Inside this issue:

New Year’s Resolutions 1

21st Century Schools 1

Lucy Phone 1

Just for Fun Websites 2

GroupWise Tip 2

Lino, Clip Grab, etc. 2

SMARTer Classroom 3

Virtual Field Trips 4, 5

Mac Tips 6

Holland Patent Central School’s Technology Newsletter

Well Connected! VOLUME 2 ISSUE 4

JANUARY 2011

“First of all, technologies are not an end in themselves; technologies are tools students use to create knowledge

and to create personal and social change.” 21stCenturySchools.com

“The reality of education is the

world is a diverse place and we’re

all global citizens.”

~Rob Abel,

CEO IMS Global Learning Consortiums

What Will They Think of Next?

Tired of waiting on hold for

customer service?

LucyPhone will call the company

and wait on hold for you. When

a customer service representa-

tive is available, LucyPhone will

call you!

http://www.lucyphone.com/

Enter the number of the com-

pany you want to call. The site

even has a large database of

company numbers. Then enter

your phone number.

Ten Technology New Year’s Resolutions

(How many will you keep?)

10. I will read all dialog and warning boxes when they

appear.

9. I will save my files early-and often, and remind my

students to do the same.

8. I will think twice before posting photos on Facebook,

Twitter, or other social networking service.

7. I will not believe everything I read via electronic mail.

6. I will use GroupWise for more than just email.

5. I will keep my school webpage current and relevant.

4. I will use my SMARTBoard for more than Power

Point and video streaming.

3. I will participate in at least one video conference or

online collaboration.

2. I will learn to use a social bookmarking tool

1. I will do my best to provide my students with a 21st

Century classroom.

What is 21st Century Education?

“One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age I always did it for half-

an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/

What_is_21st_Century_Education.htm

WELL CONNECTED! Page 2

GroupWise Tip:

Rules let you set up automatic actions for

GroupWise to take. For example, you can have all

messages from a specific person, or about a cer-

tain subject routed to go directly into a specific

folder rather than into your mailbox. Or set up a

rule for an automatic reply when you are out of

the office.

To create a rule, go to Tools>Rules and click on

“New.” Enter a name for the rule, select what

type of items the rule is for (Ex. Received mail

messages), and define the conditions for the rule

and the action to take. Rules that involve a reply,

such as vacation rules, keep a record of who a

reply has been sent to, and reply only once to

each sender.

Just for fun…

http://www.speak-a-message.com/en/download.html-email a voice message!

http://www.oldforgeny.com/ - Old Forge in-vites you to “come play!” http://www.groupon.com/ - one great coupon

every day, organized by city. http://www.thehappynews.com/ - Too many

depressing news stories? All you’ll find here is happy news!

Set your background to look like a cork board or use a picture. Then add stickies (with or without due dates), images, videos, documents and even private notes that are viewable by only you. Great homepage for a class project.

Access from anywhere you have Internet

access

Create a group and share your stickies

Set due dates on your stickies and receive an

email reminder

Attach files to your stickies

Easy (and free) Screen Sharing and Remote Access Tool

How would this be useful? If you have a computer

question or problem, have a friend remotely take a look.

Or, you can collaborate on a document or program. Even attend a mini-training session!

https://join.me/

http://en.linoit.com/

http://clipgrab.de/info_en.html

Free software for downloading online videos.

With ClipGrab you can download online clips from many

sites with just some clicks and then automatically convert them into "usable" files. This way, you can watch your fa-

vorite clips again and again wherever and whenever you

like. And since ClipGrab can also save your videos as au-dio files, you can also put them on your mp3 player if you

like.

Mastering Prezi!

Using Prezi? Finding it confusing? You’ll find

some great tips here:

http://tippingpointlabs.com/2010/11/22/10-tips-to

-help-master-prezi/

Page 3 VOLUME 2 ISSUE 4

Come share your “SMART” ideas!

HP has a SMARTBoard Users’ Group! Once

a month we get together to share ideas

and help new users. Everyone is welcome.

Join us and check out the amazing things

you can do with this exciting technology.

In the meantime, check out the resources

assembled on the HP SMARTBoard webpage

(www.hpschools.org, click on Technology in

our Schools. Feel free to leave share your

own ideas and tips on our blog!)

Questions? Email Krista DiCesare or

Margaret McNamara.

http://trainer.thetamusic.com/en

MUSIC TRAINING GAMES

Specially designed games for

musicians

Learn to improvise and play music

by ear

Improve your musical sense

Understand the patterns in music

Tips for a SMARTer

classroom! You can add images from your Notebook

page to the Gallery by dragging the image

from the page onto the Gallery tab.

To add Flash files, press the Add/Import but-

ton in the Gallery and select Import Flash File. Navigate to the file and press Open.

If you lose a pen from the pen tray, you must

place another object in the empty slot.

Otherwise, the interactive whiteboard senses that

a tool is missing and assumes that you’re using it

when you press on

the interactive screen.

Kindergarten through 5th grade

Interactive Whiteboard Lessons

http://www.learningtoday.com/corporate/interactive-whiteboard-

lessons.asp

Page

The

Presenting to a group or class? You can save your presentation as a video.

Before you begin your presentation, open

SMART Recorder and press the Record but-ton. When you finish presenting, press the

Stop button in SMART Recorder.

You’ve just created a video file that shows

everything you did at the interactive screen

during your presentation. If your setup in-cludes a microphone, this file will also con-

tain your narration. You can play back this

file using SMART Video Player.

VOLUME 2 ISSUE 4 Page 4

http://www.efieldtrips.org/

eFieldTrips consist of four major components:

Trip Journal - First, the teacher downloads and gives students copy of a printed Trip Journal. It is a simple one

page fill-in the blank type worksheet that helps to keep the students focused and provides a way for the teacher to grade student participation if he desires. The students fill-out the Trip Journal while they are completing the

next component, the Virtual Visit.

Virtual Visit - The Virtual Visit is an interactive Flash movie that teaches the students about the eFieldTrip

topic. It can be completed at anytime and at the student's own pace. It typically takes about 15 minutes for a stu-

dent to go through the Virtual Visit.

Ask the Experts - After completing the Virtual Visit, students have an opportunity to interact with the experts.

Students can ask questions via an "Ask the Experts" web form, and receive an answer in 1-2 days.

Live Chat - Another way students can interact with experts is by participating in a live web chat at a scheduled

time.

For other virtual field trips, check out these sites:

http://www.windowsintowonderland.org/

National Park Service's series of electronic field trips exploring Yellowstone National Park, is a set of charming Flash

animations that intercut cartoons with actual photos of the park.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark/ Clicking on points along a sepia-toned map lets students trace

Lewis and Clark's search for a water route from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast. Along the way, they’ll learn about the approximately 300 new plant and animal species the explorers encountered and read about their run-ins with

grizzly bears, their perilous passage through the Bitterroot Mountains, and, of course, their famous partnership with the

Native American Sacagawea.

For an extensive database of virtual field trips, check out these sites:

http://www.theteachersguide.com/virtualtours.html

http://www.simplek12.com/virtualfieldtrips

http://www.field-trips.org/trips.htm

VOLUME 2 ISSUE 4 Page 5

How to Have a successful Virtual Field Trip

1. Have a Goal

"One thing I look for is a purpose," says Angie Haynes, a media specialist at Altamaha Elementary School, in Bax-ley, Georgia, who is a fan of virtual field trips. "I have found some really great tours that don't just take the students

through some pictures but also have them searching for particular information and learning in-depth, specific things

about their topic." In other words, she says, make sure the trip explores an idea, not just a place.

2. Keep It Short

Dan Buettner, founder of the virtual field trip Blue Zones (http://quest.bluezones.com/education/ ), points out that teachers are under increasing pressure to teach to testing standards, which doesn't leave much time for extras. That's

why his site’s basic lesson plans can be accomplished in ten minutes a day. "The only way you make these success-

ful is if you figure out how you can do them very quickly or after school," he says.

3. Continue the Lesson Offline

One of Angie Haynes's favorite assignments is having students keep a travel journal of the countries they visit online. She supplements their virtual trips by bringing in food, music, or clothing from the cultures they're explor-

ing.

University of Minnesota researcher Aaron Doering, who works with the Arctic-research project GoNorth! (http://

www.polarhusky.com/ , favors what he calls a "hybrid experience," making sure the online adventure ties in with ac-

tivities the class can do sans computer. "It still comes down to pedagogy -- how it's going to be utilized within the

classroom," he says.

4. Link Up

The next wave in virtual adventure learning, Doering says, will be user-driven technologies that help students and

teachers develop their own field trips to share with schools around the world. After all, who knows how to teach the

geography of the Mississippi River better than a Midwestern teacher, or the history of the Spanish missions better

than her California counterpart?

Similarly, says Harvard's Chris Dede, students can benefit from field trips that let classrooms around the world

compare notes afterward via blogs or online chats. "That kind of experience, where students realize that other peo-

ple watching exactly the same thing have different interpretations, is very valuable," he says.

5. Know the Limits

Virtual field trips work well for some teaching goals, but less so for others, cautions Florida Institute of Technology

professor Tom Marcinkowski, a member of the North American Association for Environmental Education (http://

www.naaee.org/ ). They're useful for helping students learn about remote destinations, and some students may find

online chats just as instructive as face-to-face lessons.

But if your goal is to foster a healthy appreciation for the outdoors, Marcinkowski says, you'll have to go outside. In

addition to being good exercise, he adds, real field trips "dispose students toward an appreciation of nature and a familiarity with it, a sense of comfort being in the natural world" -- and instilling that appreciation is a key to teach-

ing good environmental citizenship.

~from www.edutopia.org

Page 6 VOLUME 2 ISSUE 4

Customize Your Mac with a Screen Saver

Screen savers offer a great way to customize your Mac. You have a variety of screen savers to choose

from:

1. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.

2. Click Desktop & Screen Saver; then click the Screen Saver tab. The column on the left lists

the possibilities.

3. You can also tell Mac OS X to generate a screen saver automatically based on the album art in your

iTunes library or the photos in your iPhoto library.

See Your Way Clear with Exposé

Mac OS X offers a simple way to see what's on your desktop when you have a lot of windows open. It’s called Exposé,

and here’s how you can use it.

* Press the F9 key and Exposé instantly creates thumbnails of the open windows and displays them neatly on your screen. Click the window you want, and Exposé brings it to the front, switching automatically to the appropriate applica-

tion.

* You can press the F10 key to create thumbnails of the open windows of your current application. Or F11 to move all

open windows to the side, so you can see the files on your desktop.

Quickly Switch Between Applications

The Mac makes it easy to have multiple applications — Safari, iTunes, Pages, iChat, iPhoto, etc. — open at the same

time. So how do you quickly switch from Safari, let’s say, to Mail?

Just hold down the Command key and press the Tab key (Command-Tab). Mac OS X immediately displays a mini-Dock

with icons for each of your open applications. At the left side of the mini-Dock, you’ll see the icon for your current ap-

plication. Next to it (and highlighted), you’ll find the icon for the application you last used. Each time you press the Tab key (without releasing the Command key), you can cycle through your open applications.

Note: You can also use the Left Arrow and Right Arrow keys to navigate your open applications.

Capture Screen Shots

In Mac OS X, you can use simple keyboard shortcuts to do all sorts of things, including capturing images of what’s on

your Mac screen. For example, you can take a screen shot of your entire screen by holding down the Command and Shift keys and pressing a 3. If you hold down the Command and Shift keys and press 4, Mac OS X turns the cursor into cross-

hairs you can use to select whatever portion of your display you’d like to capture in a screen shot.

If you immediately hit the Spacebar after typing Command-Shift-4, Mac OS X replaces those crosshairs with a little

camera. Using the camera, you can take a screen shot of the Dock, the entire menu bar, a single open menu, the desktop,

or any open window.

There’s an

App For

That!

2/3 of children age 4-7 have

used an iPhone or iTouch, and

87% have used one owned by

their parent.

Mobile applications based on PBS KIDS programs

were independently evaluated with 90 children age

3-7 who played with them for 3 weeks. Children

made gains in vocabulary comprehension, letter

identification and rhyming.