As a course designer for the Canvas LMS, I want to be able to make videos of presentations I’ve created and post them into the course. I primarily use two tools to do this: Quicktime Player (Mac) and Screencast Pro from Telestream. Quicktime for some reason only exports the videos I make using the built-in… Continue reading Preparing Videos for Canvas
Author: John
MacOS Permissions After File Sharing
I recently was experiencing some issues around file sharing on MacOS (Big Sur on one end, Monterrey on the other) that had me mucking about in the Sharing pane of System Preferences. When I connected to the Monterrey machine remotely through SMB in the Finder, I had no access to any of the folders in… Continue reading MacOS Permissions After File Sharing
Memory and Scent
My Background I’m feel somewhat vulnerable for discussing this, but the topic is so fascinating to me, I feel like there is at least some benefit in putting some thoughts down about it. I have a strong affinity for smells; I can’t say I am in anyway unusual from other people in this regard, except… Continue reading Memory and Scent
Reflections on Teaching
My first year of teaching graphic communications and computer applications were intense experiences. I’d just graduated with a masters degree (in music) and suddenly I was thrown into a new job that I hadn’t precisely prepared for! But I had a lot of computer experience and I set about designing lessons on that experience as… Continue reading Reflections on Teaching
How to perform advanced tasks in Microsoft Word
Topics Mail Merge Forms and Templates Recording Macros Using Footnotes and Endnotes Creating Bookmarks Tracking Changes and Comments Envelopes & Labels Creating a Table of Contents Mail Merge Mail merge is a function whereby you create a template of communication, such as a business letter, and replace the information therein with specifics such as name,… Continue reading How to perform advanced tasks in Microsoft Word
Slidedoc(k)ing
I am a detail oriented person. I recently read a colleague’s dissertation and before I could get to the details in the writing, all I could see where inconsistencies in the use of spaces and punctuation. For sure, it was a draft and some people work that way—getting their ideas down first and worrying about… Continue reading Slidedoc(k)ing
Extracting Email Addresses
So email can be a pretty seamless tool for most of us to communicate with others; sitting at a computer, it’s easy to create a message, send it, and when received, to read. That’s not even worth saying. And I’m not here to make a commentary on how inefficient email can be in the workplace… Continue reading Extracting Email Addresses
Curriculum as Jellybeans
Part of me wishes we could redesign our curriculum. Not mine, not any specific schools’, but all of it—by pouring jelly beans out on the table. I think maybe what we teach is as important question as how students will learn it. So some have the idea that mixing up traditional notions of “in school”… Continue reading Curriculum as Jellybeans
The 2020 Symposium
For the past four years, I have organized an end-of-year “symposium” for teachers. This event has included a budget in excess of $10,000 and from 2017, 2018, and 2019, we included a second day of team building which included a trip to Busch Gardens, Segway Tours in Richmond, and white water rafting on the James.… Continue reading The 2020 Symposium
A time for courage
These are my own thoughts, written on time away from work. Some years ago I sat in a planning meeting with my colleagues—we all worked for a preK-12 school division in Virginia—and we were discussing the set of core values we would use in our next strategic plan. We’d done some work to identify our… Continue reading A time for courage