Fife Schools Technology

Not sure who knows about this or how often it is used but all of our libraries have a list of their book collections online. The only catch is that they are only available from inside the district.

Discovery: http://draco.fifesd.net:50000/webopac/main?siteid=dis
Endeavour: http://draco.fifesd.net:50000/webopac/main?siteid=end
Hedden: http://draco.fifesd.net:50000/webopac/main?siteid=hed
SLMS: http://draco.fifesd.net:50000/webopac/main?siteid=slm
FHS: http://draco.fifesd.net:50000/webopac/main?siteid=fhs
CJH: http://draco.fifesd.net:50000/webopac/main?siteid=cjh

Happy reading!

Update (7/6/09): We made some changes this summer and the above links have been updated.

NECC (National Educational Computing Conference) is one of the largest (if not the largest) conferences on education and technology in the country. This year it is being held in Washington, DC. Since it isn’t in the budget to attend a conference across the country, there are a number of ways to still benefit from the information being shared.

One way is by accessing the handouts being created for the various presentations. You can search for handouts and download them by visiting http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/program/presenter_handouts.php .

This is a website with numerous math resources including games, manipulatives, videos, and puzzles.

http://www.mathplayground.com/

Check it out and let me know what you find helpful on this site so we can pass it on to others.

I’ve been following the iLearn Technology Blog for a few months now and appreciate its recommendations for free educational resources on the Internet. I particularly appreciate that it provides suggestions for how to integrate this technology into the classroom.

This and other blogs help us to become more aware of the many free online resources that teachers can use.

I would recommend adding the iLearn Technology blog to your list of RSS feeds.

http://ilearntechnology.com/

Thinkfinity is a website where you can search for educational resources such as lesson plans, online games, and other helpful items.

http://www.thinkfinity.org/

I haven’t spent enough time with it to fully understand the quality and quantity of its contents. I’d be interested in feedback if you spend time with it.

Need help understanding what your teen is texting? Having a hard time deciphering the alphabet soup of acronyms?

Try DTXTR (short for detexter, like decipher but for texting) at http://www.lgdtxtr.com/ .

It’s a translator where you can type in a “texting” phrase and you’ll be given the meaning.

There’s even reverse translation but not all common phrases translate into text-speak so it’s hit and miss.

Give it a try!

TTFN

Pixlr is a very nice online photo editor. It’s not Photoshop but most people don’t need a $600 program to edit their photos.

Give it a try at http://pixlr.com/ .

Kris Haines, teacher at Endeavour, discovered a nice website to assist with spelling practice. I wanted to pass it on.

www.spellingcity.com

Includes a function that speaks the spelling words.

I’d like to hear feedback on how this site works for teachers and students.

For some, especially in tough economic times, purchasing software to use at home may not be an option. Fortunately, there are free alternatives. Here are some:

OpenOffice ( http://www.openoffice.org ) is a free suite of programs similar to Microsoft Office. It includes word processing, spreadsheet, drawing, and presentation software. OpenOffice should provide many of the tools a student would need to do work at home on a computer.

Another “office” alternative online is Google Docs ( http://docs.google.com ). There aren’t as many features as the desktop applications but does provides the basics via the web.

Photoshop is the industry standard for image editing but it comes at a price. A free alternative that provides much of the same functionality is called GIMP ( http://www.gimp.org ). It’s a powerful tool for editing photos or creating graphics from scratch.

I think of RSS as robotic web-surfing.

I have a number of websites that I’m interested in, all of which periodically add new content. The problem is that I don’t have time to visit each of those sites one by one on a frequent basis to see if something new has been added to those sites. It’s too much to keep track of and would take too long. I’m bound to miss something.

Instead, I use software (a RSS reader) that automatically goes to those sites and checks to see if anything new has been added. Then I just need to skim the list that summarizes the new content found on all of these sites and if interested, visit a site directly to consume the full content.

I have over 120 sites that I keep track of via RSS. Once a day or so, I review the list of new content and read further when interested. I can skim 120 sites in about 10 minutes. It would take hours to visit all of those sites directly.

What do I subscribe to?
· Work-related news: technical and educational sites and blogs
· People I know: friends and family who have blogs or other content sites such as photo album sites
· Fun stuff: a number of sites that I just think are interesting or hobby-related

Now for the Technical Stuff:

In order to do RSS, the website producing the content must have a RSS feed set up which is a specially configured web page. It’s not intended to be read directly by people so those details really aren’t important to the consumer other than if the site doesn’t produce RSS, it won’t work.

On the consumer side, you need an RSS reader. There are many software options. Outlook 2007 can subscribe to RSS feeds. Most new browsers (including Internet Explorer) have RSS readers built in. There are stand-alone RSS readers but I am currently using a web-based tool (Google Reader) so that I can check from my computer and from my mobile phone.

In the RSS reader, you need to add a “subscription” so the RSS reader knows where to get the RSS feed.

The trickiest part of the whole thing is probably figuring out the web address of the RSS feed and adding that address to your RSS reader. Often, sites will have an RSS link. Just copy the URL of that link and paste it into your reader.

Hope that helps. I’d be glad to answer questions.