Office for Free!

MTSD (and most of the U.S.) uses Microsoft Office as its primary office productivity suite (word proccesor, spreadsheet, presentation tool). As a school, we are able to purchase it at an excellent price, but the list price for MS Office is $119 to $349 depending on the version of the suite. A large portion of the world uses a free alternative called OpenOffice.org (or “OpenOffice” for short).

OpenOffice can open and edit all Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, which means files can be seamlessly exchanged with MS Office users. (Interesting note: When MS changed file formats – changing from .doc to .docx – OpenOffice had converters available for the new format before Microsoft had converters available for its previous versions of Office.) There are also free add-ons available for OpenOffice – clip art, templates, etc. MT began including OpenOffice on our standard computer installations a year ago, and it is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

To download and install OpenOffice, visit http://www.openoffice.org, but to get ahead of the curve, use Libre Office instead! (http://www.libreoffice.org) LibreOffice is a spinoff of OpenOffice – same interface, same compatibility with MS Office, but it is being updated at an even faster pace.

So if you are purchasing a new computer this holiday season, save a couple hundred dollars and give LibreOffice a try!

Starter Sheets

“The Starter Sheets are resources for the classroom teacher. The intention of each sheet is to introduce a tool, technology or activity that could be easily adapted for use in the classroom. Each sheet is created to a template design and should have the following features:

• must be two pages
• must have pictures that illustrate process and outcomes
• process must be straight forward
• must be simple to read and understand
• must have clear benefits for the teacher in the classroom, the exemplar should be easy to adapt to a variety of classroom settings
• must have an alternative – web based or application
• must be linked to Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy and Sensory learning styles using VARK”

The Starter Sheets wiki (http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Starter+Sheets) has templates to create your own sheets, and it has a dozen sheets for you to use immediately (Wordle, Google Maps, Voicethread, Diigo, etc.). Thanks to Tony for this tip!

Free App: Educreations Interactive Whiteboard

Use your iPad to create video tutorials! Use it to draw, mark up pictures, demonstrate math concepts, etc. while talking about what you are doing. This “Whiteboard” app will record your screen and your voice into a video file which can then be uploaded to a website to share with your students. Your students only need a browser to view the video! Take a look at the website for examples – http://www.educreations.com. (Free). (iTunes Store)

Thanks to Bridget for spotting this one!

Students Moving Carts

It is common to see students moving computer carts from one room to another. The carts are easily moved by 12 year-olds, and they receive a sense of responsibility by completing this task. When selecting younger students for this job (six, seven, eight year-olds), please make sure the students are physically able to move the carts…the sides of the carts and your classroom door frame will thank you…:-)

Is it a Power Cord or a Rope?

When unplugging a cart (or any electrical device) from an electrical outlet, always grab the plug close to the wall outlet. Never pull on the cable, and never begin to move the cart before it is unplugged. (We have seen a rise in damaged power cords – hopefully these tips will keep the cords healthy longer.)

Need Tech Support?

Follow these steps for the fastest support possible:

1. Contact your building Tech Integrator. He/She can provide quick fixes – unjam a printer, connect you to the network, tell you which button to click to make a program behave normally, etc. If you Tech Integrator cannot solve the problem, he/she will contact TechMedia.
2. The Tech Integrators are teachers and have a full load, so if you don’t receive a reply from him/her, then contact TechMedia directly. (The technology service request email address is tsr@mtwp.net, and that account is checked by multiple people.)

As always, the more details you can provide regarding the problem, the faster the problem will be resolved.

Create an Email Group from a Received Message

Have you ever received an email that was sent to a long list of email addresses and you thought it would be convenient to save that list of addresses as an email group for future use? Both webmail and the GroupWise client let you do that relatively easily!

• Open the message in webmail (http://webmail.mtwp.net).
• Click Reply All (don’t send the message!), then click the Address Book button.
• On the right side of the Address Book window, you can see who the message would go to, and directly above the list of names there is a button labeled Save Group. Click it.
• Select a location for the new group to be stored (Frequent Contacts would be a good choice) and give the new group a name. The Description field is optional. Click Save.
• Close the Address Book window and also the reply you started to create.
• Create a new message in webmail and start typing the name of your new group in the To field…it should magically appear.
• To verify the members in your new group, click the Contacts tab, click the location of the new group (Frequent Contacts or wherever you stored it), then double-click the new group.
• To verify or modify your new group, click the Address Book button and search the correct book (Frequent Contacts) for the Entry Type of Group and for the Display Name of your new group. After the group is found, click it then click the Modify button to make changes. (You can also modify the group in the GroupWise client.)

This new group will be available in webmail and the GroupWise client (after it has a chance to sync). It will not be available in Thunderbird.

The above process also works in the GroupWise client. To get started:

• Click Reply All on the message then click the Address button.
• In the bottom right corner, click Save Group then follow the prompts.

More Inexpensive Apps

A couple free (or low cost) apps were suggested by teachers:

• Class Cards – Class Cards is an easy-to-use yet extremely effective app for boosting student engagement during lessons and discussions ($4.99). (iTunes Store)
• Stick Pick – Pick a student at random just by giving your device a shake or tapping the screen — but that’s just the beginning. Stick Pick suggests question starters for learners at different levels and also records how well students respond during classroom discussions. (iTunes Store)

Go Green – Power Down

Please turn off all computers and monitors over weekends. There is no reason for labs, classroom computers, etc. to be powered on all weekend. (Automatic updates will continue to happen during the week.)

Laptop Cart Security

Carts should be locked at the end of the day and especially before a weekend or long weekend.