Getting the time right! & GMT

Our standard time for all synchronous/live events is GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). To see what time an event takes place "in your neck of the woods", there are several good resources.

-- The World Clock (with current local times in many different cities around the world. It's good to check in which time zone you are. It can be GMT, as for me in Lisbon, Portugal. It can be GMT -4, as for Dafne in Caracas, Venezuela. Or it can be GMT +10, as for Michael Coghlan in Adelaide, Australia.)

-- Qlock (a mouseover effect gives you the time in many different parts of the world and also in reference to GMT. A very interesting feature is also the parts of the world with day and night. Take a look! It's fun!!)

(Teresa, 22Jan07)

-- Click Photos

-- Check the box next to the photo and then click the Move button on the right. You will get to a page with the list of all the folders available. Check the folder you want to move the photo to, click Move again, and... that's it!

-- Go to the Yahoo Group homepage

-- Click Edit Membership (top left)

-- Go to Message Delivery and activate your option: Individual emails / Daily digest / Special notices / No mail

-- Click the Save Changes button (bottom right).

In Edit Membership you can also subscribe to the same group with a new email address. Next to Email Address, click Add new email address.

or

a. go to the Yahoo Group http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/baw10 
b. go to Members  (navigation bar on the left)
c. look for your name
d. next to your name, you will see a menu under Message Delivery
e. select Daily Digest (next to Message Frequency)
f. click on Save Changes (bottom)

(Daf, 6Jan10)

You can post in two ways:
-- From your own e-mail account, send messages to our BaW email address, or just reply to the messages you receive
-- From our Yahoo Group, go to our group homepage, then click on Post under Messages (menu on the left). You only need to write the subject of the message and then compose it. Do not forget to click the Send button (bottom right) when you're finished.
Tip: if you are sending long messages, it is better to compose them in Word and then just copy and paste.

Most discussion groups, not just YG, are set up to reply to the whole group. It makes sense, because if it was hard to reply, it would deter people from doing so. However that's one reason you have to be careful.

If you want to reply to just the person who sent the mail, you need to copy their email address from the From line of the discussion group message, then open a new message and paste it in the To line.

During the process of creating a YG, you are asked
whether you want members to reply to all or reply only to
the sender as default.

Below are the YG instructions on this topic:

Reply to All
When a member replies to a message, that reply can be sent to all the group members. This is the most convenient method for group communication. If you think your group members will want their replies to automatically go to the entire group, select the "reply to all" option. This will set the default action, but members can still change the "reply to" address on individual messages.

Reply to Sender
When a member replies to a message, that reply can be sent to only to the person who sent the original message. If your group's topic is sensitive, and you think members may want to reply to each other privately, select the "reply to sender" option. This will set the default action, but members can still change the "reply to" address on individual messages."

At the bottom of many messages (scroll all the way down) are the "related" messages - usually replies.  So I would approach this from oldest to newest in the message index, because the subsequent replies will be tacked on to the end of the original.  That way you can ID the important topics from the index, and fast-forward through the replies all in one shot. (Leanne)

In the Messages section, there's a little white slot immediately below "Messages". Enter the number of the message you're looking for and click Go or Enter.

You can also use the Search feature. Write a word from the Subject line, a Yahoo ID or the name of the person who wrote a message, and you will get all the messages related to what you wrote.
 

In the Yahoo Groups distribution or mail list, you post a message and it is sent to all the members of
the group. The messages are kept in numerical order and you can search by number or any word. You might also be able to get the messages related to a topic if the subject in each message has similar wording.

Yahoo Groups also have the Polls section where you can create short short surveys. Open content-surveys allow students to evaluate their own knowledge and discuss the answers to the questions with their peers.

-- Open the Contacts menu in the main window and select Add a contact; then fill in the necessary info; or,

-- Use the shortcut Ctrl +A; or,

-- Click the Add button (a smiley with a + sign on top)in the main window.

Here are detailed instructions:

-- Go to the our Participants page, where you'll find Yahoo IDs, and choose a few people you'd like to add
-- Go to YM and click Add (smilie with + sign on top)
-- Insert the first ID (first and last names are optional)
-- Click Next
-- Choose a name for your group (top left: baw05 ??)
-- Write a very simple intro message (I'd avoid referring names of those addressed or you'll have to change them every time!)
-- Click Next
-- The "Add More Details" feature is optional
-- Click Next
-- Introduce the next ID and follow the same procedure (you don't need to repeat the intro message, because it's the same as the previous one)

-- Click Finish when you're done.

ViP: When sending an invitation to be added to someone's contacts, can you please remember to add a little note saying who you are, for security's sake:
For example: "Hi, I'm in the BaW group, Moira" (Moira, 24Jan07)

ViP: There is no way to add contacts in batches, you need to copy or write the Yahoo ID of each one of your
contacts-to-be. However you can have the same message for all, and when you get to the last part of the
procedure, you have 4 options, one of them is to add
another contact, so you don't need to start from
scratch. That's as good as it gets ;-)
Daf (26Jan06)

In the main window,

-- Click the Messenger menu and select Preferences

-- Select Archive and Enable Archiving.

Everything will be automatically saved: instant messages, chat logs, group chats (conferences) and alerts.

To retrieve the chatlogs:

-- Go to the Contacts menu in YM
-- Select Message Archive and you will get all your IM and conferences, chatlogs... (Leanne)

In real life, I usually don't save all my chatlogs to my hard drive, even though I guess they've always been in the archive. What I do, if I've had a particularly interesting chat, is to save just that one WHILE I'M STILL IN THE CHAT WINDOW, by clicking on 'Conversation' in the top toolbar, then 'Save As...', which will open a Save Conversation window.  You can then choose where to save the file (e.g.MyDocs), and you can rename the file to something you will recognize, such as the topic of discussion or the person you chatted with. (Leanne, 27Jan06)

-- Messenger (menu) > Preferences > Ignore List.
-- Add the Yahoo ID of whoever you want to ignore.
-- Click Add > Ok

You can just plain delete names:

-- Highlight the name

-- Contacts

-- Delete (from List and Address Book: two options)

-- Yes  (Teresa, 27Jan06)

-- Open YM
-- Click on the Messenger menu (top left)
-- Click on Change my display/image
-- Select the Share my picture button
-- Click Select
-- Click Browse
-- Select your picture from the folder in your computer
-- Click Ok
Your picture will be added and shown whenever you use Messenger.

You can follow more or less the same procedure to create your avatar.

-- click the Actions menu on the top
-- in the drop down menu, choose Invite to conference
-- select the contacts (on the left) and click Add (in the middle) to add them to the list (you can add alternate names if you click the Ctrl key and the names. And you can add several names one after another in a list with the Shift key)

-- enable voice (bottom left)
-- click the Invite button

You can also add people that are not on your Contacts list by choosing Invite other. But they must be online. Write/paste their IDs and, in this case, write a short message saying who you are.
 

The receiver needs to accept the invitation

The person talking has two options:

-- keep the Talk button pressed when talking

-- activate/check Hands free (to the left of Talk)

ViP: To avoid echo, only the person talking should have Hands free checked/enabled, but should uncheck it when s/he stops talking. Hands free is a must for a presenter who has to deal with other things, but not for an occasional talker.

SanjaB (19Jan10) with additional tips from Teresa (23Jan10)

You can have up to 5 groups open and working at the same time in different conference windows.

This is Dafne's experience:

"You can have your students do group work during class time or off-class. In my English for architecture class, I have a 2-hour f2f class, and a 2-hour internet-based class, for the latter the students can meet at a computer room that I book for those students who do not have access to computers, but nobody is forced to be there, they can contact the group from any place.  They also have a whole week (until next class) to complete the activities for that class. If we are using the Internet, we need to be consistent with the flexibility it offers. 
So, what I do is that I open a YM conference and invite all the students who are online, this is the whole group conference, where they can ask questions or make comments during the class. Then, one person in each group opens a new conference and invites the other members and me. In this way, I can go from group to group helping, if needed, just as I go from group to group in a f2f class, but with the added advantage of having the transcript of the whole group work process, which you cannot follow in a f2f class, unless you record each group separately.

Of course, for this to work, you need to design a collaborative group task (jig-saw activities are great for this) which is meaningful and interesting for the students to be engaged in their work.

The first time I used YM for group work, I was in Spain and the students in Caracas with their f2f teacher or at any other place."

In another posts, she adds:

"In YM you can have up to 5 different conference windows (a conference is for more than 2 people: Contacts > Invite to conference). I divide my class in groups (let's say for 20 students, 4 groups of 5). Then I ask one person in each group to open a new conference, invite the other members and  me, so I can follow their work. After the session, each group uploads the chatlog to the platform I use (Moodle /Yahoo Groups) and then others can read it. Usually, these chat group task are only one step towards a final task. For example, after the chat, each student writes a paragraph using the information discussed in the session, or sometimes I ask for a group paragraph, which they co-edit before making it public."

-- The closer the mic is to the mouth, the worse the sounds comes out, sometimes extremely distorted.

-- When two people voice chat at YM, it's preferable that only the person speaking activate Hands free (left side, above the text chat area); the other person should have it disabled, because it interferes with the sound and generally causes an annoying echo.

-- There is also the choice of neglecting Hands free altogether and just clicking Talk when each one speaks. For a presentation, that is not practical. The presenter needs to have Hands free activated, while all others should deactivate it.

-- Webcams (video or image) take up a lot of bandwidth. Though it's possible on a dial-up connection, it's much better on a faster one.

-- Webcams and audio are a very heavy and dangerous mix, because they take up a lot of bandwidth. They may even crash the system, meaning that you may
have to reboot. At YM, we generally try both out for a little while to see one another and take some screen shots, and then we give up on the webcams,
especially when our main aim is for a voice session.

-- in the Skype window, click the arrow in the +New button (on the left, above your Friends' list) and New contact

-- in the new window, enter the Skype ID (name or email address) and click the Find button

-- in the list of names given, select the eprson you're looking for and click the Add contact button

or

-- click the Contacts menu

-- click New Contact

-- follow the procedure above

Teresa (23Jan10)

If you want to chat in skype, you put the cursor on
the name of the person you want to chat with, click
using your right button of your mouse. A window will
show different options. Select "start chat", and you
will start text chat. If you want to have voice chat,
just click on the name of the person.

You will find help on how to use skype on this page:
http://support.skype.com/

You can also get to this page, if you click on HELP on
the menu at the top of the Skype window.

HTH,  Daf (14Jan08)

-- go to the Contacts menu and create New Group

-- drag contacts that you want to talk to into the window --- clikck the green Call button to call the group

-- click the red Call button to end the call

Anisoara (23Jan10)

I just tried out Anisoara's instruction with her and Larissa and everything was perfect. The sound was very clear! (Teresa, 23Jan10)

Traditional conference calls accomodate up to nine additional callers at one time (that is 10 people in total).

However, they say that Skype business can hold up to 25 callers but it seems this feature is not working well.

I took this information from this page:
http://forum.skype.com/lofiversion/index.php/t91112.html

Daf (19Jan10)
 

A comprehensive Skype tutorial by Cristina Costa that includes installing Skype, creating a Skype account, adding contacts, starting written chat, creating a conference call...

Cristina (14Jan08)

*****

Skype has this tutorial to Add a contact:
http://www.skype.com/help/guides/addacontact_windows/index.html

You can also import contacts from your address book :
http://www.skype.com/allfeatures/importcontacts/

If you want to organize your contacts, create groups:
http://support.skype.com/index.php?_a=knowledgebase&_j=questiondetails&_i=1259

I don't think there's a way to add several skype names at once, can someone correct me if I'm wrong?

Hope this helps

Fernanda (17Jan08)

IMs only show if we are online at the same time they're sent; they don't show the next time we log in (like they do in YM) (Daf at Skype, 26Oct10)

I have always updated my skype account without any problems. I usually do it through my own skype account, by going to help > check for updates and if I need to update it just offers me a button to do that (CristinaC, 4Jan08)

If you're a member of Tapped In, you get all the chat logs of any activity you participate in directly in you email box.

At the Tapped In Log In page you will find a box you need to check to enable the chat applet (bottom left). Though the screenshot isn't very clear, the Enable Chat box has been framed in red:
http://www.geocities.com/bawebhead/pics/ti-chatenable.gif

If your office is not locked, we can search for your name (Search feature) and there will be a link to your office next to your name.

If you are in your office, we just need to highlight your name in the list of the members who are online, and then click on a little "door" icon at the bottom of the list (the list is on the left of the chat applet).

-- Log in to Tapped In

-- Click on the Me tab

-- Follow the requested steps

(IsabelT, 17Jan10)

-- Go to http://www.learningtimes.org
-- Click "Become a Member" (left side)
-- Click the Join Now button
-- Follow Option A: enter your email address and click Continue
-- Complete the next screen to set up your username and password, and you'll be all set.

Write help@learningtimes.org if you need any further assistance.
 

When you log in to Learning Times, it remembers your old login and takes you straight into the Webheads in Action community. So, if you need to change your email, log out (last item at the bottom of the navigation bar) and then create a new account with your new email address.

File>Save>Whiteboard
Popup window: Select Screens>Current Screen Group (this choice will save everything on the whiteboard slides)
Type name for file and choose location where you want to save it so you can find it again
File Format: Whiteboard Files (*.wbd) Click on Save

These .wbd files can only be opened in Elluminate, not on your desktop. If you want to save a copy of what is on the whiteboard that you can open and read later, follow the same steps and choose PDF instead of .wbd. You can do that in any Elluminate webinar you attend if you want to save the presentation slides (RitaZ following Peggy George's intructions: 11Aug10)

Alado's Andrew Pincon invites those of you who will be using voice, video and synchronous tools to visit the http://www.alado.net/webheads site and click on the link and graphic image on the left column beneath the "Tapped In" logo for a streaming video on how the Internet actually works. It's a link to "Warriors of the Net" and is available in multiple languages.  This video may be helpful to understand how the various Internet systems operate and make all the digital magic happen, which we sometimes may take for granted. (29Jan07)

Comment from Michael Coghlan:

just viewed this movie and it's fantastic! It really helped me understand some of the behind the scenes processes that were a mystery to me. Highly recommended viewing! (12 mins long)   (29Jan07)

Here's a tutorial for newbies in Alado. It was put together by the B4B team and sent by Gladys Baya to BaW07. It is linked here with her permission. (29Jan07)

http://bloggingforbeginners.pbwiki.com/Alado

Before you participate in an audio session it is advisable to reboot your computer to free up your sound card from any previous sessions you had in Yahoo Messenger, or other audio applications.

Often you can have a conflict with different audio over the Internet applications when you finish one session, let's say in Yahoo or Learning Times, and then go directly to another audio application, thinking your computer is capable of making those changes when the former audio application has maintained a hold on your sound card software unbeknowns to you as a user.

So it's always best to start out fresh by rebooting your computer before a session with audio applications to elminate one variable.

Go to Differences between Learning Times and Alado by Ángeles Polanco (21Feb06)

WiZiQ

There are two WiZiQ account options:

1. Free. You can schedule both public and private sessions, but only three (3) private sessions a year will be recorded. If you schedule a public class, your session recording will be always available, to you and the session attendees. I used this account for a long time, it was OK; but, since it was free, anybody, from any part of the world, could join my class. It was exciting for my students to make contacts with people from other cultures, but guests sometimes interrupted the class with questions non related to the topic discussed; and, since they were my university distance education classes, it was a must to have well recorded sessions for students who couldn't attend. Although this doesn't happen too often, it is a risk if you have a public account. To tell you the truth, most of the time, visitors are well educated people who are interested in your session topic.

2. Pro account. You can schedule either public or private sessions and all recordings will be available. The Pro account is almost US$ 50 a year. There are no restrictions. The great advantage is that you can schedule a private session and only those to whom you invite directly or through a link can join it. It is not displayed on the WiZiQ public board. The attendees can also download the recording if you allow them to do so. WiZiq usually requests to schedule a public class 48 hours before, at a minimum; with a Pro account you can even schedule a private session at the very right moment and you have access to the recording.

Evelyn (4Feb10)

Listening help info is at:
http://webheadsinaction.org/help/webcasts
You do not need to use skype if you only want to listen. We will be using Ustream and the Sandbox channel to stream today. If you have enough bandwidth, try using ustream.  If the audio stops, press the play button again.  If you continue to have problems or you have a low bandwidth connection, please try listening via the Sandbox A channel.

If you would like to skype in and participate in the discussion, please read these instructions before doing so:
http://webheadsinaction.org/help/participate

I will mention some of these instructions below because they really help things go more smoothly.
-  Please test your skype connection beforehand by skyping 'echo123'.
 This will let you hear how your audio will sound to everyone else.
- PLEEEEEEASE use a headset.  Using speakers instead of a headset will result in echo for other participants.
- If you've been listening to the webcast, make sure to TURN THE WEBCAST OFF before calling in.

Also, please do not skype in right away.  Try to make text contact first in the chat room, so we can bring people in as smoothly as possible.

Don't worry too much about making mistakes - it's a 'low pressure' environment and whenever Worldbridges and the Webheads get together, we have a chaotic good time.  Experience has taught us however, that a bit of preparation results in more useful sessions and allows us avoid an hour of audio challenges.

Talk to you soon,
Jeff (21Jan08)

WorldBridges http://worldbridges.com/livewire/ has a chatroom and you can listen to the live webcast, all from that site.  HOWEVER, if you would like to verbally ask a question, you must also log into Skype, and be invited into their Skype conference. 

The "problem" with Skype is that the conference can only include five participants at a time.  While there can be many participants in the audience at WorldBridges, listening in and typing questions in the chatroom, voice transmission is done through Skype. 

As you can see, this is a far different venue than Yahoo Messenger and other virtual classrooms we will explore later in the BaW course.

Make sure you have a compatible media player installed in your computer.  On the homepage,  you will see "LISTEN", written in big red letters at the right top of the page.  When you click on that, the next page gives you a Webcast Listening Guide, which will explain how to choose the media player. 

29Jan06 presentation

When you log into WorldBridges for a session, from the WB homepage, you can click on CHATROOM, written in blue letters just below "listen" at the top right.  Simply put your name in the username box, and click "login"; you don't need a password (Hooray!).  Once in the chatroom, there will be another "LISTEN" in red letters, just below the text box.  Click on the media player you have, and you should be able to hear what is being webcast.  If you have difficulty at this point, you can type into the text box and someone can help you out. 

It may be useful to also log into Yahoo Messenger, particularly if you are experiencing difficulty with WorldBridges or Skype, so we can talk you through it from there.   Leanne (27Jan06)

To listen to the Webcast, you click the Real Player (RP) or Windows Media Player (WMP) icon. To speak, you call through Skype (you even hear the tone!).

Tip: When you call through Skype, deactivate the sound software - RP or WMP - so that you don't get an echo and/or hear several voices at the same time. (Teresa)

The chat room is at
http://webheadsinaction.org

On this page, you will also find the links to the sound channels if you only want to listen and chat. However, you are invited to participate in the talk by joining the Skypecast at whatever URL is given.

If you are participating in the Skypecast, these are some things to take into account:
- You need to have a Skype account (for this you need to download Skype at: http://www.skype.com)

- A headset is fundamental to avoid echoes and background noises

- If you have been listening to one of the sound channels, you need to turn it off before joining the skypecast

If you join the chat room first, we will be able to help in case of problems. (Dafne, 27Jan07)

Firefox and webcasts

If you use Firefox, there are certain things you must do to hear the webcasts.  All the information is on the site under Listening and Guide, so just take your time and read through :-)

The alternative (and perhaps easier) is to have both Internet Explorer and Firefox on your computer and use IE when listening to  the audio in the webcasts.
(Moira, 21Jan07)

Audacity allows to record audio directly from the Internet or a voice chat at Yahoo Messenger, for example. Version 1.4.0 has two options for recording: microphone to record (your own) voice (and that of others) or stereo to record any sound from the Web. When recording from the Web, choose stereo.

Audacity does actually allow you to record in
stereo though. You can choose to have one input
(say voice) on the left, and another input or
track (eg music) on the right, and you can then
mix them again so that they are both 'in the
middle'. So your eventual output from Audacity
can be stereo.

Take a look at Recording a Podcast with Audacity to help you record any audio file.

There is a way of increasing the volume after the recording is done. You know the box with the wave length where the recording appears? To the left, inside this box, there is "audio track", "Mono/stereo, xxxx Hz", two buttons ("mute" and "solo") and then the gain control (-....................+). Just move the pin to the right in this control and the recording (or any other audio file opened with audacity) will have its volume (actually gain) increased. The only problem is that if you need to increase it too much (more than 3 or 4 dB) it loses quality.
The best option, though, is follow Tere's advice and set the mic volume before you record (using the control right below the record button). (Ronaldo, 9Feb08)

or

There's another way to adjust the volume (amplitude) of a recording in Audacity.  Firstly select the portion of the recording you want to amplify. (Use Ctrl + A to select the whole recording.) Under the Effect menu, select the Amplify option. By default, if the Allow Clipping has not been selected, Audacity will indicate the maximum amount by which the amplitude can be increased without distortion. Press <OK>.  As a rule, you can amplify up to 8db with no problems. If you need more amplification than this, you really should go back and rerecord with greater gain.  (Jack Burston, 9Feb08)

To send a message to a specific person in Twitter, you write @ followed by the username. For example to send me a message you write:
@Dafwebhead and then the message

Daf (1Feb08)

BROWSERS

IE and Firefox

I use a small PC laptop with Windows and Mozilla. I think that the problem has to do with the newest
version of Mozilla and Java, because I upgraded everything this week and now my Yahoo Groups won't display our photos or the lovely WebHeads mandala on
the home page of BaW Yahoo Groups.  Most other sites (such as our WebHead wiki), etc seem to work fine -- but unfortunately not Alado or Yahoo groups.  I've managed to tinker enough (enabling scripts globally) to get
myself into an Alado conference (thanks for the wonderful Wiki, Gladys!) but can't see pictures on any of the archived conferences.  Using Internet Explorer is also only partially successful with the archives.

So there it is! After 10 hours of tinkering, I'm at my wit's end and have to get back to lesson planning... :-(

(Susan Wood, 28Jan07)

About a week ago, I upgraded Mozilla and Firefox and, to my dismay, could no longer see some of the images on selected sites (such as Yahoo).  About an hour ago, I found a wonderful, clear & easy-to-follow troubleshooting resource:
<http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=288184>
It led me step-by-step through a simple diagnostic test and then told me how to reset one config switch.  Wow!

(Susan Wood, 3Feb07)

A sensible rule of netiquette is to always delete all irrelevant content from the replies, including the header and footer (Yahoo wording). Due to the significant number of daily messages, this will also help reduce the size of the daily digests that several participants subscribe and speed up the download for those participants on a dial-up connection.

Change the Subject line whenever you start a new topic or thread. This will help spark the participants' curiosity, help to catalogue the messages and make any searches easier.

HandyBits is a very simple and user-friendly voice mail application that has two versions: adults and kids. You can use it for short (or longer) voice messages.

Remember to use the Compress message after recording feature in View > Options before recording. Messages are saved as .wav files that you can attach to an email message or insert in a Web page after uploading it to your server.

Before recording, turn the mic volume to maximum to be on the safe side. Some still come out low.

You can set the interface to use ten different European
languages, very helpful if your beginner students are not feeling comfortable with English yet.

Voicemail for kids is an even more simplified and very attractive interface based on 3 buttons: record, play and send.

1. Click on one of the BAW-06 messages
2. Go to Tools - Message Rules - Mails
3. Click on New
4. In the New Mail Rule dialogue window,
a. In Select the Conditions for your rule, check Where the subject line contains specific words
b. In Select the Actions for your rule, check Move it to the specified folder
c. Under the Rule Description area, click on the blue text (contains specific words). A new window will open. Write baw-06 in it. Then click on the blue "specified" link to create a new folder. Write a name for your folder (I called it BAW-06) in the text box. You'll see the new folder in the list of folders under your Inbox. Accept and close all windows.
 

If all goes well, all messages containing baw-06 in their subject line, will go directly into the BAW-06 folder
No more excuses for messy mailboxes!   (Claudia Bellusci, 27Jan06)

To filter (store) messages automatically in a specific folder

http://www.helpdesk.umd.edu/topics/email/general/853/

http://familyinternet.about.com/cs/email/a/aaemailhelp.htm

To view messages by topics

-- Go to the View menu (in the main window)

-- Select Current View and Group Messages by Conversation

-- Click the + sign next to some of the messages to see the whole thread.

VIP(oint): This only groups messages with the same Subject line.

<embed src="http://YOUR_SERVER/YOUR_FILE.mp3" width="130" height="40" type="audio/mpeg" autostart="FALSE" controls="console" loop="false" volume="50"></embed>

When Comments are set to Anonymous (case of our blog in BaW10), you don't need a Google account.

-- select the way you want to comment (with or without an account)

-- select Name/URL (it's simpler)

-- write your name and paste the URL of the blog you're in (or of a website you know), if you don't have a website, blog or wiki

-- make this selection before posting the message

-- write you comment

-- click Preview and/or Publish.

Dafne and JA (18Jan10)

How do you post a comment on the blog?
Go to the blog archive and select the link of your interest. After reading it, you can go to the end of the page and you'll see a white box that says "Post a comment". Then write your comment and select a profile: Google account, LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad, AIM, OpenID or Anonymous. Then click on "Post Comment".

How do you moderate comments?
Open your blog then go to settings and click on comments. It will display a page with many options. Go to "Moderate comments" and select the option that best fits you.

How do you post videos, slideshows, pictures?
Go to "create a new post page". Then at the top panel you will see the option of adding a video, picture or a link, represented by small icons.

How can you customize the header?
Go to "Settings". Then click on "Layout" and select Fonts and Colours. There you can customize the header.

How do you post widgets?
Go to "Settings" then Layout and click on Page elements.

How do you invite people to contribute as collaborators and authors?
Go to "Settings" then click on "Permissions". In Blog Authors you can add up to 100 authors so click on "Add authors" and add as much as you want to.

Gilder (30Jan10)
 

Go to What is the word verification option? and follow the instructions.

With this new verification system, you have to perform a little extra task when you want to comment -- it's a test designed to make sure you're a human being rather than a "spam bot", so it should keep the problem down to the few-and-far-between comment spammers who spam by hand.

This is the process:

-Go to Settings > Comments. In the "Comments" section, scroll down to an option called Show word verification for comments? There you click Yes and then click the Save Settings button to save the changes.

In Blogger you do have the option of uploading a picture using the url or from you computer. I personally prefer to download the pic to my computer and then upload it to blogger, because if you use the url and then the picture is changed or erased from its source, you lose it.

In blogger, if you want the picture to appear as a blog element (on the sidebar), you have to go to:
manage layout --> add a page element --> picture
If you want the picture inside a post, you just click the add image button from the tools bar.
To download a picture from anywhere on the net (google images, flickr, etc) to your computer, you just right-click the picture and then choose "save image as" and choose the destination. (Ronaldo, 8Feb08)

See this Help page

Teresa (2feb10)

I can easily change from Portuguese into English or any other language.
When you access blogger
https://www.blogger.com/start
on the top right corner there's a pull down menu Language/Idioma. There you can change languages.
In your dashboard, if you have several blogs, on the right column, there's the same option again.
And in your blog, under settings/formatting,  you can also choose the language.
You can have a blog in English and another in Portuguese, at least I can.
Fernanda (10Feb08)

To enable feeds in your blogger blog do this:
In Settings/Site Feed, Advanced Mode
In Blog Posts Feed choose Full
I notice there's an option for FeedBurner users there:
Post Feed Redirect URL "If you have burned your post feed with FeedBurner, or used another service to process your feed, enter the full feed URL here. Blogger will
redirect all post feed traffic to this address."
Fernanda (10Feb08)

Different tips on working with Blogger

http://casweb.ou.edu/olr/technology/webpub/blogger/index.htm

Blogger Help

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42323&topic=8932

Wordpress (http://wordpress.com) allows you to have both: password protected static pages (html pages) and password protected posts in blogs (dynamic, xtml pages)(Bee, 1Feb06)

To allow comments without moderating on your dashboard, go to OPTIONS then DISCUSSION and  you will see the menu of options (Jose Antonio, 6Jan08)

Bloglines is a free resource that you can use to subscribe to any blog or website you like. It is really easy to use.

When you have signed up, two small icons are installed on your menu, 'Sub with Bloglines'and 'My Feeds' they  say. Whenever you visit a blog etc of interest to you you click the 'Sub'icon and the site is saved on your personal account.

Now comes the great part: Whenever anything happens on  the sites subscribed by you you will be notified. How? Well you have to enter 'My Feeds' on a regular basis, I do it every other day, and there you have a list of all sites you have subscribed to! (Chrissan, 27Oct05)

Blogs in EFL/ESL is a site where you can find reviews of articles, papers and class blogging projects, and links to different blog providers. You may add to it, as well, since it a collaborative project.

You should experiment with many and choose the provider that best fits your own needs and those of your learners, and that makes you feel comfortable.

Wikis vs. Blogs

A blog is like an online diary, where the blog owner writes something (every day, or even more frequently, or less frequently, however (s)he likes). Most blogs also have a feature that allows readers to add comments to any of the entries - these comments are then visible to all subsequent visitors as well, and they in turn can leave further comments.

A wiki on the other hand is like a public website which one person starts, but which then any visitor is able to change. Instead of being a static webpage therefore (or a collection of static webpages forming a website),
it's a dynamic one, which anyone can edit. It's a bit like putting up a Word document which can be viewed and edited by anyone.

For an example of a wiki take a look at http://www.wikipedia.org - a wiki encyclopedia on which anyone, including you if you'd like to, can edit any
of the entries. (Eric Baber, 26Oct05)

pbwiki changed its name to pbworks about mid 2009, but most features and how to do things are the same. When you see pbwiki in older posts below, think of it as pbworks.

pbwiki: Private or Public?

pbworks: Adding your photo to the Participants page

To tag your wiki, go to Settings > Publicize Your Wiki and you will find the box to add your tag(s).

Daf (6Jan08)

Create your My PBwiki account < https://my.pbwiki.com/ > to have access to all your pbwiki wikis with the same username and password.

To add pbwikis to your account, follow the instructions here.

You need to log out and in again when joining a new wiki and you need a user invitation if you are not the owner of the wiki. (Sasha, 7Jan08)

Here's further feedback from Sasha:

I got the pbwiki guidelines link from the pbwiki support and it worked for me. I simply:
1. entered the wiki name in the 'join a wiki' textbox
2. when taken to the wiki page, I loged out of the wiki (if already logged in) and then I logged back in (of course you need to be the owner or the user of the wiki you'd like to join)
3. when I later refreshed my PBwiki page, I saw the new wiki added to my PBwiki list.
This was all. :-( I had problems at first, because I didn't know step 2 was necessary. If this doesn't work for you, I'd write to the pbwiki support. I also felt a bit frustrated at first, everything seemed so obvious and simple but did not work. Are you sure you did the log in/out part?
Hugs, Sasa   (9Jan08)

Create Headlines: Edit -  Format - Drop down menu - choose Heading 1, Heading 2...
Make a word Bold: Select the word, then click the letter B in the left corner of the formatting panel.
Create a New page: The right sidebar contains an option Create a page. Click, name  your page, create  page.
Post picture: The right sidebar contains Pages and files. Choose in the page a place where you want to insert the picture, then click Pages and files, then upload files, wait, after uploading click on a small image of the picture and it appears in the needed place.
Insert Slideshow: Choose a slide show platform. Create a slideshow. Then go to the wiki page, choose the place. Then click Edit, choose Insert Plugin, Insert the code from your slideshow platform, then click OK.

Vale Si (29Jan10)

In PBworks you don´t invite through passwords anylonger. The owner and administrators of a wiki can invite others through email (go to settings) and then decide what the role of the person will be (reader, editor, administrator, etc.). You can do this for each member of a given wiki

Daf (27Jan10)

Hi Daf
There's a wetpaint option which is ad free:
http://www.wetpaint.com/category/Education--Ad-Free

but I agree that having no html editor is a limitation; however you can insert Youtube videos and slideshare.

Fernanda (22Jan08)

On the right hand side of the Wetpaint page, there is "Moderator Toolset" where you can "lock" your page anytime to avoid uninvited editing; you can also "unlock" your page anytime.

Also on the right hand side of the Wetpaint page, you can see "invite others" where you can invite people who can edit your page. I didn't use this feature because BAW06 is a very large group, and I don't know who would be contributing to this page and I didn't have time to look for people's e-mail addresses to invite them.   (Cora)

Comments just in the discussion area and you need to be a member of the wiki (Daf, 26Oct10)

You can change the format of a picture in Paint through Save As.

If you want to make your photo smaller, you need to have a photo editor. Microsoft Photo Editor can do that very easily. It is free and downloadable.

Or you can also use Easy Thumbnails, which  is also great to make thumbnails. It's free, downloadable and easy to work with.

On this page, you can see how it works (I created the page for a teacher training workshop last year):

http://web2tools.wikispaces.com/Thumbnails-Easy

It is always advisable not to post huge photos to a web page, and even more in the case of our Participants' Gallery wiki page, when we have to accommodate so many photos on the same page, not to mention the aesthetic side. So I try to resize the photos to 100 x 100.

(Daf, 16Jan07)
 

Or

Open EasyThumbnails, look for your photo on the left
column, set the size of your image by clicking on the
settings tab. I like 100x100 images for profile pages.

On the right of the screen you have two tabs, one
original photo and the other where you will see how
your photo looks after reduction.

You get a pop-up asking you to "make all" or
"make". Select the latter, and you will get a message
that your photo was resized.

Upload it to the wiki, and post it :-)

(Daf, 4Jan08)

You can also resize photos using Microsoft PhotoDraw. You only have to choose the new size... I prefer to work with pixels instead of inches or cm, when resizing. BTW, when you put the mouse over any photo you've saved in Windows Explorer, it'll give you the size, so you should be able to get/choose the right size.

(Teresa, 4Jan08)

Or

1. Upload it to Flickr http://www.flickr.com/
2. Click on the picture
3. Click on the icon on the top that reads ALL SIZES
4. Click on thumbnails and copy the URL code that appears under the embedding code.
5. Paste the code in the wiki space reserved for the picture (Jose Antonio, 12Jan08)

Additional sites

Online Image Resizer
http://www.resize2mail.com/

Shrink Pictures
http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

I'm not familiar with Macs, so I performed a search: here's some software you can try:
CocoViewX
http://www.stalkingwolf.net/software/cocoviewx/

and GraphicConverter
http://www.lemkesoft.com/public/content/index._cGlkPTg4_.html

Unfortunately there's no Irfanview for Mac.

I also found these instructions, to me they make no sense, but perhaps they do to you:

you can use Automator to make a plugin for Finder, so that you can just right-click a photo file and resize it to whatever resolution you want.

for automator, open it and drag these into the construction area:

Ask for Finder Items
Copy Finder Items
Scale Images

Then go to File> Save as Plugin> For Finder,  and name it whatever you want. Then right-click picture> Automator> click the name of the plugin, and it will then ask to what resolution you want to resize it

(FernandaR, 12Jan08)

Or

In case you have Microsoft Office Picture Manager, you can resize your pic on your computer before uploading the image. You open the picture in the photo editor and in the top menu line you choose Picture. Click on it and then select the option Resize. In the right-hand part of the window you will see different parameters such as Original size and New size. Make the new size approx.100x100. You can change the size by decreasing the percentage of the original height and width. That's what I did (Elfina, 13Jan08)

Or

To learn how to resize an image, check out this
tutorial:
http://baw-08.pbwiki.com/Tutorials#Resizingimages

Another easy way without using any application is
this:

1. Upload your photo to the Photo section of this
Yahoo Group. Yahoo will create a thumbnail

2. Put your cursor over the photo

3. Click with the right button of your mouse

4. A pop up window will show different alternatives.
Select: "save picture as"

5. Save the picture to your computer

6. Upload it to the wiki

7. Use it on your profile (this photo will have a good
size for the profile)
(Daf, 13Jan08)

Or

There is an easy way to resize pictures using a software that already comes with Windows. Here are the steps:
1- open the folder which has the pictures you want resized
2- right-click the picture, choose "open with", and open it using "Microsoft Photo Editor"
3- Once in the editor, click on "image" and then "resize"
4- change the measurement unit for pixels (if necessary) and type the new size you want (100x100 is fine)
5- don't forget to save it with a different name, for example:
mariana_resized
6- upload it to the wiki (or any other server) and add the link to the participants gallery
Ronaldo (21Jan08)

Slide.com - great for making slideshows as it offers different themes, frames, shapes etc. Advantage: The slide is shown in your blog. You can add it to your template getting an HTML code

Picturetrail.com - as good as slide.com with great shapes for slideshows

slidestory.com - in my opinion, better than bubbleshare in the sense that the presentation + narration appears directly on your blog by adding the HTML code to it

(Ana Maria Meneses, 2Feb07)

Registering and installing

I've just arrived home after all day at school. I see there's a discussion about HotPotatoes. I love HotPotatoes.
Their creators are now working on a new version, so the present version is now freeware You no longer need to ask for a key.
Just download the software from here:
http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/hotpot/#downloads
and when you install it, you register it with the name you wish.

Publishing/Uploading exercises

So you've got a lot of nice HotPotatoes exercises and you want to have them online.

option 1: use a server to upload them; some countries, institutions or schools may offer free hosting for educational purposes;
Example:
http://users.prof2000.pt/mfr/hpot/

if that is not the case, there are some free hosting services online; for example:
http://byethost.com/index.php/free-hosting

Check the file I uploaded there:
http://www.efl.byethost6.com/money2.html

option 2: use a moodle course; moodle is free and many schools have moodle installed; ask the moodle responsible to create a course for you and your students; it has the advantage that you can monitor students'
results.

option 3: use pbworks to upload your files; don't forget to send images and sound files as well if you have them in your exercise.

Check this one:
http://class11ghj.pbworks.com/f/adverbs.html

You can upload HotPotaoes exercises into Wikispaces, but they open locally in your computer; try this one:
http://sflchris.wikispaces.com/hp  (see the link at the bottom, (Ourtubetest.htm is a quiz uploaded into this wiki and uses an embedded video.  http://sflchris.wikispaces.com/file/view/Ourtubetest.htm )
 

Embedding HotPot in blogs
I'm afraid you can't embed hotpotatoes in blogs; HotPotatoes are complex html files and the code is destroyed if you try to do that.

I tried with blogger; well, it embeds the exercise, but the check button doesn't work:
http://eflclass.blogspot.com/

A note from Martin Holmes, HotPotatoes creator :
Any blog system accepting HotPot exercises would have to allow uploads of HTML pages with lots of embedded JavaScript. Many systems might (quite rightly) block the upload of pages with JavaScript, especially by
non-privileged users, because that's obviously a potential means for exploiting the blog with malware.

Fernanda (19Feb10)

Tutorials

On my searches I came accross these interesting examples and tutorials for hot potatoes, which you may want to take a look at :
http://ewbooks.info/hotpot/tutorials/hotpotatoes-tutorials.html
 

and this nice collection of hotpot work:
http://eolf.univ-fcomte.fr/index.php?page=technically-interesting-hot-potatoes-pages
Helen (10Feb10)

The drag and drop effect is a characteristic of the HotPotatoes exercise creator JMatch; When  you save your exercise, choose the option
File/Create Web page/Drag,Drop Format.

Simple, isn't it?

You can check one more example here:
http://users.prof2000.pt/mfr/hpot/chores.html
 

Fernanda (14Feb10)

Images

When you create your exercises in, for example, JMatch, to create a matching exercise, you should have the images you need in your local computer in gif, jpg or png format. The images shouldn't be too large, for example 100x100 pixels; don't put more than 5 or 6 images in the same exercise, otherwise you'll have to scroll down and it is difficult to drag elements.
To insert an image, go to Insert/Picture/ Picture from local file.

You should always save your images and hotpotatoes files in the same folder.

When you upload your exercises to a server, you must send the html file and the images as well.
If you upload them to a moodle course the easiest way is to create a zip file with all the files and then unzip them in the moodle course.

If you have an image that you like but it is too large there are several tools to resize images online:
http://www.shrinkpictures.com
http://www.resize2mail.com/
http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/
 

The same happens if you use sound files (mp3), you need to upload them too

Yes, you are right, Teresa. There are two ways to include images in HotPotatoes files:
1. Insert/Picture/ Picture from local file.
2. Insert/Picture/ Picture from Web URL

In the first situation, you need to upload the images; in the second, they are already online, either in your server or any other location.

In the case of your Body exercise they are at:
http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/school/images/bodyfingers.jpg

http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/school/images/bodyknees2.jpg

and so on

Fernanda (14Feb10)
 

Lingt

Just come across this free platform for creating  online assignments ( video ,audio , text allowed ) and thought to share it with you .
http://lingtlanguage.com/
Mbarek (8Feb10)

****

think the right URL should be http://lingtlanguage.com/mbarek/

http://lingtlanguage.com/
followed by your username... how did I guess it was mbarek?  :)

I tried it myself:
http://lingtlanguage.com/fernandar/
Fernanda (8Feb10)
 

****

Please feel free to have a look at a lesson I've done and let me know if you can see it ok ?
http://lingtlanguage.com/hdavies

I'd love to see how it handles collecting student  recordings - anybody want to give it a try with me ?

This tool seems very easy so far !  Could this be the answer to audio homework problems ?? !!!
 

A big thank you to Teresa and Mary for leaving some messages - just to let you know that the teacher's dashboard seems too easy so far !!
Both pieces of "homework" from Teresa and Mary were  neatly lined up, with the possibility of leaving text or audio feedback  - so I've thanked you both with a quick text feedback.
 

next to each "pupil's" name was a little envelope for
sending the feedback

Helen (9Feb10)

****

Lingt sends you a message with a link to the feedback from the teacher

Ms. davies has sent you feedback on your Lingt Classroom assignment. You can review the assignment and your responses at:
http://lingtlanguage.com/reviewresponse/9926572051698
Cheers,
The Lingt Team (9Feb10)

Lingt: Feedback

I spent part of yesterday's afternoon exploring Lingt - suggested by Mbarek: thank you! - and creating my first assigment: personal audio questions to be answered in voice.

The editor is very simple, but it's advisable to watch the tutorial after you sign in.
http://lingtlanguage.com/tutorial/

I apparently did everything as I was supposed. I gave it a title and an explanatory text. I clicked the audio bubble to bring it down to the white area in the editor, clicked it to start recording, clicked it to stop the recording, and clicked it again to play back the recording and then to stop it. Then I clicked the bubble icon for the student answer and there it was side by side with my question bubble. There is a X on the right to delete anything you don't like.

I repeated the process for each of the other questions. Then I assigned it to my class. I even "Shared" it.

I sent out my URL, http://lingtlanguage.com/teresadeca/ and patiently awaited reactions. Fernanda and Mary told me they couldn't see any questions. The exercise had nothing but a title and an explanatory text. Hmmm...

I went back and so it was. How strange! Well, I decided to create a new class and do the assignment all over again. This time it worked!  :-)

I still cannot explain what happened the first time, since I even filled in the form to "Share" it with others, as I said above.

This morning I took a look at all the answers. I clicked on the exercise and saw there were four different BaW10 participants who had collaborated. I clicked one name at a time and heard each one of their answers. In some answers I left a text comment (click the piece of paper icon) and a voice comment (click the bubble), generally at the end.

I sent each participant personal feedback. Another useful feedback feature is that we can Cc: ourselves to get the feedback message. It's nice and useful to go back and see what the students see in the feedback page.There's a link to it in the email you get from Lingt. Open it and you will see all the text comments you made after each of the questions and the voice comment that you can hear, wherever you inserted it.

This is a very simple, but very effective tool that I suggest you all take a look at.

So far there's only thing I haven't been able to find: my account info. I'd like to change "I'm retired" to "Retired EFL teacher". I emailed support a while ago and am waiting for their reply. I'll let you know. (see last message below from Justin)

Hope this helps.

Hugs,   Teresa (having fun and F.U.N. exploring new tools  :-)

****

Hi, Houssnia!

In Lingt you send students the link to your page which shows your classes and exercises.
http://lingtlanguage.com/teresadeca/

You tell them which class and exercise/s to work on. I only have one class and one exercise so far.

I have just added better instructions about what to do with the bubbles.

They record their answers (in this specific case) and when they're done, they keyboard their email address (not sure about the name - can someone please help on that?) and click Submit. You will get an email saying that such a student completed an exercise.

Students do not need to register to Lingt.

Hope this helps. Enjoy!
Hugs,   Teresa (10Feb10)

****

Hello Teresa,

Great to hear from you! I'm so glad that you are enjoying Lingt.

First question: that's it! We tried really hard to make the interface super simple and intuitive.

Second question: sorry to make you look for so long! There's really no way to do that now, but we are going to be releasing an update very soon that will allow you to do this.

Thanks so much for using Lingt and please let us know if you have any other questions.

Thanks!
Justin (10Feb10)

What is your definition of a blog, a wiki, a podcast and a Social Network? How are they similar/different?
Blogs, wikis, podcasts and a social networks are Web 2.0 (second generation) tools.

*Blogs or weblogs*: They are like a website, but in a minor scale and easier to manage. In language teaching, they allow teachers and students to publish written, reading or listening material for classroom use or sharing ideas for real communication beyond the classroom setting. Blogspot.com is highly recommended.

*Wikis*: They are like webpages written by a lot of contributors who edit their contents. They are communities in which all the members or users can
contribute (Wikipedia). In a wiki, pages are created and updated very quickly. The work wiki comes from Hawaiian and means "quick".

*Podcasts*: Publishing audio in MP3 format via Internet to be shared and listen to is what we do when we podcast (ipod + broadcasting). Teacher and student podcasts are used for ELT (using voice for language learning).
Originally conceived for natives, language learners can benefit from it since they can carry language lessons and listen to them on their MP3 players no matter where they are. Suggested software: Audacity, suggested sites: Podomatic, Posterous

*Social networks*: They are places to have a virtual social life. Facebook, Tweeter, Cloudworks, Ning are some examples. They are online communities of related individuals who simply want to socialize or share common interests.

Belkis Yanes (31Jan10)
 

Dealing with html code

for the pbwiki, and everything in codes, when the page get to messy (i admit, i make tables in word and then "paste"... that can be very dangerous!!!) i use this free tool, many of you will know already http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm  notepad++. You copy all the messy code, paste on the notepad++, save it as html...and all the code part is now in colours, beautiful, clear colours. and you can search words or codes in the document (you cannot in pbwiki), so it's easier to clean it or to spot where the problem is. Or to add some code, if you want to.

Antonella (2Feb08)

I found www.Snap.com, a search engine that I had not seen before. Has anyone used it? It has several features that make it worthwhile for ESL students. First, narrower search terms are suggested as you type, eliminating evaluation of the huge number of sites that are yielded with the common one-word searches my students perform in Google ("dogs"...). Second, the divided screen that comes with the results list allows for a visual preview of the website. A glance at the page combined with the well-place URL near the image make choosing a site to
explore further a simple task. I like it and will show it to some students working on classic author research next week.

(Sarah Braxton, 2Feb07)

<p align="center" class="text style1"><strong>Word of the Day</strong></p>
<style>
TABLE.WordOfTheDay {border: 0px black solid}
TABLE.WordOfTheDay TD.WoDLeft {font: bold 7pt Arial}
TABLE.WordOfTheDay TD {font: 7pt Arial}
</style>
<script language="javascript" src="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/WoD/js1.aspx"></script>
<div style="font:8pt Arial;">
<div align="center">Word of the Day is a free service of
<a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/" target="_blank">The Free Dictionary</a></div>

</div>
<div align="center">
<!--end of Word of the Day-->
SEE the result here (Ibrahim, 1Feb2007)

Be sure to keep a computer file of all your usernames and passwords for the different platforms and environments you register in or subscribe to. You can print it regularly to keep it updated.

Or why not a paper backup? A pocket phone book where you can keep them in alphabetical order.

They come in very handy!

You'll find more interesting advice given during Week 1 of BaW07.

To keep track of all the links of interest re: the workshop, create a folder in your Favorites/Bookmarks and then different subfolders to help you sort out things more easily.

Or use de.licio.us or Backflip to share yout links and access them from any computer.

In IE6 you can enable cookies

Tools > Internet Options > Privacy (tab) > Custom Level (Daf, 11Sep07)

In IE6 You can enable cookies for specific sites:

Tools > Internet Options > Security (tab) > Sites > Per site privacy action. (Daf, 13Sep07)

The site has a very catchy name: TinyURL.
Copy your long URL, paste it into the box on the Tiny URL homepage and click the Make TinyURL! button. You will get an abbreviated version of your original URL, which makes it much easier to pass on to others.

Advice: Always check if it works before sending it.

If you come across a Web page that's not working or doesn't seem to be available anymore, try The Internet Archive site. You enter the original URL in the "Wayback Machine", click on the Take Me Back button and wait for it to check if it has something in the archive. It's conveniente to have an idea of the date of the file, because the results come in chronological order. Finally, it's free! And most of the times we get what we were looking for.

Here are two ways you can do this:

-- take a screen shot (press the PrtSc button on your keyboard: usually at the top right) and paste the image into a graphic software such as Paint

-- crop it till you get the image you need

-- save it as .png or .jpg

-- insert it to a .ppt slide

-- adjust it to your liking

VIP: if you need to add text to the slide, click the Insert menu and then Text Box

or

-- use screen capture software such as SnagIt, MWSnap, ScreenRip32 or WebSwoon

-- follow the instructions

VIP: this type of software usually allows you to capture the exact part you want, save it and have it ready to insert

Creating .pdf and other files from a Web page

If you use Internet Explorer, on the navigation bar, you should have an icon that allows you to edit Web pages. You have 2 choices, edit with Word or edit with Front Page (if you have Front Page). Open the page you want to copy, and click on that button. You will get the page copied to Word or FP, then save, and that's it.

If you have Adobe Acrobat, you should also have a
link, on the navigation bar, that allows you to create
pdf documents out of web pages.

You can get a vote counter at http://www.pollhost.com/
just  create an account and follow the instructions... it is quite simple.  (Fernanda, 14Feb06)