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Monday Mac Tip — Sync Address Book with Gmail

kcesiro — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:08:41 +0000

This quick, 7-step tutorial will help you sync your Address Book application with your Google Contacts (This feature is only possible with Mac OS X Snow Leopard).

1. Open Address book.
2. Click “Address Book” (on the top bar next to the Apple icon).
3. Click “Preferences.”
4. Click on the “Accounts” tab.

5. Select “On My Mac” on the left-hand side, and check the box next to “Synchronize with Google.”
6. Click on “Configure.”

7. You will be prompted to enter your Google Account login information. Do so and press “Ok.”

You have now successfully synced your Address Book with your Google contacts. Please allow an hour or so for the sync to be fully completed.

easy way to find eye-catching images…

Kristen Treglia — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:58:59 +0000

As we all know, it’s important to avoid infringing on copyrighted material. So, how can you find excellent quality images to use in presentations or on blogs without having to pay expensive royalty fees to use licensed material? The simple answer is to use the Creative Commons on Flickr. There are literally millions of excellent photos that have various types of creative common licenses that allow you to use them without having to spend money or sacrifice quality!!

How does creative commons work on flickr?

There are several different types of licenses to choose from, you should search for a photo with the license that best fits how you will be using it. Here is a brief description of the different types:

Attribution: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform copyrighted and derivative works based upon it but only if credit is given.
Noncommercial: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform copyrighted and derivative works but for noncommercial purposes only

No Derivative Works: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based upon it.

Share alike: Others can distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the work.

If you’d like to see more information about the various licenses and how they work on Flickr, check out this blog entry “Complete Guide to Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images“.

If you have not signed up for an account, and plan on using Flickr images in the future, it might be worth it for you to take a minute or two to create a free yahoo account (Flickr’s parent company). One of the many reasons why you would want to have your own Flickr account is because you can conveniently keep track of images that you would like to use. When I am searching for images on Flickr I quite often find other photos that I would like to bookmark for later– since I have an account I can do this quite easily by marking it as a “favorite”. Take a look at the Newbie’s Guide to Flickr for the basics of uploading photos on Flickr or view a presentation that includes a step by step guide to signing up for a free account.

If you’ve already signed up for an account or would like to see what else you can do with Flickr, check out Mashable’s FLICKR TOOLBOX: 100+ Tools For Flickr Addicts or Digital Inspiration’s Flickr Guide for some great ideas.

Photo Credit
Creative Commons: flickr by technovore via Flickr
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Additional Links of Interest:

100 Amazing Flickr Collections for Architecture Buffs
Step by step instructions on downloading Creative Commons images on flickr
10 Ways to Find Great Photos on Flickr
Teaching with Flickr Wiki

Some Useful Sets and Collections on Flickr:
Brooklyn Museum
Library of Congress
New York Public Library
Powerhouse Museum
Smithsonian

rss = really, simple, syndication, but what does that really mean?

Kristen Treglia — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:11:55 +0000

We live in a world where time is precious and the amount of new information that appears every day on any given topic can be overpowering. RSS feeds and RSS reader applications can be very powerful tools for students and professionals who want to tame “information overload” while keeping up with the latest information in their areas of Interest and expertise.

What is RSS and why is it useful?

RSS, short for “Really Simple Syndication”, is a way for Web sites to publish content so that users of RSS reader applications, or “rss aggregators” can easily view links to the site’s latest content. Web sites with RSS-enabled content make their latest pages available to users of RSS reader applications by using links to RSS documents (also referred to as “feeds”, “web feeds”, or “channels”).

Links to RSS “feeds” on RSS-enabled Web sites are typically represented by images labeled as “RSS” or “XML” (short for “eXtensible Markup Language”, the type of code that makes up RSS documents).

In fact, you’ve probably seen them on just about every website you visit, but didn’t know what it was or what it was for!! For some slides on how to recognize feeds and find them on websites, view the short presentation on Slideshare by Kristen.

How can I use a Feed Aggregator to follow RSS feeds?

When RSS feed links are copied into an RSS reader such as Google Reader (web based), Feeddemon (for MS Windows), or NetNewsWire (Mac OSX), the user has “subscribed” to the feed and will be able to viewsummaries of the latest content from the subscribed Web site from within the RSS reader. By subscribing to multiple feeds in an area of interest, or “aggregating” feeds, users can user their RSS reader applications to browse, search, and sort content from many Web sites without having to visit them individually.

This capability can save a great deal of time and allow users to use information from the Web much more productively.

For this week’s screencast, I’ve created a brief demonstration of how to use the Google Reader RSS application to subscribe to an RSS-enabled Web site. If you are new to the idea of using a feed reader, it’s probably best to start out with using Google Reader. However; there many different feed readers available for any platform with a variety of interfaces. Here’s a chart comparing the different features of three popular feedreaders: Bloglines, Google Reader, and Newsgator with a list of pros and cons for each. If you are looking for a list of feed aggregators and tools, take a look at Mashable’s Ultimate RSS Toolkit. RSS feeds and RSS readers can be used to easily and effectively keep up with the latest news headlines, journal abstracts, blog entries, and organizational activities.
Are you currently using an RSS reader application to make the Web’s latest, greatest content manageable and useful? Can you provide any examples of great RSS-enabled Web sites? Please leave your ideas in the comment section or email them to me at jbehnke@fordham.edu or Kristen at treglia@fordham.edu. We would love to hear from you!!!

Additional Links of Interest:

Kristen’s pageflake uses RSS feeds to keep up with teacher blogs and education news.
List of “100 Most Subscribed to RSS Feeds” with descriptions, link to original site, and copy of the rss feed
ITAC Blog entry rss feed/

MyFiles: Using Webfolders

Kristen Treglia — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:44:53 +0000

Hopefully, you have signed up for your AccessIT ID and have started using MyFiles as a way to backup or store your files online.

If you have, you are probably familiar with the basic features such as uploading, sharing, and downloading files but might not yet know about some of the other useful features you can take advantage of like Webfolders.

So what is a webfolder and why should you use it?

Good question, to get the answer, take a look at the latest screencast Jim has prepared for us:

My Files: Using Webfolders

Remember, if you have any questions of comments for Jim, he would love to hear from you: behnke@fordham.edu

Here are some additional MyFiles resources:

The Basics and a Quickguide
Creating and Sharing a Wiki
FAQ page

Tuesday Tip: Blackboard Course Shells

Kristen Treglia — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:46:00 +0000

The Blackboard course shells for the summer semester will be up on April 17th. We’ve started getting phone calls from teachers who want to start preparing their courses for the summer now and don’t want to have to wait so I thought I would post some easy to follow directions on getting a head start:

1. Archive a copy of an “old” course shell (Control Panel: Archive Course).

2. Modify the information in this course shell with the materials for your summer course.

3. When the new course shells become available, use the course copy feature to copy the material from the “old” course into the new course shell (Control Panel: Course Copy: Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course”.

**Remember, in order for your students to see your course, you must make the course available**

(1) Select the course you want to make available.
(2) Click on the Control Panel.
(3) Click on Settings.
(4) Click on Course Availability.
(5) Click on Yes and Submit.
These steps will make the course available, and allow students access into your blackboard course.

If you are new to Blackboard, or would like some help, you can email blackboard@fordham.edu or contact the FTC on your campus.

Some helpful PDFs:

Course Creation Checklist
How to Add a Content Item
How to Add a Forum to the Discussion Board
How to Course Copy Materials
Grade Center Basics

Tuesday Tip: Shortcuts to getting the most out of your Blackberry

Kristen Treglia — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:10:36 +0000

This tip comes via Crackberry.com which is one of the most trafficked BlackBerry community sites on the net. Chances are, if you are a Blackberry user you’ve already bookmarked this site for downloads/apps or Blackberry help. Here’s one of their helpful posts in the Blackberry 101 series on Keyboard shortcuts.

Click here for PDF version of Crackberry\’s Blackberry shortcuts

Looking for more Blackberry tips? Try these resources:

Mashable’s List to 7 Great Resources for Blackberry Applications
Opera mini browser
Blackberry for Mac
Pandora for Blackberry
Skype app planning to expand to Blackberry (in May 2009)
Garmin Mobile for BB (fee based)
Read about Google Voice, a new mobile Google app that will be coming soon…

Welcome to the new Thursday Feature….

Kristen Treglia — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:55:34 +0000

Hello ITAC blog readers, my name is James Behnke. I have been working with the Psychology Department since last November as their IT Liaison and will be a regular weekly contributor to this blog.

Having worked as a teacher, technical trainer, and I.T. Administrator for a school district, I am keenly aware of how important it is to foster information technology literacy an educational institution. In my efforts to assist members of the psychology department with their utilization of information technology resources, I’ve recently gotten into the habit of creating brief, Web-based multimedia tutorials commonly referred to as “screencasts”. These screencasts, such as the one below, demonstrate the technical operations and software features needed to accomplish discrete, useful tasks using various computer applications.

Lotus Notes: Scheduling Meetings using the Calendar (click for full view version)

Going forward, I will be contributing more screencasts to this blog on a variety of topics that I hope will be of interest to members of the Fordham community and serve to raise awareness of the many useful information technology resources available to them.

I am hopeful that these posts will generate a lot of user feedback that will enable me to better target the needs of readers. If you have any questions or suggestions, I can be contacted by email at behnke@fordham.edu.

For the curious and those who want to explore creating their own screencast software demonstrations, the application that I use for creating screencasts is Jing. It is free and very easy to use.

Presentation on Digital Media

Kristen Treglia — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:00:20 +0000

This afternoon I will be giving a presentation to a couple of classes on using digital media in presentations. I’ll also be talking about some exciting and useful tools that they can use. This weekend I’ll upload a copy of the slides I used for the presentation (minus the animation). Feel free to download and use it!! (you will see the animation used when you download the file to view the slideshow)

Matteson Presentation 2.09 For Slideshare

View more presentations from Kristen .

View more presentations from Kristen . (tags: education technology)

Links to resources mentioned during the presentation:

PowerPoint Resources:

PPT QuickGuide
Quick Tricks (22 great tricks on using PPT)
Introduction to PowerPoint (if you are totally new to PPT, you can go through this tutorial to learn all the basics)
SlideShare, or AuthorSTREAM (upload and search PPTs for free!)
Presentation Alternatives including SlideRocket (documentation)

Images

Flickr (sign up for a free account or use your yahoo id)
Flickr Creative Commons Search (this is under the “Explore Menu”)
100+ Tools for Flickr Addicts
Google Image (be careful of Copyright infringement)
stock.xchng, Public Domain Pictures, StockVault (make sure to use the ‘free’ images, not the ‘premium’)
Citizen Journalism Toolkit to Using Images (checklists, ideas, and resources)
Fair Use Copyright Checklist

Audio

Audacity Download
Audacity Quick Guide (simple directions for recording audio and creating a MP3 file)
Audacity Help Page: Quick Reference, UserGuide (for more detailed information)
GarageBand UserGuide (PDF), GarageBand Introduction Tutorial Part I (there is also a part II)
FreeSound Project (use search box on top right), A1 Free Sound Effects
Read the Words (upload a document or select a website, choose a reader, and download the file)

Video

Windows Movie Maker download for XP (Introducation, UserGuide) and for Vista (Quick Tutorial)
iMovie on Apple Site (iMovie and GarageBand are part of the iLife package), iMovie QuickGuide
Jumpcut: Jumpcut QuickGuide
MuveeMix: MuveeMix QuickGuide
KeepVid: download movies from sites like YouTube
Media Converter (use this to save videos as .avi files if you want to embed then in PPT)

Social Bookmarking

del.icio.us
Blog post on using social bookmarking (video and links)

Firefox

Download Firefox
View Firefox Add-ons
My delicious links to Firefox Add-ons mentioned in the presentation
Campus Edition: comes with Zotero (Userguide), StumbleUpon, and Foxytunes

RSS

What are RSS Feeds?
How to find RSS Feeds
RSS Toolbox
More about RSS