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Why Is It So Hard to Blog?

I know that blogging is a powerful tool in developing your writing skills, to share information, to process and develop your thoughts, but why do I keep falling off the blogging wagon?

Yes, as a teacher my life is busy and I have many outside interests to eat up my time. But, I want to be a blogger. That is why I have decided to challenge myself. Instead of trying to blog for 30 days straight, I am going to try a more manageable task. Starting Monday, I am going to blog every day for 5 days. That’s right, from Monday to Friday next week. If I can do this I will try to set up a regular schedule that fits into my routine.

The next question, what will I blog about? Truth is I don’t know. It will be education related and likely have an EdTech angle. I just hope you are there to see how this experiment goes.

See you Monday.

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New Podcast: Derek Tangredi

This is the last in a series of interviews I conducted over the Christmas Holidays in London, Ontario with some of the inspirational educators in the TVDSB.

In this interview I had an opportunity to speak to Derek Tangredi (@dtangred) who has a background in Engineering and has pioneered the Maker Movement into his teaching.

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New Podcast: Lisa Floyd

Over the Christmas Holidays, I had a chance to travel to London, Ontario to enjoy a Brunch with some of the inspirational educators in the TVDSB.

In this interview I had an opportunity to speak to Lisa Floyd (@lisaannefloyd) who is doing some amazing things in the area of Computational Thinking and Coding with students.

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New Podcast: David Carruthers

Over the Christmas Holidays, I had a chance to travel to London, Ontario to enjoy a Brunch hosted by David Carruthers (@pluggedportable) who is a Technology Coordinator with the TVDSB.

During that time we shared some excellent food and conversation. This is the first in a series of interviews with some of the inspirational educators in which I had an opportunity to speak with. In this interview David discusses the power of Social Media.

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Building a Library Search Kiosk using a Chromebox

Set Up Non-Managed Chromebox to Auto Boot into Kiosk Mode:

  1. Wipe the data on the Chromebox using the following procedure:
    • Turn off the Chromebox.
    • Put a paperclip (or pushpin) into the recovery button hole.
    • Press down the recovery button with a paperclip (or pushpin) while turning on the device.
    • Press Ctrl + D.
    • Press the recovery button with the paperclip again.
    • The device reboots and displays a red exclamation point.
    • Press Ctrl + D.
    • The Chromebox reboots and starts the transition to developer mode. This clears all local data and takes approximately 10 minutes.
  2. After reboot you will see a welcome screen → DO NOT LOGIN
  3. Press Ctrl + Alt + K and enable the Kiosk mode.
    • This key combination works only if no one has ever logged in to this Chromebox.
    • If it does not work, go throught the proceedure in step 1 again.
  4. Login into the Chromebox.
  5. Open a new tab in the Chrome browser and surf to chrome://extensions .
  6. Make sure there is a check in the checkbox next to the Developer Mode. Developer mode allows the Chromebox to do some extra actions.
  7. Click the “Manage kiosk applications” button and enter the ID of the Kiosk App you’d like to enable.
  8. Press the “Add” button. The app will appear above.
  9. Highlight the Kiosk app and click the “Set to auto-launch” button.
  10. Press the “Done” button.
  11. Reboot the Chromebox and when asked (if you’re not asked, wait few minutes and then reboot it), enable app for Kiosk mode.
  12. Now, the app will auto launch each time you reboot.
  13. To Turn off Kiosk Mode, begin by rebooting the Chromebox. While the device is starting up, press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + S to interrupt the process and return to the login screen.

 

Set Up Kiosk App

  1. The first time you start the app it should open into the app, otherwise press CTRL + A to open the login screen (default is username: Admin and password: <<leave empty>>)
  2. Enter the address of the library search page and hit return.
  3. Check any restrictions you want.
  4. Set the username and password to something of your choosing ← very important
  5. Set to refresh every 15 min of inactivity.
  6. Set to reboot every day at 6 am.
  7. Click save.

You now have a kiosk set up for searching the library catalogue.

Things to Remember:

  • CTRL + ALT + S during a reboot will open the ChromeOS and it will function like a regular chromebox
  • CTRL + A in Kiosk mode will open the setting page for the app