Virtual Teacher
Newsletter No. 59 October 18th 2002 – AUTHENTIC
HAPPINESS
THE FREE ONLINE
FORTNIGHTLY IT TEACHERS' NEWSLETTER
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CONTENTS
1. Welcome
2. Mind Candy
3. WWWinfo 4
year Olds Shoot Great Pictures
4. New
Printables - Excel Age in years and Months
5. Technical
Stuff – Handwriting Plus K-6
6. Web Site
Focus – Real Life Maths
7. Digital
Movies
8. Great Sites
9. Readers' Requests/Comments
10 Next Issue
11. Code of
'Netizens'
12. Tips
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CONTENTS
1. Welcome
2. Mind Candy
3. WWWinfo
4. New
Printables - Inspiration Digital
Portfolios
5. Technical
Stuff – Free Downloads
6. Web Site
Focus – Digital Photography 2
7. Excel
Formulas
8. Great Sites
9. Readers' Requests/Comments
10 Next Issue
11. Code of
'Netizens'
12. Tips
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1. WELCOME
EVERYONE I have been considering for a time
the lack of
wonder hope and enthusiasm in many pupils today
and the
preoccupation our society seems to have with, child
welfare,
bullying, retirement, insurance, etc.
We seem to be
spending more
and more time and energy on protection,
insurance and
education against every conceivable negative
possibility. Where is the education and time for the
wonderful,
the marvelous,
for considering the all the fantastic possibilities,
for thinking and
doing what we really enjoy. For every lesson on
bullying and
anti-smoking, on drugs and child protection, twice
as much time
should be dedicated to lessons on the wonderful
things, the
marvelous ideas, spending time and energy considering
what is really
important to us and what we love to do; and doing it.
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2. MIND CANDY
AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS
Using Our
Strengths To Cultivate Happiness
In his new book,
Authentic Happiness,
psychologist Martin
Seligman says
that the field of psychology has placed too
much emphasis on
relieving people's miseries, as opposed
to building up
the strengths, such as humor, originality and
generosity,
which can make us happier people.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/GoodMorningAmerica/GMA020904Authentic_happiness_excerpt.html
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"In the
path of our happiness shall we find the learning for which
we have chosen
this lifetime."
ILLUSIONS - The
Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah - Richard Bach
As a new school
Principal, Mr. Mitchell was checking over
his school on
the first day. Passing the
stockroom, he was
startled to see
the door wide open and teachers bustling in
and out,
carrying off books and supplies in preparation for
the arrival of
students the next day.
The school where
he had been a Principal the previous year
had used a
check-out system only slightly less elaborate
than that at
Fort Knox.
Cautiously, he
asked the school's long time Custodian, "Do
you think it's
wise to keep the stock room unlocked and to
let the teachers
take things without requisitions?"
The Custodian
looked at him gravely. "We
trust them with
the children,
don't we?"
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"Few people
realize that Shakespeare once studied law. The
original working
title of KING LEAR was actually, Estate
Planning: A
Trouble-Shooting Guide for the Wealthy Land
Owner."
-Brenda Pontiff
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3. GIVE THE KIDS
THE CAMERA
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/esrccontent/news/october02-3.asp
New research
shows that, contrary to popular belief, children as young as four years old
show a remarkable aptitude for photography and are perfectly capable of framing
a portrait shot
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4. NEW
PRINTABLES
The new
Inspiration 7 is a true INSPIRATION.
the program is
magnificent and
is suitable for middle to upper primary users
right through
High School, and onto Tertiary as well as Teachers
programming. Here is a start point for the
development of a digital
portfolio using
this tool. Take a look, this
promises to be a time
saver for
teachers in the digital portfolio stakes.
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/digiport.htm
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5. TECHNICAL
STUFF
Graphics
manipulation freeware next term.
Photoplus - http://www.myfreephotoplus.com
has layers,
opacity, cropping and most of the other features
one would need
for making webpage graphics and digital
compositing.
Gimp which is also free and you can get it from
Free Tools
There is a photo
manipulation program, a drawing program and a 3D
animation
program. They are free.
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/products.asp
Frontpage
tutorials
http://www.icemocha.com/tutorials.htm
http://www.fgcu.edu/support/office2000/frontpage/index.html
http://www.electricteacher.com/tutorial2.htm
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Conference
Listings From the SchoolDaily http://www.theschooldaily.com/
9th National
Conference of the Australian Association for the Education of the Gifted and
Talented
http://www.edDiary.com/viewEvent.asp?eventPK=229
Date : Sunday,
20 October 2002
Venue :
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia
15th Biennial
World Conference for Gifted Education
http://www.edDiary.com/viewEvent.asp?eventPK=216
Date : Friday,
01 August 2003
Venue :
Convention Centre, Adelaide,
Australia
2002 ASCD
Teaching & Learning Conference: Instructional and Leadership Practices That
Work
http://www.edDiary.com/viewEvent.asp?eventPK=385
Date : Friday,
11 October 2002
Venue : Hyatt
Regency Superdome, New Orleans, USA
VETnetwork
Australia National Conference 2002 - 'Enterprising People and Partnerships:
vocational education and careers for a changing world'
http://www.edDiary.com/viewEvent.asp?eventPK=243
Date :
Wednesday, 23 October 2002
Venue : Brisbane
Convention & Exhibition Centre, Brisbane, Australia
Our Children of
the Future 3
http://www.edDiary.com/viewEvent.asp?eventPK=383
Date : Thursday,
01 May 2003
Venue : Adelaide
Convention Centre, Adelaide, Australia
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Hi Cathy
Thought you may
find this of interest for your newsletter.
Absorb
Mathematics Online (FREE)
Crocodile Clips
has just started a special offer for Absorb Mathematics. This would be most
suitable for High School years 7 -10.
Anyone can use
the full course live on their website by simply logging in.
The license is
strictly only for using the files from their website, not
for downloading
in any way, the media based program is available from Edsoft. The link to the page on the Crocodile
Clips website, is,
http://www.crocodile-clips.com/absorb/AM4/index.htm
- the registration is linked from there.
Linda Zugai
Edsoft Pty Ltd
Linda.Zugai@bigpond.com
http://www.edsoft.com.au>www.edsoft.com.au
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6. WEBSITE FOCUS
-Digital Photography Part 2
Making your Own
Movie with IMovie
So you’ve
fiddled around a bit with your new digital camera and
with IMovie, now
for some serious filmmaking.
Although many folk
like to just go
out and shoot, planning is essential to good video
making. And
saves a lot of time. Think about
the intended audience,
the message, the
‘hook’ for the video.
To start with set
the parameters, I suggest a 3 minute movie.
Choose a topic
you are familiar with, want to explore.
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/film.doc
action,
leave the camera rolling for 3 secs after action has finished.
Enough for now – go forth and enjoy.
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7. EXCEL -
Formulas
Formulas ( http://www.cpearson.com/excel/overtime.htm
)
"Excel is
often used tomanage employee time records: number of
hours worked,
meal breaks, regular and overtime pay and so on.
This web page
examines a number of related formulas for a simple daily timekeeping
record."
(http://www.j-walk.com/ss/excel/files/timesht.htm
) "This workbook makes
it easy for an
employee to track his or her daily work hours. The employee
simply enters
the times, and the formulas calculate the hours. It even tracks
overtime hours
on a weekly basis (set up as 40 hours, but easily modified).
Free Download
You can get a copy of this file (which is unprotected, and
also includes
access to the VBA source code)."
Or, contact: http://www.allexperts.com/getExpert.asp?Category=1059
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8. GREAT SITES
Kids' Health
from the BBC - Once again a very informative site from this mob.
Covers the
functions of different parts of the body with a brief guide, also covers
aspects of looking after your body including smoking drinking and drugs,
excercise and healthy diet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/kids/
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Paper Airplanes
http://www.josephpalmer.com/planes/Airplane.shtml
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HOT SITES
Top toppo site -
get into Giggle Poetry. Great way
to start the term
with a crazy
peom from this one. Fantastic Resource
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9. READERS
COMMENTS/REQUESTS
Dear Cathy,
I thought I'd
see what you could offer me in the way of sites for Self-esteem
activities....any suggestions?
Thanks,
Deb H.
Deb H.
There is a real
secret to self esteem – YOU HAVE TO ACCOMLISH SOMETHING BEFORE YOU FEEL
GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF.
Children need
opportunities to do well, and to evaluate themselves
so that they
KNOW they are doing well.
Here’s a
couple of sites on VT that might help. Give up on the
Self Esteem
lessons – it can’t be taught, it comes from accomplishment.
Evaluation what
Good is IT.
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/classroom/evaluate.html
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/g&t.html
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/jerry.html
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Cathy
I use quite a
few programs from this site, it certainly would be worth
putting the
address in the newsletter.
Regards
Daniel Drury
The Pricelessware List reflects the
programs favored by members
of the newsgroup
<news:alt.com.freeware>alt.comp.freeware ; it is
not an
exhaustive list of the best available Freeware. Most of the
listings are
well-known programs, but there are some hard-to-find
goodies to be
discovered. Although most categories will list only 1
or 2 selections,
a few will list 3-4 programs.
Some of the
detailed information for each program includes special
notations. These
indicate a specific issue with the program. It could
be that the program
is a LIGHT version, that the program requires
registration
before download or that the program suggested is the
last Freeware
version available.
The list is
reviewed regularly for updated versions. New programs
are sometimes
added during the year. The list as a whole is
reviewed once a
year.
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Hi Cathy
My school is
looking at revamping its Daily Fitness Program K-6.
I was wondering
if you, or anyone else, had any resource suggestions.
Ron Adams
Here is a useful
site full of links.
http://www.lessonplanspage.com/PE45.htm
Most fitness
programs I have been involved in have been for 20 mins a
day - all
teachers and extra folk(like ESL, willing parents, etc) take a
group. The children rotate through the
activities, each teacher then
only prepares
one activity(or series of activities around a similar theme)
which may last
for the term. Some very cool
activities I have seen are:-
Jump Rope with
music.
Tai Chi and
Yoga(Teacher's interest area)
Jive Dance Steps
and of course
Aerobics to very cool music
I'll put your
request in the nest newsletter.
ciao
cathy
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Hi Cathy!
I am a first
year Education student at Edith Cowan University, I am
currently
completing the first ICT Unit for my course and part of the
requirement is
to develop a webpage..about the unit and ICT topic
in general. I was hoping that you would give your permission
for
me to 'borrow'
your virtual teacher logo on your directory page and
link to your
website. ( I will of course send
in the URL of the
finished product
once it is up!). I subscribe to
your newsletter and
have found it
excellent for preparing my lessons and doing my
assignments and
I want everyone at Uni to subscribe as well,
so what better
way to get some advertising going!
Let me know its
OK!
Cheers
Belinda
Permission
granted.
ciao
cathy
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AND NOW SOME
COUNTER ARGUMENTS TO THE MAC/ PC DIGITAL EDITING DEBATE:-
Hi Cathy,
I'm not a
teacher, although I am married to one and I administer computing
resources for a
large primary school. I've been spreading the word amongst
my teaching
collegues about your newsletter and website and links to both
appear high on
the list in the "Resources for Teachers" page on our local
intranet site.
I just wanted to
comment on your article on Video editing.
Windows XP now
includes video
editing software (Movie Maker) as part of the operating
system. We've been using it with Year 6 and 7
students. The former
produced their
own 30sec commercials, the later edited their own "The Panel"
style interview
show as followup to a school trip to Canberra and the snow
fields. The point that I wanted to make is that
Movie Maker is as easy to
use as iMovie
and as it is part of the OS is technically free. Also, the
cost of buying a
PC are much cheaper than buying a Mac. This is one of the
reasons my
school is moving from Macs to PCs.
Of course the
issue is downloading video to hard disk. As you probably know
Firewire is not
standard on PCs but a firewire card can be installed on a PC
for between $60
- $100. At my school we have one
firewire enabled PC. From
this machine,
videos are downloaded and transferred to a shared network
drive. Students
can then access the material from there.
Enjoy your
holidays and thanks for the great material. I always look
forward
receiving it and passing it on.
Susan Cokley
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Hi Cathy
Just wanted to
add a few comments about digital video.
Yes,
Macs are great
to use with iMovie. However, it's
just as easy,
in fact, almost
more so, on a PC. Our school is a Mac school,
so we use
iMovie, but at home, and at my previous school,
we use our PC
for all digital video editing.
There is lots of
cheap, easy to use software around that works
just as
effectively as iMovie. You can compress your files within
the software,
into mpeg format which makes them quite small in
file size.
I'm not sure if
you want to mention particular software packages,
but there are
lots available. You will need a firewire card, and
most come with
free software anyway, which is usually plenty to
get you started.
Sue
Sue Lemmer
Assistant
Principal, Middle School
Mawson Lakes
School
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10. NEXT ISSUE – Thanks for the PC
input about digital editing.
Macs are the
industry standard professionally for editing and if you
have an option I
would recommend them for editing over PCs.
Next week
digital portfolios with Inspiration 7.
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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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