Arlington's TECH Notebook: Technology Tip #29

In Technology Tip of the Week #27 you were introduced to the updated version of Visual CASEL. As explained in that tip, most of the changes in the upgrade are "behind the scenes" but you were promised a couple of tips dedicated to this upgrade so that you would feel more comfortable using this tool. This week's Technology Tip of the Week will continue that promise.

Tip #29: Visual CASEL - Part VI - That was Then, This is Now - Updating Your Screen!

DEFINITIONS:

Launching: The act of starting an application, usually through the process of double-clicking the left-hand mouse button.

Desktop: The main opening screen in windows where you will find program folders including Teacher Tools, the Start menu, etc.

Desktop review - every user on the secondary level instructional server has an icon for Visual CASEL 3.5 on their desktop (Figure 1). Double clicking on the icon launches Visual CASEL as seen in figure 2. Setting your password was described in Tip #27.

Screen Shot Figure 1

There are times you are working on your computer and through some minor mishap some of the icons on your screen desktop (or the desktop of one of your students) disappear. It is not necessary to log off and log back onto the network. Visual CASEL has a refresh button (See figure 2) to correct this action.

Screen Shot Figure 2

As an exercise, some of the icons from my desktop were intentionally deleted. Even though the desktop refresh is automatically engaged every hour, the wait seems a terrible waste of time. Launching the Visual CASEL utility followed by a single click on the Refresh Desktop button brought all of the desktop folders back. The folders were in slightly different places on the desktop, but they were back (figure 3).

	Figure 3
Before Refresh		After Refresh

During the refresh process, a window appears in the upper right-hand corner of the screen telling the user that the refresh process is in place (figure 4).

Figure 4

If you find that your desktop has changed or something has been accidentally deleted from your desktop, try this tip to restore your workstation!