Alan November's Three Favorite Technology Skills Every Kid Needs to Know

Just as Dirk Nowitzki defines what excellence is on the basketball court, Alan November exemplifies excellence in the education and technology arena. Why would we consider listening to him? Reputable companies, such as Apple, Disney, Harvard, and Time Warner have hired his company, November Learning.

I had the opportunity to speak to November in person. I asked him about today's students, "What are your three favorite skills that you feel every child needs to know prior to graduating from high school?" The following is how he responded:

1. Get the right information at the right time. That means really good web literacy skills...hardly a kid today has.

2. Fantastic global communication skills. So, every classroom is a global communication center teaching kids to be fearless communicators around the world creating content and assessing together. Otherwise the US economy isn't going to grow jobs as fast as the rest of the world, and we need to give that sense of fearless to create jobs.

3. Finally, be self-directed. If you are too dependent on being managed, and this goes back to my vision and question of "Who owns the learning," the longer you stay in American school system, the more dependent you are to be managed around learning. That kind of kills lifelong learning. You may want to establish a base level of learning; every kid should know Diigo, tagging, and Twitter. Every kid needs an eLearning portfolio. Every kid should take an online course while in K-12. We need to do a whole series of things to give kids discipline and an individual work ethic of being self-directed.

Follow November's blog:
www.novemberlearning.com/blog/

Website of the Week:
Need to translate? Go to Google Translate: http://translate.google.com/
Google Translate is a free translation service provided by Google to translate a section of text, document, or webpage, into another language. It is very simple to use.


Tip of the Week:
In Microsoft Office, use these basic shortcuts to save time:
1. F1 Help
2. Ctrl + A Select all text
3. Ctrl + C Copy the selected item
4. Ctrl + X Cut the selected item

Fabulous Flipchart Resources

Are you getting a new Promethean board this summer? Or, maybe you have a board and you are ready to learn some new tricks? Check out these fabulous resources and please post a comment if you have some favorites of your own. We’d love to hear from you!

iTunes- Subscribe to the ActivTips in iTunes. As of today, there are 132 tips on a variety of topics ranging from the magic revealer to embedding videos.
http://tinyurl.com/43ejqfl

Google's Custom Search- Use a custom search engine to find flipcharts faster.
http://tinyurl.com/4gawbeh

FCPS- Reference these great tutorials, resources, and quick tips. This is a very comprehensive site!
http://sites.fcps.org/trt/promethean_activinspire

Interactive Sites- Explore these interactive web sites… and if you need a quick sponge activity for your kids, check out Bubble Burst!http://sites.google.com/site/trainprocomputing/home/interactive-sites

Activclassroom Academy- Learn to build a better flipchart and create self-paced activities using these handouts.
http://tinyurl.com/3lhbp9g


Tip of the Week: Keyboard Shortcuts for ActivInspire
F2 Design Mode
F5 Full Screen
F7 Spellcheck Flipchart


Web Resource: 10 minute mail
So you’ve found a great site and you want to create an account. But an email address is required! Use this site to get a temporary email address instead of junking up your inbox!
http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html

It's Here! Microsoft Office 2010

Coming to a Computer Near You

The Microsoft Office 10 Suite which includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Publisher, and Outlook is replacing Office 2003. If you have only used Office 2003, then you will definitely want to become familiar with the new version! All Office 10 products have an entirely new interface and are quite different from the 2003 version. The main feature includes replacing the “menu” with a tabbed tool bar called “the Ribbon.” Once you have become familiar with it, you will see that it is easier to organize and offers a lot more features such as screen capturing and the ability to convert PowerPoint presentations to movies.

Free Tutorial Sites to Help You Transition

Make Use Of

MakeUseOf.com is a daily blog that publishes daily updates on new websites and programs and provides links to a wealth of free downloads and printable cheat sheets!  Go to the site, scroll all the way to the bottom to sign up or “like” them on Facebook to get access to all the free items. Check this one out: Microsoft Office 2010 Tips and Tricks!

Custom Guide Reference Sheets

Custom Guide.com offers  printable quick references that are yours to use, distribute, and share. Be sure to sign up for a  30-day free trial if you like it.

Quick reference sheets

Excel 2010    Office 2010    Outlook 2010    PowerPoint 2010    Word 2010

Microsoft Office Tutorials

Office.microsoft.com offers just about every type of free tutorial, from printed guides, “cheat sheets” , videos, and even self assessment tests!  No matter how you learn, this site will have what you are looking for!  Check these out:

Menu to Ribbon Guide      Online Training Courses      Interactive guides and printables 

Cool Website:Easy Award Certificates

The year is coming to a close so it's time to recognize your students with an award certificate. Create and print your certificates with minimal effort on Certificate Street!

A-Z Web 2.0 Tools

If you need Web 2.0 tools, you really need to check Ozge Karaoglu's blog. She has started a post of Web 2.0 Tools A-Z. She always has great technology ideas and how to implement that technology in the classroom. Here are a few of my favorite Web 2.0 tools from her site.

A = Awesome Highlighter allows you to highlight text on a webpage

• Insert a URL and choose highlight page
• Select the text you would like to highlight and press done when finished highlighting
• Copy and paste the URL and email your highlighted page

B =  BounceApp is a site that makes it easy for you to share ideas on a website. 

• Enter the URL into BounceApp 
• BounceApp grabs a screen shot for you to add to your notes.
• Then you can draw boxes around specific parts of the website and add notes.

C = Corkboard.me gives you access to an online corkboard.

• This is a great tool for collaboration. Once you type in Corkboard.me you will receive a special URL to give out. 
• Add pictures to the corkboard by pasting the link.
• Chat with friends who have the URL to the corkboard.
• Here's a test corkboard. Click here to access it.

D =  DoSize allows you to resize any image online. 

• Select the images you would like to resize.
• Select the size you would like the images to be.
• Send to family and friends or yourself.

Tip of the Week:
For Mac Users: Press Command+Ctrl+Shift+4 = takes a screenshot of your choice but saves it to the memory instead of your desktop. You can then choose "paste" or Ctrl+V to paste the screen shot in your document.


Website of the Week:
To see more Web 2.0 Tools A-Z check out this website: Box of Tricks