Teachers College adopts RapidWeaver for Portfolio Development

Web-based portfolio development has been a challenge for quite some time.  Finding a tools that is "perfect" has been difficult.  Luckily, your technology team: directors, support and training professionals and developers have found a great tool.

Beginning Fall of 2008, support and training for all freshmen and future student portfolio development will shift to RapidWeaver 3.6. Based on the technical constraints of the teacher education portfolio model, and after a thorough evaluation with input from students and faculty, RapidWeaver provides the best possible balance between ease-of-use, flexibility, and portability while providing opportunities for various levels of technical sophistication. We have purchased a site license for RapidWeaver and a complementary plug-in called "Blocks" to further extend the software's capabilities. Both will be available free-of-charge to the Ball State University community members. Instructions on how to download RapidWeaver can be found at the "RapidWeaver Support Site" link at the URL below.

Both the Portfolio Lab (TC 709) and the iStudio (TC 406) will provide walk-in support for students and faculty who are new or current users of RapidWeaver. The iStudio will lead initial professional development for faculty switching to RapidWeaver. Support for Apple's iWeb and Netscape's Composer as portfolio publishing tools for existing students will continue in the Portfolio Lab (TC 709).

For more information including summer workshop opportunities, please visit:
iStudio

May 13, 2008

Please contact Mike Modesitt as soon as you are ready to upgrade to Leopard.  Email him with a couple options for drop-off days when you can part with your laptop for 2-4 hours.  Once you have a scheduled an update slot you will receive a preparation sheet with tasks to complete prior to drop-off.  These tasks are important safeguards to ensure that the update goes smoothly and that the risk of data loss is significantly reduced.

Many of you may have noticed that the web interface to our exchange-based email system looks a bit different.  In early May all Teachers College users were upgraded to the newest version of the email service.  If you experience any difficulties or need help navigating the new look please let Mike or Andy know at your earliest convenience.

Communicating with your students using the ever-present cell phone and text messaging

Were you aware that you don't need to be a text-messager in order to send text messages to a persons (or many peoples') cell phone?  You can send an email to your student's cell phone and tell them; "class is canceled," "bring your lesson plan" or "we are meeting at Scotty's today" just like sending an email to them.  You just need to know their cell number and provider (sprint, verizon, etc.).  If you are interested in creating an email distribution list for your class let me know and I can walk you through the process.  Standard texting rates DO apply.

Emerging Media opportunities:

The university is soon to make funds available related to emerging media projects.  What is "Emerging Media?"  The term is generally very wide-open, but currently the focus includes devices, deliver and content.  If you have a great idea about using, distributing, creating or evaluating digital information we might be able to find funds to help.  Let us know!

Software Titles to consider:

SPSS is available for faculty and staff us.  We still have several licenses available.  The new version runs on the Intel and PowerPC computers.  Let us know if you would like to have it installed on your machine.

Safari 3.1.1:

Apple has released a new version of Safari (Internet browser) that runs on both Windows and Macintosh computers.  This version is noticeably faster and much more stable.  You MUST be running the latest version of Tiger or any version of Leopard to install it on your Apple laptop.  You can find it at Version Tracker

Firefox:

A very useful alternative to Safari is the Firefox browser.  The newest version can be found at Version Tracker as well.

Microsoft Office 2008 update:

If you have made the conversion to Office 2008 you will want to run the newest update to the suite.  At the time of this publication the update was not yet visible in the "Office Updater" that installs with the software.  You can get the update directly from the link at Version Tracker.

If you have a topic that needs discussed, please contact me.

April 16, 2008

FYI: UCS will be upgrading everyone's e-mail account by May 5th.  The upgrade will be practically undetectable to most.  If you experience any problems feel free to contact myself or Andy as soon as possible.

Time Machine is a new backup application found in the newest version of Apple's operating system.  This application creates timed backups of your entire computer.  We will be testing a network-based solution of this tool during the summer.  As you could have predicted applications are starting to emerge to enhance the usefulness of this tool.  Time Machine Scheduler is such a tool.  This little application gives much greater flexibility to the time at which incremental backups occur.

Starting this week I have been presenting a brief look into Leopard and providing attendees with the opportunity to reserve a space in the "drop-off" and upgrade to Leopard service.  Attendance has been low, but it will soon pickup.  I will continue to offer these workshops throughout the summer term and fall.  The "drop-off" service will also offer upgrades to MS Office and iLife.  If you need a schedule contact me or your departmental secretary.

Application Highlights:

Google Documents - freeware

* Online document creation system (documents, presentations and spreadsheets)

* Share and Collaboration in real time

* Safely store and organize your work (upload and download)

* Control Access to your shared documents

Jack OS X - freeware

Without getting too technical this application, amongst other features, can redirect the audio output of one application to the audio input of another application.  Use your imagination!

Geotagger 1.2 - freeware

This application will add the latitude and longitude values to an image file from the current location of Google Earth.  New cameras with GPS features do this automatically, but this application can be used for those of us wanting this function, but not interested in paying the price for this feature in our cameras.

If you have a topic that needs to be addressed please contact me and I will help get the word out or find a solution.

April 8th ideas and information

A new widget is available to see your Entourage calendar (today and tomorrow).  It is not extremely useful, but has great potential.  Check it out at http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/27280

Google is offering more and more resources and applications every month.  It might me a good time to get an account and start exploring those offerings.  In later episodes we will explore specific applications for Teachers College opportunities.  For now, take a peek at the tools:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/options

Looking for the newest Microsoft downloads for (or perhaps older ones that you need)?  You can download most of the available software and create your own CD/DVDs at MSDownloads@BSU

Hint:  this is best done while on campus and requires authentication.

Today's Application Focus: Preview in Leopard

The newest version of Preview (in Leopard) adds a great deal of flexibility when dealing with PDF files (other format too).

- annotation of PDF for fast searching with SpotLight

- Image manipulation (cut, crop, rotate, etc.)

- combine PDF files and re-order the pages

- GPS metadata linking to Google Maps

Take a look at the entire "New Feature" listing for Preview here.

Upgrade Your Intel Computer

Starting April 9th, 2008, Teachers College faculty and staff will see notices advertising the schedule for presentations about the new Apple operating system, Leopard.  At the end of these presentations faculty and staff will be able to reserve an "upgrade" slot for their Intel-based Apple laptop.  The "upgrade" will include installation of Leopard, Office 2008 and iLife '08.  All new updates to those software title will be done as well.  For those running bootcamp the newest Apple hardware drivers will be installed on the windows partition.  You will receive an email confirming your "upgrade" slot and giving you a short list of pre-installation tasks for drop-off.