I am not a teacher, I have worked in education in some form for about 15 years.  I took 9 years out of public employment to raise my kids and even then I was a substitute teacher a few times.

I have heard people fuss and complain about schools, kids, teachers, parents - on and on.   None of the complaints directed at any particular group ever rang true to me because I have always believed that  institutions reflect the greater community they reside in along with all the individual entities that make up the community.

If I think - really think, about how change is effected, problems solved, from this starting point -  I feel so overwhelmed.  How can change happen if each entity is not moved somehow?

Maybe the reverse is true.  Maybe each little change affects the entire community.  That approach seems a lot more hopeful to me.  That means any piece of the puzzle that I come into contact with can be a part of a positive or negative change.  There is hope in that and also accountability.  That means that every single interaction I have, somehow creates change and that brings everything down to individual responsibility.

It means that my actions and interactions need to be thoughtful and intentional.  It means that not only am I my brother’s keeper but each of us is the keeper of our entire local community which has it’s interaction with the rest of the global community.   It means that I can’t blame anyone else for the state of the world - I can only make my individual actions count.

That makes sense for the individual.  If the entire community thinks like me - has the same belief system, and is willing to take the same level of responsibility then we will move as a group in a particular direction.  The reality is, individuals have their own agenda’s, their own belief systems, and their own ideas about what is the best direction for a community to move.  How to we reconcile the different views and not end up simply sitting still or moving backwards and forwards instead of making progress?

If you don’t think our thinking is splintered - look at your community.  How many churches are there?  If we are unable to unite in our belief system when in most communities in this area, it all revolves around a single book then….well, you can see the difficulty.

The catalyst for this whole discussion was a website called 2 Million Minutes.  There is a dvd you can order and I am planning on purchasing one.  There are lesson plans and clips of the making of the video.  The premise is that our young people have about 2 million minutes to spend in high school.  How will their two million minutes stack up result wise to students in China or India.  There is an exam to take to see how you stack up.

The exam challenge is the brainchild of Bob Compton after hearing a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education  “We have nothing to learn from education systems in Third World countries, “Much less a Third World country that lacks freedom of speech.” when he viewed the Two Million Minutes video.

The exam “is a shortened and greatly simplified version of the multi-day proficiency test that every 10th grader in India must pass to go on to the 11th grade.”

Go.Read.Think.

As a part of the global community, what are our priorities?  What are we willing to sacrifice to get there?  What are the consequences?

It has been so hot that I don’t care to cook but today I was thinking about summer ending and school starting and I love to cook when it is cold.  Part of the reason for the winter food dreams is left over sauerkraut that I didn’t want to toss out.  I decided to make Hunters Stew or Kapusta as it was know when I was a kid.  I grew up not to far from Detroit Michigan and  a lot of my family’s friends were Polish.  My mother learned how to cook several Polish dishes and this was a favorite.  It is a stew made from drained and rinsed kraut, sausage (cubed pork of you have it), more chopped cabbage, mushrooms, and like most stews, pretty much whatever you have around.  I added a can of pinto beans drained and rinsed, a cubed potato, some baby carrots, and some chopped onion. Put it all in a crockpot and leave it on low all day, fix some cornbread and you have some good eating.

In the winter you could put it all in a big kettle on your wood heater and after a day of running around in the snow, trying to work and run errands, you would come home to wonderful smells and curl up with a good book and a quilt and life would be good.

While I am in the food mood I am going to share some of my favorite food websites.

http://www.chefmd.com/

Healthy recipes and recipes that contain ingredients that are tailored for certain health problems.  There are videos, you can sign up to receive recipes by email or subscribe by rss.  He is selling a book of course and advertising the tv show on Lifetime but the recipes seem pretty good.

http://www.hungry-girl.com/
Good recipes - again she is selling a book but the website is fun - there is even a game (whack-a-snack) and a section on tips and tricks for dining out and staying healthy.

There are two sites that give you comparison foods - something you shouldn’t eat and a substitute that is a healthier choice.  These are not necessarily sugar or fat free choices - just better.  There are some surprises here.

http://www.menshealth.com/eatthis/index.php

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/files/eat-this-not-that/index.html

New on my wishlist!

One of my faves - good country cooking, pictures, and you will feel like you have known her all your life!
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/

Google Docs Has Templates

July 20, 2008 Vol I

Google Docs Now Has Templates!

If you need to create a document in a hurry and need a few more bells and whistles thatn plain vanilla Google Docs then you are going to go to your happy place with Google Docs new templates.

There are hundreds of templates for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.  This document is using a template called Red Block Newsletter.  

At this point you access the templates from the New Features link at the top of the docs page but I am confident it will be incorporated into the document tool bars before long.

You will find templates in the documents section for letterheads, business plans, resumes, recipe cards, research papers, corporate calendars and so much more.  You can customize everything with your company logo and photos. 

This creates endless opportunity for you to modify the templates and create a set for your class, company, club, church - whatever and then store them in a central place for easy access.

As with the documents and presentations, there are over a hundred templates for spreadsheets including timesheets, grading pages, amortizations schedules, budget planners, sudoku creators, calendars and more. 

To use a template, go to the Google Docs homepage and sign in.  Click the new features link at the top of the page and browse the templates.  You can choose to wander through all templates, narrow it down according to application, and  narrow it down even further to usage category. 

Choose a template and it will open up in Google Docs as a “copy of template name”  Make your changes, rename it and you are done!

Go.  Now.  Play.

Example of a Google Docs spreadsheet PDA

• Create a new spreadsheet
• Create headers across the top - you can format the text and background color if you like.
• I used Subject, Date, Notes, Details
• At the bottom of the screen you will see a tab for the sheet you are working on.. If you click it you have several editing choices, including delete, duplicate, rename, and move right or left. For now you might want to rename it work.
• Now click again and duplicate it (I did this twice) You now have three sheets with the same headers and you can now click on and rename the other two sheets. I have named my sheets Work, Home, Ideas.
• Now here is where it gets fun
• You could just enter information directly into the spreadsheet but with Google Docs you can create a form that will make it easier to quickly enter data and have it automatically update in the spreadsheet.
• We will create a separate form for each sheet and show you how you can use those links to populate your spreadsheet PDA
• Click on the tab for one of the sheets so you will have that sheet open.
• You should see a row of light blue tabs across the top of the document - click the tab for Form
• Click create a form
• A new page will open with your form already created according to the column headers you used in your spreadsheet.
• As you move your mouse cursor over each field in your form you will see that you can edit that individual field, you can move it, you can even add or delete questions. Just remember that what you do on the form will be reflected on the spreadsheet. If you delete a field it will no longer exist on the spreadsheet either. A good rule of thumb is that the form is “the boss” of the spreadsheet.
• Now choose “next choose recipients” You can put in your own email address and if you look on the right you will see a note saying that if you have trouble viewing or submitting this form, you can fill it out online and there will be a link. This is the link you want to save as a shortcut on your desktop. You can change the name of the link to make it easier to find. On a PC you will right click on the shortcut and choose rename. If you use something like @Home the @ sign will cause it to be near the top if you arrange you icons in alphabetical order. On a Mac you will control-click the shortcut and choose info. There will be a field where you can change the name.

This would work for a student organizer - just change the column headings to something like assignment, due date, teacher/professor, class period, notes/resources.

A couple of modifications and you can share and collaborate so now you have an online project management system.

You can also click publish - this gives you an embeddable link and an RSS feed so you can subscribe to your own list.
Choose more publishing options and click in the drop down box and choose HTML to embed in a webpage. You can also choose which sheets and even which cells to show. The will generate some HTML that you can paste into your blog. Pay attention to the sizes shown in the HTML. If you paste it and find it is bigger than the space provided in the webpage you can usually adjust those numbers to make it fit.

I hope this is useful to you!

I am subscribed to so many more rss feeds that I have time to read and often I will subscribe to a blog that is written by someone with multiple interests because they occasionally write about something I am interested in.  This means that I will see a lot of article titles that are not what I want to read.  I discovered a new tool today that will help me shrink some of that reader “bloat”

It is called Feedsifter and can be found here

You just put in the URL of the site and then type in the keywords you are interested in and Feedsifter creates a second feed that you can subscribe to.  Now you have a feed tailored to your interest!

If you have a google account the easiest thing in the world is to sign in.  Go to igoogle and click add stuff .  Looking down on the left sidebar you will find a choice for entering a url - paste the feed URL that feedsifter created there and you will now have this feed show up directly on your igoogle homepage.

I have often used del.icio.us to create a feed of bookmarks on a specific subject.  Today I created one for googledocs and using Feedsifter I had it make a new feed that would show me only googledoc bookmarks that contain spreadsheet and/or form.  Now I have an area that helps me keep up with new blog posts on Google spreadsheets. This won’t be a perfect solution but it helps me narrow down some of what shows up in my reader now.

This tip came from The Simple Dollar - thanks to them for a great hint!

Let’s make a quick guide for someone planning to visit Paris soon. there is more that could be included but this will be enough to get you started! The instructions came from the Google Docs Blog which is a wonderful resource!

First, determine the sites you will use and open a Google docs spreadsheet

In the first column put the addresses

In the second column put the names and a short description (you can include a link)

Click and drag to highlight both columns

Click Insert on the toolbar and choose gadget

Select Google Maps

You can add a title but you now have a list of sites with their addresses and links and a map to boot! Cool and simple.

Save it, click publish and check the box - republish changes and you can continue to add to it and you can email a link to it to your friends and family!

Here is a link to mine:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pgVdUefx1CH0V_U5tumJrHw

Here is a screenshot:

To add a column of numbers in Google docs spreadsheets relax and just follow a few easy steps.

type a column of numbers

when you are finished place your cursor in the cell you want the sum to appear in

At the top right side of the spreadsheet window is a row of functions - click sum, then place your cursor in the cell with the first number and hold and drag to cover the column of numbers. The range will appear in your formula cell

If you have this the way you want it click enter (until you click enter nothing will happen)

the same process works for average and the other functions listed there.

If you click “more” you will see a list of available functions

If you are done click save and give your spreadsheet a title

Yay you! You have created your first Google doc spreadsheet!

Want to search for websites that have been indexed by Google in the last week or day?  Go here! http://www.researchbuzz.org/2003/09/goofresh.shtml

Got questions about Google?  Search here! http://www.google.com/support/

Do you like more picture with your news?  Go here and when you hover over a picture the headline on the side will scroll to match it with links to more on the story.

http://news.google.com/news?&imv=1

For an alphabetically ordered list of help topics go here:

http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=alpha_index.html

Can’t find the answer to your question?  Learn from other users here: http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=portal_groups.cs&hl=en

Google Docs

To embed a document into an email

Open the document you wish to send

Click Share

Choose Email as an Attachment

You will see a pop up menu
Choose Paste the document itself into the email message

Some email clients do not show images or embedded html pages so to be sure everyone can see it, publish the document and include the URL and a message letting the recipient know that if they cannot see the document in their email to click on the URL

This tip was found in the Google Docs How To Group courtesy of the awesome Ahab!

I have been spending a lot of time playing with Google Docs and I am very impressed. There are a lot of resources for help but no single tutorials. I can understand why since the applications are constantly being changed and improved but this makes it a bit hard on someone who is trying it out for the first time.

I’m going to start sharing some of the information I find on this blog.

Today we are going to learn about Google Spreadsheets and Forms.

You can create a spreadsheet from scratch in Google Docs or you can upload one from your computer. There is a list of functions available for Google Spreadsheets. I will spend more time on that later. Today I want to tell you how to create a form than can be shared. When folks fill out the form and click the submit button, the data automatically populates the spreadsheet you create before you send it out. Here are the basic steps (courtesy of Google)

Features: Creating forms

You can create a form from any spreadsheet. Just follow these instructions:

1. Open a new spreadsheet.
2. Save the spreadsheet.
3. Click the Share tab.

1. Under ‘Invite people:’ choose the radio button to fill out a form.

1. Click Start editing your form…

In the form template that opens, you can add any questions and options you’d like.

1. Click the Next, choose recipients tab. Here, you can add email addresses, a custom confirmation message, and choose whether you want people to see the responses.
2. When you’re finished, click Send.

There is so much more you can do but this is good way to try things out.

Some uses for this feature?

1. Planning an event - check schedules or compile a list of who can bring what

2. Create a poll

3. Give a quiz

4. Send out field trip parent forms

5. Collect addresses and phone numbers for a club

I know there are more - can you think of some??