Virtual Teacher Newsletter No. 155 DECEMBER 17th 2007 - XMAS
THE FREE ONLINE FORTNIGHTLY IT TEACHERS' NEWSLETTER
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CONTENTS
1. Welcome
2. Mind Candy
3. WWWinfo NORAD TRACKS SANTA
4. New Printables - STORY FROM ELVES CHUCKLES AND BUCKLEY
5. Technical Stuff - APPLEJACK
6. Web Site Focus - DIGITAL PHTOGRAPHY DAY
7. CATHY'S FORUM - CHRISTMAS SHOPPING
8. Great Sites
9. Readers' Requests/Comments
10 Next Issue
11. Code of 'Netizens'
12. Tips
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1. WELCOME EVERYONE. Well Christmas is here. This is
the last newsletter for 2007. So there will be nothing to serious
in it at all. This year I sorted out Christmas shopping online at
REMO, fabulous. I still love the Santa stuff, I love the Norad site
and actually do look at it on Christmas Eve. This Christmas
promises to be the best one ever, whatever the weather,
the best food, the best wine and the best company. I wish you all
a great holiday, and New Year.
ciao Cathy
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2. MIND CANDY
Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is
exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different
kinds of good weather.
John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)
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Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold,
everything is softer and more beautiful. ~Norman Vincent Peale
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And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood
puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without
ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages,
boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler
was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't
before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.
Dr. Seuss
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3. WWWinfo - NORAD TRACKS SANTA
http://www.noradsanta.org/
Yes I do know, I do this one every year. I love this idea
of tracking Santa. Yes folks as of writing this there is
only 9 days left to track Santa, this year using Google Earth
I'll be there. Beginning at 2:00 am MTN on Christmas
Eve, you can track Santa Live as he makes his historic
journey around the world!
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4. NEW PRINTABLES
Download the Chuckles and Buckley Story
http://www.noradsanta.org/en/home.htm
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5. TECHNICAL STUFF APPLEJACK
Make a huge difference to the performance of your Mac. Run
Applejack.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15667
If you've found performance wanning, here is a sure fire way
to make your mac rebound. Run under the dos command, as
simple as ABC. If your computer coes into terminal spin on
start up - run AppleJack. Love this little free program.
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6. WEBSITE FOCUS - DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY DAY
Great idea for that last minute, last few days of school, boy am I
bored and ready for the holidays time.
A digital photography day. Take photos around the school.
Each group of students is assigned a time, say half an hour, given
a target, say year 3, the playground, the canteen etc.
Their mission to take photographs of a day at Our
School. Great archival material, great fun and usually
immensely informative. Use program like iphoto, to turn
this into a quick slide show. If you can get to it you can add
some music from garage band, or some commentary.
Best News images of the last 24hours
http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures
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7. CATHY'S FORUM CATHY'S - FAVOURITE ONLINE STORES
Christmas shopping al la, crowds and rushing around is for the birds.
here are a couple of my favourites online.
REMO- I love this place, quirky original stuff, with great stories.
http://www.remo.com.au
NECO is another favourite, an eco superstore.
http://www.neco.com.au
Where do the rest of you shop?
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8. GREAT SITES
HOT SITES
Listen to Virginia's Famous Letter
http://www.noradsanta.org/en/media/VIRGINIAS_LETTER.mp3
Listen to the Editor's Reply
http://www.noradsanta.org/en/media/VIRGINIA_EDITOR.mp3
Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus
Editorial Page, New York Sun, 1897
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/virginia.html
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9. READERS COMMENTS/REQUESTS
Hi Cathy,
Thank you for the great Christmas site last issue. My Year 2 children
have had lots of fun making Powerpoint Presentations of
Christmas scenes. The twinkling lights and animated figures
have thrilled them and they are learning there are interesting
things they can make themselves when they are feeling
adventurous.
Happy Christmas to you,
Jane Doherty
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I love this smashing stuff, the kids love it, and the basic skills
are there as well. Great to hear you are getting into it.
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Greetings Cathy
Gif animmators are far and few for mac...
Could use keynote and export as a movie...a bit involved though
COREL draw/paint has such a facility..though costs
One way though is to get a WACOM bluetooth tablet
(with bluetooth USB dongle
if you have a PC) which includes inspiration/inspiredata/photshop
elements and corel paint in the RRP of $399inGST....
A bargain..given all the applications cost around $150 each...
for both PC and for MAC
Could be one answer to the question...and provide IWB effects without the
IWB..or 80% anyway without the thousand(s) price tag
There are a few shareware gif animators
Try the bluechillies website for the listing....<www.bluechillies.com>
Regards
Gary
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Great, thanks Gary. I have also used the gif deconstruct in
powerpoint. You insert a give, then ungroup it, then select different
sections to appear and disappear. It's tricky but fun.
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Hi Cathy,
Thank you for your tips.
I enjoy finding sources and putting them together with interesting
slides, to make Internet lessons that I share with other teachers.
I use good old Microsoft FrontPage. I also do a bit of staff training
in this area. But the computers in our school are all PC's.
Do you or anyone know of an 'as easy to use' Mac web page
making program, that would be common or accessible for
teachers to use in Mac schools?
Many thanks,
Kieran O'Regan
P.S.The public site I use to share teaching resources is www.interactive-learning.com.au
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There used to be a brilliant one called Pagemill. If you
are using Front Page, which is not so wonderful, you may as well
just use Microsoft Word and then just convert it into html.
Frontpage is also available for Macs
http://accessfp.net/mac.htm
You can also use Word and save as html.
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Hi Cathy,
Our young guy needs to improve his "processing auditory
messages exactly & totally" abilities.
Do you know of any net resource?
Thanks
Jeff
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Can anyone help with this one?
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Hi cathy...a recent newsletter mentioned Podcasting and
that some schools were trialling it. We are interested in any
trial and would like to either be put in contact with a school
or allow me to contact them. Being in Sydney would be helpful.
also...some schools are trialling some sort of mobile device
in classrooms (like a touchpad i guess) rather than an intelligent
whiteboard. do you know what this would be?
appreciate your help. tks.
Alan Power
Mathematics Faculty
Davidson HS
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Anyone up for this with Alan?
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10. NEXT ISSUE - Will be a surprise???
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11. Code of the 'Netizens'
This Newsletter is not free, despite the misleading advertising
above. The Fee is now due. Each week you must help one
colleague on the Internet who has less knowledge than you.
Help that person even if you have to visit their classroom or
do a little research and get back to them. Trust me, this will
help a lot of people get their computer classrooms running better.
OK I'm trusting you!!!
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12. TIPS
1. Double click on highlighted URLS to open in browser.
2. Send in your Questions, Questions will be published with
Answers, send in your Answers, if you have expertise to share.
3. Nominate a brilliant site for review and inclusion in this
newsletter.
4. Nominate a fantastic school site for review and inclusion in
this newsletter.
5. Make contact with other schools using fantastic programs.
6. Prepare and innovative article for this newsletter.
7. Tell 2 colleagues about this newsletter.
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The opinions expressed here are purely those of the editor,
Cathy Brown. All other small print clauses apply. Such as:
Use at your own risk. Nothing in life is guaranteed. If it doesn't
work for you send me an email.
Editor: cathy brown mailto:cathy@virtualteacher.com.au
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