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| While some students & teachers may think that Sesame Street is still just that classic educational TV show, the first grade students of Ms. Stephanie Iozzo (pictured below working with one of them) know Sesame Street in a whole different and exciting way of learning using a computer! If you visit her room, students can often be seen watching three to five minute Sesame Street video podcasts during their computer center time. This is possible because  Sesame Street now offers a whole series of podcasts via iTunes featuring the fuzzy friends of Sesame Street explaining the meaning of words and much, much more. Ms. Iozzo has found these podcasts to be a highly effective and fun way to enhance learning in her classroom. In addition, her students love watching the Sesame Street characters talk about what they are learning in the classroom. “The Sesame Street podcasts help my kids make connections with topics we discuss in class and it actively engages them beyond the classroom. For example, I saw that the students really enjoyed watching the podcast on subtraction. When we talked about those concepts during a math lesson, they were able to relate concepts in class to what they saw on the video segments. It was amazing!" The podcasts cover a wide range of topics that are perfect to the grade level curriculum including addition, subtraction, friends, compliments, insects, mammals, and healthy snacks. It makes an excellent resource that can be used in an ongoing basis. Some of the favorite epsiodes which students enjoy are the "What’s the Word on the Street?" installments where the meaning of difficult words is explained in simple kid-friendly terms. “Now my students come in every morning asking me ‘What’s the Word on the Street?’!”, exclaims Iozzo. Ask any of her students what they think of using the Sesame Street podcasts in their classroom and you will certainly get some great responses. “I love the podcasts! I like how they explain words. I didn’t know what the word compliment meant and then when I watched the podcast I was able to understand," stated one student. “I love how Elmo sings a song to help me better understand the word," said another. Iozzo would definitely recommend these podcasts to any kindergarten, first grade and second grade students. "Kids will definitely learn from them!,” says Iozzo. Beyond Sesame Street, iTunes offers many video kid friendly podcasts through the iTunes Store, and more and more are being added each day to the collection. PBS Kids (DragonFly TV), The Science Channel, CNN (Student News) and others are just some of the video podcast series that have been designed for educational use. Teachers can use video podcasts as a launch for a learning unit or, like Iozzo has done, for individual computer center time in the classroom (headphones recommended!) Best of all, since the podcasts are free and can be accessed via iTunes, students can even watch to them from home as well using iTunes on their Mac or PC! |
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|  If you spend any time working with text within one of Apple’s Cocoa applications such as Pages, Keynote, Numbers, TextEdit, Safari, or Mail to name a few, there are a couple of easy but relatively unknown shortcuts which can make working with text much easier within these kinds of programs. These shortcuts are possible because they tie right into the UNIX underpinnings of Mac OS X! Try these out and you’ll be amazed how much time they can save you!
AUTO COMPLETION
If you start typing a word in any Cocoa application and want to see a list of auto-completion options, start typing the word and then hit the Escape-Option or F5 keys to enable a pop-up menu with suggestions to complete the word. The pop-up menu will display 15 words at a time but this can be scrolled using the arrow keys on the keyboard until you find the perfect word to complete what you started typing!
DELETING FORWARD
Ever wish you could delete text to the right of the cursor? An example might be when you are trying to edit part of a web address in Safari and you don't wait to reposition the cursor with the mouse to do so. When this is the case, just use Control-D (or fn Delete on a Mac laptop), this keystoke combo will let you removing characters that appear to the right of the cursor!
WIPE OUT THE LAST WORD
If you are typing along in a Cocoa app and want to quickly erase the last word you just typed in, simply hit Option-delete on your keyboard. This keystroke combination will delete the last word that you entered saving you the time of having to hit the Delete key several times to remove all the characters of that word.
USING THE UNIX PASTEBOARD
Ever wish you could cut and paste more than once? If you are in a Cocoa app, believe or not, you can do this by using Mac OS X's Unix Pasteboard! To make use of this trick, start by select the text you want to cut and choose Control-K. This will cut the piece of text from your screen. Next, place the cursor where you want the cut text to appear and then use the keyboard stroke Control-Y to paste it back in.
Best of all, these Unix commands work independently of the default Mac OS X Command-X cut and Command-V paste commands thus giving you another pasteboard to use besides the one found in the application you are using! Pretty cool, right? |
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LEARN NC is a program from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education that provides lesson plans, professional development, and innovative web resources to support teachers, build community, and improve K-12 education in the state of North Carolina. While their primary audience is intended to be teachers in their own state, LEARN NC's excellent resources are freely available on the Web so they can serve educators and students worldwide! Although most of the materials on the site are geared towards educators, they also have a number of resources that are helpful for students and a growing collection for administrators as well. From what began as the "North Carolina Teachers’ Network" in 1997 with six pilot school systems and a few tiny databases of teaching resources, LEARN NC quickly grew into a statewide program providing thousands of quality resources to teachers and students around the world. In 2007–2008, LEARN NC welcomed 30,000 visitors a day seeking innovative ideas for teaching and learning. While most are from North Carolina, 7 percent were from outside the United States, and they have even received emails and reprint requests from as far away as China and Singapore! LEARN NC’s website offers a wide array of quality resources for K–12 classroom instruction and teacher professional development. All of their resources, except for online courses, are free and open to the public.
Highlights of the website include some outstanding Lesson Plans which span a wide range of curriculum areas for every grade from K to 12. Their collection includes the very best instructional plans created by North Carolina educators as well as high-quality materials from the site's state and national partners. Another excellent resource is their Best Practices pages which offers a host of information from simple articles to in-depth tutorials that provide teachers (and administrators) with a wide range of self-guided professional development. Finally, the Education Reference section of the site features an extensive guide that overviews not only definitions of common terms in K–12 education but also provides information that contextualizes these terms and, where appropriate, links to examples and resources that will help teachers implement these teaching ideas into their classrooms. The site's staff is made up of a vareity of teachers, media specialists, and content-area experts and the vast majority of the content on the site has been developed by or in partnership with North Carolina teachers. To ensure quality material is posted, all content undergoes peer review and editing before publication. Additional resources have also been developed by their staff, the faculty of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Education and of other universities. LEARN NC welcomes all educators, parents, and interested members to join their community. One feature of the site that shows their commit to this idea is their monthly email updates for subscribers. These updates contain summaries of new articles, information about new resources, and announcements of online course offerings and upcoming professional development opportunities. LEARN NC offers a wealth of materials that are worth taking a look at. Check out the site today and see what it can offer you and your students. If you want, you can even use the QuickLinks above to connect to some key areas of LEARN NC right now! |
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 | | SHARE THE NEWS | | |
 Know teachers who would like to read the New Hartford Tech Spotlight but aren't receiving it by email? Send them to the online version of the New Hartford Tech Spotlight to read about the latest technology happenings in New Hartford Schools. |
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| MISSED AN ISSUE? |
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| All the great issues of the New Hartford Tech Spotlight are now available online. Just go here to view the Past Issue Archives and find the issue you missed! Enjoy! |
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| SOFTWARE SIDEBAR |
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Google SketchUp is a free software from the search giant that you can use to create 3D models of anything you like. With its easy to use interface and support from dozens of video tutorials, an extensive Help Center and a worldwide user community, anyone who wants to make 3D models can do it with SketchUp! One of the nicest reasons for using Sketchup is that your finished creation can be shared & displayed within a wide variety of Google's web services. For example, you can import your SketchUp model right into Google Earth, post it as an animation for playback on YouTube, or even share it within the Google 3D Warehouse, a huge, searchable repository of Sketchup models that are free for other SketchUp artists to access and use. If you need to do some 3D drawing, SketchUp is one of the simplest yet most powerful tool should consider. You won't be disappointed! |
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| NEED COMPUTER HELP? |
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 Do you have a computer or printer not working in your classroom? If so, you need to fill out a ticket on New Hartford's Web Help Desk, the district's tech repair reporting system. Once you go to the website, simply enter your OS X name and password to sign into the system.
After signing on, you can report problems, view FAQs about common tech problems in the district, even track the status of your repair request! Go to the site and tech help will heading your way soon! |
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| TOP TEN THIS MONTH |
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Here are ten simple things educators can do on the web this month. Perhaps these can be springboards for a lesson or even some new "lifelong learning" for you, they are all related to events and traditions of the month known for love. Take a look and see what you can pick up & share with your students!
