Inside this issue:Inside this issue:Inside this issue:Inside this issue:

Make Your Website Count 1

Misc. Tips 2

SMART Ideas 3

Web 2.0 sites 4

Check Out These Apps 4

Graphic Organizers 5

7 Technology Integration Habits 6

Essential Web Tools 7

Be a Mac Power User 8

Canastota Central School’s Technology Newsletter

WELL CONNECTED!WELL CONNECTED!WELL CONNECTED!WELL CONNECTED!

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FEBRUARY 2013FEBRUARY 2013FEBRUARY 2013FEBRUARY 2013

“Sure they can play Angry Birds and check Facebook, but can they create, edit and send a Pages doc? Kids can pick up

technology must faster than adults, largely due to the programming in their brain, but don’t assume they know WHEN and WHY to use it even if they know the HOW.”

~www.hookedoninnovation.com

Make Your Classroom Website Count

A well-designed website will greatly enhance communication between you, your students and their parents, and provide

24/7 access to classroom resources. It also helps build your digital footprint!

What should a teacher site have on it?

Here are a few suggestions:

• Classroom schedule, calendar, and events.

• Student supply list

• Contact Information

• Classroom Handouts - Anything that you hand out in class can be posted on your webpage.

• Class Rules and Procedures – Explain what your stu-dents need to know to be successful in your class.

• Homework- Posting of assignments helps to keep stu-dents on track. This section can also offer students help with assignments.

• Course Description- Explain what students will be learning, goals, objectives, procedures that will be used in teaching and learning, timelines, etc.

• Useful Links - Share the educational sites that will help your students be successful, or that they can use for research, homework help, etc.

• Information for Parents- This is information you want parents to know that can help you to achieve educational goals. It is a great way to get parents actively involved in a partnership role.

• Links to curriculum information for parents.

• Practice Tests/Quizzes – Periodically post a practice test prior to assessing student’s knowledge in class. This can be an audio clip, a reading multiple choice test or a quiz. Offer a reward to those who complete these online activities.

5 Keyboard Shortcuts You Should

Know About:

CTRL+S (Save)

The first thing we teach students is to save your work early and often! You never know when the program you're

using will stop responding.

CTRL+Z (Undo)

One of the best things about using a computer for content creation is the Undo feature - it will undo your last

action.

CTRL+C (Copy), CTRL+V (Paste)

Another tool that will make your life easier is copying and pasting. It makes moving text, photos, files, folders and

everything else a breeze. In cases where you want to move something instead of copy it, use CTRL+X (Cut) instead of

CTRL+C.

WELL CONNECTED! Page 2

Digital Media Safety Tip:

Photos on social media apps can give away your location because the photos you take with your mobile device are "geotagged." This means the GPS from your phone attaches a location to the photos automatically. There are times when you might want to store this data. But other times it’s an unnecessary security risk. In addition to location, your photos have the time, date and other information embedded in them. Anyone who can find out this information can learn where, when and how a picture was taken. You can remove this information, but the safest option is to make sure it's never saved in the first place. To do this, block your phone from using GPS or Wi-Fi to attach a location to your photos. Stay safe (and keep your chil-dren safe) by disabling the GPS data in your photos. To do this on Android gadgets, go to Settings> Location Services and turn all location services off. For your iPhone, go to Settings>Privacy>Location Services. You can turn Location Services off for everything, or you can turn it off for just the Camera app. Unfortunately, turning off location services changes how some apps work. For example, your map apps are useless without GPS. Some apps will prompt you to turn these services back on when they need it. But be careful, if you do turn it back on, you might forget to turn it off.

Not for education only…

The Farmer’s Almanac online edition: http://www.almanac.com/

Look up sunrise/sunset times for cities around the world -

http://www.sunrisesunset.com/

Find good free stuff - http://www.freecycle.org

Check out these new inventions:

http://www.ideaconnection.com/new-inventions/

Test your brain: http://www.sharpbrains.com/

blog/2007/10/16/brain-teasers-and-games-for-adults-our-top-

50/

https://duckduckgo.com/

A minimal, customizable interface with tons of

shortcuts.

http://yippy.com/

If you want a less offensive search engine, try Yippy. It actively filters out inappropriate content and you can flag a link before you

click on it.

https://www.ixquick.com/

Ixquick doesn't record any of your private information when you search. That includes your IP address, browser information or search history. This means advertisers and law enforcement alike have no chance of

using it against you.

mazoom.mobi

A slim search engine that gives you only results built for mobile gadgets. That means pages will load very quickly and won't run up

your gadget's data usage.

Give these search engines a try!

“While the content of any learning experience is important, the particular content is irrelevant. What

really matters is how students react to it, shape it or apply it.”

- Rob Riordan, President of High Tech High

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Page

The

Tips for a SMARTer classroom!

A web search can be a remarkable tool for students, and instruction on how to search for academic sources will help your

students become critical thinkers and independent learners.

With the materials on this site, you can help your students become skilled searchers, whether they're just starting out with searching, or

ready for more advanced training.

http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searcheducation/index.html

Educational videos, lessons and

games for K-12.

http://www.neok12.com/

www.3dtoad.com Interactive education images. “Putting a spin on education”

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Class Dojo - “Improve behavior, share data, save time. ClassDojo helps teachers improve behavior in their classrooms quickly and easily. It also captures and generates data on behavior that teachers can share with parents and administrators. Teachers can use this app to give students real-time feedback while in class - it will sync with the main ClassDojo website.” https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/classdojo/id552602056?mt=8

Two Great Apps to Try!

Created by a teacher, this is a free site with links to kid-safe websites and activities.

http://www.kidskonnect.com/ http://www.2epub.com/

“Grocery shopping made quick and easy with the features you expect from the #1 grocery shopping list app. Build lists from our extensive product database using text, barcode, or voice search; sync and share lists with other devices and the GroceryiQ.com website; find related coupons and much more!” https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/grocery-iq/id290591617

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This site contains a vast collection of

pre-formatted graphic organizers that you can

integrate into activities and lesson plans or use by

themselves

. Downloadable as pdf, Word document, or view in your

browser.

http://www.thinkport.org/

Technology/template.tp

"Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a

preparation for future living."

~ John Dewey

http://www.smore.com/

Create beautifully designed pages to share

electronically. This tool will facilitate the

construction of flyers but the templates will provide examples of good design principles that students can mimic in their own

design work.

Graphic Organizers Galore!

A Million Books to Read!

http://openlibrary.org/

Open Library is an open, editable library catalog, building towards a web page for every book ever

published, now with a lending library of over 200,000 ebooks!

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Enhanced video production and distribution. Mozilla's Popcorn Maker

is a free tool that teachers can use to create and enhance video tutori-

als, for example, and then distribute them via the Web. The online video-editing tool makes it easy to assemble and publish just about any

type of content on the Web. Use your web browser to combine video

and audio with content from the rest of the web — from text, links and maps to pictures and live feeds.

https://popcorn.webmaker.org/

“Speeding past Steve Jobs’ Post-PC Era into the Age of Mobilism, we can foresee how, by

2015, each and every student in America’s

K-12 classrooms will be using their own

mobile computing device with those devices engendering the most disruptive

transformation in education in 150 years.

Classrooms will move from today’s “I Teach”

teacher-centric and, by and large, ineffective

and boring pedagogy to a “We Learn” pedagogy where the teacher learns along with

the students, mastering content and practicing

the key 21st century skills.

Flipping the classroom is only the

beginning; mobile technologies extend the

classroom to support all-the-time, everywhere learning, to support the linking of the abstract

ideas explored inside the classroom to the real

world of people, places, things outside the classroom. And, most importantly make no

mistake: THIS CHANGE IS

INEVITABLE.”

From the FETC

Virtual Leadership Summit

They always start with the why. Technology for technology’s sake is dangerous. Highly effective teachers who use technology always have a reason for using new technology tools. Whether it saves them time,

improves learning outcomes, or helps with lesson planning, highly effective teachers always start with the why.

They are malleable and can easily adapt. Technology is constantly changing, and the classroom environment will be drastically different in 2 years. Understanding the big picture is key. They embrace change. Most teachers who use technology today are innovators or early adopters. Embracing (not fighting) change is key. The world hates change yet it is the only thing that has brought progress. They share, share, and then share some more. Technology has opened the door for collaboration beyond the school walls. A teacher in Romania can now collaborate with a teacher in the UK. Knowledge is

power, but it is also free (and it should be). Technology lovers share best practices, which benefits everyone (which is the point!)

They think win-win-win-win. Technology cannot work properly if there is not buy-in from the administration, parents, teachers, and the student. First and foremost, there is nothing worse than having an administrator

not embrace technology. Secondly, it is imperative that you show parents the value of technology. Thirdly, as a teacher, you have to truly believe that it can impact learning outcomes. Lastly (and most importantly), students must see the value!

They are extremely thorough and think two steps ahead. How are you going to present new technology at the professional development meeting, especially if you know some teachers don’t embrace change?

Highly effective teachers who use technology already know the answers to any question, and they have concrete examples showing its effectiveness.

They actively care. Teachers who use technology typically are the ones who can’t sleep at night because they are so excited about a lesson plan idea, are thinking of ways to engage their classroom, and pinch

themselves at night, wondering how they get paid to inspire students. They don’t just care; they actively care, and they embrace technology, not because it makes their job easier, but because it allows them to make a greater impact. http://blog.alwaysprepped.com/the-7-habits-of-highly-effective-teachers-who-use-technology/

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Essential Web Tools for Teachers

Productivity Tools:

Evernote is a suite of software and services designed for notetaking and archiving. A "note" can be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten "ink" note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notes can be sorted into folders, then tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched and exported as part of a notebook. Evernote supports most operating system platforms and offers online synchronization and backup services.

http://evernote.com/

Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by Dropbox, Inc., that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, and client software. Dropbox allows users to create a folder on each of their devices, which Dropbox then synchronizes so that it appears to be the same folder (with the same contents) regardless of which device is used to view it. Files placed in this folder also are accessible through the website, as well as mobile devices.

https://www.dropbox.com/

News and Networking:

Flipboard is a social magazine. “Flipboard is on a quest to transform how people discover, view and share content by combining the beauty and ease of print with the power of social media.”

http://flipboard.com/

Scoop.It is a content curator where you can curate information on as many topics as you’d like. The process is described as “scooping” information relevant to your chosen topic.

http://www.scoop.it/

“With so much information available online today, it’s increasingly difficult and time-consuming to find the content we want. That’s where Zite comes in. Zite evaluates millions of new stories every day, looking at the type of article, its key attributes and how it is shared across the web. Zite uses this information to match stories to your personal interests and then delivers them automatically to your iPad or iPhone.”

http://www.zite.com/

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iTunes 11

Can’t get used to the new look of iTunes? Good news - you can get the old iTunes look

back (sidebar and all).

If you're not a fan of browsing your music library with giant covers, and navigating drop-down menus, iTunes 11 will

test your patience! Here’s how to get the old look back: � Get the sidebar back by clicking View > Show

Sidebar (or hitting Alt+Cmd+S). � Get the status bar back by clicking View > Show Status

Bar (or hit Command+/). � Click Songs in the top bar, and sort by Artist for the

traditional list view.

Did Santa bring you a new iPad or iPhone? Here are 6 things you should do immediately,

according to www.zdnet.com: Enable Find My iPad - Find My iPad is a free service that allows you to locate your iPad (or iPhone) on a map when it's lost or misplaced. First, log into your iCloud account or create a new one in Settings > iCloud > Account. Then flip the slider for Find My iPhone in the same area of the Settings app to ON. When panic strikes use a web browser to log into iCloud.com and click the icon for Find My iPhone. Get the AppleCare+ Protection Plan - If you didn't buy the AppleCare+ Protection Plan for your device at the time of purchase, you can purchase the Apple extended warranty for up to 30 days after purchase. In addition to extending the technical support period from 90-days to two years, the new AppleCare+ package offers adds up to two incidents of accidental damage coverage, each subject to a $49 service fee (even if damaged due to negligence). It's well worth the $99. Keep your iPad in a case - The iPad is a thin piece of aluminum and glass and one drop could be fatal. Cases are very personal items, like apparel or a bag, and everyone has a unique sense of style. Shop carefully as cases do not all offer the same level of protection. Opt out of interest-based ads from the iAd network - iAd, Apple's mobile advertising platform, displays relevant ads on your iPad based on your interests. If you do not want to receive these ads (or rather, don't like advertisers tracking your interests) you can opt out by accessing http://oo.apple.com/ from Mobile Safari on your iPad or iPhone while logged into your iTunes account. Disable ad tracking in iOS 6 -There's another place that Apple hides a little ad tracking switch. On your iPad or iPhone, navigate to Settings > General > About > Advertising (third from the bottom) and flip "Limit Ad Tracking" to ON. More information about the setting is available by clicking on the tiny Learn More link at the bottom of that screen. Turn on Passcode Lock and Auto-Lock - If you leave your iPad someplace, anyone can pick it up and look through your email, contacts and photos, in addition to any documents accessible on your device. A simple way to avoid unnecessary data exposure is with a Passcode Lock. You can enable it in Settings > General > Passcode Lock. A Passcode Lock is useless if a thief grabs your iPad while it's awake. It’s advisable to enable Auto-Lock, which times out your iPad after a defined period of inactivity. If you're super security-minded you can also disable the 4-digit "Simple Passcode" in lieu of something more complex. According to Agile-bits, developer of the 1Password, a four-digit passcode can be cracked in 20 minutes, while an eight character passcode comprised of lowercase letters and the spacebar will take 1,000 years to crack.

Colors Utility

Colors Utility might not sound familiar, but there’s a good chance you’ve used it without realizing. In apps like Text Edit, Mail and

Pages, there is a utility that lets you choose the colors you want for text, backgrounds, etc. You may find it in the Inspector in the native Apple apps, or in various menus, but it usually can be found with the

keyboard shortcut (Command + Shift + C). Once opened, you are able to select the color you want by choosing it via the virtual box of

crayons or from the full color spectrum.

If you’d like to select a specific color from a source on your screen, you can use the magnifying glass, found in the upper part of the Colors window. If you click the magnifying glass, you can then

hover over any part of your screen and then click to pick the color your cursor is over. Once the color is picked, it is now your active

color and you can drag it to some highlighted text or shape to change

the color of that element.