IT Ideas

Using the web clipboard in Google Docs. The web clipboard allows you to copy and paste whole Google Docs or part docs from one file to another in a couple of clicks. Suppose you want to put a spreadsheet into a document - use the web clipboard. Button show below: You will get a history of the stuff you have copied appearing until you clear all items.  I find this particularly useful for putting Google Drawings (if you have not used this them do - create organisational charts, diagrams, funky pictures and so one really easily!) into documents. With a combination of the web clipboard, document and drawing there is not much you cannot do! Have a go...... 

Use of Google Calender - do you know that you can sync you calendar with most phones and tablets easily. you can also use Google tasks. Gtask is a good app for Android - no more scraps of paper for to do lists. Why not get students recording their HW on their calender? Might be a useful use of their phone? Cooper school is asking students to do this.....

Did you know you have a Picasa Web Album for storing and editing your photos as part of your Apps account. Sign in at  https://picasaweb.google.com/home . The photos you put in you can embed directly into any Google Doc, share with people without having to send enormous email attachments and edit you shots on-line. You can also embed whole galleries into other websites - e.g. Google Sites and spaces on the LP. Need help - just ask! Some shots straight from my album of the site.....

Any one else got a Raspberry Pi? Pict of mine below: Popped a 4Gb SD Card that I put a lightweight Debian Linux distro on. Used an HTC phone charger as a power supply and a regular USB KB and mouse. Plugged into my monitor with a HDMI cable. Web browsing worked OK. Has a few programming tools - something to play with over the summer. I plan to turn it into a LAMP server and host some sort of website for experimenting with. Watch this space for a url...... OK - here is a little video of it being used as a thin client. Might be a cheap option for a school rdp client?

Do you know about revision history in Google Docs? If you have a shared document - click file and revision history and you can see who has done what and when to the document. You can also revert a document back to an earlier start if you don't like the changes. See below for the screen shots.... File menu.... The version history

How does a Thin PC work? We have recently started recycling old PC's as Thin PC - using Windows 7 Embedded. So basically using them as terminal to a remote desktop server. Gives old machines a new lease of life for no cost (assuming you have a EES agreement with MS). The trick is to get the Thin PC to go straight to the rdp to the server you want. So key steps if you are interested are: Put the Thin-PC in a OU where there is a group policy that auto logs on a standard user. Change the shell from explorer to %windir%\system32\mstsc.exe I have one script that calls a vbs script that runs the rdp session and loops to re-run it on exit or if the user tries to close the session. Key thing is to run the scripts silently so the user cannot close them. Lock Crtl-Alt-Del down with gpo so user just gets Cancel as the only option.  Anyone wants to know more - let me know.

This is how you can use Templates - bit brief - but saves a lot of time if you use the same style doc all of the time:

Just started using Google Docs for my forms Personal Statements for UCAS - comments is great for giving them ideas and correcting stuff. Also get an email when they correct stuff.

OK - so just started using Blogger as part of Google Apps for Education at Wheatley Park School.  I'll try to post IT ideas for staff students and other IT expert over time here. Lets see how it goes. So there is one to get started - how to use comments in Google Docs....