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Welcome to the 21st Century Learn, Earn, and Serve Academy
Double-checking your technology setup:
VIEW the video “Did You Know?” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDLIwlzkgY&feature=related (7 minutes)
If the video “streams” without interruption this indicates you have fast Internet. If the playback stops and starts this is likely due to your lack of bandwidth (slow Internet speeds.) The solution is to hit the pause button (twin vertical lines on the lower left corner) and go do something else while the little red line creeps over to the far right - which indicates the whole video is now loading on your computer. Once the red line is all the way to the right you can click the play button and it will play the video from the beginning without stopping. If you right click on the video you may have the option to save the video for later viewing, but note saving videos can use up a lot of memory and some videos won't allow you to save them. Report any problems to your instructor.
Lesson One has an introduction podcast. , which is a simple audio file. Your computer will need speakers or headphones and the podcast might take a minute or two before it plays. There are links to various videos, our class blog and resources wiki and youtube channel. The more such sites you experience, the more different ways of displaying your own information you can consider. Explore the features, other links, and note you can create your own free sites for literally everything you will see in this course.
Lesson One also has a introduction “video capture” overview created by the free tool at www.jingproject.com (for mac or PC) which allows you to create similar “show and tell” step by step tutorials for anything you do on your computer screen (without needing a video camera.) Take the 2 minute tour, download it and play around. It is super easy and will make you an expert in a hurry.
Bandwidth is the term used to describe the speed of your Internet connection.
At anytime you can test your bandwidth without cost by going to
www.bandwidthplace.com
A dial-up phoneline should be about 51 kilobytes(51,000 characters sent) per
second.
A DSL link should be at least 256kb - 500kb per second, or 5-10 times as fast as
a dial-up connection.
Cable modems are often 8 megabits per second 8,000kb.
Fiber optics can be many times faster 100megabits/sec or more.
Is Your Browser Updated?:
If you try to view a media file of some type and it does not work, it is likely
your browser or add-ons like Flash, Java, or something similar needs to be
updated. It is easy to do and help is available. New updates come out regularly
and it is important to know how to keep your browser up to date. Just let me
know when you have problems, questions, or need help.
Firefox browser from www.mozilla.com is recommended as they have lots of great features like tabs for having many web pages open at once, and many cool features you can add, called add-ons. If you have Firefox, you will find there are many features to save time and streamline your surfing.
Below are common browser features which need to be kept current.
Don’t worry about these now, but if problems arise later updating
the following is likely to fix the problem.
Browser add-on downloads:
· Read PDFs with Adobe Reader
· View FLASH animations, videos and powerpoints Macromedia Flash
· View Java based interactive sites Sun Java Runtime Environment
Multimedia player downloads:
· View videos and hear audio files Quicktime
· View videos and hear audio files Windows Media Player
Beginning the Class:
The class begins when you send me a private message that you are ready to go. The class outline http://lone-eagles.com/21century-outline.htm has most of the details for the course, which runs 8th weeks, with each new lesson being posted on the lessons page http://lone-eagles.com/workforce101.htm on Monday morning starting May 4th, 2009.
You will receive the following invitation to join our Google Groups Private web site and discussions area.
Welcome to the 21st Century Academy!
Here's your checklist for getting started. Please email or call me directly if you have any questions at all!
Frank@lone-eagles.com PH: 406 683 62701. This is an invitation message to our private Google Groups Academy web site. Click on the link and create a Google Account for yourself if you do not already have one. Write down your new Google ID (just your email address) and Password so you can sign in anytime to access the web pages there. Please leave an introduction message in the Discussions area telling a bit about yourself.
You are invited to upload a photograph of yourself and fill out a profile, too.The web link to the Google Groups is:
Here are the essentials:
* Group name: 21st Century Learn, Earn, and Serve Academy
* Group home page: http://groups.google.com/group/21st-century-academyYou can email everyone in our group by sending an email to this address:
* Group email address 21st-century-academy@googlegroups.com2. Please fill out the Technology survey listed on the Lessons Page http://lone-eagles.com/workforce101.htm and cut and paste it into an email message to me so I'll know a bit about your tech setup and experiences.
3. Begin lesson one, (on the Lessons Page http://lone-eagles.com/workforce101.htm ) and please let me know if you have problems hearing the podcast (audio file) or viewing the videos, or accessing any of the resources. Read the Welcome to the Class bulletin.
This learning adventure is informal, failure is not an option, I'm excited to have the chance to show you some really great opportunities!
Begin at your convenience,
Frank