Step Saver - ProxyPal

My county requires that each PC that hits the school network must be configured to use a proxy server to access the Internet. Makes perfect sense to me, and I have no problems with this at school. The problem comes from those teachers who are assigned laptops.

When a teacher has a high speed connection and hooks up at home, then they have to disable the proxy. It takes about seven steps to switch back and forth. ProxyPal from bartdart makes a one-click solution.

bartdart also has a lot of other really cool freeware utilities. I highly recommend ScrubXP to clear temp files, histories, cookies, etc.

Spyware prevention & removal - Windows Defender

One of the problems that schools (and average users too) have is spyware (malware) infestation. I was talking a little with some of my colleagues and had to keep recommending Windows Defender for any machine running Windows XP or Windows 2000.

Instructions on how to Download and install Windows Defender (Beta 2) can be found here.

I've already discussed Windows Defender and other alternatives in my Essential Software for Windows Computers but I thought it was worth mentioning separately.

Internet safety

Today was our county Tech Contacts meeting - a good time was had by all. Imagine if you can a gathering of practically all of the geeks, um.. tech contacts from one school system. It's always good to sit down and swap stories and ideas. We also come together to discuss and listen to the latest county policies. Okay, so the last part isn't all that much fun, but necessary.

The second half of the meeting is a presentation on some particular topic that we are encouraged to bring back to our individual schools. Today's discussion was on Internet Safety. Whereas a lot of this discussion was focused on protecting those students in Middle School and younger, the concepts were still scary to consider.

A representative from the NC Department of Justice went over some basic safety tips and showed some of the materials they have available and some pretty spooky stories.

Finally a representative from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America showed us some of the materials available at www.netsmartz.org. Have to admit that some of us were chuckling that a few of the characters on the NetSmartzKids site (see here) reminded us a lot of the Smurfs. Oh, and here's that annoying theme song you might vaguely remember!! ;-)

Pocket lesson planner

I don't know about anyone else, but, sometimes my days just fly by. It's often very difficult for me to keep up with what I'm doing and where I'm supposed to be.

My school has given me this really cool planner, but, it's 3/4'' thick and 4'' x 6''. It's small, but, I keep leaving it on my desk. So, enter The PocketMod... a pocket size planner you print, fold, and keep up with each week.

I really like to print a weekly calendar for each class period then add couple of pages of Simple List Organizers. You can throw one of these in your pocket with a small pen (I prefer the Cross Ion) and finally remember when someone asks you to come by and swap out an ink cartridge! :-D

Graph paper anyone?

Okay, my teaching career started out as a math teacher. So, I have a soft spot for the mathematically inclined. Plus, I often find a use for graph paper in a variety of topics in my Technology classes.

While looking for a piece of graph paper today, I stumbled upon the following links I thought I'd share:

MathSphere Free Graph Paper

• Almost every graph paper you'd ever need. Isometric lines, dots, even that handwriting paper you used in Kindergarten!!

incompetech's Free Online Graph Paper / Grid Paper PDF's

• Some of these are the same layouts as listed above. This site actually generates the PDF from the site itself. Really neat!
  

doane paper

• A combination of graph paper and lined notebook paper. Really great for taking notes or sketching out seating charts, etc. Just plain cool!
  

Moodle & The Uniform Server - A portable classroom

As a QTL regional facilitator I'm required to do at least one workshop during the year. Something I really enjoy doing as it gives me a chance to get together with other teachers and really talk about ideas and topics that interest us.

So, on Feb 14th I planned to do an all day workshop on installing and using moodle. I'd planned to show the participants how to install moodle on to whatever computer they brought then show them how to use it. Ugh, what a mess, I really bit off more than I could chew in one workshop. Plus, we had a lot of technical glitches at the time too. Without reliving most of the nightmare, I wasn't impressed with my first workshop. Most everyone who was there went away happy, but, it just didn't go the way I wanted it to.

So, in retrospect I went back and redesigned the way I would do this workshop. I completely took out the Linux install most importantly. Now, I'm a HUGE Linux fan and that really hurt, but, I found that the hardware issues and complexity of showing a complete "newbie" how to install Linux really bogged down the workshop.

So, I decided instead to use a regular Windows install and a little gem I found called The Uniform Server to install Moodle and then spend the rest of the time playing with it. I also decided to play with Wikis in this little project too, so, I created an account at seedwiki and decided to just have fun with it.

The result (still in progress, admittedly) is at Just Moodlin' Around. I'm actually pretty proud of this one, it really seems to go over well with those I show it to!! :-)

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What's this all about, anyway?

Welcome to my little place on the web. This is a place where I can go to rant and rave about whatever topics that are interesting to me at the time.

I work as a Technology teacher at Knightdale High School in Knightdale, NC. In this capacity, I've become known as the resident "geek" at KHS. I spend a lot of time teaching classes like Computer & Network Engineering as well as Fundamentals of Technology. I also spend a lot of time assisting teachers with the technology we have at KHS. Plus, I'm also a regional facilitator and member of the curriculum team at The Centers for Quality Teaching & Learning.

These three jobs put me in touch with a wide variety of people who seem to listen to what I have to say. I often hear comments like "I wish I could just sit down with you for a few hours" or "I really need to take your class".

This blog is my way of letting people read about the new things I'm involved with and my way of documenting some of the many "projects" I seem to find myself involved with. So, here goes!!