With all the hype around home automation, flying cars and robots greeting you in restaurants, I thought I would resist the urge, but then one day I went to Bunnings, that ultimate man-cave where many a dad and husband can be seen wandering the aisles (pc link here). I strayed into the lighting aisle after snapping up a bargain on a desk lamp (with LED globe) for 4 dollars and I thought about a problem I have in Darwin with a dark area between my garage and my back sliding door.
Upgrading my TAE qualification
First mistake… Don’t use unexplained acronyms! But I admit I did it on purpose as will be explained. Although search engines help and actually guide people to pages like this… but only if they are familiar with the subject. In the world of teaching and training, there are requirements to hold qualifications and certification. For example when I worked in Singapore as a Senior Lecturer at a polytechnic back in the early 90s, I provided my qualifications and certificates, which didn’t include the need to supply a working with children “certificate”. Working in an education department since 2009 and after the introduction of the “ochre card” for that territory, I duly submitted my application and received my clearance… a step I am now repeating in Victoria so I can work voluntarily with young adults. This is a good thing and although having one of these clearances doesn’t preclude potential abuse, it does place it on the list of things that must be considered – by employers and employees… along with things like providing a safe workplace, guarding against bullying, being inclusive and many other things that may have been practised here in Australia and indeed in Singapore in the 90s, but now have a formalised process and accountability attached to them.
Routers, Cyberattacks and a horrible surprise
I read the article about “What you can do to protect your home internet” in The Age and thought maybe I should update the firmware on my foreign branded modem with a large Internet Service Provider in Australia. It is just an ADSL2 modem (broadband hasn’t reached us yet in inner Melbourne) and it has … Read more
Spark Tools by Adobe now more Education Friendly!
Adobe Spark is a set of tools every teacher and student should be aware of. They are free and fun to use. Now they are even easier to use in a school environment because Adobe has integrated them into the administration dashboard (which is something that your IT Services department Adobe expert would know about). … Read more
PowerPoint as an image editor
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
Adobe Max – View all the workshops, keynotes and more online!
I would have loved to go to San Diego and be among the 10,000 creative people at the Adobe Max conference. What is sensational is that I could watch the keynote live (okay it was 3am in the morning for me) but laying in bed watching the keynote live and laughing through Jason Levine’s presentation, followed by Bart Simpson was a reasonable second.
Watching these sessions makes me a more knowledgeable person in regards to saying to people I meet in schools… “Do you know you can do this with…?” in respect to the products. I am by no means an expert, but when I see something that I think students will go “Wow” I try to remember and share it.
Back to building iOS apps – the good, the bad and the frustrating
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.
Automatically creating graphic files from photoshop layers
http://blogs.adobe.com/photoshop/2013/09/introducing-adobe-generator-for-photoshop-cc.html When you create apps for various sized mobile phones and tablets, there is a requirement to create icons and splash screens of different sizes – Sometimes up to 20. The sizes are very important and need to be accurate. There are some very nice templates around that use actions to output the various sizes … Read more
Hour of Code December 2016 – Let’s run an event!
I received this in my email and thoroughly support its intent. One question I had was “When is the hour of code” – thinking it was a little like “Earth Hour” with specific date. I include the detail and encourage you to conduct your hour of code. The support material contained in the links below are quality resources and easy to follow.
When is the Hour of Code for 2016? For us in Darwin we will hold an online event on Friday the 9th of December 2016 and we would like to see schools in the NT do the same! Click the read more link below for information on how to sign up and run your own event. We will have volunteers to assist either in person or online. NT folk can contact me for more localised information. This information will also appear on our http://skills2021.educationnt.net site
Anybody can host an Hour of Code anytime, but the campaign goal is for tens of millions of students to try an Hour of Code during December 5-11 2016, in celebration of Computer Science Education Week. Is it one specific hour? No. You can do the Hour of Code anytime during this week, or anytime before or after!
Setting the correct language in your word processor (MS Word)
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…