Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Creating Hyperlinks

Often we want to include a hyperlink in a document or email.  This used to be a bit of a process but now we are used to the software recognizing email and website addresses and linking them appropriately.  That occasionally causes issues.  For example:  if I type www.google.com I expect the software to hyperlink my text.  Within this blog space however, the links are not created automatically.

Sometimes, especially in web-based and Microsoft Office software the link is generated because the software recognizes a specific format.  Sometimes it helps us too much.  Example www.epcwellness.org. www.epcwellness.org
 This happens because the link itself still has the . even if it's not part of the text.  This is an easy problem to fix.
In the program with the non-responsive link, highlight the text
right-click, select Hyperlink, Edit Hyperlink
Then edit the link portion.  You should find that there is a section for text people see, and the link that will be visited.  It doesn't matter what the display text says so long as the link is accurate.

Once the link is accurate, hopefully, it will work when you share it. :-) www.epcwellness.org


Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Snow Day Slump

The art of YouTube.  I use YouTube a lot these days.  I must confess it started as a way to show math concepts to students, often I thought they'd understand it better if someone ELSE explained it. Then I found techniques for taking Praxis tests (what's a Praxix test?).  I used it for students and for me.  I guess I was behind the trend as my students were using YouTube for entertainment.

Today's tip is for the snow day slump.  We aren't getting out and doing much exercise these days, at least I'm not but I created a playlist on YouTube and added 5 10-minute workout videos.  I can do them all at once or if I only have 10 minutes do one of them.  It took some time to find the ones that suited me but now that they are in a playlist I don't have to hunt for videos I just pull up my playlist and workout.

If you have Chromecast or Apple TV and depending on the device you are using you can show the videos on your TV, that's what I do.

For help making a YouTube playlist: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/youtube/creating-playlists