Blogs
Checking Comments & Recent Updates-Wikis & Blogs
24.October.2011 07:06 Filed in: Tech Tips
Checking comments that have been submitted and
viewing recent changes to wikis and blogs on CCSD21's
wiki and blog servers (wiki.ccsd21.org & teams.ccsd21.org) is easy to
do! Of course, this also makes easy work of
checking comments for modification as well as
supervising publicly displayed student work on
wikis and blogs that you are responsible for as
a teacher.
Viewing Changes to Student Wikis & Blogs and Parent Communication Blogs
Navigate to wiki.ccsd21.org in your web browser (or click the link embedded in this bullet!) (You can bookmark this site in Safari.) In the "My Page" section, click on "Log In" as pictured below.
After you've logged in, you will be re-directed to a long list of wikis and blogs that have been updated recently. Click on the "My Pages" link as pictured below.
Now, let's say you wanted to view Yasmin's blog. You can see (pictured below) that her last change was to her "Animal Report". The website shows you that she has made two changes and has one new comment. It also tells you that that the last change was at 10.54 AM today. To view the comments and changes that have been made, click on the blue bubble on the right-hand side.
Once you have clicked on the blue bubble on the right-hand side to view the specific changes, you can view the recent comments made or click on the link to view updates.
Viewing Changes to Team/Staff Wikis
If you want to view changes on our "private" wiki server, teams.ccsd21.org, navigate to that site in your browser (or click the link here) and follow the same directions that are listed above.
Viewing Changes to Student Wikis & Blogs and Parent Communication Blogs
Navigate to wiki.ccsd21.org in your web browser (or click the link embedded in this bullet!) (You can bookmark this site in Safari.) In the "My Page" section, click on "Log In" as pictured below.
After you've logged in, you will be re-directed to a long list of wikis and blogs that have been updated recently. Click on the "My Pages" link as pictured below.
Now, let's say you wanted to view Yasmin's blog. You can see (pictured below) that her last change was to her "Animal Report". The website shows you that she has made two changes and has one new comment. It also tells you that that the last change was at 10.54 AM today. To view the comments and changes that have been made, click on the blue bubble on the right-hand side.
Once you have clicked on the blue bubble on the right-hand side to view the specific changes, you can view the recent comments made or click on the link to view updates.
Viewing Changes to Team/Staff Wikis
If you want to view changes on our "private" wiki server, teams.ccsd21.org, navigate to that site in your browser (or click the link here) and follow the same directions that are listed above.
Audio & Video in CCSD21 Wikis & Blogs
23.October.2011 17:57 Filed in: Tech Tips
| Instruction
Due to technical limitations that include hard drive
space, physical location, and bandwidth allocation,
on our wiki and blog servers, like most major
websites, we cannot embed video and audio clips
directly within a wiki or a blog. Rather, we post the
audio or video clips to a different server, and then,
we link to those clips within the wiki and blog.
Video and audio clips include any podcasts, sound files, video clips, and MP3s/MP4s.
Due to current bandwidth limitations, we also cannot stream audio and videos via links in our wikis and blogs.
To add a video or audio clip to a wiki or blog with a link, the first step is to send audio or video files to the iTech teacher in your buildings. The audio or video files you send will be placed on our media server, which is designed to hold and distribute these files.
After the file has been uploaded to the media server, the iTech teacher will be send you the link to the file (which is sitting on our media server) to place on your wiki or blog. Then students can interact with the audio and video files right through the wiki or blog, at home or at school.
You can also link audio and video files on the Internet on your wiki or blog. If you choose this option, please make sure it is noted on the wiki or blog that the files can only be played from outside of the school district.
When you, as a teacher, want to share a video or audio clip with your students, you should play it directly from your Staff MacBook, having put the actual clip on the Staff MacBook prior to class. Due to bandwidth limitations, you cannot simply click on audio and video links and stream those across the Internet. Information, for example, on downloading clips from YouTube can be found here.
Video and audio clips include any podcasts, sound files, video clips, and MP3s/MP4s.
Due to current bandwidth limitations, we also cannot stream audio and videos via links in our wikis and blogs.
To add a video or audio clip to a wiki or blog with a link, the first step is to send audio or video files to the iTech teacher in your buildings. The audio or video files you send will be placed on our media server, which is designed to hold and distribute these files.
After the file has been uploaded to the media server, the iTech teacher will be send you the link to the file (which is sitting on our media server) to place on your wiki or blog. Then students can interact with the audio and video files right through the wiki or blog, at home or at school.
You can also link audio and video files on the Internet on your wiki or blog. If you choose this option, please make sure it is noted on the wiki or blog that the files can only be played from outside of the school district.
When you, as a teacher, want to share a video or audio clip with your students, you should play it directly from your Staff MacBook, having put the actual clip on the Staff MacBook prior to class. Due to bandwidth limitations, you cannot simply click on audio and video links and stream those across the Internet. Information, for example, on downloading clips from YouTube can be found here.
An Update on Updates!
12.July.2010 22:04 Filed in: Tech Tips
During the last two weeks of July 2009, we installed
30 new Apple Xserves, and we completely re-configured
the relationship between users (people), clients
(regular computers you use), and servers (servers!).
At this time, we also set-up two dedicated wiki and
blog servers--one that is designed to serve the
public (teacher blogs for parents, classroom projects
with students, etc.) and one that is designed to be
used collaboratively by teams (to support teaming).
When we installed the servers, the operating system was at 10.5.7. Shortly after the school year started, we upgraded all thirty servers to 10.5.8. Then, Apple released 10.6, Snow Leopard. This type of update was too significant to perform over a weekend. (It is taking us nearly three weeks to do during the summer!) In the past, we’ve typically left servers running with whatever operating system it was using when it was originally set-up. Now, with new servers in place along with lots of new clients, we have upgraded the servers to Snow Leopard. Specifically, each of our Mac servers will be running OS 10.6.4 by the end of this week.
We’re excited that by the end of this week, all of our open directory and file servers will have been upgraded. We have already upgraded the iChat, wiki, and teams servers, yet there is additional work that has been required on each of these before we can be fully up and running. So, here’s the run down on exactly where these servers are at right now:
iChat
After an extensive period of tweaking settings and testing, we are pleased to officially announce that iChat is back open. It seems to be working just fine with both text and video chats working. iChat is open right now as this is written, so chat away!
Teams
The teams.ccsd21.org wiki server that is used by teams is also working, but we’re needing to go through and reset permissions for each group. We had worked extensively with Apple prior to this upgrade in order to determine what type of issues we may have with blogs and wikis. Even from inside Apple, we heard very different reports on how this update might go. Overall, this update went well, but we are having to reset permissions on each of the approximately 200 wikis that we have in use for teams in District 21. We hope to have this work done later this month. Once this work is done, we will ask iTech teachers to go in to Active Directory and update which staff members are in which groups. When this work is done, everyone will be able to be a part of whatever teams they are a part of for the 2010-2011 school year! We do thank teachers for their patience as we work through this process for the first time.
Wikis
The wiki.ccsd21.org wiki and blog server has seen the same issues as the teams.ccsd21.org server. Here, though, there will be additional testing that we are undertaking as we look to potentially utilize Active Directory to manage the users on the wiki server. (Prior to now, we have had to enter each user individually on this server. We have done so in order to meet our web page policy that requires us not to post the first and last names of students.) Individual wikis and blogs will come back online as we can (with sites in which only staff post being up first), and we will let the individuals running those sites know when they are up.
When we installed the servers, the operating system was at 10.5.7. Shortly after the school year started, we upgraded all thirty servers to 10.5.8. Then, Apple released 10.6, Snow Leopard. This type of update was too significant to perform over a weekend. (It is taking us nearly three weeks to do during the summer!) In the past, we’ve typically left servers running with whatever operating system it was using when it was originally set-up. Now, with new servers in place along with lots of new clients, we have upgraded the servers to Snow Leopard. Specifically, each of our Mac servers will be running OS 10.6.4 by the end of this week.
We’re excited that by the end of this week, all of our open directory and file servers will have been upgraded. We have already upgraded the iChat, wiki, and teams servers, yet there is additional work that has been required on each of these before we can be fully up and running. So, here’s the run down on exactly where these servers are at right now:
iChat
After an extensive period of tweaking settings and testing, we are pleased to officially announce that iChat is back open. It seems to be working just fine with both text and video chats working. iChat is open right now as this is written, so chat away!
Teams
The teams.ccsd21.org wiki server that is used by teams is also working, but we’re needing to go through and reset permissions for each group. We had worked extensively with Apple prior to this upgrade in order to determine what type of issues we may have with blogs and wikis. Even from inside Apple, we heard very different reports on how this update might go. Overall, this update went well, but we are having to reset permissions on each of the approximately 200 wikis that we have in use for teams in District 21. We hope to have this work done later this month. Once this work is done, we will ask iTech teachers to go in to Active Directory and update which staff members are in which groups. When this work is done, everyone will be able to be a part of whatever teams they are a part of for the 2010-2011 school year! We do thank teachers for their patience as we work through this process for the first time.
Wikis
The wiki.ccsd21.org wiki and blog server has seen the same issues as the teams.ccsd21.org server. Here, though, there will be additional testing that we are undertaking as we look to potentially utilize Active Directory to manage the users on the wiki server. (Prior to now, we have had to enter each user individually on this server. We have done so in order to meet our web page policy that requires us not to post the first and last names of students.) Individual wikis and blogs will come back online as we can (with sites in which only staff post being up first), and we will let the individuals running those sites know when they are up.
