If you walk into any of the kindergarten classrooms at Bradley, you may just see students huddled around a computer watching slideshows of the year in progress. Kindergarten students at Bradley Elementary are now able to see themselves in the curriculum, literally. Over the past few years, the Bradley Kindergarten teachers have worked to incorporate digital photos into the curriculum. They have found that using actual classroom photos helps make learning activities more engaging and authentic. Using iPhoto, the teachers have created fun and educational slide shows, iMovies, art projects, and end-of-the year gifts. For example, Kindergarten teacher Nicole Suppa, (pictured above working with students on a computer in her classroom) used digital photos to create "passports" used when the children traveled the world learning about different holidays during the Holidays Around the World unit. One parent remarked, “It’s a great keepsake to remember something they enjoyed doing in kindergarten”. Andrea Sandock has created iPhoto slideshows of classroom activities throughout the year to give to PTA for six-grade graduation. Andrea also sends home a copy of the slideshow at the end of the year for a special gift for each student. Andrea stated, “This gives parents a chance to get a glimpse inside our classrooms." Photos have also been used to create many art projects and bulletin boards. One example is when teacher Katie Trozzi took pictures of students in the beginning of the year to create a welcome to school bulletin board. Students painted school buses and later photos were added to make them appear to be in the bus. iPhoto can also be used to make the curriculum more appealing and interesting to students. The Bradley teachers used photos of students during the school day to complete a social studies assessment during the Off to School unit. Students are asked to sequence pictures of school day events. Donna Bartell commented, “Kids benefit because the actual photos make it authentic, it is much better than using pictures out of a book." If you would like to see these activities in action, go to Ms. Suppa or Ms. Trozzi's websites to see a photo-based iMovie they created to teach the students about school workers during the kindergarten during the Off to School unit. Making the show available on the website allows the students to view it at home. If you would like to learn more about digital camera basics and how to incorporate iPhoto into your classroom, check out an upcoming Teacher Center class to be taught by Trozzi and Suppa on basic iPhoto and digital camera use. They also invite you to contact them to request other specific offerings.

If you are not familiar with tabbed browsing, it is a wonderful and often underused feature of newer web browsers such as Safari that allow you to have multiple web pages open at once all in one browser window! This can be a huge timesaver when surfing the web because it allows you to load and switch between several pages quickly and easily using your mouse or a couple of quick keyboard commands. For example, if you look in screenshot below, you will see the web browser has GroupWise email website and My Learning Plan website all open at the same time in tabs! (MLP is the web page currently being used in the picture.) Pretty neat, right? To enable and start using tabbed browsing in Safari, follow the simple steps and tips below.

To enable tabbed browsing in Safari

1. Go to Safari > Preferences.
2. Select the Tabs icon at the top of the window.
3. Select the Enable tabbed browsing and Always show tab checkboxes.

To open a new tab

• Go to File > New Tab.
• Use the keyboard shortcut Apple + T.

To switch between tabs

• Click the tabs under the Bookmarks bar with your mouse pointer navigate from one page to another.
• Use the keyboard shortcuts Shift + Command + left or right arrows.

To open a link in a new tab

• Hold down the Apple key and click the link you want to open.
• Control-click on the link and choose the Open in New Tab command from the pop-up menu that appears.

To close a tab

• Click the X to the left of the title of the tab you would like to close.

SOME ADDITIONAL CAVEATS & POINTERS

• More advanced, additional keyboard shortcuts can be found at Safari > Preferences > Tabs.
• Tabs can be closed without bringing them to the front, first.
• Once a tab is closed, there is no way to get it back without navigating to the web page again.
• Tabs cannot be moved or rearranged.
• Creating new tabs will cause all of them to decrease in size, fitting the window.

The Busy Teachers' Website K-12 is a highly informative website designed to provide teachers with direct source materials, lesson plans/classroom activities with a minimum of site-to-site linking, and to provide an enjoyable and rewarding experience for the teacher who is learning to use the Internet. The website, which was started in 1995, is the result of a research project that has been designed and maintained two Research Faculty members, Carolyn Cole and Andrew Kerr, at Georgia Institute of Technology's CEISMT (Center for Education: Integrating Science, Mathematics and Technology). As a former public school teacher herself, Cole designed the website to "with the view in mind that teachers were very busy people. They needed rapid access to quality source materials which were organized in a familiar way. They needed to know something about the contents of a site before they chose to go to it (or not). If they were new Internet users, they would be encouraged to explore further if they experienced a Web site that offered them some guidance, direction and quality 'payoff' for their efforts."

The site is a well-organized collection of web resources with dozens of content area appropriate links for teachers to use immediately in their classroom. The site is designed so that teachers can direct students toward certain sites as part of their lesson plan. The authors note that the website has not been organized by grade level since many sites have links to have several components (i.e., pictures, text, sounds, etc) and while some components may be quite appropriate for elementary students (e.g., pictures, sounds), others such as the text in the same site may be geared more toward a junior or senior high school level student. As part of the annotation for each site, Cole and Kerr also have added notations as to site components, i.e., text, pictures, audio, etc. Take a few moments to explore the site for your content area or a subject you teach in your classroom and you're sure to find a few links to add to your teaching toolbox! The QuickLinks above in this newsletter directly connect you to some of the key areas of this excellent website.

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Eager to learn about new ways to use Mac OS X even better? Come to our monthly OS X "Talk, Tips & Tricks" session. Find out more.

Below are select technology courses to be offered by the Teacher Center this month. To learn more, log onto My Learning Plan then click the links below for more details about each class and/or to sign up right now online!

Thursday, January 4
iLife Cereal - Intro to iTunes

Monday, January 8
Using the “Grab It” Feature of OSX

Friday, January 12
iLife Cereal - Intro to iPhoto

Wednesday, January 17
• Very Basic iPhoto/Digital Camera Part 2
• Fix and Forget it Classroom Webpage

Thursday, January 18
SMARTBoard Training, Part 2

Monday, January 22
OS X "Tech Talk Tips and Tricks" - January

Tuesday, January 23
iLife Cereal - Intro to iCal

Wednesday, January 24
Fix and Forget it Classroom Webpage

Wednesday, January 31
• iLife Cereal - Intro to iMovie
• SchoolCenter School: Exploring the New Features of Your School Website - January

iCal Users
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