Technology Memo #1

The first two memos of the year will have a lot of nuts and bolts type stuff, so please be sure to patiently read through my literary opus to see that you are up date with beginning of the year technology “to-do’s.”

1. Blackboard – Make sure that you have signed up for “Elliott Staff Resources,” “Elliott Staff Lesson Plans,” and “Elliott Day Card.” As of 8:34 AM I have made sure that everyone who has signed up for lesson plans and day card have been given rights to post their plans and day card. Since day cards are now on Blackboard, you do not have to e-mail them, just post them to Blackboard.

2. Birthday – Everyone likes to be special on their birthday, so make sure that you add your birthday to the Campus Calendar in Public Folders and add “Elliott Faculty” to the “Invite Attendees” spot. Make sure to click “Recurrence” so that your birthday shows up on the calendar yearly. If you would rather that I do it, just send me your birthday and I will add it to the calendar, but that means that I get to have a piece of your birthday cake (see staff handbook for clarification on this matter).

3. Staff Addresses – Everyone must update their information in Staff Addresses in Public Folders. I can tell if you have or have not by looking at your work telephone number, so please update it. This is important for the school to be able to contact you. E-mail me if you need help on this matter.

4. E-mail Signature Good, E-mail Stationary Bad – Add a signature line to your e-mails by going to the Options arrow and clicking “E-mail Signature.” This will save you time when writing e-mails. On the other hand, do not use e-mail stationary like colorful designs in your background. This takes up valuable space. If I see that you are using one, I will send you a polite, non-threatening, form letter on how to remove the stationary. It doesn’t make you a bad person; it just makes you an e-mail-space-taker-upper.

5. Website of the Week – I was going to highlight the changes that I made to the Elliott website over the summer, but instead I want to highlight one of our new staff members. Ms. Roa created a blog on Friday that is absolutely top-notch! She used Google’s blog site, www.blogger.com to create he blog. She has games, facts, pictures, surveys, and more. Blogger is really easy to use because there are so many easily accessible widgets, applications, or whatever they’re called to add to your blog. Blogs can be used for parent communication (spelling lists, announcements, class projects), research (links), and a plethora of other classroom uses.