Educational Technology Conference ISTE

The International Society for Technology in Education Conference (ISTE) is the premier membership association for educators and education leaders engaged in improving teaching and learning by advancing the effective use of technology in PK–12 and teacher education. ISTE is home to the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS), and ISTE's annual conference and exposition, (formerly known as NECC). ISTE represents more than 100,000 professionals worldwide.

Can't be at the conference this year? You can still participate in many ways: You can follow ISTE events via our wiki, Twitter, ISTE Mobile app, ISTE Nings, ISTE-Vision, Facebook, etc.
I am particularly excited about the ISTE mobile app.

Using the free ISTE Mobile app, conference goers can network with other educators, get up-to-the-minute news through blogs and Twitter updates, and gain access to a valuable set of educational resources such as ISTE's ed tech standards, articles, and podcasts.

Teachers who are not attending ISTE will find the app a useful way to connect and feel part of the conference. Find sessions, links to resources, and a community of teachers interested in technology!

Online Photo Editors

Online photo editors abound nowadays. Dumpr.net, Picnik.com, Fotoflexer.com and Picture2Life.com to name just a few. Some of the fun things you can at online photo editors are:

• Upload most common file format used in digital cameras
• Edit your photos in a few simple clicks
• Fine-tune your results
• Crop, resize, and rotate in real-time
• Use special effects, from artsy to fun
• Access many artsy fonts
• Save photo right to your computer
• Platform independent
• No download required, nothing to install
• All photos are private by default

Let’s look at some examples: First find a picture you want to use, for example this cute baby. Now let's edit the photo using a few fun photo features found Dumpr.net:

Here are a few more sites you might like to try:

• LunaPic.com
• Phixr.com
• flauntR.com
• pixer.us
• Pixlr.com
• SplashUp.com

Have fun fixing and remixing photos! Send us any examples you would like us to post.

Earth to teachers....that would be literally :)

"How geeks show they care" http://www.geogreeting.com.
(if the movie doesn't play, click here)



Do you want a fun, 'earthy' way to send a greeting to a friend? Then go to GeoGreetings:

Be prepared to spend a lot of time when you go there. You will be hooked and you will want to send GeoGreetings to all your family and friends.

It's fun to spell words using buildings that are shaped like alphabet letters. These building have been found on Google Earth by avid searchers. The letter A is found in Bangkok, B is located in the Canary Islands, C is in Germany. D is a lake in Moscow, and so on. Utah gives us the letter K --found in Salt Lake City.

Student will love this site. They might even enjoy seeing their spelling list written in GeoGreetings. Maybe they can find letters or symbols elsewhere on Google Earth.

Just for fun: Take a look at this heart-shaped island found in Croatia!

Open Office

Teachers sometimes ask about getting Microsoft Office for home use. Rather than buying Office, I would like to suggest a free alternative, OpenOffice.

OpenOffice includes powerful applications for making text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, diagrams, databases, and much more. Given that the full suite is free, this is one of the best deals you'll find in all of computing.

OpenOffice has six full-blown applications; 1-Writer (a word processor very similar to Word), 2-Calc (a spreadsheet program similar to Excel), 3-Impress (a presentation program similar to PowerPoint) 4-Base database (similar to Access), 5-Math equation editor, and 6-Draw graphics program.

Let's open OpenOffice and see how it looks:


The OpenOffice interface is looks a lot like the MS Office interface, and even advanced Office users will find nearly everything they're used to in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Let's take a look at a few screen shots from three of the applications in OpenOffice:

Writer (similar to Word)


Calc (similar to Excel):


Impress (Similar to PowerPoint):

Most of your questions about OpenOffice can be answered at their website, but let's go through a few frequently asked questions here:

FAQ's
Can I open my Office documents in OpenOffice?
Yes. Writer opens Word documents, Calc opens Excel documents, Impress opens PowerPoints.

How do I get OpenOffice?
Download it at http://www.openoffice.org.

Is it available for Mac, Windows, and Linux?
Yes. It is available on several platforms, all free downloads.

It starts out free, but will it always be free?
Yes, OpenOffice is an open source software. It will always be free.

How do I update OpenOffice?
In the OpenOffice Help menu, choose "Check for Updates"

Where can I get training on how to use it?
http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org
YouTube.com has a plethora of very good OpenOffice tutorials.

Can I use Office and OpenOffice on the same computer?
Yes, you may have both programs installed on your computer and choose which program you wish to use.

Is OpenOffice better than Office?
The best thing to do is to try it for yourself and make that determination. Over 500 million people have downloaded OpenOffice. It is available in many different languages.

Is support available for my questions about OpenOffice?
Yes. http://support.openoffice.org

What is the coolest thing about OpenOffice?
In my opinion, Portability. A revolutionary feature of OpenOffice is that you can download a portable version, write it to a flash drive and keep it in your pocket to use on any computer you meet on your way. Can you imagine doing so with Microsoft Office?