Friday 20 September 2013

September 20th, 2013 - A Couple Tips and Tools

Welcome to the weekend!!

This week I have a few different tools for you - one to help you with your younger students and a tips for teachers on First Class and an online website for downloading videos.

First for those primary teachers who are using iPads in the classroom - a fun stylus which can help students build up their fine motor skills.  Chapters and staples are now carrying stylus’ which look like shorter versions of pencils and pens, and work the same as a tap or swipe on the iPad.  The ‘Touch Screen Stylus’ is made of electro-conductive rubber and is about $12.  It can be held exactly like a pencil and used to trace letters in apps such as ‘Alphabet Tracing’ and ‘Cursive Writing’.  They are much easier to hold than traditional thinner pencils and the rubberized feel allow for a comfortable grip.  A great find for younger students!

So, are you getting tired of searching all over First Class, the Cloud and your home email for all of your messages? Follow these simple instructions to have your first class messages forwarded to the cloud for ‘one stop shopping for all of your messages.’
First, sign on to your first class account.   Click on ‘Preferences’ in the menu on the left.  Next, click on the +  sign next to the ‘Messaging’ option on the lower part of the page - you should see a section on Mailbox rules with a two gear icon.  Scroll down a bit to “automatically forward” and select ‘Yes’ from the drop down menus for both 'local mail' and 'internet mail'.  Then in the box below where it asks where to ‘Forward to’ type in your UGCloud email address.  Your messages will automatically begin being forwarded and a copy will also remain on the First Class account for future viewing.  Don't forget to download the First Class app for your iPad or iPhone - its much easier than logging on in Safari or Chrome!

Finally, here is a website to help you download videos from the web.  It’s called Keepvid.  By entering www.keepvid.com in the address bar of your web browser, you will be directed to a very plain and basic looking website.  Here you can enter the URL or web address of the video you would like to download.  Then by clicking on the ‘Download button’ your video is processed and a pop up window tells you when your video is ready for downloading.  Also available is a ‘bookmarklet’ for easier downloading of the videos right when you are on the page.  You simply drag and drop the bookmarklet button into your toolbar and when you find a video you would like to download merely click on the button and it will automatically bring you to the website and offer the option to download or view the movie.

I hope these tools are helpful for you in your teaching…
Have a great weekend!

Cheers,
Stace


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