My Bag of Tips

Best Classroom Graphics EVER

2011-09-30T22:49:00.000-07:00

I just found the best graphics for elementary teachers. Thistle Girl Designs
She has the cutest artwork designs for elementary teachers. I normally do not sign up and pay for artwork, but this gal has the cutest artwork I have EVER seen.

I love her designs. and I am sure you will too. Go check out her website. It is darling. You may fall in love with it as I have!

2011-09-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

Ryan caught a 4 lb bass. Grandpa took a picture of the proud little guy with his catch. Grandma (me) used Pages, part of the iWork suite, to create a fake magazine cover.

The tip that helped me the most: When using the Wrap Inspector, set the Object causes wrap, then set the extra space to zero. That allows you to place images and text very close or even right on top of each other.

Pages has become my favorite word processing program. I practically never use Microsoft Word any more. I hope you find Pages as fun as I have.

Educational Technology Conference ISTE

2010-04-27T22:03:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-26T21:58:00.000-07:00

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:

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

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

2010-04-24T21:57:00.000-07:00

"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

2010-04-22T21:55:00.000-07:00

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?

New Team Members

2009-06-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

This will be an interesting NECC. We have new team members, Harrison B. and Nancy L., coming on board. Harrison will attend NECC with, however Nancy cannot attend this year. I want to be extra careful to document the sessions and workshops I attend so that Nancy can read my blog posts to get a feel for what I am learning.

NECC is such a great opportunity to recharge my batteries and connect with other educators in my PLN as well as meet new people who will become part of my PLN.

This is the first year I have done pre-conference work such as setting up this ISTE Community blog, signed up for BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop Sessions) as well as scanned carefully through the conference planner. My calendar is already filled for the entire conference. There are so many sessions I want to attend and just not enough time!

As President-elect of UCET (Utah Coalition on Educational Technology), so I am going to attend the ISTE affiliate meeting with the incoming UCET President, Paula Wells. We hope to get lots of ideas for the 2010 UCET Conference.

Counting down, only 9 days before we are there!

Twitter Search

2009-06-16T18:06:00.000-07:00

It seems ironic to blog about Twitter search. Why not just tweet about it? Well, I did, but more people that I am trying to reach look at my blog than Twitter. So here goes:

Start Twittering, and use Twitter search! Why? Want to find out about what's happening in Iran, the new iPhone, or even with Angelina Jolie? You ain't gonna find that here. But if you join Twitter and use the search box, you will find out more than you ever thought you would know!

Everybody is sending out little messages on Twitter about their favorite topics. Once you search for a topic, you will see a bajillion Tweets, or comments, about that topic. Here's a short video explaining how to use it, click on the following image:
CommonCraft makes fantastic, easy to understand videos! Enjoy.

Blogging at NECC

2009-06-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

As NECC approaches, I wanted to get my ISTE community blog set up. My main goals will be to share my NECC experience with others, network with other teachers from around the world, post comments and pictures of my NECC experience, and have a great time.

I have been following the informative daily NECC posts. Each one has interesting ideas that make me think about technology in education. I love these posts! Pick one, any one. You will enjoy it.

Wolfram|Alpha The World’s Most Powerful Knowledge Engine

Only 10 days before we leave! I am so excited!

The Big Split

2009-06-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

Coming on July 1st, the Jordan District will split into two districts:

Jordan District on the west side of the south Salt Lake Valley
Canyons District on the east side of the valley.

It has been an interesting year as people have left Jordan to start up Canyons. It does feel a bit like a divorce, but I think a fairly amicable divorce.

We all are working for the students so that we continue to provide them with the best educational experiences possible. Although it is sad that I will not see my friends on the east side as often as I have, I look forward to meeting other teachers and students on the west side on the valley.

I think we are going to have a great year on both sides. After all, it is all about the kids!
Good luck Jordan! Good luck Canyons!

Technology Conferences, Twitter

2009-06-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

The 2009 5th annual TTIX Conference held at Utah Valley University was a lot of fun. The sessions are all online.

There was a social media contest to crown the next Grand Poo-bah. Here is a picture of the crown the lucky winner will get.

Lots of Twittering going on at TTIX got me to thinking who I follow and why. Here are my favorite groups I follow:

I am now setting my sights on NECC09 in Washington, DC. I am looking forward to sessions on social media, Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, blogging, and Google.

NECC09 - Washington DC

2009-06-02T18:12:00.001-07:00

I am really excited about going to NECC this year. I have signed up for some great workshops and look forward to learning more about topics relevant to educational technology.
.

Susan Boyle: Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover.

2009-04-13T00:20:00.000-07:00

This 47 yr old unmarried, unemployed Scottish woman gave one of the most amazing singing performances I have ever seen.

She came out on stage on Britains Got Talent 2009. People snickered at her before she even spoke, writing her off because of her dress and looks. Audience members rolled their eyes, snickered, and grimmaced when she said she would like to be a professional singer like Elaine Paige seen below:

Then Susan Boyle started singing. WOW. The video has gone viral, and I want to put in my two cents. She is incredible. Here she is singing I Dreamed A Dream from Les Miserables. She is amazing. I hope we see more of her.

Quicksilver

2009-03-12T22:49:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we want our students to be able to REALLY see a message. Quicksilver can help us do that. Look at the image below. See how the word 'quicksilver' really pops out at you?

Want to see how to do this?

The following video explains how to download and set up Quicksilver so you can create those large, easy-to-read messages on your screen. Although there are many other uses for Quicksilver, this post discusses the 'large type' effect you see in the images here.

http://screencast.com/t/PyEHKMjh

There are multiple ways to find and download Quicksilver. It can be downloaded from www.blacktree.com or just Google "Quicksilver for Mac". It will be the first or second hit. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Mouseposé

2009-03-11T21:54:00.001-07:00

Some teachers have purchased Mouseposé from Boinx Software and have asked me to create a tutorial on how to use it. So here it is: Mouseposé Tutorial.

Mouseposé highlights the screen area around the mouse pointer and visualizes keystrokes and mouse clicks. For more information about Mouseposé, go to www.boinx.com.

This program is not free. I am posting this tutorial by request.

Draper Elementary Podcast

2009-02-25T13:54:00.000-08:00

I had such a delightful experience at Draper Elementary. I worked with Mrs. Valdez's student teacher, Miss Evans and her class in creating a podcast on sound. I brought in 30 headsets so that each student could have their own headset.

We talked about how students would record their script in GarageBand, add photos, jingles, zingers, and sound effects. Students practiced their part so that when they recorded their final version they could do their best.

We found that we needed more than one hour to do a podcast from start to finish because we wanted students to experience GarageBand, adding images, sound etc. We could have just recorded the podcast with an iPod and a microphone, but that would have just been getting the job done rather than have authentic learning going on.

Mrs. Valdez has a great group of students. They were fun, respectful, and very excited about learning something new.

Using Wikis with Radiology Residents

2009-02-04T20:27:00.000-08:00

My sister, Susie Muir, MD, PhD, asked me to help her get a website up and running for UCLA radiology residents to share their cases online.

The residents don't have much time to spend on learning how to edit webpages, so we wanted a type of web page that was quick and easy to use. We decided to use a wiki--and over the last few weeks we developed The Pediatric Imaging Wiki.

We iChat quite often at night tossing ideas around, trying to refine the wiki and make the navigation easy to understand. During this process, we realized that a website is a living thing. It will change over time, and we must to listen to the ideas and concerns of the residents who are using the wiki so that we can improve and make it as accessible as possible. To this end, we created several video tutorials for the doctors to explain how they could start a case page, add the radiographic, MRI and/or CT images and how to add links to resources.

Things are coming along. Several very interesting cases have been uploaded. One med student was so excited about the wiki that she uploaded a case, learned to use a software program to create a movie of the MRI images she had taken, and listed some great resources.

Each Thursday my sister chooses a case of the week and presents an award to the doctor who has uploaded the most interesting or challenging case that week. The interest in the wiki is growing as more and more residents hear about it and want to participate.

It has been a really fun project on which to work. I am learning a lot about radiology in the process. My sister is a brainiac and funny as can be, so this project is not work, but fun.

Mrs. Mackay 's Class Personal Narratives

2009-01-23T11:28:00.000-08:00

I have had a lot of fun working at Altara Elementary with Mrs. Mackay's 6th grade class on writing projects. Each student in the class wrote a personal narrative in a program called Pages. Pages is one of the three programs in the iWorks suite. The students had fun choosing a template. There are so many beautiful looking templates, it was hard for some kids to choose.
We then printed out the narratives on white cardstock and bound them into a book using the Cerlox binder. the book looked great!

The next week we recorded the narratives in GarageBand. The students burned two CD's. One to take home and another to tape to the back of their personal narrative in the book. The book will be kept in the classroom. Students will be able to listen to their peers' narratives whenever they have free time.

Mrs. Mackay said that her students were so excited to do this project. They liked writing the story in Pages. The loved recording their narrative. They were super excited to be able to take a CD home for their family to listen to their project.

Mrs. Mackay has a wonderful group of students. I enjoy working with students who are so energetic, nice, and respectful. Great job Mrs. Mackay's 6th Grade Class!

Willow Canyon 4th Grade Podcast

2009-01-02T14:19:00.000-08:00

Recently I had spent time with Mrs. Morrison and her 4th grade class working on a podcast about the history of Utah. Mrs. Morrison is so willing to integrate technology into her curriculum, and her students are amazingly quick learners. We had some technical problems, however everybody just rolled with the punches, worked through the issues, and came out on the other side intact and excited!

Mrs. Morrison began by creating a general script for the podcast, and each student was given a part. When I arrived at her class, everybody was ready to learn how to record their script using GarageBand. After a 25 minute lesson on how to use the software, each student was given a headset, and the began recording their script.
As students practiced their scripts, they realized that we all use little idiosyncracies in our speech patterns such as “um” , “uhh” and so on. They kept re-recording their parts and working on making their recordings sound natural. Soon the class felt they were ready to record the final version.

Mrs. Morrison had the students record their script in a quiet room. It only took about 30 minutes to record the entire class. The students had their script with them as they recorded, however they had practiced so much that they focused on sounding natural, and most students required only one take. Recording the final take was the easiest part of all because the students we so prepared. What a phenomenal class!

The next step was to the edit images that Mrs. Morrison and I had collected. The students edited the images in a free online editing site called Picnik. (Side note: Another good free online editing site is Fotoflexer.com) Lastly, Mrs Morrison inserted the edited images into the enhanced podcast track of GarageBand and saved the project as a podcast. The class watched the podcast on their big screen. It was exciting to see how everything came together at last.

Due to a couple of computer glitches and technical server issues, Mrs. Morrison and I decided to upload the podcast to the T4 server. Because the T4 team uses a podcast template, I imported the podcast track into iMovieHD, added some transitions and text as well as the T4 Tips Podcast logo. The podcast can be found on the T4 website. Just click on T4 Tips Podcasts.

A big shout out to Mrs. Morrison and her class for all their hard work. I thoroughly enjoyed each student. They were extremely courteous, hard workers, and a lot of fun!

JOKE FOR YOUR CLASS:
How did the farmer fix his jeans?
With a cabbage patch. (hee, hee)

Crescent Elementary's Smartboards

2008-12-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

A big shout out to Crescent Elementary Principal Debbie Shumard and teachers Casey Draper, Angie Drope, and Amanda Oettli for showing me how they are integrating their SmartBoards into their daily curriculum.

SmartBoards? What are they and why do they seem to be popping up everywhere? And more importantly, how are teachers integrating them into their curriculum?

Recently I met with Principal Debbie Shumard at Crescent Elementary to chat about the SmartBoards that have been installed into 15 classrooms at her school. We visited three classrooms to see teachers and students in action. It was really a lot of fun!

First, Mrs. Drope’s 3rd grade classroom. Her class was doing a synonym sort and match. Students were excited to go up to the board, find synonyms, and drag them to the bottom of the page. They discussed why they thought the words were synonyms. The students pretty much ignored the visitors because they wanted to see what was happening up at the board. Mrs. Drope said she really liked using the SmartBoard because her students were so excited about participating during lessons.

Next, Miss Draper’s 6th grade classroom. Her class was learning how to convert mixed numbers into improper fractions. Miss Draper had downloaded the lesson (which was matched to state standards) from the SMART Notebook lesson activities. The lesson included several interactive problems. We watched as a mixed number slowly morphed into an improper fraction.

Students were anxious to go to the board to work on problems. The entire class was fully engaged in the lesson whether they were up at the board or at their seat. Students said they like the interactivity, the size of the text, the colors, and the way the numbers moves around on the screen.

Last, Mrs. Oettli’s 3rd grade classroom. The students used the board to explain multiplication arrays, for example 2 x 3 or 4 x 6. They began by drawing an array on a 3x5 card (no pun intended). Then they created their array on the board with colored dots. All students anxiously watched as one person created their array on the board. They explained to me how to generate another colored dot by clicking on the ‘master’ dot. It was fun watching how excited the students were each time somebody went up to the board.

Some background: Principal Shumard initially introduced the idea of getting SmartBoards to the faculty last year. She asked the faculty to do a little online research about SmartBoard use. At a later faculty meeting she told her staff about classrooms she had visited where the boards were being effectively integrated into the curriculum.

She proposed the idea of purchasing the boards. Five teams indicated that they would all be interested in using them. Currently they have 3 in Kindergarten, 1 in 2nd grade, 4 in 3rd grade, 1 in 4th grade, 3 in 5th grade, and 3 in 6th grade.

The boards had been installed less than a month when I visited Crescent Elementary. I was impressed by how quickly and seamlessly the teachers have integrated SmartBoards and Notebook lessons into all aspects of their daily teaching. What a fun experience! Thanks again for a fun and enlightening experience.

How I embedded the slide shows into a blog post:
1-Download images into iPhoto.
2-Export selected images right from iPhoto into your Picasa account.
3-In Picasa, click on "Link to this Album" then click on "Embed Slideshow".
4-Picasa generates code.
5-Copy code.
6-Return to your blog post. Click 'HTML'.
7-Paste code in desired spot.
8-Preview post.
9-When satisfied with your work, Publish Post.

For a more complete explanation including screen shots, visit the Engaged Classroom blog at: http://jsdengaged.blogspot.com/

Mrs. McShinsky’s Class & The Clickers

2008-12-02T16:08:00.000-08:00

On a recent visit to Alta View Elementary and Mrs. McShinsky’s 6th grade class, her students shared their thoughts with me about their new set of Senteo clickers. (class response systems)

(can you find 5 things that were not in the picture when it was taken?
If not, you may want to look at www.fotoflexer.com)

After a really fun demonstration of how they use the clickers during Math, I asked the students what they liked or disliked the most about the clickers.
Here is a sample of their replies:

What we like:

They’re a lot of fun

They simplify work.
Makes doing math and reading faster.
Clickers help save paper, go green.
Saves time, do not need to pass out papers.
Do not need write all of our answers down.
Students see their scores immediately.
The teacher can print off a report telling what kids got right, so it saved correcting time and gives us more time with our teacher.
Takes off the pressure. When the teacher looks at the results, she can see what we did wrong and figure out a way to help us.

(Do you know why this picture is so puzzling?
If not, you may want to look at www.picnik.com)

What we do not like:
We have to share them with other classes.

Mrs. McShinsky finds ready-made lessons and tests online that are aligned to the Utah core curriculum. She spends less time spent on creating lessons, writing quizzes, and grading paper, and more time on interacting with students.

And best of all,students want to improve their scores. They willingly ask for help on problems they missed so that they can score higher on a redo test. Kudos to Mrs. McShinsky and her class for diving right in there with the clickers and finding wonderful ways to use them.

Check out Mrs. McShinsky’s blog on the right hand side of this page. You will find more great ideas from her there.

A math joke for your class:
Five out of four people are bad with fractions.

Mrs. Watson's 6th Grade Class Learns To Use Inspiration Software!

2008-11-22T12:10:00.000-08:00

My shout out this week is to Mrs. Watson 6th grade class at Willow Springs Elementary. The students learned how to use Inspiration software to think, brainstorm, organize, and write about themselves. Let’s take a look: (created in ComicLife)

Teachers like Inspiration because we can see how the program uses Inspiration's ‘inspired standards match’ to support Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, Math and Fine Arts curriculum standards and objectives.

Students like Inspiration because they can see how fun it is to think, plan, organize, and write.

The class enjoyed the "Rapid Fire' tool, which allowed them to quickly create sub-categories. They also liked toggling between diagram and outline view because they could see their thoughts organized visually or in outline format.

I overheard one student say, “Hey this is how we can get our ideas organized”. That's what it's all about.

Mrs. Watson and her class did a fantastic job working through a couple of little glitches we encountered. We found that when changing the font, Inspiration unexpectedly quit on several laptops. My colleagues on the T4 team will look into that glitch to see what is causing it.

We also had a teensy bit of trouble logging onto the school folder.

We worked through these little problems, got everything resolved, and even had enough time to download the pictures I took into iPhoto and create a slide show.

Thanks to Mrs. Watson’s 6th grade class for a fun day letting me be part of your class. I enjoyed working with you and showing you how easy-to-use and really fun Inspiration can be.

For more information about how you can integrate Inspiration into your curriculum, check out their sample lesson plans, videos, and the Inspiration "Learning Community", a page with really great lesson ideas created by other educators!

Congratulations to Willow Springs Principal, Sharyle Karren who was recently recognized as Literacy Principal of the Year at the 43rd Utah Council of International Reading Association Convention for her passion and commitment to literacy.

A shout out to Peggy Robison's class at Edgemont Elementary for learning how to use Inspiration software. A few days after our lesson using the laptops, Mrs. Robison's students used Inspiration in the lab for their NOVA (formerly DARE) essay. Awesome job!

A joke for your class:
Why did the whale cross the road?
To get to the other tide!

ComicLife

2008-11-04T15:17:00.000-08:00

ComicLife is one of my favorite programs. It is so easy to learn and fun to use. Why ComicLife in the Classroom? Great article from MacInstruct.com. What can you do with it? Let's look at a comic of my recent trip:

The ComicLife Gallery at Plasq.com has some of cute ideas. Recently I bought a fantastic book called ComicLife for Educators, which is jammed packed with ideas on how to use ComicLife in the curriculum. Here are a few ideas.

If you would like me to come out and work with your class on a ComicLife (or any other application) project, please let me know.

Remember: Assignment sheets and timecards are due by Nov 30th--since that is a Sunday, you may turn them in to me before Thanksgiving or on Monday, December 1st. If you need to speak with me about anything --help, problems with equipment, or if you are just frustrated and feeling like this guy---->

I am available at 567-8726. Call me and let's chat. I am here to help you have a successful year incorporating your new technology tools into your curriculum.

Our Engaged Classroom blog is located at:
http://jsdengaged.blogspot.com

Congrats to Casey Draper, Bonnie Dixon, and Sandy Lloyd at Crescent Elementary for their wonderful discussion of the book, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction That Works . This can be found here. Hey, when you have one of the authors of the book congratulating you on such a fine job, you know you are doing great.

Congrats to Trish Morrison for being one of The Board of Education’s Five-Star Award winners. We are so proud of you!

A joke for your class:
Why do seagulls live near the sea?
Because if they lived near the bay, they would be called bagels.

Jing Project

2008-10-01T17:07:00.000-07:00

In my job I often explain complex directions to teachers on the phone. Occasionally it takes quite a long time to explain something. I often wish I could easily make a quick video and just send it to the teacher so they could actually see "how to". I have not been able to do that easily before---but then came JingProject.com.So what is Jing, and how does it work? It is a program that instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere. How does it work?

1- Download and install the program.2-The program icon, a sun, sits in the upper right corner of my Mac. When I mouse over it, the program shows 3 yellow circles, each with an option: Capture, History, More.

3-Click on the top yellow circle with the plus sign (+). You will be prompted to indicate which part of the screen you wish to capture.

4- The control bar will appear. Choose image or video option, click your option and begin.
5- You will see a 3-2-1 countdown to give you time to clear your throat or take a drink of water.

6-Record your video.

7-Click Share. Jing conveniently places a URL to your content which you can paste into any of your conversations, emails, documents, blogs, etc.

That's Jing. I hope that you like it and might use it.

Classroom 2.0

2008-04-16T10:33:00.001-07:00

For the last few months I have been looking at Classroom 2.0. It looked too unwieldly, so I waited until I could have somebody take me on a tour, and what a tour it was! All I had to do was sit back and watch. It was awesome!! You, too, can take that same tour.

Here is how:

Note: PC users, you do need to download Elluminate. Mac users (10.1 and higher), the necessary software, Java Web Start, comes pre-installed on your machine, so proceed to step 1.

Step 1: Go to http://www.classroom20wiki.com
Step 2: Click on Live Conversations
Step 3: Locate Classroom 2.0 tour . Click on Video.
Step 4: This will take you to Elluminate. Slick on "Start Elluminate Live!"
Step 5: Elluminate opens the tour. Sit back, listen, rewind when you want to, and enjoy!

Steve Hargadon takes us on a tour of the site. People who attended that session are visible on
the left hand column. Ocassionall you will see them type questions which Steve will answer.

Steve encouraged people to be brave and post questions, start their own page, or just wander around to see how they could use Classroom 2.0. Although I do like Classroom 2.0, I was a bit impressed with Elluminate as a way to reach a large audience.

There are lots of recorded sessions on the Classroom 2.0 wiki. One of my favorite ones is a family from Santa Cruz who is taking their little girl on a multi-year travel adventure trip around the world. Steve chatted with them in Elluminate about this educational adventure.

I hope you take a look at the list of educational conversations on the Classroom 2.0 wiki. This is one of the more exciting things I have seen online in a long time!

My Mac On Windows: VMWare Fusion

2008-02-29T15:22:00.000-08:00

I have been looking for a great virtualization software to run Windows in Mac OS X.

I want to run ArcView 9.2 on my Mac. I had heard a lot about Parallels, so I tried it. It worked fairly good, but it crashed once too often.

I decided to give VMWare Fusion a try at the recommendation of a technology director in another school district. I am so glad I did. It is easy to work with and has not crashed at all. In fact, it is much easier for me to work with. I really like it.

So if you are having issues with Parallels or if you are just looking for a good virtualization software to run Windows in Mac OS X, I would suggest looking at the Apple web site to see what they say about VMWare Fusion.

Our district purchases it from Valcom at about $32 a copy.

It is easy to install, to run, and gets along with my Mac like The Dog, The Cat, and The Rat . (You gotta love YouTube for this gem).

Keyboard Illumination Problem Solved

2008-02-17T19:58:00.000-08:00

I was getting so irritated at my MacBookPro keyboard because in low light conditions, I could barely see the keyboard. I had the illumination turned on in the Keyboard Preference, but it hardly worked at all. My keyboard was barely lit up. Grrr.....

A little research led me to a great program, Lab Tick. I quite like the way I can set the keyboard preferences to illuminate in low light conditions--and have it stay that way.

Let's take a peek at the preferences Lab Tick allows us to set:
I created three shortcuts which allow me to dim, brighten and toggle Lab Tick on and off. If you are having issues with your keyboard illumination, you may wish to look into this program. It is the only thing that has worked for me on a consistent basis.

Thanks Lab Tick. What a great little program!

Attending a class~~at home! I love it.

2008-02-13T17:22:00.001-08:00

Tonight I am in class--at home--with 35 other people from around the world. Australia, Argentina, Chicago, California, Pennsylvania, and many other places.The class is an open professional development class taught by Darren Draper & Kelly Dumont (in Utah) and Robin Ellis (In Pennsylvania). We are using a wikispace page as our central location. The instructors used a tool called UStream for the video and they embedded a chat stream using Meebo so we could communicate.

Later we broke into groups of 6 people and collaborated via Skype and Google docs to create a presentation using the Google presentation tool. I have no idea where my fellow collaborators were physically, nor did it matter. We just created the presentation together. I later found out one of them was in Australia. I kind of thought she typed with an Australian accent. : )

You know how there is always one person in a group who makes things a bit difficult for everybody? Well, we had an uninvited guest who entered our chat room. This became rather irritating, giving us all concern about using an open chat room when teaching with Ustream. So we will need to find a way to block those who want to just create problems.

But even with the troll (real term, not my opinion) it was fascinating collaborating with people from around the world.

Fenway Park and Coors Field

2008-02-11T22:00:00.001-08:00

Lately I have been using an educational version of ArcView, called ArcExplorer, for my GIS projects. While the full-blown professional GIS program, ArcView is a fantastic program, it does take time to learn. Arc Explorer, on the other hand, is so clean and simple, with practically no learning curve. The students seems to pick up on ArcExplorer very quickly.

A great way to begin teaching ArcExplorer is with the baseball activity. Who can resist the Boston Red Sox or the Colorado Rockies?

We discuss a few vocabulary words, then dive into the maps and tools. We learn to open files, resize, zoom in, zoom out, pan, and measure sections the map.

Our first activity involves simple measurement. We measure around the bases. We determine the shortest and farthest distances a batter would have to hit the ball in each stadium to make a home run.

Then we use reasoning skills to determine what time of day the satellite image was take based on shadows. Next choose where we would like to sit in each stadium to be out of the sun. We estimate the number of parking spaces in various parking lots. Lastly, we turn layers on and off to see the effects on the map.We finish up with a few fun facts about each field. Did you know for example that Fenway Park was built in the Fens area of Boston? That it opened around the time of the Titanic disaster? Did you know that a ball hit in Coors Field travels an average of 9' farther than at sea level? The air is thinner at Coors Field (located in the Mile High City of Denver), reducing the resistance on the ball, alowing it to travel farther.

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin - Quite a read!!

2008-01-19T14:03:00.000-08:00

This book is about Abraham Lincoln as a leader, a manager and a politician.

Once elected to the presidency, one of the first things Abraham Lincoln did was to select his cabinet. He selected the very three men that he beat out for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination to hold three important positions in his administration:

William H. Seward, a former governor and senator of New York, became Secretary of State.
Salmon P. Chase, a former governor and senator from Ohio, became Treasury Secretary.
Edward Bates, an elder statesman and former Missouri congressman, became Attorney General.

Lincoln selected a fourth political competitor, Edwin M. Stanton, as his Secretary of War.
Lincoln's reasoning was that with the slave crisis threatening the country, he needed the strongest men surrounding him.

"Every member of his administration was better known, better educated, and had more experience in public life than Lincoln. Their presence in the cabinet might have threatened to eclipse the obscure prairie lawyer from Springfield. It soon became clear, however, that Abraham Lincoln, would emerge the undisputed captain of this most unusual cabinet, truly a team of rivals." (Doris Kearns Goodwin)

I find it amazing that Lincoln was able to choose some of his fiercest rivals to work so closely with him during his presidency. But more amazing still is that these very men became some of his closest friends and strongest supporters. When Lincoln was assassinated, John Hay, Lincoln's personal secretary, reported that their grief was uncontrollable.

What an amazing book this is. Not only did I find the book historically interesting and informative, I think it is has some good lessons for people that work together as a team.

Communicating with Skype and CamTwist

2008-01-14T09:38:00.000-08:00

This morning my teammates and I spent some quality time using 4 programs: CamTwist, Skype, UStream TV, and YugmaSkype. Today I will show what CamTwist and Skype can do. Later this week, I will discuss UStreamTV and YugmaSkype.

CamTwist is a software package that lets you add special effects to your video chats. It's also possible to stream your desktop and still images. I like the picture in picture (PIP) as well. With CamTwist, you can also use multiple video chat programs at the same time. Some fun effects we tried are: halo, thought bubble, comic book, and N-Square. In this image my colleague PJ is shown using the effect N-Square full screen while I am in PIP with a thought bubble in the bottom left corner.

Skype allows you to make calls from your computer — free to other people on Skype and cheap to landlines and cell phones around the world.

When using CamTwist and Skype together, Open CamTwist first then follow these steps:
In Step 1, click on "Desktop" as your video source, click "Select" at the bottom of the video source list. Next in Step 1, click on "Webcam" as another video source, and then click "PIP" (which stands for picture in picture) at the bottom of the video source list.

In Step 2, have some fun by adding an effect or two. To see a preview of how CamTwist will look. Go up to the menu and choose "Preview". Check out these cool effects: Cube, Fire, Halo, and Snow.Step 3 allows you to adjust your settings. Lastly, in the last box, settings, adjusting the scale slider allows the viewer to see either more of you or more of your desktop. Nudging the PIP black box will position where the PIP will be located on your screen.
Let's take a look at what the viewer sees. My colleague is seeing my desktop with a small streaming video of me in the upper right hand corner. This is a very cool way to chat and show your screen simultaneously.

Check back soon to see how we used these two programs along with UStreamTV and YugmaSkype.

Thanks to Darren Draper for teaching me these programs!

Senuti

2007-12-30T11:57:00.000-08:00

This week my nephew Aaron asked me how to get his iTunes music from his iPod onto his MacBook Pro (running Leopard). He had all of his music synced to his old PC.

We used Senuti (iTunes spelled backwards) which allows you to transfer songs from your iPod to your computer. It worked fairly well. I had used Senuti once before to move music from my daughter's iPod to her MacBook (running Tiger).

Tansferring songs on a Tiger machine was simple. We could select all the songs at once and click on transfer. But Leopard offered us a challenge. We could only transfer about 50 songs at once. When we tried more than that, the transfer did not work. I do not know if this is a Leopard bug or a Senuti bug. Nevertheless, the songs are transferred and Aaron is happy with the result.

Senuti has written explicit instructions on how to transfer music from your iPod to your computer, so be sure to read them before you use it.

Utah 6th Graders Tour the Globe

2007-11-28T16:06:00.000-08:00

What an exciting day we had in the computer lab. Mrs. Robison's 6th grade class toured Google Earth, locating their favorite place on the planet. We turned an iPod into a recording studio by attaching a device called a MicroMemo, sold at XtremeMac.com.

Mrs. Robison and I interviewed students, asking the which place they chose as their favorite. The answers ranged from Pearl Harbor to the Roman Colosseum to Brighton, England. The students did a super job at responding to questions and recording a podcast.

We also had the class give a loud cheer on the podcast for their favorite football team: BYU or the U of U. Give it a listen and we will leave you to judge who the winner was.

Please notice a poll on the right hand side of this page. Please will you vote for your favorite place on earth---well, actually you only get to choose the continent upon which your favorite place is located--- but please vote. Inquiring minds in Mrs. Robison's class want to know.

Music to My Ears

2007-11-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

Today I learned something new about music. Our team had a music Professor Alan Kaschub from the University of Southern Maine (School of Music) show us how to use USB keyboards along with an Apple application called Garageband.

We created a short song such as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, added some percussion sound effects, and learned a bit about writing a music score in a free program called FinaleNotePad. You not only write the music in Finale, but you can listen to it as well. This is an amazing program!

The most fun I have ever had in my music lessons was to watch my sister Annie crawl across the piano teacher's living room floor to retrieve a penny that I had rolled across the floor. Having baited my poor sister to crawl after the penny, I was in an advantageous position to watch Mrs. Geiger's reaction.

With Garageband and FinaleNotePad, I can actually write a cool rap song about that scarring experience!

Mrs. Robison's Class Loves Google Earth

2007-11-07T10:50:00.001-08:00

We traveled from Edgemont Elementary to Pyramids of Giza to Lagoon Amusement Park to a student's house to Mile High Stadium in Denver and we saw people walking around the Eiffel Tower.

We hope enjoy listening to a few comments from Mrs. Robison's class. Check back next week for more Google Earth fun.
Mrs. Robison's Cool Class

Bungee Jumping Anybody?

2007-11-07T07:52:00.000-08:00

I figure if you can view a bungee jumping platform from space, it's got to be a doozie. This bungee jumper's delight is found near Victoria Falls in southern Africa. Can you see it in the bottom left quadrant of this image? For a visit to this area, check out Google Sightseeing.

Situated on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls is one of the most amazing sights on earth. The falls are, by some measures, the largest waterfalls in the world, as well as being among the most unusual in form, and having arguably the most diverse and easily-seen wildlife of any major waterfall site. (wikipedia.org)

People in the area call Victoria Falls “the smoke that thunders”. Looking at this image from Google Earth, we begin to understand why. I hope someday to travel to Victoria Falls, but I may have to work up the courage to strap on the bungee cords and take a dive from the bridge.

The students in Mrs. Robison's 6th grade class at Edgemont Elementary will go on a virtual tour of Victoria Falls with me this week. They are really nice students so I enjoy visiting their class. I hope they like the bungee platform, and maybe they know of some really cool places seen on Google Earth.

Special note: Happy birthday Jeannie!

The install, at last

2007-10-31T11:30:00.000-07:00

Here it is! The install. Kelly Dumont was the first person on our team to receive the Leopard DVD. The install took about 45 minutes and he was off and running, trying out new features.

I wanted to install Leopard so badly, but I know from past experience that I should always backup my entire hard drive before installing a new operating system. That night (Halloween) I used Carbon Copy Cloner (thanks to Bombich Software) to do a complete backup of my laptop.

Nov 1st arrived, and I installed Leopard. I got the blue screen of death that I have been reading about. I waited about 25 minutes and finally said Ah Heck, restart. My laptop seemed OK and I began using this new cat. My first impressions of Leopard are as follows:

QuickLook is visually stunning
Mail and iCal work together so well
Mail has beautiful templates
Spaces are fun
Time Machine is worth the upgrade to Leopard

I am not fond of the reflection in the dock
Not crazy about blue folders
Transparent finder menu a bit of a nuisance
Side dock a bit dark for my tastes

But I do give Leopard 2 thumbs up. Overall it is great. While I find certain visual aspects disconcerting, I am enjoying Leopard a lot. Thanks Apple.

Suede Wall? Cell Phone Helps Again.

2007-10-28T16:07:00.001-07:00

I am trying another use of my cell phone. I took this picture of a sample paint color I am trying for my wall, sent it to go@blogger.com. Within a couple of minutes I received a confirmation message back containing a claim code. I went to go.blogger.com, entered that claim code and asked blogger.com to send all futher photos to this blog. So when I am at the Apple event in Lehi on Tuesday, I will take some photos and submit them to this blog.

If you are interested to give this a try, it is as easy as pie.

Snap a picture
Send it to go@blogger.com
When you receive the claim code, simply go to go.blogger.com, enter the code, and voilá, you will have your mobile blog.
If you wish to move future pictures to your regular blog, select that option when you see it.

Noise Canceling Headphones

2007-10-26T16:11:00.000-07:00

I am not fond of airplane noises---the roar of the engine, the fussy babies, or the arguing couple that often ends up behind me. Thank goodness for noise canceling headphones.

How do they work? Active Noise-canceling headphones reduce unwanted ambient sounds by using a microphone placed near the ear piece of the headphone, and electronic circuitry which generates an "antinoise" sound w ave with the opposite polarity of the sound wave arriving at the microphone. This results in destructive interference, which cancels out the noise within the enclosed volume of the headphone. You enjoy your music without listening to the ambient sound in the plane.

Before going To Europe this summer, I researched noise canceling headphones as I wanted to get a really nice pair for my sister. I watched an entertaining and extremely helpful videocast about noise canceling headphones by David Pogue who reviews products for the New York Times. He tested out several headphones and came up with a recommendation. Bose. Second on his list and at 1/2 the price, Au dioTechnica. Pogue says these are almost equal to the Bose. He is right! They are amazing. On the long flight to London, I gave them a try, so did my dad and sister. We loved them. So I just bought myself a pair. Wowzer. I had already forgotten how fabulous they are.

You might begin to look at these type of headphones for a great gift idea. We all fly, ride trains, sit in noisy bus stations, or want to ignore the spouse. Just kidding, honey.

BTW: David Pogue is funny -- you gotta watch his iPhone Musical, sung to the tune of Frank Sinatra's "I did it My Way". He recorded it in New York the day the iPhone came out. It's got personality. He is well-known for his Missing Manual books.

Leopard is Here

2007-10-26T15:34:00.000-07:00

Today is October 26th and Leopard has officially been released. I have watched the Apple website's guided tour and am so hyped about some of the amazing changes. The tour shows several of the major features, and they look awesome. I am particularly excited about Time Machine. I am going to back up my hard drive and then dump a small part of my iTunes library--then try to recover it using this new feature. Although I have a lot of faith in Leopard, I am going to have a backup before depending upon Time Machine.

On Tuesday, October 30th, I will be attending an Apple educational event at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah to take a closer look at Leopard. The event is called Education Rising and Hello, Tomorrow. A couple of my colleagues (Kelly Dumont and Margo Shirley) will be attending which will be great. Hope Darren Draper makes it, too. We can discuss some ways that we can raise student achievement by working with Apple.

For now, Mac lovers, check out the Leopard guided tour as well as some of the 300 new features in OS X, 10.5, It should be Grrrreat!

What is TinyURL? Why Should I Use it?

2007-10-22T10:35:00.000-07:00

Have you ever received an e-mail with a long link to a website? Maybe the link was pretty long, something like this example that take you to the UEN Faculty Lounge: http://www.uen.org/development/pdevel.do;jsessionid=48C639F52E99275B39DDB6D5F07EBF72

That's pretty unwiedly looking, isn't it? Enter one of my favorite websites, TinyURL.com. At TinyURL you can paste a long url into the box provided..and voilá, Tiny URL will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires. Here is the Tiny URL that take your to the same page as above, the UEN FAculty Lounge: http://tinyurl.com/3xvgp6

Something even cooler than using the TinyURL website each time you want to create a TinyURL is the Firefox TinyURL addon.

When you have the TinyURL addon installed on your computer, you can simply right click on a link and choose to create a TinyURL for the link or even the page! Take a look at the screen shot to see what I mean.

OK, so how can you get that addon? Go to the Firefox (aka Mozilla) home page. Look for the link to Firefox addons. Search for TinyURL (created by by Jeremy Gillick) and install it onto your computer.

When you restart Firefox, you will have the functionality to create tinyURL's by right clicking on a link. There are many more Firefox addons, extensions, and themes.

I hope you will find TinyURL creator a useful tool for creating tinyURL's from those longer one we all find a bit unwieldy.

Google Earth Uncovers Swastika Building

2007-10-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

"And what do we spy here? No, that's not the international headquarters of a white supremacy group -- but good guess. Believe it or not, this swastika-shaped building complex is a U.S. Naval barracks in Coronado, California. The buildings were built in the 1960s but, according to the Navy, their sinister configuration wasn't discovered until the construction project had already broken ground -- which was apparently too late to do the decent thing and modify the designs a bit. But that's beside the point, anyway. Are we to believe that not a single person involved in a construction project for the U.S. Navy ever looked at a set of blueprints? Is it also just a coincidence that the buildings sit at the intersection of Tulagi and Bougainville -- two streets named after famous WWII battles?

Whew. Let's reel in the paranoia a bit.

According to a report by CBS's San Diego affiliate, News 8, architect John Mock still stands behind the design of the buildings, which he insists were never meant to look like a swastika and for which he actually won an award. Nonetheless, change is on the way thanks in large part to Missouri-based radio host Dave vonKleist, who has been vocal about the structure since he first stumbled upon it in Google Earth in 2006. Today brings word that the Navy is finally relenting to vonKleist's calls to action and intends to spend upwards of $600,000 to camouflage the structure with landscaping, walkways and solar cells, all of which will hide the offending shape from aerial views."
Entire post comes from: http://tinyurl.com/yptswe

Mac Laptop Class Interview

2007-10-18T17:17:00.001-07:00

Mac Laptop Teachers

Not intending to be too repetitious, I showed Gabcast to the teachers in my Mac Laptop. The participants were kind enough to be interview. I asked them what they liked or hated about their laptop, what frustrated them, what they found to make their time using a computer a bit easier.

Answers varied. Some teachers were frustrated with not being able to log onto the network. Our building has been experiencing some problems, and the class participants, unfortunately, had to share in that experience.

Other teachers relly liked knowing programs from the iLife series such as iPhoto and iTunes. No more Gabcast poscasts. But this one was fun. We all gathered in front of a computer and got a fairly good shot.

Two Jordan District Teachers and Cell Phones

2007-10-17T14:50:00.001-07:00

Two Teachers Using Gabcast and PhotoBooth
Hi once again. I just met with a delightful 2nd grade teacher who wanted to learn a little about KidPix. We got to chatting about podcasts, the Mac laptop class (check out the Apple Mac101 Tour), and PhotoBooth. So, what the heck, time to try an interview using the cell phone. Sherri Peisley and I had a little fun with this new technology. Hope you can join in sometime in a 2-way or 3-way conversation or interview. (Maybe my sister Trudie or Jennie?)

Gabcast: Create & Publish a podcast w/your cell phone in 3 minutes

2007-10-16T21:54:00.001-07:00

Gabcast! sample podcast #1

Just sitting here with Cleo the cat listening to the K12 Online Conference presentations. The one I am currently enjoying is Liz Kolb's presentation on using cell phones in the classroom. She talks about several different online sites that make it easy to create and post a podcast using your cell. so I went to Gabcast, created an account and posted a short podcast, all in about 3 minutes.

Cleo just sat here watching. I took her picture in PhotoBooth. Cats don't sit still for photos. I bet it looked funny me coaxing her to sit still for this picture. I wish she would meow, then I could call Gabcast, record her and post that so you could hear her. She is pretty cool. So is Gabcast.

If you are interested in educational technology, you might really enjoy watching some of the video podcasts at the K12 Online Conference site. I am amazed at what I am learning.

GIS, ArcView, and Teaching Plans

2007-10-10T21:46:00.000-07:00

I really enoyed taking a two day GIS class at the U of U. First we spent a little time finding places on campus whose coordinates we had entered into our GPS units just to get a little experience with GPS units. Then we began working in a mapping program called ArcView 9.2. We are lucky to be in one of the few states that have purchased a state-wide educational license this software. I am really excited about learning this program and teaching it to students. A couple of 6th grade teachers and I plan to work on a GIS project this year with their classes.

I am working with a 6th grade teacher at Edgemont Elementary in Sandy. (I wonder if she can see her car in the parking lot in this photo).

We will teach a lesson to her class next week on map symbols. Then we will play a game called Topo Bingo. Ross from UEN gave me about 3 dozen U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maps to use in our game. (Thanks, Ross!) It should be a lot of fun for the students, and we hope they learn a lot about maps, layers, and the coordinate system.

In the next few months we will be teaching the student ArcView and developing a GIS project with the help of some Sandy City GIS professionals. We want the students to think about a real world project that will have meaning to them and be relevant to them.

Danube River Lock Opening

2007-10-07T12:47:00.000-07:00

I recently went on a trip down the Danube River. One new experience I had was passing through 13 locks. Near Bratislava, I decided to take a series of pictures so that I could later use them and learn how to make a movie out of still shots.

As the lock began opening, I situated myself comfortably at the bow and took a picture about every 30 seconds. Later I uploaded those pictures to my computer, learned how to manipulate them in iMovie, and created a short movie. The effects I used are black and white and aged film. I set the shots to last 16/100ths of a second, resulting in a 27 second movie. It was like watching an old silent movie. Here it is:

Tour de Kota

2007-04-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

This June I plan to participate in the Tour de Kota, a bike tour through South Dakota. My sister and brother have done this for two years. Each time they have mentioned how fun it is. Well, I fianlly decided to give it a try. Having not been much of a bike rider in the past 10 years, I think it is going to be quite difficult. But I am going for it.

It begins in Vermillion and ends in Watertown. From the terrain and mileage maps available on the website, the ride appears to be on relatively rolling terrain. I have a feeling that I will feel like I am climbing Machu Picchu during the ride. At the end of the ride, I will return and report. Wish me luck.

Learning Spanish

2007-04-19T08:38:00.000-07:00

In 1985 I went to Spain to study Spanish. I enjoyed my time touring a few countries in Europe before settling down to study in Salamanca, Spain. I loved walking to classes each morning, passing by Lladró shops, through the Plaza Mayor, past the cathedral, and ending up at the University of Salamanca. Nobody can forget the Plaza. The Plaza Mayor is a great place to sit and enjoy the sights, have a drink, chat with friends, read or whatever. The waiters never ask you to leave. What a great place to watch the world go by.

My Spanish was not very good at first, but over time I learned not to ask for jamón de polvo (powdered ham), but rather jabón de polvo (powdered soap). I wish I would have just learned how to say detergente (detergent). That would have saved me some embarrassment.

Lunch w/Team

2007-04-18T13:26:00.000-07:00

After a dizzying morning at UEN learning more about Google, I had a nice lunch break with my team on campus. Between chatting and checking out the news on this awesome flat screen TV, I thought about how much fun it would be for principals and teachers to learn what I have learned today. Click here for the handouts on Google tools. If you love to learn like I do, you will find the handouts very helpful!

In addition to customizing my Google home page, I added some bookmarks to sites that I love such as Discovery News, NPR, CNN, and one almost everybody enjoys, National Geographic.