HOW TO USE DROPBOX

Recently I was asked by one of my high school principals to introduce Dropbox to his staff so that they might be able to easily transfer their lesson plans to him.  I found a great tutorial online at the following address: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-dropbox-2011-2#heres-the-dropbox-home-page-to-register-click-the-tiny-arrow-next-to-log-in-at-the-top-1 .  Since it also mentioned Mac computers I did make a few deletions for this presentations.  This tutorial basically explains how to download Dropbox onto your PC and smart phone.  It also gives the basics of how to upload files into Dropbox.  See the tutorial below.



OK, now that you know how to download Dropbox and upload items into it, what about transferring your lesson plans to your principal?  Sharing files with others can be accomplished in one of two ways.  "The easiest way is to place files in your Public folder inside the Dropbox. Control click that file and you’ll see a Dropbox submenu. In that menu is an option to copy the public link for that file. Paste that link into an email and when the recipient clicks it the file will download to his/her computer."

"The second way to share files is to create a new folder in your Dropbox and share it. Sharing can be accomplished in your Dropbox online account. If you click the dropdown menu of your folder you can choose to share that folder. A form will appear and you enter the address of the person you want to share that folder with (the person will need a Dropbox account). That person will receive an email inviting him/her to share that folder or file. Once accepted the folder or file will appear in his/her Dropbox."  http://www.brighthub.com/computing/mac-platform/articles/63673.aspx

MEDIA SPECIALIST PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Before school started I met with the Media Specialists and AIG instructors for a day and a half technology workshop.  I have been assigned to work with the Media Specialilst all year and assist them technologically in any way that I can.  Their first assignment was to create a blog for their Media Centers.  This will be used to stay in touch with their principals, staff members, me and one another.  Next they created a screen cast of themselves reading a book review that they had written.  They used Screencast-o-matic.com to do this.  Once the screencast was completed they embedded it into their blogs using the embed code.  Finally they created a word cloud about a book in their collection using Wordle.net.  A .jpeg of this word cloud was also uploaded to their blogs.  In closing we had a discussion as to how they could share what they had learned and use it with the teachers and students at their schools.

MY FIRST ASSIGNMENT

Ms. Packer, principal of Evergreen Elementary School, asked me to come by to do a quick tutorial on Mimio Boards for some of her teachers.  They all had the boards in their rooms but had never received any training on them.  So this was my first assignment as Instructional Technology Facilitator.  The session lasted for approximately one hour and Ms. Rutie Newman who hosted the mini workshop was able to do a four or five slide presentation to be used during Open House.