How do you get students interested in William Shakespeare? This was the question Ms. Valerie Caruso, junior high English teacher, posed to herself. For young adults, the language is hard, the cultural references make no sense, and the humor is not all that humorous. In order for help her students truly understand Shakespeare, she decided the best way to have them understand the era in which he lived, the Elizabethan Era, was to immerse them in his world. In meeting this goal, Ms. Caruso, (pictured below working with a few of her students) turned her class into Shakespearean aged journalists charged with creating original Elizabethan newsletters. Using Apple's Pages software and working in groups of three, each student had to first write his or her own article, and then as a group, design the layout, import graphics, and create an advertisement for an Elizabethan product or service in their final document. Many groups went above and beyond and began to add weather forecasts, crossword puzzles, and even recipes! The students relished the fact that they were able to choose what they wanted to write about. Before the students could begin to working on their newsletters, they had to complete a web scavenger hunt designed by Perry Jr. High’s librarian Mrs. Mary Pat Connors. Mrs. Connors' user friendly format helped give the students exposure to a wide range of Elizabethan subjects, especially the most popular topics, the Black Death and Crime & Punishment. Then, with the assistance of Technology Director Jim Dieso and Technology Integration Specialist Mike Amante, Mrs. Caruso's classes got a brief orientation on the Pages program and learned some basic tips on creating their newsletter with the powerful yet easy to use Pages program. The tech-savvy students took to Pages instantly and ended up creating some simply amazing newsletters that can been seen online here. These projects were created after just a little instruction and a whole lot of imagination! One of the best moments came when a rather quiet freshman stopped to tell Mrs. Caruso how much she liked the assignment. Others were dismayed when the last day working in the computer lab arrived. Overall, Ms. Caruso feels the project was a success because the students learned what she wanted them to learn, but more importantly, because they took control of the learning process and produced informative and creative products as a result. Currently, Ms. Caruso is continuing her use of Pages with her fellow English 9 teachers by actively integrating the application into other areas of their curriculum. Would you also like some direct assistance with one of your technology projects like Val had? Excellent! All you need to do is ask! Just fill out this form and the tech staff will get back to you and see what they can do to help your and your students create cool tech projects that you and they can be proud of too!

When printing under Mac OS X you have probably used the Print dialog thousands of times to print all kinds of documents. What you may not know about within the Print dialog is the Layout pane, one of its more useful features for printing multiple pages onto a single sheet of paper. For example, when working in Keynote, you may want to print slides 4 up on a page rather than the standard one slide per page. The steps below show you how to access and use the Layout pane of the Print dialog for printing tasks like this one.

1. From the Print menu in any application, choose File > Print and the Print dialog will appear onscreen.
2. In the Print dialog, you will see a number of drop down menus and fields to control aspects of your print job. By default, the Copies & Pages drop-down menu is displayed and its pane of controls is visible. Change this menu to Layout and the Layout pane will appear.
3. The Layout pane, (shown in the diagram below) lets you specify the number of pages per sheet, the layout direction of these pages, and if you want to include a border.

• The first available option Pages per Sheet is where you can select 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, or 16 pages per sheet.
• The next option is Layout direction. There are four layout direction options: horizontally from left to right, horizontally from right to left, vertically from left to right, and vertically from right to left. The available layout directions are indicated with helpful icons.
• The final layout option is Border. Available options for Border are None, Single hairline, Single thin line, Double hairline, and Double thin line.

To return to our previous example, if you want to print a Keynote presentation with four slides up per page, choose the Layout pane and then simply choose 4 Pages per Sheet, a layout direction of your choice, and a border of your choice. Finally, print the presentation as a PDF by clicking on Save as PDF button! Printing in this way will not only save a lot of paper if the presentation is printed but it will also make for a much quicker download if you post the PDF online!

This same technique of using the Layout pane to print multiple page documents on less paper can also be a great way to cut down on the paper when printing notes from a lengthy Word document or even a website that would take up several full pages if it was printed without the aid of the Layout menu!

BONUS TIP: If you get creative in your page layout, you can even use the Layout menu to create a mini-booklet once the page is printing and folded appropriately!

Internet4Classrooms began over a decade ago in February 1997 as a collaborative effort between Tennessee educators Susan Brooks and Bill Byles. They first created the site as a means to extend technical assistance to their fellow teachers but by November 2000, their project expanded to a web portal known as Internet4Classrooms. The web portal they have termed i4c for short is free to anyone who wants to find high-quality, free Internet resources to use in their classroom instruction. Today, the portal is used by teachers on all over the world and is available to anyone with an Internet connection. Susan and Bill continually update the site and use it as a resource as they travel all over the world conducting professional development for teachers. After one visit, you will see the site includes a wealth of resources for educators of all levels. To begin with, there is an extensive and thorough collection of links covering all aspects of technology in the classroom. These Useful Links for K-12 Teachers offer some great ideas for using technology in more interesting and effective ways for teaching and learning. Another outstanding area of the site called Assessment Assistance is packed with resources to help students practice skills required on various assessments. Perhaps one of the most useful areas of the site are the On-Line Practice Modules that provide step-by-step tutorials for common computer applications used in K-12 classrooms.

One of the most dynamic areas of the site, Daily Dose of the Web, contains continually updated links to educational-related web sites that are refreshed on a daily or weekly basis and are of true interest to educators. One area that is sure to be especially helpful to elementary and junior high students is Grade Level Skills which is aimed at helping students master subjects in a variety of K-8 subject areas. Finally, there is an area of the site where schools can learn about and contact the authors of Internet4Classrooms and contact them about delivering staff development within their schools on a myriad of interesting, informative topics. In closing, this website is a fantastic educational resource that is sure to aid any teacher in using technology more effectively in their classroom. Check out the site now to see some of the excellent resources it has to offer. You can use the QuickLinks above to see some of the key areas of this marvelous site that can help not only your students but also help you in your own professional growth.

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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!

Tuesday, January 8
Creating Your Website (Session 3)

Wednesday, January 9
BOCES Media Library Training

Thursday, January 10
The Art & Magic of Digital Presentations - January

Monday, January 14
OS X "Tech Talk Tips and Tricks" - January

Wednesday, January 30
SchoolCenter School: Exploring the New Features of Your School Website - January

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