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Virtual Teacher Newsletter  No.157 October 23rd 2012

IGNITE THE EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION

THE FREE ONLINE IT TEACHERS' NEWSLETTER

A newsletter full of tips, tricks & inspiration, but most importantly to keep the good fight going.

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Click here to subscribe to or unsubscribe from VT

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CONTENTS

1. Welcome

2. Mind Candy

3. Cathy's Forum - THE POINT – TO IGNITE THE EDUCATION REVOLUTION

4. Creativity & Inspiration & Design – STEVE JOBS + JOHN CLEESE

5. Technical Stuff – WINDOWS 8

6. Web Site Focus – ADOBE EDUCATION - K TO FOREVER

7. WWWinfo – SHOW MY STREET

8. Great Sites

9.  Readers' Requests/Comments

10. Next Issue

11. Code of 'Netizens'

12. Tips

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1. WELCOME EVERYONE Welcome back

After 4 years and lots of encouragement VT is back. I think it’s absolutely fantastic to be back. Much has changed, and much more still needs to change. Everything seems to be evolving at an accelerated pace. Everything except Education, which seems to be stuck. Once you realise that….

 

“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it.The minute you can understand this, that you change it, you can mould it, that’s the most important thing. Once you learn that you’ll want to change life and make it better because it’s kind of messed up in a lot of ways.” Steve Jobs

 

Education is messed up in a lot of ways. We are dishing out a fast food version of education, which is demoralising our kids and teachers and impoverishing our spirits and energies.

 

What about if the same enthusiasm we had for teaching when we began like Kathryn……

“I love learning and wanted to be able to share that love and develop it in others for a life time.”

Kathryn

…..we still felt after 5 year, 10 or 20 years.

 

Become the teacher you always wanted to be because we changed the system so we could do it better.

 

Give me your thoughts on this one. What are your plans, what great websites and IT ideas have

you discovered hat have you found inspiring, in the last 4 years, there must be a lot. Send them in, I just love them.

ciao

Cathy

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2. MIND CANDY

 “Don’t think to yourself: ‘I’m too young to start realising my dreams!' We all have a short period of time on this earth. We probably only have the opportunity to do a few things really great and do them well. None of us has any idea how long we’re going to be here, nor do I,but my feeling is I have to accomplish a lot of these things while I’m young.” Steve Jobs

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“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” Steve Jobs

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THE FABLE FOR SCHOOL PEOPLE

This is one I truly love on the VT site

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"Digital technology is all about expressing yourself, communicating, and creating. It's about giving students a fabulous, powerful voice." Peter French

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"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." Alvin Toffler

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"Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun. Mary Lou Cook

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"I don't want my son to be limited to learning only what his teacher already knows!"

J. Couch, VP of Apple Education
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3. CATHY'S FORUM

THE POINT - TO IGNITE THE EDUCATION REVOLUTION

Will you Join the Revolution?

 

We need to move from our current Test-ocracy where success is measured by correct answers on test, because it doesn’t work. Too many kids opt out, take drugs or get drunk. We are squandering

the extraordinary talents and capacities of our children and teenagers.

 

We have no idea what the future will look like. What a successful member of society will look like in 10, 20 or 30years, or what skills they will need.

 

I do know that educating children to think mistakes are the worst things you can make, kills creativity, because if you are not prepared to be wrong, if you are determined to get every question right, you will never come up with anything original. And of one thing I am sure, the future will require lots of creative thinking.

 

What should we teach? How should Education be changed? I believe that we all have a role to play in coming up with a satisfactory answers to these question.

 

This is new and different work and the challenge is not just to cope with it but to thrive on it.

 

The Iron Age did not end because humans ran out of iron. It ended because it was time for a rethink about how we live. (Hames, 2007 p 282).

 

It is the end of the Knowledge Age and we need to rethink how we educate our children for the new millennium, and we're already 12 years late.

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4. CREATIVITY DESIGN & INSPIRATION

STEVE JOBS

A short Video well worth showing to students. 1995 Embrace and change life and never be the same again.

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JOHN CLEESE

is the maser of Creativity and offers much in his lecture - video to follow. An incredible speech, we have set up a Space Time Oasis in our office. Download the signage and pin it up at your place.

'Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.'

 

1. Space (“You can’t become playful, and therefore creative, if you’re under your usual pressures.”)

 

2. Space Time (“It’s not enough to create space; you have to create your space for a specific period of time.”)

 

3. Mind Time (“Giving your mind as long as possible to come up with something original,” and learning to tolerate the discomfort of pondering time and indecision.)

 

4. Confidence (“Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.”)

 

5.  Humour (“The main evolutionary significance of humour is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.”)

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5. TECHNICAL STUFF

Windows 8 will be released on 26/10/2012 – Friday.The new software looks completely different to its predecessors and is designed to operate as a touch screen. If you have Windows 7 on a non touch screen Monitor I’d say stick with thathowever for those who do upgrade this video may provide a little help with one annoying feature…….How to get back to the Windows 8 Start screen

Here's three ways to get back there.

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6. WEBSITE FOCUS – ADOBE EDUCATION - K to FOREVER

http://www.adobe.com/au/education.html

I love Creative Cloud Adobe really hit the ball right out of the park with this one. You can download any of the Adobe products, includes the old favourites as well as a raft of new programs that are continually added, upgraded and improved. This means you can be always using the current software upgrade.

 

The latest new Edge Tools are quite amazing, being simpler and more effective with each new incarnation.

 

The accompanying video or in program tutorials are fantastic and make learning easier. The forums are splendid for tricky answers.

 

I have been using and loving Muse – which is a website design programwith no coding required. I made the new VT site on it and it was an absolute pleasure to work with. The smashing buttons and the fortune cookie were all made in Photoshop and imported as buttons

seamlessly into Muse using native .psd

 

Edge Animate is fun to play with and integrates with Muse and other Website apps. The new Typekit feature is fabulous and allows online live fonts to be used on websites instead of the local computers systems fonts and it is as easy as pie to use.

 

After Effects and Premiere Pro will satisfy the filmmakers, but the other options can be investigated and used at no further cost, like Audition (audio) and SpeedGrade (colour grading)

 

The Phone App builders amongst you will love the options for these.

 

Software downloads really easily and updates are available all the time.Creative Cloud Student and Teacher EditionDownload and install any of the CS6 apps, access and share work anywhere, and get new features and apps as soon as they're released They have a special on at the moment - $14.99 per month for a one year plan (this offer ends 30th November). But you can try it for free

for 1 month anytime.

 

LEARNING AT ADOBE

Adobe TV List all the Adobe Video Tutorials – these can be searched for Specific Topics

 

Take a look at the Adobe Channels for Task Specific videos

 

Visit the How To Video page for quick intros to basic tasks.

 

Adobe Forums are a great way to get answers when you get stumped.It’s a community of experts, join, ask questions, WOW you can actually have a conversation with an expert, and be an expert yourself by providing some answers.

 

Visit the Design Center for inspiration

 

Adobe Webinars and Live Events

The webinars are fantastic as you can login and see the presenters screen and ask questions along the way. The whole experience is fascinating. I have done a couple for Muse – the presenter shares the screen and you can follow along in your program. Amazing.

 

"All students can learn to think more creatively. Adobe offers the best tools to make that happen."

Don Wass

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7. WWWinfo

SHOW MY STREET

This is amazing – just type in your street address and watch the magic

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8. GREAT SITES

HOT SITES

VT MATHS LINKS PAGE

has been updated all the links work. Starting with Adrian Bruce’s Fantastic site. Take a look. And send in any more suggestions.

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Toporopa

Pull up Toporopa on your nearest browser and learn all about the geographical, political, historical and economical aspects of the wonderful Europe.

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Read Write Think Printing Press

Read Write Think

With Printing Press, students can create a booklet, flyer, brochure or newspaper fairly easily. There is a nice guide that walks you through the process, and the focus is on writing. There is a place within each publication for a picture, where students can draw a picture after printing.

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9. READERS COMMENTS/REQUESTS

Hi Cathy,

Thank you for creating a great site on graphs.My name is Katrina and I've been searching the internet for information and resources on graphs for my studies. I'm trying to learn everything that I can about it so that I may be able to use it in the future. It hasn't been easy looking for useful websites, but I'm very happy that I found yours.

 

Your website http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/maths.html has a good list of resources on graphs and it's very easy to use. The resources you have are all great and the content on your

website is useful to me, too. I do hope you continue to maintain your website because people will be glad to come across yours when they're looking for resources on math graphs.

 

I think that your list of resources would be better if you could include this link to it:

http://www.startlocal.com.au/articles/educational_graphs.html

It's also about graphs and the resources they have there are all legit. It would be great to see this small contribution of mine up on your site and I know people will benefit from it as well.

 

I can't express my appreciation enough. Your website has been most helpful. Keep in touch!

 

Regards,

Katrina

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Hi Cathy,

I'd like to suggest a math resource for this page, http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/maths.html

http://www.quizzes.cc/ provides math quizzes for teachers and students. You can create a quiz and select the rangeof numbers you'd like to use. Students can grade the quiz online and generate new problems for more practice.

Thanks for the help.

Best Regards,

John

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Howdy,

My students and I are so happy we came across your page:

http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/Vt48.html

Your page has offered us a great resource (on paper airplanes) that we were able to browse through.  Thanks!   As a fun extra side assignment, I had my students help me find some fun resources!  Anyway, since we used one of your resources,  and you don't have many related links, my students thought it'd be a great idea to share one they found:

http://www.cheapflights.com/promos/science-of-flight-paper-airplanes

(Check it out!) ((I'm awarding them with some sort of incentive/extra credit as well!)) 

Do you think you could add their suggestion to your page? They would love to help/know they could contribute!  

Sincerely,

Jessica Lee

 

Please let them know they contributed – it’s a great resource

– good on them.  Another one I rather like is

Origami Paper Airplanes – they might like to check this out.

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10.  NEXT ISSUE

 Innovative ideas and how to stimulate them. Send in your  GREAT ideas.

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11.CODE of the NETIZENS

This Newsletter is not free, despite the misleading advertisingabove. The Fee is now due. Each week you must help onecolleague on the Internet who has less knowledge than you.Help that person even if you have to visit their classroom ordo a little research and get back to them. Trust me, this willhelp a lot of people get their computer classrooms running better.

OK I'm trusting you!!!

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12. TIPS

1. GOT SOMETHING TO SAY - Send in your Questions, Questions will be published with Answers, send in your Answers, if you have expertise to share.

 

2. NOMINATE A BRILLIANT SITE for review and inclusion in thisnewsletter.

 

3. NOMINATE A FANTASTIC SCHOOL WEBSITE site for review and inclusion in this newsletter.

 

4. MAKE CONTACT with other schools using fantastic programs.

 

5. WRITE and innovative article for this newsletter.

 

6. TELL 2 COLLEAGUES about this newsletter.

 

7. BECOME A VT SUPPORTER  $5 per year, and keep a good thing going.Your name + a hyperlink if you like will appear on our supporters list.(unless anonymity is requested)

 

Announce your support for innovation and change in Education.

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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'twork for you send me an email.

Editor: Cathy Brown cathy@virtualteacher.com.au

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