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The contents of this
archive are tips previously published in the Homework
Hero News and Reminder. To sign up for our weekly e-mail
reminders, click here.
Tips: Page 1
Page
2 Page 3 Update
Your Page to Prevent Expiration!
Forgotten
Passwords
Beginning of the
Year Strategies for Homework Hero
Backup
Assignments, Then Cut and Paste
Days of the
Week Organization
Keep
Old Assignments on Your Page
Trouble-Shooting
Graphics on Assignment Pages
Other Uses
of Assignment Pages
Free Educational
Product
Homework
Hero Graphics Library More
Tips ... Update
Your Page to Prevent Expiration! At
the beginning of the school year, be sure to update your
assignment page. Pages that are not used for an extended
period (for most schools 200 days, but for some schools
100) are automatically deleted. Forgotten
Passwords Forget
your password over the summer? If your school is using
the new Homework Hero version 2.0 and if your e-mail
address is posted on your assignment page, use the
automatic password retrieval function (available as an
option on the same page where you choose to update
assignments). If
you are using Homework Hero version 1.0 ... and you have forgotten your password, please ask your school site manager to reset it. Local managers can more easily verify your identity than we can.
If your site manager is unavailable, contact us.
Please identify yourself by giving your name, your user
id, and your school in your message. Please keep in mind that for security reasons, we do not directly supply passwords following a request unless the sender's identity can be unambiguously identified. (Yes, other people
especially students, do ask for teacher
passwords). This means that we will only send your password to an e-mail address already listed on your assignment page or to a school-based e-mail address that clearly identifies you and the school. Don't
know if your school is using version 1.0 or version 2.0?
If you do not know what version of the software your school uses, here is how you can find out: Choose to update your assignment page in the usual way. When you see the form that asks for your id and password, look at the bottom of that page. If your school uses version 2.0, you will see the words "Homework Hero Version 2.0" at the bottom of the page. Beginning
of the Year Strategies for Success with Homework Hero
1. Managers: Schedule group or individual sessions with teachers using Homework Hero to make sure that everyone has hands-on experience posting an assignment.
2. Managers: Encourage teachers who fail to post assignments to do so.
3. Managers: Ask teachers to sign up for this reminder service!
4. Webmasters: Post a link to Homework Hero from your school web page.
5. Everyone: Post a reference to Homework Hero in your school newsletter to inform parents and students.
6. Teachers: Early in the year, give students extra credit for retrieving information you have posted on your assignment page --- or give extra credit for a parent signature on a printout of your assignment page.
7. Teachers: Be sure to post REGULARLY. If you stop posting, parents and teachers will learn NOT to look at your page.
8. Teachers: Offer a reward to the first student who finds that you have not updated your page for the next day's homework. Backup
Assignments, Then Cut and Paste You can cut and paste
text to your Homework Hero assignment page. If you keep assignments
in a Word document (or other word processor) just select text and copy in the usual way. Then go to the assignment update form in Homework Hero and paste by using the CONTROL-V keystroke combination. This way you can keep your assignments stored in a document on your own machine and transfer the assignments to Homework Hero without retyping.
If you keep assignments in a document on your own
computer, this also provides you with a backup, just in
case disaster should strike.
Although it is easy to
copy and paste text this way, special formatting (colors
and fonts) will not transfer with the cut and paste
operation. Special formatting will require you to enter
HTML tags (hints on this to follow).
Days
of the Week Organization
You can organize your assignment page by days of the week instead of by course or subject. Many elementary school teachers may find this to be convenient. To do this just fill in the "subject" fields on the assignment form with "Monday" "Tuesday" etc. and list all assigments for that day in the box beneath the day you typed in.
Keep
Old Assignments on Your Page
One of the most frequent requests I get from
parents or students is to look at past assignments. I encourage
all teachers to leave older dated assignments posted for at least a
week --- just add new assignments to your form while leaving
the old ones there. This is especially useful for students who
are sick and unable to access the page for several days at
a time.
For an example, see Gloria Talcove's page:
http://www.homeworkhero.com/cgi-bin/display.cgi?gtalcove+sc_irmo
Gloria keeps an entire semester of assignments on her page -- by the end
of the semester the page is large, but it provides a complete history of
work done in the semester. Troubleshooting
Graphics on Assignment Pages
This tip refers to the assignment page form entry to
"display an image that already is posted elsewhere
on the web" by filling in the "URL
to Any Web Image." If you are using Homework Hero
Version 2.0, you can also directly upload images from
your computer to Homework Hero. For more details on that
see Help for
Homework Hero Version 2.0.
Back to the topic at
hand. You may have noticed that many teachers display graphics on their Homework Hero Assignment Page. You can easily do so by typing the "URL" for any web image into the appropriate text entry box in Homework Hero.
Here is how to find the URL to any image you find on the web. In Internet Explorer, click on the image with your right mouse button. Select properties from the pop-up box. The
properties box will then display the image location (URL). Right mouse click on the URL. Then choose select all. Again right mouse click on the URL. Choose copy. Then return to the Homework Hero form, position the cursor in the
input box, and type the CONTROL-V key combination. This will paste the URL into the box. In Homework Hero, all URLs must include the "http://" prefix that begins every URL. Also, be aware that if the owner of the site whose image you link to ever deletes that image, it will disappear from your page also. Also, you should not display images that are copyright protected.
Occasionally, users find that images that they have posted disappear -- instead the page shows a "broken link" image. This can happen if the web site containing the image you are linking to does not permit access
for use by outsiders. Unfortuantely, you may not notice this -- If you recently visited the site with that image, it is stored in your browser's cache and will display on your computer, but not on anyone one else's. If you do find a broken image link on your page (or if someone else does), you will simply need to replace it with a graphic from elsewhere.
Other
Uses of Assignment Pages Homework Hero pages can be used for more than assignments.
Many schools set up pages to report on school events,
sports schedules, club activities, PTA meetings, or to announce weather-related closings. Free
Educational Product I would like to draw your attention to a nice
free product for language learning.
Vocabulary Master is a computer flashcard program that comes
with about 1000 "cards" for each of the most-commonly taught
foreign languages. You can also add your own cards. Use it for
capital cities, trigonometric identities and more. You can
download it for free here:
http://www.tldownload.com/ I have no commercial interest in this product, but I did buy a
copy myself for studying Portuguese (before finding this offer). Homework
Hero Graphics Library Need an image for your assignment page?
We have some nice graphics
located here: http://www.homeworkhero.com/graphics/graphicslibrary.htm Just copy and paste the image URL into the appropriate text entry
box in your assignment update form. The page above also
gives instructions for use of a graphic on your page
that will automatically change with the season! More
Tips: Page 1 Page 2
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