SelfDesign Learning Community

How do you get rid of the form and use a nice background, insert photos, and the other neat stuff I've seen on other learners' resumes? Is there help somewhere that will get me going on this?

Computer Issues

Minimum Computer Requirements
Recovering Deleted Items
Disk Space Quota
Resizing Images
Moving Items
Saving Files
Screen Resolution

ID/Passwords

I'm having difficulty logging into the village. What should I do?

1. From the initial log in window, type in the user IDs issued (usually first letter of first name and complete last name with no spaces or try the whole first name and then the whole last name with no spaces.) Your initial password was / will be mailed to you in the "Welcome to the SelfDesign Learning Community Letter"in early September. Example:
UserID: FirstInitialLastName (as entered on your application form with no spaces)
Password: ( A temporary password will be mailed to you in the "Welcome letter")
You will be prompted to change the temporary password once you have logged in. Be absolutely sure to record Your UserID and Password in a safe place in case you ever forget it.

eg. John Smith will have the UserID of “JSmith”
Jennifer Sebastian-Johnson will have the UserID of “JSebastian-John” (maximum of 15 characters)

2. If this doesn't work, click on Setup. In the Service Setup window that appears, UserID and Password are near the top. Re-enter your UserId and password and click Save.

3. Check to make sure the Server field has www.selfdesign.org in it. Then click on Save.

4. The initial log in window will reappear. Please note that when you do enter and save your password it will look like "*********" in order to conceal it from others. When one chooses to save their passowrd here, this person's UserID and Password will be saved as the default identity and that person will only need to click Login when this window appears from then on. The other people in the family will need to enter their ID and Password each time they log in. Whoever clicks save will have their account information saved.

Why can't I see mail messages for me in my Inbox?

You may be logged in using an identity other than your own. First Class creates a unique profile for each user. Have a look under the toolbar on your Village Desktop where it will indicate the full name of the person who is currently logged in.

I tried the 'connect' button, in order to change the name & password, but it was too fast for me! What should I be doing?

In the Service Setup window, log in automatically is chosen. So that is why it is flashing by so fast. There are 2 ways to fix this:

1. Hold down the Ctrl key (or Option key on Mac) while opening FirstClass and the login window will stay open. Click on the Setup button (second from the top right). This will bring up the Service Setup window where you can de-select "Log In Automatically".

OR

2. It might take a few times but there is a slight delay. In that interval, click on the Setup button (second from the top right). This will bring up the Service Setup window where you can de-select "Log In Automatically".

Mail

How do I send e-mail messages to multiple contacts?

Creating a Mailing List: You will likely find it very useful to create an entry in your Contacts folder (on your Desktop) listing all your e-mail addresses for a group of people. That way you could send a message to everyone at once. To do this, from the Village Desktop, open the Contacts folder, then File-->New-->New Mail List or click the corresponding entry in the toolbar of the Contacts window.

Give the new mail list a name; e.g SelfDesign Parents. Type in the names like this: Joe Smith and press Enter. A little green person should appear next to each name. If the name is not an exact match, the Village Directory will appear and you can select the name from a last of near matches. Continue to add names, then choose OK. To send a message to this group, just type the first few letters of your Mail List (the name you gave your list will appear) and select it from the list. You can also create entries for email addresses outside the Village (these addresses will appear as little blue cross-hatched icons.)

How do I organize the messy contents of my mailbox?

You can create folders by clicking on File-->New-->New Folder. You can split the screen horizontally or vertically by choosing View, Split. Note that you can sort and organize the items in different ways by clicking the column headings.....and moving the + sign to group by different criteria; e.g. moving the + sign so that the Mailbox would group by Subject rather than Name. To move it back, hold down the Ctrl key and click the column heading where you want it to appear. You can also click on the title bars at the top of columns to organize the contents of the folder. If you want alphabetical order, make sure there are no spaces at the beginning of titles in the subject column (you can easily change this by right clicking on a file, then choosing rename or clicking once on the words, waiting 2 seconds, then clicking again).

I have created folders in my mailbox. Is there a way I can move these folders to my Desktop?

Just drag and drop them from your Mailbox to your Desktop. Remember to drag and drop files by the words, not the icon or little picture of the file. You can drag folders anywhere you have the appropriate privileges. If you want to move something, give it a try. If you are not able a message window will tell you that you do not have the appropriate permisisons.

I may have lost some work when First Class closed down during a power surge.

You should not lose any work. FirstClass saves all items in your Mailbox if written while connected. If you look in your Mailbox all unsent (draft) messages are indicated by a white flag.

Working With Forms

For personal messages, we use our Mailboxes. We send Learning Plans and weekly forms back and forth via children's Planners. To do this, go into your children's Planners and open the appropriate form. To send it to the Planner, type Joe Smith Planner or Jane Smith Planner in the To: field at the top of the form. (The forms in the Planners are set to be automatically addressed to that Planner). Then send it. It will arrive back in the Planner. You will see a red flag outside the Planner when something new has arrived.

How do I make comments directly on the Learning Plan and Observation for Learning?

Click on the button in the form "REPLY (editable copy)" or choose Message-->Forward if the form does not have this button.

I noticed that my child's learning plan isn't in her planner. Also, I've sent both the Observing for Learning forms and the Weekly Hours forms to her planner but I notice that there are no other Weekly Hours forms in there. Is this right?

Your LC may take some time to tidy up the planners each week and only leave the forms that are actively being worked on. For example, Observing for Learning forms that need to be "checked off" and re-submited to the planner. You will find all the other forms (Observing for Learning forms that have been verified, work samples etc.) archived in the planner. Just look in the folder called Archives (Each month has its own folder) or Learning Plan or Seasonal Reviews in the centre pane at the top of the planner. Just send all forms to the Planner. Your LC will do the archiving.

P.S. Observing for Learning forms that you need to "check off" and re-submit to the planner. To do this:

1. Click on the Observing for Learning form to open it.
2. Click on the button "REPLY (editable copy) or Message-->Forward.
3. Check off the box that says "I have read Consultant's reflections from previous week" (and make a comment back to me if you want).
4. Send it back to your Planner by typing in your child's "FirstName LastName Planner" in the To: field. Click outside the field until your Planner name appears with a little symbol next to it.
5. Then click on Send and Close.

I have been "dragging" files one at a time. Is there a more efficient method?

If you would like to highlight more than one file at a time, hold down the control key (command key on a Mac) while you are clicking on the files. They will all highlight. When you drag and drop one, the others will follow along.

If you have a whole list (with no gaps), highlight the first one in the list, hold down the shift key (on both PCs and Macs), highlight the last one and they will all highlight. Then drag and drop one and the list will move as one.

Both of these methods speed things up considerably!

The parameters of my window for each document are too small. When I get to the bottom of the window, my text disappears and I have to type blindly. The bar to the right that allows you to go up and down to view the information in the documents does not allow me to go down enough to see the lower section. Is there anyway to correct the parameters of my document's window?

It sounds like you may need to resize the window by clicking on the edges or corners and dragging to make it bigger. Or better yet, click on maximize within the window so it fills up the whole screen and you can see what you're doing!

Spellcheck

How do I set this up?

From the village desktop on a PC, click on Edit (Mac users, click on First Class), then Preferences, Content Tab, then Edit tab. Choose the spell check options you would like.

Resumes

How do I create a resume?

Be sure to be logged in as the user for whom you want to create a resume. Then, go to the File menu -->Open -->Resume and a blank resume will open and can be customized.

How do you get rid of the form and use a nice background, insert photos, and the other neat stuff I've seen on other learners' resumes? Is there help somewhere that will get me going on this?

To get rid of the form on the upper part of the resume, glide your mouse slowly down from the top toward the open space at the bottom where you enter information. When you see two black arrows, you can click and drag the form on the top to resize it to any size.

To insert photos, just click on Insert, File from the menu just above the open space at the bottom where you enter information. Now browse to a file on your computer and insert it.

Backgrounds are similar. Insert background from the same menu button gives you a chance to browse to a file on your computer. If you have saved a background from a design program or even one from the Internet that you liked, you can insert it.

There is a tutorial on Resumes, found from the Village Desktop in Learning First Class (book on the shelf), First Class Tutorial, Your Resume. Please let me know how it goes! I can help you further if you run into snags.

Start simply. Add a photo and you've got a good first effort. These resumes can be updated over time as interests change.

Computer Issues

Minimum Computer Requirements

Here are the stated FirstClass requirements:

Mac OS X
G3 CPU or better
Mac OS X (PPC / Intel), 10.2.8, 10.3.4 - 10.3.9, or 10.4.9
50 MB available RAM
20 MB free disk space

Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/2003
Intel Pentium 3 class CPU or better, or equivalent AMD CPU
32 MB available RAM
20 MB available disk space

Microsoft Windows Vista
Windows Vista capable system
32 MB available RAM
20 MB available disk space

Recovering Deleted Items

When an item (message, form, document, folder etc.) is deleted in the Village it is still recoverable until the daily 'trash collection' which occurs at 3am every day. After 3am the item is permanently deleted.

Here are the steps to recover deleted items before the trash collection:

1. Open the location of the deleted item. (i.e. If the item was in your Mailbox, open your Mailbox.)

2. Go to View-->Show Deleted Items. A little trash can icon appears:
[Image:trash-can.jpg]
3. Select (single-click) the item to undelete. Go to File-->Undelete. Now the item is recovered!

4. To hide deleted items go to File-->View-->Hide Deleted Items

5. If using version 8.3 or newer, have a look inside your Trash Can on your Desktop.

Disk Space Quota Message

I am getting a message that my disk space quota has been filled and I can't send or receive messages. What do I do?

We all have a 50MB quota on disk space. Photos can quickly fill one's quota. This can be a problem, especially with newer digital cameras which can take pics in 4-6 Megapixels (or even more). Be mindful of the photos you keep in your mailbox.

My computer's drive is full. What should I do?

If a hard drive is full, it will indeed "refuse" to copy files as it temporarily allots some hard drive space to perform the task. Try clearing up some unused files. To do this, click on Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs and browse through the various programs to see if there are duplicates or unused programs that could be removed to clear up hard drive space. You can also do a disk clean up by opening up My Computer from the desktop. Right click to bring up the menu, left click on Properties. When the the window opens, highlight C: drive, right click to bring up the menu and left click on disk clean-up to remove unused files.

Resizing Images

It takes forever to open up my resume as I have a lot of photos on that page. How can I make them smaller?

Right click on the photo to bring up a menu. Choose format image. Near the bottom make sure the Maintain Aspect Ratio button is selected. Then type in a reduced height number (e.g. 300) and the width will automatically be adjusted. Click OK. The picture will be smaller, will load faster and will attach more easily and send faster.

Moving Items

To move around objects 1 pixel at a time:

1. Select the icon.
2. For Windows: Hold down Ctrl and Shift while you use the arrow keys to move the icon around.
For Mac: Hold down Option while you use the arrow keys to move the icon around.

Saving Files

When I upload a file from my MS Office, on to my FirstClass desktop it always changes it to a read-only file and then I cannot add more information to the checklist form. Any suggestion how to change this?

FirstClass is not MS Word. Therefore if we open a document stored in the Village, it must use an application (Word) on our home computer to open it. SInce the file is actually saved in the VIllage it cannot open it as editable. For a document to be editable it must reside on the host computer. When double-clicking a file located in the Village, such as a MS Word file, it will always be read-only because you are choosing to VIEW the file when double-cliking it. If you would like to manipulate the file, you will have to save it to your computer FIRST and then you can open it as an editible document that is no longer Read-Only.

Screen Resolution

I cannot see all the windows I open. How do I correct this?

Your screen resolution may be set too low. To check this, from your Windows desktop, right click to bring up dialog box. Left click on Properties. Choose the Settings tab. Check to see what the setting is. If it's 480 X640 or something really low, you may be losing some of your windows. It it's low, set it a bit higher and see if you can notice a difference.

Miscellaneous

Learners in Kindergarten

Here's a clarification for the requirements for Kindergarten learners (logs and observations).

Logs are 12.5 hours a week (rather than 25) for kindergarten so parents still need to do these weekly.
Observing is bi-weekly; i.e. every second week Learning for Observing comments need to be sent to the Kindergarten child's planner as opposed to Observing for Learning comments sent every week for full-time students, grade one and up.

Learning Investment Invoices

Learning Investment invoices for up to $510 for the first half of the year must be submitted by Jan. 31. LCs may remind families to submit these in the first week or two of January. This will happen again in June for the 2nd $510. Please keep your receipts. If you are unsure whether or not any purchase will qualify for reimbursement, please ask your LC. In a nutshell, if purchases are educational in nature and relate to the learning plan, they qualify. Lessons from mentors (e.g. music, swimming) are common. Larger purchases need approval. We try to get purchases spread over a number of subject areas.

I have a receipt that is for my internet connection. My problem is that my receipt is for my cable and my internet so I only want to claim part of the amount that is on the actual receipt. Can I just write in the invoice the amount that my internet is even though the actual receipt says a larger number?

If requested, your Internet service provider will e-mail or mail a breakdown of the bill so that the Internet fees portion can be distinguished from the cable TV portion.