I recently had someone ask me to provide them with a list of all of the Apps I have loaded on the KHS STEM iPads. My list of Apps is located here – https://khsstem.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/52134740/iPad_Apps.pdf.

However, getting this list together was not as easy as one would think. Here’s how I did it (Note: that I did this on the school-issued Macbook):

• Be sure that you use the laptop/desktop that you use to routinely Sync your iPads. This is probably the only machine that has all of your Apps in its Library
• Be sure that you have a PDF printer installed – my Mac had one by default. If you need a good PDF printer, I recommend Nitro Reader
• Open iTunes
• Click on the Apps Library

• Print this Library (File > Print)

• On my Macbook, I just chose to Save as PDF. On a PC, you may need to choose the Nitro Reader Creator 2 (Reader) Printer

• All done!

Now, I’ve shown you my list. Upload yours somewhere and post your list in the comments if you feel so inclined. Show me your Apps!

I have been playing a little more with Google Forms and found a couple of other tips that I thought I’d share.

Did you know you can remove the title in a form? You can even change the text color and font to better match your blog…

In my Google Form the code looked like this: (See my post – Can I embed a Google Form in my Blog? – for my original form)

<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dHlVR0NndkxtdHVhTktBbVlnM1hzMGc6MQ" width="100%" height="350" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0">Loading...</iframe>

I added a few items to my code:

<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dHlVR0NndkxtdHVhTktBbVlnM1hzMGc6MQ&amp;ttl=0&amp;tc=444&amp;f=Tahoma" width="100%" height="350" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0">Loading...</iframe>

• &ttl=0 removed the title from the form
• &tc=444 changed the text color to a lighter grey which better matches the theme of my blog
• &f=Tahoma changed the font of the form to Tahoma which better matches the theme of my blog

The result of these changes can be seen below…

Check out “Styling Google Docs Forms” and “Testing an input form” for additional suggestions. Some of this is pretty high on the geek factor, but it is an interesting way to modify your Froms so they bettter match your blog.

I LOVE Google Forms, I use them constantly to gather data. However, I typically only put them in my Wikis. I haven’t tried doing this on a blog, yet. Phil needed to do this on his Blog, so, I thought I might try it here…

To embed a Google Form in your blog, you can either choose Embed from the “More actions” menu in the form itself:

Or choose Embed form in a webpage… option in the “Form” menu of the Spreadsheet:

This step will give you a string of HTML code that you can paste into your Blog editor in the HTML tab…

My code looked like this:

<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dHlVR0NndkxtdHVhTktBbVlnM1hzMGc6MQ" width="760" height="637" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0">Loading...</iframe>

Pasting this code into the HTML tab gives you a form embedded into your blog. Wow!!

But wait, there’s more!!

By changing just a few pieces of info you can make this look even better!! If you change the width and height of your form you can avoid some of the white space below your form and make it look so much better!!

I changed my code to look like the following:

<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dHlVR0NndkxtdHVhTktBbVlnM1hzMGc6MQ" width="100%" height="350" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0">Loading...</iframe>

Changing the width to 100% ensures that your form will look consistent on really wide and really narrow monitors.

NOTE: Changing the height measurement depends on your form itself. If this is a short form then a smaller number (like 350)  will make the page shorter. If your form is a little longer, then you may need to make it longer than my value. Keep trying values until you find a number you are happy with. View your blog in another window after pressing the “Update” button to see what kinds of changes have been made. The form below is my result.

Well, I’ve been at it again. I needed another site to help support my career academy, so, the new KAES Wiki was born. I’m hoping this format will give me the flexibility to allow other teachers, students, or advisory board members to post items as needed. I’m thinking it turned out really well.

KAES Wiki

A couple of things that I discovered while in the process of building this site, though. It turns out that while PBWorks is incredibly easy to use and create a site, there were a few limitations I ran into. Take for example the table of images I’m using on my home pages like the one below:

KAES Teachers Home

While working on this, I was having a difficult time getting the table to stay within the center section. Parts of the images would always seem to disappear on the right side of the page. It turns out through a lot of trial and error, that the main content area on the left side of the page is 625 px wide. So, I set that table to total width of 625px and all was well.

A lesson learned that I thought I should be sure to share. This means that any element that you put in the main body can be a maximum of 625px. Of course, you could probably change that by using some custom code in the CSS & Javascript section of the Advanced Settings, but, I didn’t really feel like taking it that far. I hope this helps someone!!

After I pulled my old pages out of Google Sites, I was left with a ton of images to upload. The tedium of uploading all of these images one at a time was driving me crazy.

Fortunately, I remembered the old Shift+ and Ctrl+ trick. Simply press the Upload files button, then press the Shift key while choosing each of the files you want to upload. I suppose the Select files(s) to upload… up at the top of the screen clued me in.

Upload Multiple Files

I was so happy not to have to upload each file individually.

Uploading multiple imaes to PBWorks

It’s a small thing, but, worth it…

I think one of the reasons I hadn’t gone through the transition to PBWorks was that I had too much stuff at my Google Site. The effort it would take to download each of the images, copy the pages… ugh.

Fortunately, my RSS reader found the solution for me. Miguel Guhlin (an excellent Ed Tech blog, btw) over at http://www.mguhlin.org/2010/04/backing-up-your-google-sites.html, had just the ticket. I will add that his recommendation for using site in the domain field was spot on.

One caveat I would add is that the tool (downloaded from http://www.dataliberation.org/google/sites) does not work behind the WCPSS Firewall. You’ll have to use this at home…. However, it does a really good job of pulling down the entire site with the original images. I honestly just copied and pasted from the html files it produced into KHS Tips.

There is no real reason NOT to use PBWorks now. The storage limit at PBWorks is higher than Google anyway and I do like the organizational structure for images a lot better….

I finally finished transferring all of my files from my old Google Site to the WCPSS approved PBWorks wiki space.

I must say that I’m impressed. 40 GB of storage space, even!! The interface does take some getting used to, and I’m not a fan of their built in navigation system. However, they do seem to make it easy enough to customize the site for your own needs.

I’d definitely recommend this tool to any other classroom teacher. Especially since WCPSS says all I have to do is go through CyberSense.

If you’d like to do some advanced tweaking, check out http://customize.pbworks.com for some really nice hacks to do some of the most common tricks that those “advanced” webmasters may want to do.

Wow this is my first blog post… I’ve completed the CyberSense course, and I’ve requested a new blog.

I think I’ll use this space as a professional blog, maybe even use a PBWorks Workspace to convert over all of my stuff over at my KHSGDunc site. Lots to think about.