stuff" to an iGoogle page
13) How to scan pictures
14) How fast technology changes, especially iGoogle, and to understand how to cope with rapidly changing technologies

If you are having problems with any of these, email me.