VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1
WELL CONNECTED!
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2009
HP’s New Technology Integration Newsletter
Welcome to the premier edition of HP’s technology newsletter. It is our goal (Or...Yes, Virginia, there is a place to provide tips, online for technology in every classroom!) resources, integration ideas and more. This mation they've found online. newsletter is also available online at The myriad resources of the online www.hpschools.org world also provide each classroom with more interesting, diverse, and Comments or Questions? current learning materials. The Web Ideas for articles? connects students to experts in the Resources to share? real world and provides numerous Please email: opportunities for expressing undermmcnamara@hpschools.org standing through images, sound, and text.
Technology Integration Across the Curriculum “Technology is ubiquitous, touching almost every part of our lives, our communities, our homes. Yet most schools lag far behind when it comes to integrating technology into classroom learning. Many are just beginning to explore the true potential tech offers for teaching and learning. Properly used, technology will help students acquire the skills they need to survive in a complex, highly technological knowledge-based economy. Integrating technology into classroom instruction means more than teaching basic computer skills and software programs in a separate computer class. Effective tech integration must happen across the curriculum in ways that research shows deepen and enhance the learning process. In particular, it must support four key components of learning: active engagement, participation in groups, frequent interaction and feedback, and connection to real-world experts. Effective technology integration is achieved when the use of technology is routine and transparent and when technology supports curricular goals. Many people believe that technologyenabled project learning is the new plus ultra of classroom instruction. Learning through projects while equipped with technology tools allows students to be intellectually challenged while providing them with a realistic snapshot of what the modern office looks like. Through projects, students acquire and refine their analysis and problem-solving skills as they work individually and in teams to find, process, and synthesize infor-
New tech tools for visualizing and modeling, especially in the sciences, offer students ways to experiment and observe phenomenon and to view results in graphic ways that aid in understanding. And, as an added benefit, with technology tools and a project-learning approach, students are more likely to stay engaged and on task, reducing behavioral problems in the classroom.
“If we teach today as we taught yesterday we rob our children of tomorrow.”
~John Dewey American Philosopher
Technology also changes the way teachers teach, offering educators Inside this issue: effective ways to reach different types of learners and assess student What is Technology Integration? 1 understanding through multiple Castle Learning, NetTrekker, etc. 2 means. It also enhances the relationship between teacher and student. Search Engines, Online News, etc. 3 PowerPoint Tips, Downloads
When technology is effectively inteGoogle Docs, Office Shortcuts grated into subject areas, teachers grow into roles of advisor, content SmartBoard Resources expert, and coach. Technology helps make teaching and learning Google Search Tips more meaningful and fun.” From Edutopia.org
Next Issue Highlights
“The technology should become an integral part of how the classroom functions -as accessible as all other classroom tools. The focus in each lesson or unit is the curriculum outcome, not the technology." From the ISTE definition of technology integration
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VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1
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Life Magazine Archive Google recently announced that Google Books has published the entire run of LIFE magazine-nearly 1900 issues, spanning from 1936 to 1972. This is in addition to Google Images’ LIFE image archive. View several decades of American history in pictures.
http://www.freemacware.com/
Access LIFE by going directly to Google Books and clicking on one of the covers. Once you do, you'll be taken to that issue's overview page and can opt to read the full issue.
This site reviews freeware for Mac OS X, and makes recommendations based on their experience, and that of their readers. Every day there’s a new post, and with each new post you’ll find a link to the developer’s site so you can learn more, make sure the software is compatible with your system, and download the latest version.
http://books.google.com/books Google Life Images Archive: http://images.google.com/hosted/life
“Use netTrekker's My Portfolio feature to easily save and scaffold resources into folders that can be shared with your students, your school, or your entire district! Organize netTrekker resources such as templates, timelines, famous person search results, images, and web resources-as well as your own favorite resources from across the web.” Join the NetTrekker Village and view webinars, see what others are doing, and share your own lessons.
Plot your hike over mountains (view elevation), through the woods (topo maps), and on any trail with just a few mouse clicks. Once your hiking map is complete you can quickly view it in 3D, satellite maps, or share it with friends. http://www.mapmyhike.com/
Castle Leaning offers a new feature in the Elementary English course: spelling words with audio! Students listen to a brief instruction telling them what word to spell, along with a sentence that uses the word as an example. Then they enter their responses in a short answer field that is automatically scored. Hints and reasons give good clues and explanations of common spelling rules. Students can listen to the instructions as many times as needed.
http://www.nettrekkervillage.com/
GroupWise tip: Signatures can now include pictures. To add a picture to your signature click Tools > Options, then doubleclick Environment. Click the Signature tab, then click New to add the signature. An editor displays where you can create your signature. Click OK, then click Close.
A new unit has been added to the English course, called "Literature: Night," based on the World War II Holocaust memoir published by Elie Wiesel in 1960. This is the tenth set in a series of literature short answer questions. The unit contains three sections, corresponding to the three major divisions of the book. Questions focus on narrative events, vocabulary, symbolism, foreshadowing, and irony. There are also major revisions to Intermediate English, Algebra II, and Trigonometry. In addition, Teachers can now attach documents to any assignment. Suggestions include directions, reading passages, lessons, vocabulary, reference documents. http:www.castlelearning.com
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World News and Newspapers Online http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/ http://www.footnote.com/
For searchable original documents, providing users with a view of the events, places and people that shaped the American nation and the world. Free and subscription based options.
Contains screen shots from news sites. Click on a screen shot to get a closer look, then use the arrows to go to different stories. When you want to read the entire story, click on the screen shot when in flip view. http://www.newseum.org/ todaysfrontpages/ Newseum displays daily newspaper front pages in their original, unedited form.
The site says “some front pages may contain material that is objectionable to some visitors. Viewer discretion is advised.” http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/ More newspapers from around the world. http://library.uncg.edu/news/ Lists hundreds of news resources from around the world in a variety of languages that offer free access to current, generalinterest, full-text news.
Search Engines-Not All Created Equal http://www.amnh.org/ology/
“Ology means "the study of" and this interactive science site was created especially for kids to explore fossils, the universe, animals, and much more. Students can move through time meeting extinct dinosaurs, tour the solar system and the Milky Way galaxy, explore DNA that can't be seen by the human eye, read interviews with museum scientists and student scientists like themselves, play games, collect Ology cards and create projects with them, learn about expeditions, take quizzes, and more. There are several Ologies to be explored, including archeology, astronomy, biodiversity, earth, Einstein, genetics, and marine biology. Each Ology section is filled with interactive activities for students to enjoy as they learn.”
As of May, 2009, there were 4.5 websites being created every second. Estimates are that nearly half of all searches don’t result in the answer people are seeking. 60% of all Internet searches are done with Google. But does that mean Google is necessarily the best search engine for your needs? Depends on what you’re looking for! http://www.bing.com/ Microsoft’s search engine. The most significant difference is that Bing organizes your search results into categories. http://beta.spezify.com/ spezify.swf For a visual search engine that aggregates search results from multiple sources including Yahoo, Flickr photos, Twitter, Wikipedia, Amazon, eBay, etc. and then arranges all these results in one large &
interactive collage try Spezify. http://www.semanti.com Semanti is a Firefox addon which remembers web pages you like and allows you to see results your Facebook friends have saved for related searches. All your results are shown on your Google, Yahoo! or Bing results pages and you can preview links without leaving the results page.
You can save pages publicly and privately, and find them again easily from any computer. http:// www.wolframalpha.com/ This a computational knowledge engine. It generates results by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links.
PowerPoint Printing Option: Share the content of your PowerPoint presentation by printing your outline and all your notes and handouts in Word:
Free PowerPoint Templates to download:
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Open a presentation in PowerPoint.
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Choose File > Send To > Microsoft Office Word.
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In the Send To Microsoft Office Word dialog box, select the desired page layout for your presentation: Hand outs: Choose either Blank Lines Next to Slides or Blank Lines Below Slides. Notes: Choose Notes Next to Slides or Notes Below Slides. Outline: Choose Outline only.
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Click OK. Your chosen presentation information will appear as a new document in Word.
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Edit, format, and print the information as desired.
http://www.pppst.com/themes.html http://www.presentationhelper.co.uk free_powerpoint_template.htm http://www.soniacoleman.com/templates.htm http://powerbacks.com/ For any Office template check out Microsoft’s resources at: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/
Create cool presentations online without PowerPoint. http://prezi.com/
Basic PowerPoint tips: 1. Use the same background for all the slides. When in doubt use one of the Design Templates. These templates guarantee a professional looking background every time. 2. Pick High Contrast colors. High contrast means light lettering on a dark background, or dark lettering on light background. High contrasting colors makes it much easier for your audience to read the slides. 3. Use one good picture or graphic per slide. PowerPoint is a visual medium so please use pictures and graphs. Just make sure the pictures are relevant to the topic and large enough for the audience to see and appreciate. 4. Minimum of 36 pts for the font size. Your audience needs to be able to read your slide from the back of the room.
5. Use a Maximum of 5 lines of text per slide. Use bullet lists and phrases rather than whole sentences. Plan on explaining the bullets and phrases as part of your oral presentation. But…
6. Don’t read the slides to your audience. Instead of reading the slides to them use each slide as a launching point to tell them more about your topic. Otherwise, you’re likely to lose your audience.
“If your words or images are not on point, making them dance in color won’t make them more relevant.” `Edward Tufte Professor, Yale University
WELL CONNECTED!
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New SmartBoard in your classroom? Here’s a few links to get you started: Tools/Tips: http:// education.smarttech.com/ste/en-us/ Ed+Resource/Lesson+activities/ Notebook+activities/ http://www.kenton.k12.ky.us/SmartBoard/ smartboardindex.htm
If you’re a little confused Why use Google Docs? Because you can create and share your work with anyone online and you can...
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Upload from and save to your desktop
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Edit anytime, from anywhere
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Pick who can access your documents
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Share changes in real time
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Files are stored securely online
about Google Docs, watch
Google Docs in Plain English (link below) on TeacherTube. TeacherTube is a YouTube for teachers, an online community for sharing instructional videos.
Lessons/Activities: http://teachnic2.googlepages.com/home http://technology.usd259.org/resources/ whiteboards/smartlessons.htm http://its.leesummit.k12.mo.us/ smartboard.htm
http:// www.teachertube.com/ viewVideo.php? video_id=9618&title=Goog
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Best of all-it's free!
le_Docs_in_Plain_English
http://docs.google.com
http://www.teacherslovesmartboards.com/
Microsoft Office Keyboard Shortcuts
VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1
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Google Search Tips What time is it in Bangkok right now? Ask Google. Enter simply what time is it to get the local time in big cities around the world, or add the locale at the end of your query. For example, “what time is it Hong Kong” to get the local time there.
Enter the airline and flight number into the Google search box and get back the arrival and departure times right inside Google's search results.
Google's built-in converter/calculator can help you whether you're cooking dinner, traveling abroad, or performing a simple calculation. Find out how many teaspoons are in a quarter cup (quarter cup in teaspoons) or how many seconds there are in a year (seconds in a year) or how many euros there are to five dollars (5 USD in Euro). For the techies, bits in kilobytes (155473 bytes in kilobytes) and numbers in hex or binary (19 in binary) are also pretty useful.
More tips to better search results: • • • • •
To find the definition for a word or phrase, type the word “define” followed by the word you want defined. Example Define:ecosystem To translate a word or phrase, go to http://translate.google.com and type the word or phrase you want to translate, and choose the from and to languages. You can even upload an entire document to translate! When you put a tilde ~ in front of your search term, Google will look for both your chosen search term and synonyms. Do not put a space between the tilde and your search term. Search is always case insensitive. Searching for [ new york times ] is the same as searching for [ New York Times ] Describe what you need with as few terms as possible. The goal of each word in a query is to focus it further. Since all words are used, each additional word limits the results. If you limit too much, you will miss a lot of useful information.
Next month’s features:
The Internet is the world's largest library. It's just that all the books are on the floor. ~John Allen Paulos Professor, Temple University
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mac tips and tricks Ways to integrate your document camera Podcasting vs. Photostory Into to iLife Etc.!