<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" media="screen" href="/~d/styles/rss2enclosuresfull.xsl"?><?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~d/styles/itemcontent.css"?><rss xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0"><channel><title>Tech Ruminations</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/</link><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/techruminations" /><description>Random thoughts about teaching and learning with 21st century technology tools</description><language>en</language><managingEditor>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</managingEditor><lastBuildDate>Fri, 28 Sep 2012 10:11:26 PDT</lastBuildDate><generator>Blogger http://www.blogger.com</generator><openSearch:totalResults xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">93</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><feedburner:info xmlns:feedburner="http://rssnamespace.org/feedburner/ext/1.0" uri="techruminations" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/" /><itunes:owner><itunes:email>noreply@blogger.com</itunes:email></itunes:owner><itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit><itunes:subtitle>Random thoughts about teaching and learning with 21st century technology tools</itunes:subtitle><item><title>Google Apps: What About Security?</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2011/04/google-apps-what-about-security.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Mon, 25 Apr 2011 11:07:10 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-1028369926329978111</guid><description>One of the questions that WILL come up as schools speak to the IT staff about Google Apps for Education is security.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;One question I get frequently is simply... "What about security?"&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;I sometimes go into the "money in the bank" theory and share that we store money in the bank because that's what banks do so much better than we do at home. Banks have locked safes, fire suppression, armed guards, and they pay me an embarrassingly low interest rate. These are all measures that I don't do as well at my home. (And the bank won't let my kids find my money!) So I let banks do what they do so well.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;The same is true with Google. Google does more in their data centers than most schools can afford to do or are staffed to do.&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/04/security-first-security-and-data.html"&gt;Read this post and be sure to watch the short video.&lt;/a&gt; Ask your school IT folks if they take the same measures to ensure data security.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I'm not suggesting that any online service is impenetrable and infallible. I do think the measures that Google takes is more than adequate for most schools. Do you?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-04-25T14:07:10.742-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Google Docs for Classroom Projects - Project Templates</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2011/03/google-docs-for-classroom-projects.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Tue, 29 Mar 2011 08:29:14 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-7616859525911829336</guid><description>&lt;div class="gmail_quote"&gt;&lt;div class="gmail_quote"&gt;&lt;div&gt;Google Docs is an awesome platform for classroom projects! In project-based learning teachers will provide project directions, requirements, and resources to their students when beginning a project. Usually that's in the form of a paper handout of some sort. Some teachers like to provide an electronic document that will get students started.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In the past we've easily created a Word or other document template. When the student opens the template a fresh new copy is provided for him/her without affecting the original document. Google Docs has a unique method for sharing documents.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Here's my first attempt at creating a class folder with a project templates collection (folder) that will help provide project starter documents:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;1. Create a class GROUP in your Gmail contacts. (This will make it easier for sharing collections with the whole class)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;2. Create a Class collection (folder) and share it with the class as VIEW ONLY using the "Can view" permissions setting. The class folder is set to "Can view" so that others cannot modify the folder setup.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IynKjwy8Z0o/TZHxD0TTMhI/AAAAAAAACIY/KZDTimGpvWE/s1600/IN-Out-GoogleDocs-4-3-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IynKjwy8Z0o/TZHxD0TTMhI/AAAAAAAACIY/KZDTimGpvWE/s400/IN-Out-GoogleDocs-4-3-2.jpg" width="400" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;3. Inside the Class collection I've created two other collections. One Inbox that will be used for submitting assignments and one Assignment template folder.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;4. The Inbox collection may be shared with the class as "Can edit". This will allow students to submit files there. It's not a perfect solution as students can see other's projects. This is another post.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;5. The Assignment template collection should be shared with the class as "Can view". This will allow you to create assignment templates. Students will be able to open and view items in this collection. They will not be able to edit the original. They may, using the file menu, create a copy of the template and rename it as their own to begin the project. I like to provide students with naming conventions to make file collection unique and organized.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;For the remainder of the course the teacher may create an assignment starter template, place it into the Assignment Template collection, and it is properly shared using the permissions on the collections. The document will be shared with the class as view only.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Students may place completed projects into the Class Inbox. That will make the document available to the teacher for grading, comments, etc. The inbox needs some work. I hope that Google will institute the necessary sharing permissions to create a more private dropbox-like feature.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Have you found similar solutions? Please share!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-03-29T11:29:14.681-04:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail url="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IynKjwy8Z0o/TZHxD0TTMhI/AAAAAAAACIY/KZDTimGpvWE/s72-c/IN-Out-GoogleDocs-4-3-2.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">7</thr:total></item><item><title>Going Google - Migration Weekend</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2010/07/going-google-migration-weekend.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Mon, 05 Jul 2010 06:04:02 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-3936827403914780878</guid><description>It's cut-over weekend. This means that for all District staff email is closed for the Independence Day holiday weekend. (A few MUST HAVE users excepted of course.) When staff return to work on July 6, 2010 they will begin using the new Google Apps email and calendaring system. My District has officially "Gone Google" now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;Preparations:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In preparation for cut-over weekend we initiated a series of communications. We issued notices of what people should do, when they should do it, and what to expect. I really don't think you can over communicate when making such change.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
We pre-migrated some of our very heavy users. This gave us a chance to work one-on-one with those who really depend on email, calendar, mobile access, etc. It was good in two ways. First our team was able to practice the migration techniques. We were able to learn where our users would need support. Now we can adequately prepare the help documentation that most staff are likely to need. Second, by migrating several heavy users we can begin to minimize the folks who may need more attention on day one. I'm pleased with the outcome of the early adopters.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
On the technical front we prepared about a week ago by shortening our &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_live"&gt;"time-to-live" notice on our mx record. &lt;/a&gt;This tells DNS servers across the internet to check for an impending change. The change they'll be getting is mail delivery for our existing domain will change from our email servers to the Google email servers. In prior testing we didn't shorten the TTL and the change took nearly a week on some DNS servers. This can result in lost email due to confusion on Internet DNS servers.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"&gt;Migration from Exchange to Google servers:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
One of the things that has been very handy is a "test" Google Apps domain. We have registered two domains. One for staff and one for students. It has been handy to use the student domain for testing the &lt;a href="https://tools.google.com/dlpage/exchangemigration"&gt;Exchange migration tools&lt;/a&gt;. &amp;nbsp;While students are gone for the summer we can import and export accounts without disrupting the contacts database in our staff server. So if you are planning a migration, having a test domain is handy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
We have learned that calendar events that have been created as a result of a meeting invitation are not being migrated from Exchange to Google Apps. We have also noted that if a&amp;nbsp;delegate&amp;nbsp;user maintains your calendar that event migration is suspect. We have asked all of our staff who use the calendar system to print their calendar event list. After migration they are advised to compare old to new. Another option for staff who's calendar migration wasn't successful is to export their Exchange calendar to a .csv file and import into Google Apps calendar.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
On Friday, offices closed at noon. Network administrators spent many hours importing accounts into Google Apps and testing the migration tools. They set up a series of desktop computers with the migration tools installed. While some documentation suggests to migrate smaller numbers of accounts we tested larger numbers with success. Each computer was pre-configured to migrate between 50 and 100 accounts. The migration kicked off and seemed to go slowly at first but picked up speed. Any inconsistencies in account spelling from one server to the next introduces serious delays. Triple-check your account name spelling! More than a million email messages, calendar events, and contacts are being migrated over the holiday weekend. Fingers crossed!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
When all migration systems had started the Exchange server was running close to 50% CPU. Our Internet circuit was hovering around 8 mbps outbound. I'm guessing that the bottle-neck was disk read speeds as we had a number of computers pulling data for migration.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"&gt;First Day Support for Office Staff:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
On the first day using Google Apps email we have assigned a member of Technology Services to each building. The technician will assist office staff with getting logged in, sending email, reading email, and checking / maintaining their calendar. The tech will provide staff with a &lt;a href="http://www.nasdschools.org/files/42/Google%20Apps%20Manual%20for%20NASD.pdf"&gt;user manual&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;(pdf), quick start guide, and answer basic questions.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Technical staff are directed to provide basic assistance only. Staff who wish to have more formal training will be &lt;a href="http://nasdtech.wikispaces.com/Workshops+%26+Training"&gt;pointed to our training calendar&lt;/a&gt; for opportunities.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"&gt;Advertising to the Public:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/TDHWvrpDy9I/AAAAAAAAB-4/nGZgY192bgQ/s1600/NoticeEmailChange.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/TDHWvrpDy9I/AAAAAAAAB-4/nGZgY192bgQ/s320/NoticeEmailChange.gif" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Notices to parents, contacts, and constituents will be made through traditional correspondence. We have placed a prominent announcement on our &lt;a href="http://www.nasdschools.org/"&gt;District website.&lt;/a&gt; Staff members are urged to put new address notices in their signature block. School buildings will be asked to highlight our new email addresses through welcome letters and school newsletters. Pennsylvania Department of Education have been notified of our official change of web and email domains.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I'm considering sending news releases to local newspapers as well.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Please check back for our successes and pitfalls.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In my region this change to Google Apps for our primary email is like a middle school dance. Everyone stands on the perimeter until one person starts dancing. Well, we're dancing! Will you join us???</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2010-07-05T09:04:02.594-04:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/TDHWvrpDy9I/AAAAAAAAB-4/nGZgY192bgQ/s72-c/NoticeEmailChange.gif" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Going Google - Last Week Sneak Peeks</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2010/06/going-google-last-week-sneak-peeks.html</link><category>"Going Google"</category><category>"Google Apps"</category><category>"Google Apps for Education"</category><category>"#gonegoogle"</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Fri, 04 Jun 2010 12:09:01 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-629769761896596775</guid><description>T-minus one month!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Our District will transition to Google Apps for Education as our primary email system on July 2, 2010. We've notified staff, posted &lt;a href="http://googlehelp.nasdschools.org/"&gt;our training and support site&lt;/a&gt;, encouraged email back-ups and clean up.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
We have also tested user migration, calendar migration, Outlook folders and more. (Don't get me started on sorting email into folders! I just don't understand why anyone would file email 4, 5, and even 6 folders deep!) Am I the only one that doesn't sort their email into folders? Who has that kind of time?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Now we turn our focus to training. The last weeks of school we are setting up in school libraries. We are inviting all staff to introductory sessions using demonstration accounts. We are providing &lt;a href="https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BzkWPYrAVOa0OWQ5NDMzMDMtNDgxNC00YmQwLWIwNDktZThmOGUwYWIwNDUz&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;pli=1"&gt;tri-fold brochures&lt;/a&gt; that outline the basics of Gmail, Calendar, and Contacts. We call the sessions &lt;a href="http://nasdtech.wikispaces.com/Workshops+%26+Training"&gt;"Sneak Peek This Week!"&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Almost all staff are excited, perhaps nervous, about the change. Once they experience the interface we see staff members are more relaxed. They are confident that they will be able to operate in the new system.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The biggest challenge to date has been the difference between folders and labels as well as "search rather than sort".&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
One technical challenge that we've recently discovered is that calendar events initiated by the user migrate just fine. Calendar events that are created from an invitation are not being migrated. Fingers crossed that we'll get that ironed out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Has anyone solved the calendar migration issue?</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2010-06-04T15:09:01.062-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">2</thr:total></item><item><title>Going Google - Reconfiguring Staff Computers</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2010/05/going-google-reconfiguring-staff.html</link><category>"Going Google"</category><category>"Google Apps for Education"</category><category>"#gonegoogle"</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Tue, 25 May 2010 11:14:13 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-8959312899272889461</guid><description>The next step in going Google is a big one! We have outlined a plan to collect all staff computers and reconfigure them for our summer conversion to Google Apps for Education. This will involve about 350 teacher laptops. Let the fun begin.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/S_wSVcUutaI/AAAAAAAAB-o/VE4DzwEUTCg/s1600/refresh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="150" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/S_wSVcUutaI/AAAAAAAAB-o/VE4DzwEUTCg/s200/refresh.jpg" width="200" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
There are a few key items that represent significant change:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;There will be no email client configured. All staff will complete the school year using Outlook Web Access only. Entourage and Outlook will be blank.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;We have added &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/chrome/index.html"&gt;Google Chrome&lt;/a&gt; as an additional browser option. Google Chrome is not the default browser. We stayed with Firefox as the default browser. I expect that many users will try Google Chrome and like it. I really like Chrome. I also expect it to become our default browser on the next refresh.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;We have installed the &lt;a href="http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/notifier_mac.html"&gt;Google Notifier&lt;/a&gt; on our Macs. Google Notifier is a handy utility that sits in the Mac OS X menu bar and notifies users of new email messages and calendar appointments. It also helps us make NASDschools Gmail the default "Mailto" client in Firefox.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/S_wSW78TvyI/AAAAAAAAB-w/zdrYzBpAbmc/s1600/Applications.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="115" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/S_wSW78TvyI/AAAAAAAAB-w/zdrYzBpAbmc/s200/Applications.gif" width="200" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;There are a number of other updates but these are the ones significant to our migration to Google Apps for Education.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2010-05-25T14:14:13.720-04:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/S_wSVcUutaI/AAAAAAAAB-o/VE4DzwEUTCg/s72-c/refresh.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Going Google - And the #1 feature...</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2010/05/going-google-and-1-feature.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Wed, 19 May 2010 12:36:46 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-4833172346443951765</guid><description>We've started introducing our office staff and administrative teams to the new Google Apps interface. We provide a tri-fold brochure with the basics of NASDschools Gmail, Calendar, and Contacts. They are the primary tools that many staff members use to complete their job responsibilities. It is our hope that these "sneak peeks" alleviate some of the anxiety of changing email systems.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
As we introduce the Gmail interface the number one feature that our secretaries like... emoticons! Yep. Email is fun again! We have to allocate 5 minutes to allow staff to review all the emoticons smiley's.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Shhhh... don't tell them there is a lab to add even more!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/S_Q9gxCAxpI/AAAAAAAAB-g/NaAWkrMP35c/s1600/gmailsmileys.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="210" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/S_Q9gxCAxpI/AAAAAAAAB-g/NaAWkrMP35c/s400/gmailsmileys.gif" width="400" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2010-05-19T15:36:46.485-04:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/S_Q9gxCAxpI/AAAAAAAAB-g/NaAWkrMP35c/s72-c/gmailsmileys.gif" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Going Google - Authentication - Password Options</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2010/04/going-google-authentication-password.html</link><category>"Google Apps" Google</category><category>"Google Apps for Education"</category><category>"#gonegoogle"</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Wed, 28 Apr 2010 07:05:55 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-2480222042222354815</guid><description>Many schools deploy Google Apps for Education as an additional service. Teachers and perhaps students have a system username and password and an additional account and password for the G-Apps access.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Switching to Google Apps for Education for all staff as our primary email and groupware communications presents several challenges.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In our current setup accounts are created in our directory service. Users in a particular group, in our case the Staff group, receive email account as well. The directory username and password are the same for system log-in and email access. So network administrators need only provide one account.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Adding Google Apps for Education creates the need for an additional account. Ideally network administrators would continue to create accounts in the directory service and accounts would be synchronized to Google Apps. This service is available and is called &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;amp;answer=106368"&gt;Google Apps Directory Sync&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
When network or system administrators create a staff account a corresponding Google Apps account is created. When accounts are suspended or deleted, Google Apps accounts are suspended/deleted in turn.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
There is one drawback &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;amp;answer=106368"&gt;Google Apps Directory Syn&lt;/a&gt;c tool, directory passwords are not passed from your local directory service to Google Apps for Education. (Yes, there are APIs and service providers to assist with this.) So users would have one username and two independent passwords, one for system log-in and another for email. The passwords are independent and the staff member controls each one separately.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
To minimize password problems and ideally provide one username and password combination we've tried a few things:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;Option 1:&lt;/b&gt; We set up an &lt;a href="http://www.jasig.org/cas"&gt;open source central authentication system or CAS&lt;/a&gt;. (Special thanks to &lt;a href="http://blog.krishagel.com/search/label/CAS"&gt;Kris Hagel for his step-by-step directions &lt;/a&gt;and his willingness to assist.) The CAS server is tied to our directory services for authentication and then tied to Google Apps with a one-to-one correspondence. When a staff member attempts to log into their email the authentication request is re-routed to your CAS server. The authentication process proceeds locally and is then handed off to Google Apps. VERY SLICK solution. There are a few drawbacks and some VERY compelling benefits to this solution. One of our network administrators invested many hours implementing this solution. Thanks, Brian!&lt;br /&gt;
Drawbacks:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;CAS requires a local server (virtual server in our case),&amp;nbsp;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The open source solution has informal support only&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;If the District has a power failure then even home or mobile users cannot authenticate. The CAS server is a single point of failure.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Passwords are never actually transferred to Google Apps&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The benefits of a CAS server are that it can be tied to multiple online systems such as your &lt;a href="http://www.moodle.org/"&gt;Moodle&lt;/a&gt; server, &lt;a href="http://www.wikispaces.com/"&gt;Wikispaces private label&lt;/a&gt;, your web-based SIS, &lt;a href="http://www.mahara.org/"&gt;Mahara&lt;/a&gt;, ... etc.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;Option 2:&lt;/b&gt; We also are looking at a .dll and registry hack on our directory domain controllers that would take the users password, encrypt it and store it in another contact field. Upon directory sync as discussed above the password would be pushed to Google Apps for Education. I'm rarely a fan of registry hacks and custom .dlls on domain controllers. The drawback here is that the solution seems that it's still being developed. We've read reports that it only syncs passwords after system administrators reset the password and NOT when users initiate the password change. A recipe for problems in my opinion.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;Option 3:&lt;/b&gt; is to do nothing. Allow staff members have two independent accounts. One for active directory and the other for email. The accounts will have the same username. They may set the passwords differently or the same. It is up to the user. The drawback here is that password management is done in two systems for network administrators.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
We're as yet undecided. What would you do?</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2010-04-28T10:05:55.519-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Google Apps Tip- Multiple Signatures</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2010/04/google-apps-tip-multiple-signatures.html</link><category>"Going Google"</category><category>"Google Apps"</category><category>"Google Apps for Education"</category><category>"#gonegoogle"</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Mon, 26 Apr 2010 09:00:29 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-7811135423740379598</guid><description>One thing that our Outlook users are used to is having a signature block added to the end of their email messages.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You know the ones with the legalese that few, if anyone, reads.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In Outlook, Entourage, Apple Mail you can have multiple signature blocks for different types of messages. In some of those programs the signature block may contain formated text and/or images.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In Gmail there's only one signature block and it's text only. No fancy formatting or options for images.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
One of the Google labs that may serve as a work-around is called "Canned Responses". Just go to the Google labs (green science flask icon) and enable the Canned Responses. Then you can record several signatures with images and formatting. You create images in the compose email window and so you'll need to have images turned on as well.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/S9WwTow8H1I/AAAAAAAAB-Y/hMNHHJPIlNA/s1600/cannedresponse-1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="82" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/S9WwTow8H1I/AAAAAAAAB-Y/hMNHHJPIlNA/s400/cannedresponse-1.gif" width="400" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;When you are done composing or replying to an email message, just insert the canned response signature block that you wish.</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2010-04-26T12:00:29.795-04:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ODxIbvrud6s/S9WwTow8H1I/AAAAAAAAB-Y/hMNHHJPIlNA/s72-c/cannedresponse-1.gif" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Going Google - Training and Support Website</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2010/04/going-google-training-and-support.html</link><category>"Google Apps"</category><category>"Google Apps for Education"</category><category>Support</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Sat, 24 Apr 2010 17:59:28 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-3115690378499780022</guid><description>&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://img.skitch.com/20100425-36dpkp7c5qgp9myn6jt1n8ge5.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="155" src="http://img.skitch.com/20100425-36dpkp7c5qgp9myn6jt1n8ge5.gif" width="200" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Moving our organization from our current groupware solution to Google Apps for Education will require significant training and support. Many of our users have been using MS Outlook since we started email systems in the 90's.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The fine folks at Google have provided some &lt;a href="http://deployment.googleapps.com/Home/resources-user-adoption/google-apps-support-site-templates"&gt;very comprehensive customizable support website templates&lt;/a&gt;. We have imported the template and spent some time customizing it to our migration plan.&lt;br /&gt;
Please visit &lt;a href="https://sites.google.com/a/nasdschools.org/nasdapps/"&gt;our support website&lt;/a&gt;. It looks like we spent weeks. Truth is we have invested a few hours and we're nearly ready for launch day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Changing email and groupware communications systems has the potential to be very disruptful. We hope to minimize the disruption with constant and comprehensive communication to end users. Several helpful &lt;a href="http://deployment.googleapps.com/Home/resources-user-adoption/communications-templates"&gt;communications templates&lt;/a&gt; are also available.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I hope this helps other "switchers."</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2010-04-24T20:59:28.414-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Going Google - Researching Security and Privacy</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2010/04/going-google-researching-security-and.html</link><category>"Google Apps"</category><category>"Google Apps for Education"</category><category>"data security"</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Sat, 24 Apr 2010 17:37:27 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-7184364947836513595</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2402/2509243735_1ab016b1f1_m_d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2402/2509243735_1ab016b1f1_m_d.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;As we as share our Google Apps for Education migration plans with nearby school districts we often hear questions about data privacy and security.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
We typically hear questions such as:&lt;br /&gt;
"Who owns the data once email is sent/stored on Google servers?"&lt;br /&gt;
"Does Google give third parties access to data?"&lt;br /&gt;
"Is user data/email scanned and indexed by Google?"&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
These are valid questions and concerns. Many of our questions were answered on &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;amp;answer=60762"&gt;Google Apps Admin Help site.&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;They also have a very nice &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/pdf/ds_gsa_apps_whitepaper_0207.pdf"&gt;Google Apps security whitepaper&lt;/a&gt; available for review.&lt;br /&gt;
We were also particularly impressed with the &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=107824"&gt;planning for natural disasters&lt;/a&gt;. While we do our best with offsite backups I'm certain we don't do this as well as Google.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Doug, over at the &lt;a href="http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/"&gt;Blue Skunk blog&lt;/a&gt;, also provides some &lt;a href="http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2010/3/9/where-do-you-keep-your-valuables.html"&gt;insights on Google and your valuables&lt;/a&gt; (data).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Are there other questions I should be asking?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Image source: &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevec77/2509243735/"&gt;SteveC77 Flickr Photostream&lt;/a&gt;</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2010-04-24T20:37:27.879-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Google Apps for Education Migration Under Way! - Going Google!</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2010/03/google-apps-for-education-migration.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:53:26 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-1741413020839213928</guid><description>We have followed many &lt;a href="http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2010/2/5/where-are-the-savings-in-using-googleapps.html"&gt;blog posts&lt;/a&gt;, viewed webinars, asked questions, read documentation and have decided to lead our region in converting to cloud-based email and groupware solution.&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;We have officially announced to our staff and administration that we are preparing for a summer migration to &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html"&gt;Google Apps for Educatio&lt;/a&gt;n to replace our existing messaging and groupware solution.&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;To date we have:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Set up two Google Apps for Education domains. One for staff and one for students.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Registered a new, shorter domain name for shorter, easier email addresses. (may as well complicate the migration by changing everyone's email address. If I have to take two shots, give them to me all at once.)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Transitioned our Technology Services team to the new system for testing and familiarity.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Begin working with Directory Sync to tie user accounts into the Active Directory system for user account management and account deployment.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Enacted a communications plan including our Technology Services blog, NASDtech wiki, email announcements to all staff, several administrative meeting announcements, and more.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Set up the support site template and started customization. We'll use this in the transition and hopefully as part of the training plan.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Established a Diigo list to share Google Apps bookmarks, articles, and resources.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Researching our archiving solution.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Monitoring the impact that hosted email might have on our bandwidth&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div&gt;There are many tasks being done and so many more to do. I hope to outline our journey here.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;We have hit our first snag. Apparently Google Apps Directory Sync does not sync password changes from Active Directory. We may need a 3rd party to assist with the APIs.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Please check back frequently to follow our journey to the clouds!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2010-03-29T14:53:26.824-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">5</thr:total></item><item><title>Openshot : open source video editing install directions</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2009/10/openshot-open-source-video-editing.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:20:33 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-1375677060424775569</guid><description>An excellent tutorial from unixmen on how to install Openshot for &lt;br /&gt;video editing.&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.unixmen.com/linux-tutorials/414-openshot-the-magic-has-arrived"&gt;http://www.unixmen.com/linux-tutorials/414-openshot-the-magic-has-arrived&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2009-10-10T16:20:33.926-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Send Large Files for FREE - Send 20GBs per session, 2GB max per file - Unlimited Usage</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2009/09/send-large-files-for-free-send-20gbs.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:40:12 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-8705450353161027629</guid><description>The more we migrate toward multimedia lessons in our classrooms the more transferring large files becomes an issue. I've not used this site but it looks like it would do the trick in a pinch. It requires the sender's email and that could be a problem for younger students.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Probably not a great solution for a large number of students all at once as many school's Internet connections might crumble under the load.&lt;ul class="diigo-linkroll"&gt;    &lt;li&gt;    &lt;p class="diigo-link"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.sizablesend.com" rel="nofollow"&gt;Sizable Send Large Files for FREE - Send 20GBs per session, 2GB max per file - Unlimited Usage&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;    &lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My first post from &lt;a href="http://www.diigo.com"&gt;Diigo&lt;/a&gt;.</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2009-09-29T21:40:12.503-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>The Netbook Experience</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2009/04/netbook-experience.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:35:52 PST</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-4269085609042805996</guid><description>Want to try the Netbook experience?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. Dig up some old PC or Laptop.&lt;br /&gt;2. &lt;a href="http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/9.04/beta/"&gt;Download and install Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 Beta&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3. Terminal: sudo apt-get install ubuntu-netbook-remix&lt;br /&gt;4. Restart&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Open source goodness!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3271/2548177765_416a8db059_m.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="float:left; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 141px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3271/2548177765_416a8db059_m.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Image source: &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/njpatel/2548177765/"&gt;Neil J. Patel's Flickr&lt;/a&gt; Photostream&lt;/div&gt;</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2010-03-07T18:35:52.544-05:00</app:edited><media:thumbnail url="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3271/2548177765_416a8db059_t.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Impress Your Colleagues with Classroom or Office Automation</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2009/03/impress-your-colleagues-with-classroom.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:10:04 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-7784028928008557809</guid><description>Imagine that you and a colleague walk into your classroom or office for a short discussion. As you enter your Mac senses your presence and kicks off a series of actions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Your Mac welcomes you back to your office, launches your email, announces the number and subject of new email messages, and then announces the current date and time and upcoming appointments.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What fun to see the expression on your supervisor's or colleague's face when they see just how organized and automated you are.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You can do this and much more with a very small donationware application called &lt;a href="http://reduxcomputing.com/proximity.php"&gt;Proximity&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Read the &lt;a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/automate-your-mac-your-home-with-proximity-mac-only/"&gt;MAKE post&lt;/a&gt; to find out more.</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2009-03-20T09:10:04.583-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>A Learning Tool for Every Learner</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2009/03/learning-tool-for-every-learner.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Thu, 19 Mar 2009 05:39:51 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-3895738627640767377</guid><description>Imagine for a moment that your son or daughter will be going off to college shortly. The college sends you a letter that due to circumstances students may only be provided with ONE learning tool. ONE.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You may choose a textbook or you may choose a pen, calculator, or whatever. One tool.&lt;br /&gt;What would that tool be?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I know what I would choose.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Why, then, are educational spending priorities so difficult? Why are we not providing that one tool to every school age child? At the very least to every secondary student...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ask your school leaders the ONE tool question. I'd like to hear the response. Post it here.</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2009-03-19T08:39:51.092-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>The Next Killer App? Google Voice</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2009/03/next-killer-app-google-voice.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Thu, 12 Mar 2009 06:40:41 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-542880180017113271</guid><description>Could this be the next email? &lt;a href="http://mashable.com/2009/03/12/google-voice/"&gt;Google announces Google Voice!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;An when this gets integrated into Google Apps for Education, THEN will we consider migrating from our beloved Exchange server?</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2009-03-12T09:40:41.696-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">1</thr:total></item><item><title>Firefox tips</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2008/10/firefox-tips.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:02:48 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-345016069971605047</guid><description>Here are two Firefox tips that I didn't know about. Perhaps there are other Firefox users who weren't aware of these keyboard shortcuts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. Zoom in and Zoom out of a page with Command-+ and Command- - (minus). Handy! Mac users enjoy zooming using the Universal Access system preference. This is done in Firefox and was new to me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. You can scroll down using the spacebar and scroll up with shift-spacebar. I didn't know that either.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I've been computing forever (if you ask my kids ;) ) and I still love finding new features even if they're only new to me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was a member of an old computer club run by a &lt;a href="http://tipline.blogspot.com"&gt;famous blogger&lt;/a&gt;. He used to share Macintosh "Easter eggs" in the newsletter... in the olden days!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Do you have little known browser tips? I'd love to hear 'em.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;KP</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2008-10-22T11:02:48.656-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">3</thr:total></item><item><title>Posting an Audio File Online is NOT Podcasting</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2008/10/posting-audio-file-online-is-not.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:05:08 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-5853542977521034366</guid><description>In my state many teachers are experimenting beyond PowerPoint thanks to an initiative to place laptops in many high school classrooms.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The buzz is exciting as we dabble with web 2 applications, conduct online research and more. What fun!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I'm bothered, though, by misuse of the term "podcasting."&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast"&gt;Podcasting&lt;/a&gt; is not simply making an audio file available for download.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From wikipedia:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;A &lt;b&gt;podcast&lt;/b&gt; is a series of &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound" title="Sound"&gt;audio&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video" title="Video"&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_media" title="Digital media"&gt;digital-media&lt;/a&gt; files which is distributed over the &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet" title="Internet"&gt;Internet&lt;/a&gt; by &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_syndication" title="Web syndication"&gt;syndicated&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Download" title="Download" class="mw-redirect"&gt;download&lt;/a&gt;, through &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_feed" title="Web feed"&gt;Web feeds&lt;/a&gt;, to &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_media_player" title="Portable media player"&gt;portable media players&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer" title="Personal computer"&gt;personal computers&lt;/a&gt;. Though the same content may also be made available by direct download or &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media" title="Streaming media"&gt;streaming&lt;/a&gt;, a podcast is distinguished from other digital-media formats by its ability to be syndicated, subscribed to, and downloaded &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automation" title="Automation"&gt;automatically&lt;/a&gt; when new content is added.&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We've been able to upload audio files for ages. That's not at all what makes a "podcast." It's the feed, the syndication that's transformative.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;CFF coaches, if you're reading, join me in teaching the difference between a podcast and a plain old audio file posted to wikispaces... unless of course we're just happy that we're getting beyond PowerPoint! :)</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2008-10-01T09:05:08.173-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">1</thr:total></item><item><title>Scheduling Meetings and the Email Avalanche</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2008/07/scheduling-meetings-and-email-avalanche.html</link><category>planning</category><category>organization</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:36:50 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-2839629998916489360</guid><description>We've all seen this scenario! Administrator sends out an email to 20 people requesting a meeting time. The message ends with "What time is good for you?"&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The avalanche of "reply to all" email responses is enough to trigger an Excedrin headache.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Internally, of course, we can use our groupware calendaring system and the meeting planner features... provided everyone's calendar is up-to-date. What do you do when all of the meeting participants are on disparate systems?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here's a tool that's new to me. (keep in mind I could very well be the only one in the universe where this is still a problem) A free, web-based, no-account-needed, meeting time planner called &lt;a href="http://whenisgood.net"&gt;When is Good?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Trying to get a team of 7 volunteer football coaches together on a summer evening? This is the perfect tool... if they're all online!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This suggestion courtesy of &lt;a href="http://plethoratech.blogspot.com/2008/07/good-for-you-good-for-me.html"&gt;A Plethora of Technology &lt;/a&gt;blog.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Do you know of other tools that do this too?</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2008-07-17T08:36:50.251-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">1</thr:total></item><item><title>Saying Goodbye to MS Office</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2008/07/saying-goodbye-to-ms-office.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:44:10 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-1461754953466020151</guid><description>The 11.5 update to Mac Office 2004 has killed Word. It just won't open any files.&lt;br /&gt;Microsloth's solution? Uninstall and re-install and re-update? That may be acceptable in the Winworld, but not mine.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It's the last straw! Downloading OpenOffice.org 3 beta.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="thumbnail"&gt;&lt;a href="http://skitch.com/kpaccio/xibs/usernotificationcenter"&gt;&lt;img src="http://img.skitch.com/20080711-qaj23rs7ksq2chfhu6k3xnibx9.preview.jpg" alt="UserNotificationCenter" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2008-07-11T09:44:10.509-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">1</thr:total></item><item><title>Upgrading to iPhone/iTouch 2.0? Get in line!</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2008/07/upgrading-to-iphoneitouch-20-get-in.html</link><category>iPhone iTouch Apple paccio</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:12:44 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-2964068467254881366</guid><description>Do you think the 2.0 upgrade is in demand on day one?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="thumbnail"&gt;&lt;a href="http://skitch.com/kpaccio/xw9m/itunes"&gt;&lt;img src="http://img.skitch.com/20080711-8dxa8gxsfrsb8h42krnua7quw9.preview.jpg" alt="iTunes" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128);font-family:Lucida Grande,Trebuchet,sans-serif,Helvetica,Arial;font-size:10;"  &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2008-07-11T09:12:44.353-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Adopting Google Apps for Education? Not So Fast!</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2008/06/adopting-google-apps-for-education-not.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:45:57 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-3936345710222642333</guid><description>This from my&lt;a href="http://www.sans.org/newsletters/newsbites/newsbites.php?vol=10&amp;amp;issue=48"&gt; SANS NewsBite&lt;/a&gt; email newsletter:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;In an &lt;a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-me-text19-2008jun19,0,933444.story"&gt;LA Times article &lt;/a&gt;the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeal has ruled that employers may not access employees' text and email messages if the company has contracted&lt;br /&gt;with an outside organization to transmit those messages.  According to&lt;br /&gt;the ruling, employers may only access employees' email if the messages&lt;br /&gt;are stored on an internal server.  According to the ruling, employers may only access employees' email if the messages are stored on an internal server.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The original case was brought by&lt;br /&gt;Ontario, California police officers who sued after a wireless provider&lt;br /&gt;gave the police department records of text messages they had received.&lt;br /&gt;This is the first federal appellate decision to provide 4th Amendment&lt;br /&gt;protection to electronic messages.&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I'll follow this more closely as it will weigh in on a decision to adopt Google Apps for Education. Have you or your district considered Google Apps to replace your internal mail server?? How would you handle e-discovery rules?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2008-06-22T23:45:57.577-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">1</thr:total></item><item><title>Video Sharing Insurance</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2008/06/video-sharing-insurance.html</link><category>video</category><category>vimeo</category><category>backup</category><category>tubemogul</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:37:18 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-6303646174752334527</guid><description>My children are getting into more activities as they get older and my school district is producing more digital video than you can imagine.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I've come to really like my &lt;a href="http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&amp;amp;fcategoryid=144&amp;amp;modelid=14903"&gt;Canon TX-1&lt;/a&gt; digital video camera. It shoots exceptional video and very nice still shots directly to SD cards. This makes it extra easy to accumulate a bunch of footage that I would really hate to lose.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I try to back up my hard drive frequently but you know how that goes... I also like to keep an archive of video offsite by uploading to my favorite online video sharing site.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I like &lt;a href="http://www.vimeo.com/"&gt;Vimeo&lt;/a&gt; because it allows unlimited file sizes and supports HD video. I worry, though, that Vimeo is not an online giant...meaning I worry about it's longevity. So I find that I also upload my video to YouTube... just because I think it will be around for a while.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To facilitate sharing my video clips to multiple sites I recently learned about &lt;a href="http://www.tubemogul.com/"&gt;TubeMogul&lt;/a&gt; from the recent edition of Macworld. TubeMogul allows you to upload once and share to many sites automatically. So if you, too, would like to upload your valuable family and classroom videos to multiple sites for safekeeping, then TubeMogul may be the ticket for you too!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;EDIT: Of the many sites that TubeMogul can publish to, Vimeo is not ONE! Yikes! I was hasty and confused Veoh for Vimeo. Maybe it's not the answer I was hoping for.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;KP</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2008-06-03T22:37:18.779-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><item><title>Planning NECC 2008</title><link>http://weblog.techruminations.org/2008/05/planning-necc-2008.html</link><category>NECC</category><category>NECC2008</category><category>NECC08</category><author>noreply@blogger.com (Kurt Paccio)</author><pubDate>Tue, 13 May 2008 19:59:42 PDT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21255397.post-3550687026024221179</guid><description>It's that time of year to begin planning MY professional development. I spend much of the school year training and supporting others. Part of the summer is MY time to learn. The &lt;a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2008/"&gt;National Education Computing Conference&lt;/a&gt; has become my PD of choice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Each year NECC gets better and better. Last year featured the first annual &lt;a href="http://flickr.com/photos/kpaccio/617516035/"&gt;EdubloggerCon&lt;/a&gt;. This informal meet-up of education bloggers and forming an edubloggers' cafe were certainly the highlight of &lt;a href="http://panecc2007.wikispaces.com/"&gt;NECC 2007&lt;/a&gt;. In fact, a side-conference was actually taking place in the edubloggers' cafe. Twittercamp was running to highlight exciting events. Conversations and demonstrations were non-stop. Twitter became an indispensable tool. Sidebar chats and Skype conferences within and between sessions became the norm.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;NECC 2008 holds even more developments and organization for the "conference within a conference".&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.stevehargadon.com/2008/05/its-here-its-here-neccs-community.html"&gt;Steve Hargadon has been busy organizing NECC 2008 Unplugged. &lt;/a&gt;Visit his blog post for a nice description and be sure to JOIN the NECC 2008 Ning!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;See y'all in San Antonio! (Just practicing!)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;   &lt;div class="flockcredit" style="text-align: right; color: #CCC; font-size: x-small;"&gt;Blogged with the &lt;a href="http://www.flock.com/blogged-with-flock" style="color: #999; font-weight: bold;" target="_new" title="Flock Browser"&gt;Flock Browser&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2008-05-13T22:59:42.627-04:00</app:edited><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total></item><media:rating>nonadult</media:rating></channel></rss>
