Spending a little more time with Picasa

First of all, we're going to make sure you all have the program on your computer. If not, click on the Picasa link to the right.
I copied a file of pictures into your My Pictures folder that we can use to play around with Picasa today. It will be fun!
This link will tell you more about Picasa's features - http://picasa.google.com/features.html

Click here for a video introduction on You Tube.

I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours

These days, it's rare to have someone hand you an actual photo of, say, their new grandson. More than likely they are showing you the dozens, if not hundreds, of digital photos on their cameras. Or iPods. Or cell phones. With the internet you can see even more photos of the little darling's every move with photo sharing.

Don't Believe Everything You Read on the Internet!

Welcome back! Help yourself to a piece of chocolate and roll up your sleeves - today we're going to check out some sites on the Internet and learn how to determine if what they're selling is anything we're interested in buying!
You will get a handout with some helpful indicators to look for when doing Internet research. You may not need to check all of these items all of the time, but once you begin to look for certain things, you'll begin to do it naturally.

Ready? Let's check out some of these web sites:
 RYT Hospital

 Garden help and information

CNN

NeuroGenesis

Women & AIDS


Other aspects of the web page to consider:

Objectivity

• Is the bias explicit or hidden?
• Does the identity of the author or sponsor suggest a bias?
• How does the bias impact the usefulness of the information?

Clarity

• Is the information clearly presented?
• Is the text neat, legible and formatted for easy reading?
• If there are graphics, do they add to the content or distract?
• If there are advertisements, do they interfere with your ability to use the page?
• Are the pages well organized?
• Are there mistakes in spelling or word usage?

Accessibility

• Does the site load quickly?
• Can you move around the site easily?
• Is there a text-only alternative for the visually-impaired?

For international and new domain names and extensions, go to:
Country extensions - http://www.norid.no/domenenavnbaser/domreg.html?sort=name
New domain names - http://www.internic.net/faqs/new-tlds.html

Adapted from Lesley University - Evaluating Web Sites

The survey says...

Glad to see you back again! We're going to take a look at some organizing techniques today and explore some of the places that you wrote that you are interested in. Like Facebook. Here is a previous post that has a couple of links for us - previous post. (I love citing myself!)

I think I sent all of you the link to this blog so that you can access it at home - but if I didn't, just let me know.

Welcome to the Fall Semester!

And welcome to Not Your Father's Internet! This class will provide you with an opportunity to explore the applications and functions of the internet in a guided -- and hopefully fun -- environment. For the first class, we'll just get to know each other, find out what you came for and begin our exploration.
The first place we'll explore is this blog - I will post links and updates periodically here. You can access it from your home computer, too. And you'll probably want to after you see this video - so you can show your friends. If you haven't seen it already!



I'm looking forward to a great semester!

Flowers in Black and White - straight from Picasa!

Pics to Play With!

Here are a few of my pictures that you can download and play with.
Click on the picture - it will open in a new window. Right click on the picture and choose "Save Image As" and it will take you to a location to save it. Choose a name for the file or leave it as is. Click Save.
Click on the Back button to return to the Blog site - and repeat for any other pictures you want to download!

 

Right Click

Using the right click button on the mouse gives you further options in whichever context you are working in. The example above shows the menu for when you click on a hyperlink. The top option, "Open Link in New Window" lets you open a link for another web page while staying on the current page. This is handy when you are exploring links in a list, like the one above, or links that are embedded in an article, like the example below.

The right click menu is available in most applications and functions. On a Mac, you can access the right click menu by holding down the CTRL button and clicking the mouse.

Ready for Facebook?

Today we'll explore the social networking site Facebook. There are lots of reasons to sign up just as there are lots of reasons not to. We'll try to get to them all! (But you'll probably think of more!)

Here is a link to one tutorial I found online from a Social Networking Series - A Basic Introduction for Nonprofit Use Facebook Tutorial  It's a PDF file, but should open in a browser window. (You know how we techie teachers throw around the word should!)

There are links to tutorials built right into Facebook too, but sometimes they can be, well, too technical!
So, here we go...the chocolate bag is open and the computers are running...what more could we need?

Research

Or, if research sounds too hard, then - Play time.
This is how the kids learn...by being on the computer hour after hour and learning by default. (There are lots of discussions to have about this and we can have one or two of them, but for now we're just going to go with it.)

One site that we can explore is this one - TIME magazine's 50 Best Websites page.

How are we doing?

We're two weeks in and I want to know how you're all feeling about things. In all classes there is a spectrum of skill and comfort levels when learning about the internet - and all it has to offer. Think of this class as a "lab", where you can come in and experiment with some facilitation. Even though it's an eight-week class, that's really not enough time to cover everything, so we'll cover a smorgasbord of things...things you've indicated that you'd like to learn more about.

Another thing I read in the surveys is that most of you would just like to become more comfortable using the internet- and your computers. Again, hopefully that's what this class will do for you. If you don't have a Facebook page and a Blogger account by the end of class, don't worry! Not everyone will. But if you stick it out and gain a little more confidence about what you want to do and have a little more information about how to do it, then you'll be successful!

As always, if you're having some difficulties or any questions that you don't feel comfortable asking in front of the class, you can always see me before or after class. And there's always email!

You're all doing a great job! See you on Friday!

Welcome Spring?

The reason that we started class a week late is because I was in Italy. As we walked around Rome, we would come upon the most amazing fortresses, cathedrals and monuments and other times we'd just come upon some random ruins, seemingly strewn haphazardly around the city. Like some enormous leftover confetti from a past parade.
I appreciate your sticking with the class, though. I hope that you'll get what you came here for!
And speaking of getting what I came for - wasn't Spring supposed to have come last week? We came back from a lovely Primavera in Italy to gray skies and snow! And cold!
Well, we'll be nice and cozy in our little OLLI computer lab - so let's get started!