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Showing posts from January, 2012

How to Use Adobe Acrobat Pro & PDF Expert for iPad to Do Teacher Evaluations

I created this video tutorial after making the teacher evaluation template for our school district. The steps included the following:  1) I received the teacher evaluation from a principal, who created it in Microsoft Word based on input from colleagues.   2) I converted the Word document to PDF using Adobe Acrobat Professional X.   3) I created the drop-downs for each option and the text-box fields. Drop-downs worked better because they allow you to change your answer. Radio buttons didn't work as well on the iPad because they didn't allow principals to change their choices.   4) I distributed this template to all of our principals, who now have iPads.   5) We found that PDF Expert was the best app to complete the evaluations. PDF Expert is a wonderful $9.99 app for the iPad. The best iOS PDF app on the market, or at least the best I've seen so far. Please watch this video to see how it all fits together. 6. The video was created using a document camer

How to Create a Quiz in MOODLE

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MOODLE is a tremendous resource for teachers who want to manage their course online, or to blend online content with a classroom environment.  Blended courses seem to be the way to go right now, and for those of you who have tried Basic MOODLE and want to go to the next level, here is a great video tutorial on how to create an online quiz .  MOODLE is quite complex to learn, so the best way to tackle it is in pieces.  I found the Quiz module to be quite tricky for new users because there are really three parts to it. This video breaks down each of the three parts very clearly in MOODLE 1.9 .  Ravi Makhija created the video and posted it to his blog . Click on the full-screen button in the bottom right corner to view it in the way it was intended: nice and large.  Moodle users: this is how to create a Moodle quiz.  Nice and concise and simplified.  Thanks to Ravi for making it easy for everyone to understand. 

New Ways Share Large Files

Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers fame offers up seven great ways to quckly and easily share files.  I recently did a post on WeTransfer which has a 2 GB file size limit.  Now we have seven more .  Byrne, who is the foremost authority in "Web Tools," is a tremendous source of educational online resources, and these simple file sharing services raise the bar.  I'd never heard of any of them, so definitely check them out!

JoBlo and MovieFanCentral

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Being the huge movie snob/geek/collector/buff/follower/connoisseur that I am, I actually took the time to search out the best social network where people like myself might like to hang out.  Of course there are the message boards at IMDB , but I wanted to find a community that offered such things as chat, message boards, the ability to upload photos, share videos, and that also had news articles about the movie industry, lots of humor and gave you the ability to say and post just about anything you wanted to.  I found all of this at Jo Blo's MovieFanCentral and since joining back in November of 2011, I have become quite addicted to the site.  For those who don't know, the JoBlo site started back in 1998, and today the JoBlo Movie Network has thousands of loyal and avid followers.  MovieFanCentral is just a piece of the pie which includes Digital Dorm, Arrow in the Head, Movie Hotties, JoBlo Videos, and Pimpin' Poster Palace.  MovieFanCentral is merely the gathering plac

Comparing the Smart Phone OSs

Geek.com did a nice comparison piece on the three big Smartphone OSs.  Here is a link to the article, where they compare iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7.  It really does put things into perspective.  My Sprint contract runs out on March 1st, so I found this article helpful as I try to figure out which phone to go with at that time.  By the way, I've never owned an Android or iPhone before.  I'm admitting to being one of the Windows Phone users who signed a 2-year contract with an HTC TouchPro2.  Trying something new will be interesting to say the least. 

Great Options for Sharing Large Files Online

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The Digital Inspiration blog uncovered a nice collection of online tools to help you share large files .  The one that I wasn't familiar with is WeTransfer ( https://wetransfer.com/ ), which looks promising.  It does not require a login and there is a whopping 2 GB file size limit.  That blows away just about all other freebies out there.  The uploading speed seems a bit slow, but it works.  Give it a try and share your thoughts.