HDS Tech Workshop: Day 2 Review

There were a few issues raised today that I have answers for (or at least partial answers).

First, several of you asked about ownership of the grade level website, so I asked David about it. The grade level website is owned by one of the homeroom teachers. Then that person shares editing rights to that page with the other homeroom teacher. DO NOT share your account login name and password with each other. You share access to individual pages, but you do not share your account. If you need to know how to do this, we'll show you. Better yet, read the help article now: http://sites.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=97934&ctx=share

Another question was about posting pictures of students on your webpage. If you have a specific question, you should check with David Withrow or the Development Office, but in general it's OK to put pictures of your students on your web pages. Just do not identify specific students by name in the pictures. Group pictures work the best, both because it limits the attention on any individual child, but also because you get more of your students' parents interested in each picture.

Another photo issue that came up today was loading pictures from a digital camera to a web page. Donna P. found that she couldn't load pictures directly from her camera to the class web page because the file size was too big. The digital cameras assigned to each grade are 10 MegaPixel cameras. That size is great if you want to get high quality 8x10 prints, but for a webpage, they are way to big. Google Apps does not allow file uploads that big because it would make viewing your page too slow for most users.

If you want to take pictures directly from the camera to the website, the easiest solution is to reset your camera to take pictures at a lower resolution. On the Canon PowerShot A40, click the "FUNC. SET" button and then click to the right to set the resolution to either "M3" for 2MP pictures at 1600x1200 or even to "S" for 0.3 MP pictures at 640x480. The M3 setting should be small enough to load to Google Apps, but still high enough quality to make nice 4x6 prints or include in a presentation on a screen. A 640x480 picture is a great size for loading quickly on your website, but would not make a good quality print. So, you just need to think about what you are going to do with your pictures after you take them. Whatever the case, most people never need the highest resolution of 10.0 MP which is the default setting. But, that's what camera manufacturers produce so they can keep selling more expensive cameras.

So, what issues have you had with transferring pictures from a digital camera? Please post a comment for me.

Daniel