Practicing Blogging with JVS Teachers



Lorain County JVS

 We are in another professional development class and we are discussing blogging.  The hardest part about blogging is the initial setup.  Blogger.com, which is owned by Google is so sctrict with the signup that the process can be quite frustrating.  It appears that thier site is having some issues but once you can get signed up, its pretty easy.

Junior Cosmetology Instructors Find A Way To Go Back In Time

One of the crucial keys to having a successful experience in a technical training program is attendance. It is vital to a student’s technical education to be in lab to witness demonstration firsthand. In a perfect world each student would have perfect attendance and take see every demonstration presented. In the real world, unfortunate things happen. Students become sick or personal reasons may keep them out of class for an extended period of time.

The Junior Cosmetology Lab has remedied this issue. Demonstrations are recorded in the Junior Cosmetology Lab for students to review. There is a recording camera installed in the ceiling along with a ceiling microphone. The microphone along with the video camera is connected to a PC in the classroom. The PC has a capture card installed inside of it that allows video and audio to be recorded to the hard drive.

While demonstrations are taking place, the instructors can show the live demonstration on the Smart Board through the projector. This is beneficial to students with visual impairments or may be seated near the back of the class who may not be able to see.

Once the video is recorded, many advantages become available to the students:

Students who are absent may view demonstrations they have missed

Instructors who will be out of class may prerecord their demonstrations

Students could take videos home on flash drives for study and review

Podcasting could be made available (cos jr. doesn’t podcast so they are not held liable for novice home beauticians)

Students now have the ability to go back in time to play, pause, fast forward or rewind demonstrations. With this technology students will be able to study more effectively and become better professionals in their field.

HST Students Participate In Videoconference About Artificial Limbs

On Thursday, February 18th,  Mrs. Sofia's Health Science Technology class participated in a videoconference dealing with the advancement in artificial limbs.  The Great Lakes Science Center teamed up with WVIZ in Cleveland, Ohio to give the presentation.  David Garcia, a gentleman who has a business that produces artificial limbs gave the presentations that included photos and videos showing some of the new technology in the field of artifical limb production.


Artificial Limbs have been produced for centuries.  Ancient Egyptians produced artificial toes.  The artificial hand goes back as far as 500 years.


One of the products that were shown was a Terminator style arm that was infused with the client's muscles so the arm could function the same way a normal arm does.


Another product that was displayed was the iLimb.  The iLimb is a complex hand that functions so much like a natural hand that a client can pick up a compact disk using the hand.  It looks and functions similar to the artifical hand Luke Skywalker had in "The Empire Stikes Back."


Many of these advancements are being researched and developed in Cleveland, Ohio.  To see some of these devices in action, visit The Great Lakes Science Center this Saturday at 1pm.

An Alternative To Twitter

When most people think about microblogging they think about Twitter.  Twitter is currently the fastest social network/micro blog on the net.  Twitter is not the only microblog in the game.  There are currently 139 microblogs available for people to use.  Most of them will wither away only to be replaced by seeds of new microblogs.

There is a fairly new microblog geared towards education.  Edmodo looks and feels like Twitter.  There is even a mobile app for Edmodo users.

Edmodo can be created by anyone but the majority of the users will be teachers and students.  Its preferred that the teacher set up an account along with accounts for thier students that will be using it.  Teachers have the ability to list all of thier students or set them up in specific classes.  If a teacher needs to send a message to a specific class her or she can or if he or she need to send out a message to all of the students they can do that as well.  An example could be if a teacher is absent, she or he can send a message to all of his or her  students.  If that same teacher had to leave before the final period, only those students could be notified.

Edmodo is completely in a closed enviroment.  Communcation is restricted to the teacher's specifications. 

There are some restrictions to using edmodo.  Some people have found limiting to themselves to 140 characters in Twitter difficult.  Edmodo limits you to 100 characters.  Its also a relatively new site so users are few.  Emodo's website comes equipped with a user forum page to discuss issues and ideas to use edmodo. 

You can attach photos to edmoto without going to another website.

Edmodo is a great alternative for teachers if Twitter isnt the right answer.  Its a controlled enviroment that looks and feels just like the real thing

Changes To Safari Montage

There are some new changes to Safari Montage that will greatly benefit the faculty and staff.  The most impressive improvement is the intergration with Smart products.  You can create Notebook files and add them to the Safari Montage library.  There are also ways where you can capture what you do in Safari Montage in Smart.  You can find more information on how to do this at http://www.safarimontage.com/.

Some extra features that are also added are the ability to speed up or slow down audio in the clips.  You can also instantly change the language spoken without restarting the video that is being played.

You can also access Safari Montage from home.  You can go to http://www.lcdlc.org/ and click on Video On Demand.