Microsoft

I’ve Started a Free ICT Podcast for Teachers

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This is a transcription of the podcast that appears below and the text has been included for the same reason I created an audio version – to try and reach you in the format that you like. Sadly even though it, like most things I do is “free” – to increase “headline readbility” in my blog, the use of that one “power word” gets me from a 51% to a 73% Headline rating… But that’s a story for another day.

  • Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress; working hard for something we love, is called passion.
  • Do what you love, love what you do.
  • If it is to be it is up to me. (Ten two-letter words)

This is not a podcast about leadership or well-being or anything like that. It is an acknowledgment that you’re listening to this probably outside of working hours because you’re interested in ICT matters and you are only doing it not because you have been told to, but because you want to… and so keying in on the words of passion, love and wanting to do something because it is up to you means you have landed here because you want to.

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Using OneNote in the Classroom

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I prepared an episode of the video seminar I conduct at work called smoothies. These are short 15 minute webinars aimed at passing on a tip or two for our ICT teachers in our schools. Although aimed at primary school ICT teachers, I really enjoy the input received from dedicated ICT managers in the higher education schools.

I had a chance to visit a primary school and see firsthand the interaction between teacher, student and a large presentation screen controlled by notebooks on the network. Although this alone represented a considerable amount of investment it made me think about the software application that could be used to both present, collaborate, review, mark and return work without the need for cables or emails.

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Create QR codes in MS Word

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Normally I would use inDesign to create QR codes and I don’t recommend using free online QR code generators online – mainly because there is no such thing as a free lunch. Recently I had an email from an educator wanting to share his students’ resumes using a QR code link to a stored online copy…

I wanted to ensure as much privacy as possible, despite the fact that the content, a resume, was meant to be shared with prospective employers – ie members of the public.

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PowerPoint as an image editor

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Although Photoshop and illustrator are typically the graphics tool of choice, never underestimate the power of PowerPoint. Many schools in Australia have signed up to use the Adobe Creative Cloud, but for those who haven’t there is a very strong chance that your school computers have PowerPoint on them and with the following tips provided … Read more

Back to building iOS apps – the good, the bad and the frustrating

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About three years ago I tried my hand at not only building an iPhone app, but publishing it in the store. It was free and didn’t have any in-app purchases or advertisements. For the pleasure of building an app and publishing it, you need to pay Apple 150 Australian dollars per year and in my case pay for the application development tool. For essentially the hobbyist app developer, this is something that not only doesn’t generate revenue to cover the cost of the tools or subscription but can’t be deducted as  a business expense because, well, you aren’t doing business.

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Setting the correct language in your word processor (MS Word)

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A lot of MS Word documents you will receive have their spelling defaults set to US English. With Word 2013 (and possibly even Word 2010) and beyond you can quickly change this default to Australian English.

If you see words like “magnetise” and “categorise” showing with the wiggly red line indicating that Word thinks they are misspelt…

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