Google Images & YouTube Videos for Powerpoint

Nokes Kelley (Music) asked to consult with me on Powerpoint (and this qualifies as an Independent Professional Development Activity if you need to fulfill your flex obligation.) and we just started playing around with concepts to energize his Jazz History lectures with images, sounds and video clips.

He picked "Charlie Parker" and we used Google Images for an initial search. Wow, this day Google returned over 243,000 hits. Since Nokes will be using his presentation in a classroom (fair use copyright issues), I demonstrated how to drag 'n drop images from web pages to Powerpoint slides and why some images should not be stretched to bigger sizes.

Next on the Google video link were hits to YouTube videos. (When our campus network is busy, these videos will not play smoothly, so plan on searching for YouTube videos at home, at night.) Oh my, wonderful stuff is on the internet.

In addition to displaying images about jazz musicians, and playing music clips, now Nokes can offer links to performance videos on Powerpoint slides and print selected slides as handouts.

Hey -- any faculty out there using YouTube ... stop by because I'd like to know how you are using it to supplement classroom content. And I need some Independent Professional Development Activity time for my fall 2007 flex obligation.

Gradebooks in Excel

I've been meeting with faculty since the semester started and helping them customize the Excel Gradebook to meet their needs. The benefit of using this Excel file is that next semester, you can just replace the names, adjust the attendance pattern, set the print area and your gradebook is ready to go.

The Turn Your Roster into an Excel Gradebook flex workshop is a quick overview and often faculty ask for follow-up appointments to review the steps. Marie Maschmeyer (Family Consumer Science), Nokes Kelley (Music), Leila Stone (Human Career Development) and Sharon Richmond (Anthropology) are first time gradebookers while Joanne Moylan-Aube (Psychology) stopped by to update her file from last semester.

Microsoft Office - Home Use License

Faculty or Staff Member currently employed by a College or University ordering software media for Work-at-Home use for Windows and Macintosh.

I promised to share the URL for the Microsoft Office purchase from the Foundation for California Community Colleges - and here it is

http://old.foundationccc.org/msca/default.aspx

Several pages into the online form you will encounter this information:
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"Due to regulations set forth by Microsoft, we do not have a complete online ordering system. You are required to either fax or mail in the appropriate verification of employment and signature of acceptance when you print the last page.

After filling out the following information you will be issued an order ID number to send in with your identification and agreement signature. You will not be asked to submit any payment information online. Filling out the order form in this manner helps to ensure the accuracy and speed of our data entry."
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In the past, I have made a copy of my payroll report and marked off the personal details but left enough for them to see LRCCD, date, name, address/campus. An ALTERNATIVE to your payroll report might be to have your dean write a letter on campus stationery. You might offer to draft the letter for your dean to use for other staff as well. FAX your verification along with the printout of your order(or take Light Rail to the 13th Street Station and walk one block to the CCC building, 12th & O Streets.)

There are several products to choose from on this list. At this time, on campus we still use Office 2003 Pro (Windows) and Office X (Macintosh). If you are adventurous, consider Office Enterprise 2007 (Windows). This will have some challenges in saving documents to share with colleagues not on the "bleeding edge of technology." The next version for Mac has not been release by Microsoft yet.

The new home page for the CCC Foundation is at http://foundationccc.org/
1102 Q Street, Third Floor
Sacramento, CA 95811
Toll Free: 866.325.3222
Fax: 916.325.0844
Hours: 9am to 5pm M-F

I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED FOR THIS INFORMATION because I just found out that ADOBE has been added for student purchases through the Foundation. For details to share with your students on the program managed through Computerland, visit http://www.uscollegebuy.com/0ab/asl.htm

Put Powerpoint Files on a Diet

Sometimes your students will just want to print the presentation slides as a study guide handout. That's what Mick Dunne (Dental Hygiene) had in mind. He posted his vocabulary presentation for students to download. But the Powerpoint file is over 8 MB in size. The larger the file, the longer the download time.

Since Mick wanted his students to have the study guide handout, it was best to use Adobe Acrobat to create the printed view - with full color - for students to use. This file was well under 1 MB, just 335 KB!

Easy access to files is one half of the solution, making smaller files is the other half.