Geocaching as an event for internationals
Here is an idea from a colleague, Randy … using Geocaching as a group building event with international students
I knew a couple of people with GPSs, and the youth group from one supporting church had three. A couple of student brought their own. (The ones designed for cars did not work well for this event – they were not accurate enough)
My steps for the event
1. Determine the location of the event and get permission.
2. Scout the area and find the places to hide the caches. I setup 18 plus an example cache. The park I chose also had a registered geocache.
a. Photograph each spot
b. mark and record the coordinates
c. decide what type of cache container you will use at that spot
d. create a name, description, and hint for each spot
3. prepare your cache containers.
I used several types and sizes—magnetic key holder, camping match holder, sprinkler head, fake rock key holder, disposable food container bowl (like tupperware – which I spray painted dull green), 1 foot long 2″ PVC pipes with one end glued on (and spray painted). I got just about all of them at Home Depot.
4. print a log sheet and geocache document sheet for each cache container and place them in the container.
5. Divide the caches into courses.
I created 3 courses out of the 18 caches. Each course had 6 caches to find. This allowed me to start 3 teams at one time, each headed in a different direction. Then I could start 3 more teams 10 minutes later and they wouldn’t easily run into each other. I included the registered geocache on each course so that they could look at this later online.
6. Create a sheet for each course that can be given to the teams. Each cache on the sheet should have the coordinates, size, name, description and hint (cover it with masking tape, so they can pull it off and use it if needed).
a. create a seperate sheet for the example cache
7. Create a master sheet for each course, that you keep – this one has pictures and what the container is.
8. Day of the Event
a. Explain Geocaching and show them the official website
and the registered geocache on the course. You may
have to do this where you can have internet access.
a. Divide into teams–have them pick team names.
b. explain how the game will work
c. do a sample cache together
I created a sample cache in the parking lot
and gave everyone a sample course sheet
with the sample cache data. We all used our
GPSs to find the cache. I used a small cache
hidden under flowers, so that they understood
that the cache could be hard to find. This
also made sure each team could use their GPS.
d. start the first teams – log the time
e. I stayed at the start/finish and teams could call me
for additional help.
f. Log the time when a teams returns.
Video from Microsoft about a potential future…
Sharing Your Computer Screen EASILY with Others Around the World – LogMeIn Express
Imagine the possibilities. Perhaps you want to teach a seminar, either about how to do something on a computer, or even a seminar or Bible Study using a power point presentation or website, perhaps with your current or former students, staff or your volunteers, any of whom might be in the U.S. or might be overseas. Maybe you have set up a conference call using something like freeconference.com or Skype but you really want to share your power point presentation with the whole group. Using the new web product, LogMeIn Express, all you have to do is to the the LogMeIn Express site, download a small application that allows you to share your desktop, send your “students” the link to LogMeIn Express (Your students don’t have to download anything) and presto, instant presentation. Set up time, five minutes or less.
As someone who helps people with computers, one vital tool often find myself needing is a way to share my screen. There are many ways to do this. In the past I have used microsoft shareview which requires a ms live/hotmail account. I have also used freeconference.com’s built-in tool which ironically requires a fee. I have also used Yugma. Of late, I have even been playing with Crossloops which with their permission allows remote control access to another person’s PC. This is wonderful tool to help fix their problems. I’ve tried to keep to free solutions for obvious reasons. Still each of these items seem complicated to use. Especially for those who want to see your presentation
Over the years, I have also come to trust another company, Logmein.com. Logmein has several products that I use on a regular basis. One of their free products securely allows me remote control access to all my computers. My home computer, my office computer and even my laptop from any remote locations using only a web browser. Another of their products, LogMeIn Hamachi allows me to create a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) using the internet. In essence, using this product, I can create what looks like a Local Area Network to my computer, allowing me access to all my shared files and even my printers on all the computers connected to this network. These computers could be in my house, in my office, anywhere. The amazing thing is each of these products are free for individual users. Other similar products like GoToMyPC, an excellent product require a charge.
Now Logmein has come up with a new product that solidifies my faith in the company. They have created a product, LogMeIn Express that allows you to EASILY share with one easy push of a button, your desktop with people.
Below is a article from LifeHacker that I found that explains this powerful and useful new tool, LogMeIn Express, in more depth.
LogMeIn Express Makes Screensharing Simple
From LifeHacker
LogMeIn has been around for quite awhile now as a very useful free remote access tool for casual users, as well as a commercial remote access tool for corporations. They’ve now taken the obvious step of putting their technology to use in the form of a screen sharing application called LogMeIn Express.
The idea here is that you can quickly share your Windows computer’s screen with up to 100 viewers by sending them a short 12-digit code and directing them to the LogMeIn Express website. Entering the code will then open a Flash-based page containing the contents of your computer’s screen. As the presenter, you need to install a small piece of native Windows software, but the installation process is quick and painless, and offers 256-bit SSL encryption.
LogMeIn Express competes with more full-featured commercial screen sharing tools like GoToMeeting and WebEx, and though it’s a much more simple implementation, it stacks up well. GoToMeeting is significantly faster than most competitors due to it being based on Citrix’s Terminal Services technology, but LogMeIn Express competes well with WebEx. It doesn’t currently include conference calling features which both of the commercial options do, but it does include an in-session chat module, and the ability to pass control of the host computer to one of the viewers.
LogMeIn Express is still in beta, but is free for both commercial and non-commercial use.
See Another Article with more specifics from lifehacker.
Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts
Easily show live/streaming video online to donors, former students, etc.
Got this from brigata. Looksa like a great way to live stream video to people. Especially useful for communicating with to your donors, parties with returned students with current students, etc.
Start streaming your Service or Project to the Web/World
November 22nd, 2009 · No Comments
All you need to know is…
They’ll take care of everything else. OK — you have to get a webcam working with your laptop. But beyond that, the rest is easy. Think about it: Your next class, church service, organization-wide meeting, training session, etc., streamed live to the web for your entire organization/church/set of supporters to enjoy. Best of all, it’s totally free.
Improving Firefox Speed When it Gets Slow
It has been a while since I last posted. God has placed quite a few time challenges the last month or so. Anyway, back on… Many of you use the Mozilla Firefox browser now. In many ways it is one of the best out there, but of late, I’ve noticed that my copy has really slowed down. This has become an area of frustration for me and I have actually done a lot in Google Chrome a lot while my copy of Firefox loads.
No Longer… Here is an article from lifehacker on how to get your firefox speed back up…
Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): Firefox is a powerful browser with extensions to do almost anything, but it’s never been accused of being light on resources—and limiting your history size can help.
Every time your browser requests a page or image from anywhere, that data is stored in your browser history for a default of 90 days—for most of us that translates to an enormous amount of data stored in the internal history database. The Mac Tips and Tricks weblog has a quick and very useful tip to make Firefox load more quickly—just visit Preferences -> Privacy -> History and turn the dial down to a more reasonable 5-10 days. You’ll need to clear your history or restart Firefox after you make this change, but in my testing the startup speed improved significantly.
If you want to keep your entire computer…(Read the rest of the article)
Keep an eye on this site for more articles on a more regular basis….
Google is more than Search
Over the years Google has become synonymous with search. The term “Google” has even become a verb. When my son recently had a question, I told him, ”‘Google’ it.” But interestingly enough for who work with many people and want to collaborate on things. Google has become a wonderful tool to work together on projects.
Here are some examples. Perhaps you are working with a team on a project or document or maybe you use a spreadsheet to keep track of registration on a trip or the contact information of students . How many times have you e-mailed these things around between the people working on it. Eventually, you get lost in who edited what, and which version is the most recent. Your solution is to have one person who does all the “
official” edits but that person is busy and doesn’t have the time to field all the e-mails with changes and so the project moves along very slowly with outdated information.
Or perhaps you have a group calendar and you are the only one who could edit it and so everyone sends e-mail to you. You wish that they all have the ability to input new events on their own using the web. Or perhaps you want to have a common repository of pictures and videos.
Perhaps, you have so many phones, you end up giving students 10 phones number just so they can reach you. Wouldn’t it be nice to have one number to give that rings to all your phones with one e-mail.
If any of you have struggled with any of these tasks, Google has many incredible new tools to help you. Below are some of them and how they can help.
Topics in this Document
Google Docs and Collaboration- Google Calendar
- Gmail
- Picasa
- Google or Yahoo groups to communicate with students
- Google Voice
- Google Wave…
-
Google docs vs. Microsoft Office Live - Appendix A: Top 3 Reasons That Google Docs Will Help Your Ministry
- Appendix B: Bottom 3 Reasons to Use Google Docs
- Appendix C: Sending Google Calendar Alerts to Yahoo Groups
Click here to get the rest of the post
Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts
Powerful Event Management Made Easy – eventbrite.com
As in international student minister, have you ever had a time when you were going to host an event. For your event, you want to send invitations, have a website about it and allow people to register for the event online, perhaps even pay a registration fee. Perhaps the event is so large that many people are managing it and so need access to registration information to do their job in organizing the event. Maybe, you want the registration form to be customizable as well as automated confirmation and follow up e-mails to the students who signed up.
Here is the solution for you…To me, THE most useful tools (outside of Facebook and e-mail) for ISM that I practically use on a weekly basis can be found on the website, http://www.eventbrite.com/ Eventbrite is a online event registration service. As it says on their website, “Eventbrite helps businesses & organizations of all sizes manage, promote and sell-out their events.” It is relatively easy to use and highly customizable. To the student, it has the general feel of a “ticketmaster” where they can easily sign up and pay for your event.
Another great way to use it is for forms. We have heard of those who have used it for Airport Pickup sign-up forms and friendship partners sign-up forms.
You can sign up for a free version which allows you to post as many free events as you like. You also are allowed to do one complimentary paid events (you need to have a paypal account for do this). If you want to host more paid events, you need to pay a fee to both eventbrite and the credit card processor (they only take paypal and google checkout). See below the fee structure:
In addition you will be charged a credit card processing percentage based on the service you use:
All said, this is a wonderful service for your students that makes it easier for them to sign up… especially last minute which, as we all know, if very normal.
Click here to get more detail on how to use Eventbrite.
Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts
How Do I Mail Merge using Microsoft Office?
Hi all who were a part of the ISI Rocky Mountain and Plains Retreat. We had a wonderful time of rest and fun. I am thankful for the opportunity to help out with some technology stuff. I will be posting some of the documents the next couple of weeks from the time. One thing that many of ISM people ask me how to do is mail merge. Here is a great excerpt from an article online of the nuts and bolts of how to do this. What is shared here can be used for e-mails, snail mail, labels, etc. Click on the links below for the specific need that you have…
From http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/mailmerge.htm
A mail merge allows you to send personalized messages to a large group of people at once without them knowing who else you have sent it to. This is a great way to have bulk messages look more personal, send everybody their own information (like a logon name and password) or send out Christmas cards.
There are various ways to do a mail merge and there are various tools available to further simply the process or add even more options. This guide gives an overview of these methods and walks you through a couple of examples to do your own mail merge. Although you can also do a mail merge to a document or directly to a printer, in our examples we will use an email as the output. The process for the other output options is very similar and this guide can also be used for that.
- Mail Merge from Outlook
- Mail Merge from Word with Outlook as source
- Mail Merge from Word with another source
- Mail Merge with 3rd party tools
Hosting a Concert with S. Asian Band Aradhna
The ISI Dallas Fort Worth, Texas team recently hosted the Hindi/Nepali worship Aradhna for a concert as a gift for out S. Asian student community. It was a great experience for us, our partners and students. It really brought the S. Asian loving Christian community together and also was another way to show the S. Asian students how much we love them.
Here is my post on my personal blog with more specifics and information.
Quick Travel Tip – Inexpensive Hotels
Last month my wife and I decided last minute to take our family on vacation. Funds were tight and we wanted to go to Houston. We did a search on http://www.kayak.com (great place to get the lowest retail price for airline, hotel, rental car etc. as it scans all the major web services including expedia, travelocity, orbitz, etc.) but the price was very expensive. We were taking our whole family so we needed a decent, larger place. At http://priceline.com, you can get up to 50% off of retail… but you never know about the type of hotel you get… or do you… We have been using http://biddingfortravel.com/. This is a forum where people journal where they have stayed, strategies for winning and what they bid to get what they got. I looked up Houston, Clear Lake. I say the majority of people who were winning three star bids were getting Residence Inn for $50 or less per night. I bid for $48 and voila. We were able to stay at the roomy, quality Residence Inn Houston Clear Lake for half the price of many lesser motels. For us ISM people who travel a fair amount, or perhaps take small groups of students some places, this is a great way to get a decent rate for travel.
