Virtual Teacher
Newsletter No. 68 March 28th, 2003 SURPRISTY
THE FREE ONLINE
FORTNIGHTLY IT TEACHERS' NEWSLETTER
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CONTENTS
1.
Welcome
2.
Mind Candy
3.
WWWinfo - SURPRISTY
4.
New Printables - 2 SELF EVAULATION RUBRICS
5.
Technical Stuff - Competitions
6.
Web Site Focus Laugh at Work Week
7.
Drawing Cartoons
8.
Great Sites
9. Readers' Requests/Comments
10
Next Issue
11.
Code of 'Netizens'
12.
Tips
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1.
WELCOME EVERYONE. I'd like to see what is happening in
classrooms
around the world. If youıre on for
it, send me a photo
of
your classroom, about 100K attached to an email
Iıll
publish a selection on the VT site,
it should be great to see
what
is happening worldwide. I am still looking for a great
software
library package, so if anyone has any thoughts,
send
them in. Donıt forget to celebrate
laugh at work week
next
week, this type of topic is usually a great stimulus for
students
writing and speaking.
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2.
MIND CANDY
I saw
the wonderful Midsummer Nightıs Dream performed
recently
I love the final speech by Puck:-
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
Shakespeareıs
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
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"Walking on water and developing
software from a specification
are easy if both are frozen." --
Edward V. Berard
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PROGRAM - A magic spell cast over a
computer allowing
it to turn one's input into error
messages.
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"If you give someone a program, you
will frustrate them
for a day; if you teach them how to
program, you will frustrate
them for a lifetime."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computers do not solve problems, they
execute solutions."
Laurent Gasser.
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For the first time in a decade,
something from Microsoft
shipped on time: Jennifer Katharine Gates, weighed
8 pounds 6 ounces when she was downloaded(born) on
Friday, April 26 at 6: 11pm. And there is one striking
similarity in Baby Gates and Daddy's products -- "Neither
can stand on its own two feet without a LOT
of third party support."
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3.
WWWInfo SURPRISTY
A lot
of folk write to me requesting info on sites, and specific topic.
VT
has a fantastic search engine GOOGLEı. The GOOGLE
search
engine searches only the VT site.
So just type in
your
request and the results will be
delivered to you.
SURPRISTY
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/directory.html
(Centre
top of directory page)
ARCHIVES
all VT newsletters from Number 1 to number 68,
can
be found at:-
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/archives.html
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4.
NEW PRINTABLES - 2 SELF EVAULATION
RUBRICS
Cathy,
I guess your newsletter just gets me too excited
to
read through fully before emailing suggestions.
I
liked your self-evaluation rubric and have saved it.
The
two I often use are attached
Best
to you .. Nancy
The
Rubrics are at:
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/teachtool.html
under
evaluation. They are Microsoft
document files so
can
be easily printed. Thanks again Nancy.
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5.
TECHNICAL STUFF - COMPETITIONS
The
Macquarie Business Mathematics Competition is an
innovative,
online mathematics competition for senior
secondary
school students. Competition questions are
scenario-based
and have a strong business focus
http://www.mbmc.perdisco.com/home.asp
----------------------------------
The Australian Mathematics Trust is a national non-profit
organisation which conducts mathematics competitions and mathematics
enrichment activities. It is based on the
campus of the University of Canberra.
http://www.mbmc.perdisco.com/home.asp
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Edna
Links page on Competitions
http://www.edna.edu.au/discover/?Function=&queryText=competitions&quick_links=#resulttab
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6.
WEBSITE FOCUS - Laugh at Work Week
Dates:
April 1, 2003 - April 7, 2003
³Laugh
at Work² Week is observed April 1 to 7. Humor improves
productivity
and eliminates stress. Keep the fun going all week long.
Laugh
and a Half Lesson
http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/02/lp262-03.shtml#sources
There
is a Good source of jokes the
first site is interactive.
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/jokes.html
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7.
DRAWING CARTOONS
Great
site simple to use. Step by step instructions with illustrations.
http://www.unclefred.com/index.html
Cartoonography
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~denyss/indexa.htm
Chunky
monkey - cartoon animals
http://www.chunkymonkey.com/howto/howto.htm
Learn
to Draw Cartoon Critters
http://www.cartooncritters.com/learntodraw.htm
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8.
GREAT SITES
HOT
SITES
The
Endeavour Simple outline - flash
or quicktime. A
simple
outline of James Cook's 1768 Voyage.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/museum/tempexhib/voyages/endeavour.html
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Bronze
Age sites - Suitable for Senior ancient Histroy or Art
History
Studies. Covers Knossos and
Mycenae
Great
Intro to the Bronze age.
http://www.lfc.edu/academics/greece/ba.html
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Australian
Flags site
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Comprehensive
- great links
This
page provides links for Visual Arts students, teachers
and
anyone else interested in art.
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9.
READERS COMMENTS/REQUESTS
Hi
Cathy,
I've
been receiving your Virtual Teacher newsletter for a little
while
now. This time I have decided to respond to one of your
segments.
Section
3. WWWinfo SYMANTEC
I would
suggest to readers that instead of going to the Hoaxes
page
they go to a search page http://www.symantec.com/search/
It
makes searching easier. You just
type in the name of the
virus
you've been warned about and get a list of hits. Just
like
any other search engine. Saves you
scrolling through
the
list and finds it for you nice and quick. May I also say
to
readers that in general if you receive an email warning
you
of a virus it will be a hoax. If
you have well meaning
friends
who send you these warnings forward them on to
the
Symantec site so they can check for themselves before
scaring
everyone on their address book list.
I've
stopped many of my friends from sending 'friendly'
warnings
by sending them to the above URL.
Sjaani
RainDrop
illusions WebDesign
-----------------------------------
This is a great suggestion, thanks Sjaani.
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Hi,
Cathy,
Your
wonderful Virtual Teacher information arrives often, and I continue
to
enjoy everything you share with the world. Attached, please find
another
terrific site to check out hoaxes.
I use it often and have
forwarded
it to many friends.
Enjoy!
... Nancy
http://www.snopes2.com/snopes.asp
-----------------------------------
Thanks
Nancy another great site.
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Hi
Cathy,
This
year with the setting up of the lab, I find I'm on a steep, but
enjoyable,
learning curve. As I read on your site before - I learn
from
the kids as much (or more) as they learn from me!!
Anyway,
a desperate? Where can I find something (anything)
that
will teach me the basics of setting up a database to teach a
Stage
2 class. We will be using Microsoft Access. I've spent
time
at the VT Directory but with no real luck.
Thanks
again for all the help in the past
Terrie
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi
Terrie,
You
are right I haven't covered Databases - perhaps I should.
I
frankly don't think that Access should be used in primary school
-
Excel Spreadsheets give a similar result and can be used in a
similar
way to a database. BUT as it is in
the curriculum I guess
I
should cover it - perhaps next newsletter. At any rate it is pretty
simple
there are some tutorials at:-
http://www.microsoft.com/office/using/column06.asp
http://isds.bus.lsu.edu/cvoc/learn/introit/access/acclesson1/
http://mis.bus.sfu.ca/tutorials/MSAccess/tutorials.html
http://databases.about.com/library/weekly/aa121000a.htm
Remember
this program is designed for business so there are
a lot
of functions that are unnecessary for Primary school
especially
for stage 2. (I leave it til stage
3)
Select
a simple database perhaps about the children
name
DOB, favourite food, favourite movie, number of siblings,
favourite
sport and use the form to enter the data.
Keep it very
simple.
I may
cover a bit on this in the future - hope this helps for now.
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Hello,
I
recently visited your site and was very impressed by the quality
and
presentation of the content. I
would like to request a link
on
your site to http://www.aneki.com
I
hope that you may find the material on our site to be of interest
to
visitors to your site.
Best
Regards,
------------------------------------------
This
looks like a good site, basically a countries facts sites,
very
easy to negotiate. Includes facts like population, flags,
maps
and produce etc. Well worth a look
for Geography
research.
------------------------------------------
17th
March, 2003 21.40 hours
Dear
Cathy,
Many
thanks for your Newsletter. I find
it invaluable and
so
do some of the staff at
school. Please keep up the
great
work. I've had a lot of trouble with my computer but
all
is working very well again
now. I had to completely
re-format
my C-drive. I doing this I
lost the first edition of
Virtual
Teacher for
the year.
Could
you please email this to me?
Regards,
Br.
Damian Needham
------------------------------------------
Hi
Damian.
All
VT archives can be found at:-
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/archives.html
VT 1
can be found at:-
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/vt1.html
Glad
to hear your computer is again working, reformatting will
give
it a new lease on life.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cathy
I am
interested in creating panoramas from photographs.
Do
you know which is the most economical (cheap) "stitcher" program?
Thanks
Daphne
-------------------------------------
Hi
Daphne,
The
best product for this that I have seen is Photoshop Elements
the
stitching is brilliant easy and quick. Photoshop Elements is
around
$169AUD however there maybe a cheaper educational price.
http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/tips/phsel2pano/main.html
Depending
on how long you want to use it, downloads has a few
programs
that are free to try at:-
http://download.com.com/3120-20-0.html?qt=free+panorama+stitcher&tg=dl-20&search=+Go%21+
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10. NEXT ISSUE I will take a look at databases, as Terrie has
requested
. Please send in your classroom photos, I will publish a
representative
sampling on the net for all to
see. Have a fantastic
fortnight.
Ciao
Cathy
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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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