Atomic Learning Podcasting Workshop: Free through September 15

If you have always wanted to know about podcasting and how to use it, this is your chance.  Atomic Learning is offering a free Podcasting Workshop from now until September 15.  The workshop is presented in short videos and covers the following topics:

1. An Introduction to Podcasting
2. Comparison of Podcasting and Radio
3. How to Subscribe and Listen to a Podcast
4. How to Record a Podcast with Audacity
5. How to Record Audio with Garage Band
6. How to Create an RSS Feed
7. How to Use Feeder to Create RSS Feeds

The entire workshop is about 75 minutes of video, however you can pick and choose which videos you would like to watch.  There are also additional resources that you can download. This is a great way to learn more about Podcasting and how to begin creating your own.

Visit the Atomic Learning website at http://www.atomiclearning.com/podcasting to learn more.

Other Podcasting Resources
http://maetshowcase.educ.msu.edu
http://www.apple.com/education/resources/podcastingvideos/
http://learninginhand.com/podcasting/index.html
http://www.stager.org/podcasting.html

–Carrie Albin, Outreach Coordinator and Co-Editor

Aspect ratio and PowerPoint using Photoshop

Often in the classroom it is of real value to develop PowerPoint presentations to display a series of pictures you have taken. For example, at the beginning of the school year you may wish to have a self-running PowerPoint displaying pictures, together with the names, of all your students. Or you may have taken a series of pictures of a class project and wish to have a PowerPoint containing the pictures running for parents to view as they wait for their individual conferences with you. Your task is then to insert each of the pictures in a PowerPoint slide and then set the timing for each picture to be shown in the automatic display mode.

In checking the specifications of various digital cameras, it appears that there are several “standard” aspect ratios, that is the relation of the width of the picture to the height of the picture. Some cameras have a 10:6.5 aspect ratio, others a 10:6.6 aspect ratio, and even others a 3:2 aspect ratio. You may very well wonder what difference that makes. Because the PowerPoint full screen slide has a 4:3 aspect ratio, you will have to crop each of your pictures if your camera has other than a 4:3 aspect ratio.

In the past I have been using an Olympus E20 which has a 4:3 aspect ratio. As long as I took pictures in the “landscape” mode, that is holding the camera horizontally, I could very quickly insert full-frame pictures into a PowerPoint presentation. However, I recently switched to a camera that has a 10:6.5 aspect ratio, and I found the task of inserting full-frame pictures into PowerPoint to be suddenly much more tedious and time-consuming.

As an example, here is the screen showing a picture from a camera displayed in Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0. A careful noting of the horizontal and vertical rules indicates that this camera has a 10:6.5 aspect ratio.

In order to place this picture as a full-screen display in PowerPoint, I need it to be cropped so as to have a 4:3 aspect ratio, or 10 inches by7.5 inches. One approach would be to resize the picture such that it is 7.5 inches in height and then crop some off each end of the picture, and through successive approximations, eventually end up with a 10 by 7.5 inch picture. As you can imagine, even when using the ruler, that is a quite tedious procedure and the only way to really check out the result is to complete the cropping, check the dimensions, and then check the picture to determine if it were cropped appropriately.

Another approach in Photoshop, and most other picture editing programs, is to use one special aspect of the cropping tool. In this screen display, you will note that when the cropping tool is selected, the width and height of the cropped area can also be specified.

With the cropping tool and the indicated dimensions selected, the area cropped will always result in a picture with dimensions of 10 inches by 7.5 inches. When inserted into PowerPoint, the picture will be a full screen display.

What is really advantageous about this cropping method is that it is possible to move the cropping rectangle around and thus select that portion of the picture most appropriate for the PowerPoint slide. In this display you can see how the cropping rectangle has been moved.

–Norman Bell, Co-Editor

Are You Sending More Than Intended With Microsoft Office Documents: Remove Hidden Data

Are you sending private data with every office document you post to a website or email out as an attachment? If you aren’t taking the necessary precautions you are.

There are two ways that you may be leaving unnecessary and perhaps private information in your office documents. First, every office document that you create may keep track of items such as title, author’s name, company, comments, and the name of the network server or hard drive on which the document is saved. In addition the document tracks when it was created, accessed, printed, last saved, number of revisions, and total editing time.

The second method of leaving unnecessary information is through the track changes option. With Track Changes enabled, Microsoft Office keeps a record of who made what changes and when. Unless you accept or reject all of the changes in a document, this information will remain available for others to see. You can visit the following website for examples of businesses and government organizations that have made this mistake: http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/trackchanges/PublicExamplesOfTrackChanges.html

So how do you make sure that you don’t make the same mistake? There are a few things you can do to protect yourself and your documents. First you can be sure to accept or reject all changes in a document prior to sending it on as a finished product. Microsoft.com has an article called “Get rid of tracked changes and comments, once and for all” that will explain how to do this. It can be found at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010983881033.aspx

Second you can go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/834427 and download the Remove Hidden Data tool that Microsoft has created. Be sure to read the instructions and understand which type of information will be removed.

Lastly you can turn your documents into PDFs prior to sending. Be careful though, sometimes your track changes can also be sent with a PDF file. This can happen if 1) you leave the tracked changes visible in the document prior to converting it and 2) if you have your printer set up to print “tracked changes” along with the document. When using this option just preview the PDF file prior to sending to see if any unwanted information has been included.

–Carrie Albin, Outreach Coordinator and Co-Editor

Scheduling Tasks on a Windows XP Computer

Performing necessary maintenance on your computer is often difficult to remember to do and can be tedious to execute regularly if one is not completely familiar with what needs to be done.  Why not schedule the necessary programs to run automatically during a period when your computer will be idle? 

In order to schedule certain tasks (such as disk cleanup and disk defragmentation) so that they will begin to run automatically, you need to open the Scheduled Task Wizard.  In order to do this, click on the Start Menu and move your cursor to All Programs.  From there, slide the cursor up to Accessories, and move to System Tools and then to Scheduled Tasks on the Fly-out Menus that follow.

In the Scheduled Task window that comes up next, you’ll see a small icon with the label Add Scheduled Task.  Click on this icon.  The Scheduled Task Wizard will appear, and you’ll be instructed to click the Next> button.  Depending on the speed of your computer, it may take several seconds to bring up a list of all the programs you can automatically schedule to start on their own. 
Scroll through the choices to find Disk Cleanup, and click on it once, and then click the Next> button.  The next screen will ask you how often you want the task done.  I usually select the Weekly choice.  In the next screen, choose the time and day the task is to be performed.  After clicking the Next> button again, you will be asked to select a user name and password.  A user name will be included by default, and you will be asked to select a password.  Even though the window indicates that if you don’t select a password the task may not start, this may be ignored.  The fewer passwords one needs to remember, the better!

The Scheduled Task Wizard will now review what you have elected to do and when you’ve scheduled it to be done.  Check the box to “open advanced properties for this task…” prior to clicking the Finish button.  You’ll probably get an error message telling you that the task might not be completed for some reason, but there’s no need to panic.  Just click the OK button.

A window will open with the name of the task you have selected to run.  At the bottom of this window, check the box to “Run only if logged on”.  If you don’t do this, your task won’t be able to run.  

Once you click OK, you will notice that the maintenance task is now added to the list of scheduled tasks.  This means that the task will now begin automatically on the day(s) and time(s) you have selected, but you may need to be present to provide “guidance” as the program runs.  For example, Disk Defragmenter will start as scheduled, but without user input, it will not know exactly what you want done.  Without your direction, it won’t be able to complete the desired task.

This process can be repeated to schedule a whole range of other maintenance tasks, and each can be adjusted to open at a particular time.  The main benefit of scheduling tasks is that it serves as a reminder of necessary maintenance tasks needing to be done to keep your computer in top working order.  We all have busy lives, and taking care of our computers often becomes one of the last things we do!    

– Carlton Matteo, Adjunct Faculty Instructor

An Unusual Use of PowerPoint

In displaying pictures, it is often useful to place a related set of pictures on a single 8 ½” by 11″ piece of photo paper. A typical approach would be to open a blank Microsoft Word document and then place and resize the pictures as needed, adding text where appropriate. Sometimes, however, it is desirable to place the pictures on angles, so as to make the final product more interesting to the eye, in effect making a montage of the pictures. In order to rotate the pictures, it has been found that by placing them on a single PowerPoint slide, the pictures can each be variably rotated, producing a display that is very pleasing to the eye. To develop such a montage, open PowerPoint and from the Slide Layout menu, select a Content Layout that is blank. Format the background using Format-Background-Fill Effects-Two Colors (white and blue, for example), and then select a Shading style (Horizontal, Vertical, Diagonal up, Diagonal down, From corner, and From title). Selecting “From title” provides an attractive location in the center for the title of the montage.

Then select and insert the pictures to be used. Resize and rotate as necessary to produce a montage that is attractive and interesting. The number of pictures will be greatly influenced by the sizes of the individuals in the pictures. Cropping can be very helpful in maintaining the visibility of the individuals in the pictures.

Decide what text will be used to title the montage and perhaps using WordArt, develop and place the text.

The more difficult task is then at hand-placing the pictures so as to produce the final product. It seems as if much trial and error comes into play at this point so as to allow the montage to tell the story that you desire.

Once the pictures and text have been positioned as desired, review your product one more time, and then print. In the PowerPoint print menu, you will be printing the only slide that you have produced.

This photo montage strategy could be used very effectively to record a class field trip, to honor students for class presentations, to report to parents about the range of work students have done, or for students to develop an attractive title page for a portfolio of their work. PowerPoint enables you or your students to create a very attractive and professional document to communicate high expectations, to honor students for their work and effort, and to generate excitement about what is happening in your classroom!

–Norman Bell, Co-Editor