A Date With Google Calendar

Google calendar is an awesome tool.  You can layer personal, work and family calendars to keep a track of all you need to in your busy week.  If you need to find a meeting time with multiple people, its super easy in Google Calendar (providing you are all using it!).  Check out the screenshots and videos below for more info.

Left Hand Side:
Month view - click on a day and it will take you there directly.

My Calendars
This is where you will see any calendars that you own (ones that you have created).  You can turn them on and off by clicking on the check box next the calendar you want to see.

Other Calendars
This is where you will find calendars of other people.  You can click on the down arrow next to other calendars to add more.

Layering Calendars

Making Events and Find A Common Time For Multiple Guests

Booking Resources (eg. computer carts or school rooms)

New iMovie: How to Use Green Screen

Have you made the switch to the new version of iMovie?  Have you had some trouble figuring out how to edit your movie in ways that you used to know how to do?  This is the first post in a new series that will try and show you the updated features of iMovie and get you back to making amazing videos.

Green Screen

Green screen is a great way to improve the overall appearance of your Movie.  It can be used to make you appear to be places that you could never get to in real life.  It can add to the creative nature of your project.  It can also be very trick to get to work correctly.  

In the old version of iMove you needed to turn on green screen in the advanced tools section of iMovie preferences.  in New iMovie, greens screen comes already activated and ready for you to use.  It does behave a bit differently than in previous versions of the software, so I have created a short screencast to show you how to use it:

Here are some important tips to get your green screen to turn out right:

• Be sure that the subject of your video is not wearing blue or green clothing or they might disappear into the background.
• Make sure that the green screen you are using is a nice, rich green color, or it might not work.  
• Try to have even lighting in on the green screen itself.  Shadows and bright spots on the green screen can show through.
• Finally, it is best to do a test shot to see if everything looks right before you film a large clip.  It would be frustrating to get the clip recorded perfectly, only to find out that the greens screen isn't right.

POWERTEACHER PRO IS HERE!

PowerTeacher Pro is the new grade book just released by PowerSchool. In the HS we will begin using it this year (from the beginning of the year). One huge advantage over the old grade book is that PowerTeacher Pro is web-based. You don't need to install any software and you don't have to launch the grade book in a separate screen every time.

On Monday August 15th the HS will have a training session on how to use PowerTeacher Pro. You will also have time to set up your grade book and practice. Here are some resources to help you:

PowerTeacher Pro User Guide

Taking Attendance Video 

Questions for PowerSchool Support

Videos

 Part 1

 Part 2

Pagoda Basics: Screencast Resources

To help you get acquainted with our virtual learning environment (VLE) we have posted a link to HaikuLearning introductory screencasts.

Be aware that if you are viewing the link in Chrome or Firefox, you may find that the screencast does not load. You should notice a grey shield appearing in the address bar of your browser. Click on the shield and select to view the content. 

To get you started

Haiku: Getting started (5:05)

How to create a Haiku class (8:33)

How to Add Pages (4:22)

How to Add Content Blocks (e.g. Text and Images) (9:36)

How to add a Google calendar to Haiku (3:50)

How to embed a GoogleDoc (2:46)

How to embed the web (basic) (4:15)

More screencast tutorials

HaikuLearning screencasts