Sunday, May 24, 2015

Open Street Map


All people do look for a particular place, address or a historical building. How do you go from point A to point B? Teachers and students too need a map from time to time. Teachers would like to teach their students some practical hints how to find a place in a short time. What program do they need to use?  

As usual we go for open source programs where students and teachers can change. That's the beauty of open source! We are providing some quick help in order to master the program which should be quite easy. There are places where one can influence the program especially when it comes to jotting down some interesting places! Please do contribute with ideas in order to make it better! See the links below: 

beginner's guide, all written down.

if you want to start an account and contribute to the openstreetmap and how to collect and edit data.

lots of new concepts for everybody
  
video tutorial 1

video tutorial 2






Sunday, May 10, 2015

Editing PDF files


Most teachers and students use pdf documents. Teachers do share and download important files as pdf. What's a pdf file? It's a portable document file. Some teachers like it because the student receives it as it is. Other formats may change when the student opens them on his electronic device, especially changing from a pc to mobile gadgets!

On the other hand, what can a teacher do when he/she has a pdf file but wishes to do some changes? Teachers do editing all the time as they see the students' reaction to their personalised notes. They may change some words or phrases or re-write the file completely.

Today we present Master PDF editor. Teachers and students need it especially when presenting some important information and at the last minute they see some mistakes or wish to change some parts of it.

Master PDF editor is available for Mac, Windows and Linux operating systems. In other words it's cross-platform. If one prefers YouTube tutorials than one must visit this link. Others might prefer the official manual of the program

 

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Recording and interviewing students or other people


Owing to family health problems I had to delay my update of my blog by three days. Well here I am. Talking and recording one's voice is so important in class. Students would like to hear their own voices. They would like to record important interviews, some important dialogues. Teachers too would like to record some basic instructions for students.

As usual, both teachers and students would like something to use which is super easy to use and which is free. We present audacity. If you need to download it press here.

On the internet, when one wishes to master a program, we look for a tutorial. Here are some tutorials: YouTube tutorials; Other tutorials and written tutorials. If you are not completely satisfied, you can always google for more information on the internet. But the best tutorial is you when you start practising and learning by committing some mistakes!!


Sunday, April 12, 2015

Sending large files over the internet


A challenge faced by both students and teachers is that of sending large files. The email service puts a limit to your attachment. One cannot send a very large file. Is there a solution? Yes there is. Just break up the large file into smaller pieces. The one receiving your small pieces of the original file can simply put them all together….no damage whatsoever to your original file!!! I've tried it with an operating system!!! Now an operating system is quite heavy and risky, yet it worked for me perfectly well. So it should work for you too. Obviously the program is free and open source. It works in windows, mac and linux...so what are you waiting for?!

The link to the program is here. You press split when you want to put it into smaller pieces and join when you receive them. You can determine the size of the file. You can try several sizes. Obviously instead of one email, you have to send several ones. But you'll be happy to communicate in this way as otherwise you have to be physically present in order to share some big files. Enjoy!


Monday, March 30, 2015

OH.....I forgot my password.....!!!!


One of the most common operations done on any computer, tablet, mobile phone etc....is the use of passwords. How many times we hear a distress call from students and teachers…..oh I forgot my password! That means that the teacher/student has been locked out from any services offered by a particular website.

One used to write a password or two on a piece of paper. In many experiences the paper would get lost. Besides the problem of forgetting where that blessed paper is, one does not like the idea of writing so many passwords on a piece of paper. 

 

Is there a solution? Yes there is. We are of the opinion to use a password manager. The password manager keeps all your passwords in one place. One has to remember just one single password ie to open the password manager. One such manager is the Keepassx Manager. This is not an online manager where security is not 100%. This keeps the file with all the passwords on one's computer only. There is no other hidden file put online or somewhere else. The file cannot be opened by any other program.

The advantage is that one can take the file (with all the passwords) on a pendrive and use it on another computer (provided that keepassx is installed on that computer too).

Other advantages are: if you want a secure password and don't know how to create one, especially a very secure one, keepassx will generate one for you. Most people get annoyed writing a secure password because they would have to type it all over again every time they need to enter a particular website. Well with keepassx one can simply copy and paste! That's all.

Most people use names, phone numbers etc as passwords. For those who care about security they would opt for a more secure password where a mixture of numbers, letters, small and capital ones are used. An example would be:
sGkREqL8fP2cUSMfDv2jd9CAzWScowgDvrWgnkXFgBUuNtpMeHDnDh
How's that for security?! As one can see, keepassx can generate very secure passwords. One can generate a smaller password too.

Another tedious problem especially for teachers and students would be, if there is somebody behind my back who is overlooking what I'm doing, he/she might copy or remember my password!! With keepassx they just see a series of dots....so one does not need to worry at all. If you want to see more screenshots then go to this webpage.


Please remember that if you write your email address exactly at the top of this page, you will get an email every time we publish a new article. So why don't you write your email now?!

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Recording your Desktop


One of the most creative way of explaining things is to record your desktop i.e. the teacher wants to be very practical by showing the students a demonstration about the lesson. This is because the material found on the internet is too in general. The teacher knows his class, so he has to speak in a way that his students understand. The students, watching and listening to their own teacher explaining things may find it more user friendly. In other words, even if the teacher says the same things all over again, the fact that they see and hear their own teacher, works wonders! Recording your desktop gives a personal touch to teaching in this computer related era!

There is no expensive material involved, just a webcam, a microphone and a simple, free open source program which everybody knows about – VLC. As with other software, the teacher needs some time to practice and feel at home with this software. Maybe some soft music playing in the background would make it ideal for the students. Ideally for the teacher is to play some tutorials in order to feel more comfortable in using this software program. There are some You Tube tutorials as well.

Those using Linux, have a large variety such as: vokoscreen; wink; recordmydesktop; XvidCap; Istanbul; ffmpeg (mac/windows too); kazam

 

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Teachers Securing [Encrypting] their emails containing exam papers


It's not the first time that some students get hold of exam papers before actually sitting for exams!! Most teachers think about securing hard copies. But do they ever think about securing soft copies? Most teachers still don't know about cyber security. They still don't know how to make emails and documents safe from anyone who wishes to get in between the sender and the receiver!

Teachers do need to consult before submitting the last edit of an exam paper. They can't all be in the same room all the time, especially if they are preparing the exam papers at home. In many common cases they have some difficulties and maybe they wish to discuss a particular issue or some issues with another teacher.

Most people now use an online services for email, such as Yahoo/Google/Hotmail etc….Today we wish to help most of our readers in securing their mail services. Down below there are some links which should help them.

Link 1 (official help site of Mailvelope [the addon on Firefox and Chrome which adds Mailvelope to their browser)

Link 2 (video + some more explanation why people should encrypt their emails)