While the rigors of the Advanced Placement US History curriculum don’t allow for an overwhelming amount of creativity when preparing for the AP exam, following the test in May, teachers Peter Anderson (pictured below working with some students) and Jason Mitchell sought a creative activity for students to stay engaged with course subject matter while also putting their own “spin” on the content. To do so, Anderson and Mitchell developed their “American Adjective Project” to take their students’ skill of argument that is typically used in an essay format and translate it into an audio/visual form. The premise was simple, throughout the year, the AP students were required to make informed, effective written arguments to free response questions or to prompts with documents. To use these existing skills in a creative, new way, Anderson and Mitchell allowed students to make similar arguments but using video and sound to craft their presentation. To assist them in the task, students made use of the High School Laptop Cart for research and production of their audio and video projects. In the end, the projects turned out very successfully as students were able to add their own “take” into the content of their choice, while also maintaining academic credibility through the use of sources. Given the excellent products developed from this initial iteraction of the project, the instructors are looking to develop similar projects that involve translating traditional means of assessment (essays, speeches) into a more “2.0” version in the future including using iMovie, Keynote with sound, Webquests, etc.). When asked what they thought of this project, several groups of students commented how they enjoyed utilizing mediums which they use on a daily basis (such as video and music) to convey their historical arguments with YouTube style presentations. The results speak for themselves as you can see from a sample student project you can see here! When asked what they thought of having the laptop available for this project, students stated that they found them very helpful. Beyond production, students felt that much of the editing and pre-production planning would not have been possible as easily without the laptops within their classroom! Once again a group of students and teachers have taken this great resource and put it into excellent use in the classroom. This summer, plan on attending some staff development and see what great projects your students can do with this great technology resource in the fall!

Whenever you are working with a Cocoa-based application in Mac OS X such as Pages, Keynote, or any of the other applications where choosing fonts is a part of your workflow, the way you select and format fonts is using Mac OS X's built-in Font panel. While this tool is straightforward and easy to use, believe it or not, there is a wealth of features and even a few tricks which can help you get even more out of the Font panel the next time you work with it. Here are a few pointers to save you time and even "power up" your Font panel experience. Enjoy!

SHOWING THE FONT PREVIEW PANE

There is a Preview pane (seen above) which can be enabled in Fonts panel. This can be handy so you can see a font style without having to apply it within a document!

To enable the Preview pane within the Fonts panel, just click on the Actions (gear) icon and choose Show Preview, (see screenshot to the right.) The Preview pane will appear at the top of the Font panel. As a new font style and size is selected in, the style font can be previewed right in the Fonts panel.

QUICKLY CHANGING FONT SIZE
Rather than using the font sizes listed in the Font panel, the slider on the far right hand side of the panel, (see screenshot to the right) which lets you increase or decrease the font size dynamically one point at a time.

This can be great to let you fine tune a font size without needing to enter in a custom font size to see it applied within your document.

ADDING SPECIAL EFFECTS
Beyond changing font style, size, and color, there are a number of text effects which can be easily applied just by using the Effects toolbar of the Fonts panel, (see screenshots below). To help you make sense of these tools, here is a summary of what the text effects buttons do as they appear from left to right:

• The Text Underline pop-up menu lets you choose an underline style (such as single or double).
• The Text Strikethrough pop-up menu lets you choose a strikethrough style (such as single or double).
• The Text Color pop-up menu lets you apply a color to text.
• The Document Color pop-up menu lets you apply a color behind a paragraph.
  
  
  
  
• The Text Shadow button applies a shadow to selected text.
• The Shadow Opacity, Shadow Blur, Shadow Offset, and Shadow Angle controls control the appearance of the shadow.
  
  If you don’t see the text effects buttons, choose Show Effects from the Action pop-up menu (gear icon) in the lower-left corner of the Font panel.

CREATING A CUSTOM FONT COLLECTION
If you’re working with a particular group of fonts that are required for a project, you may find it helpful to create a Custom Font Collection within the Fonts panel to give you instant access to just the fonts you want to use.

To create a custom Font Collection, start by clicking on the + button that appears below the Collection list, (see screenshot above right). A New item will appear in the Collections list and this can be renamed to anything you wish.

From here, the Collections list is just like a playlist in iTunes, meaning you can add and remove fonts as desired. To add a font to a Collection locate it and drag it on to the collection name. To remove a font from a particular Collection drag the font out of the list — to the top, right or bottom. The font disappears in a puff of smoke. Removing a font from a Collection does not remove it from the Library or the machine.

CREATING A MINI VERSION OF THE FONTS PANEL
As you change the size of the Fonts Panel using the handle in its lower right hand corner, it is 'smart' about how much information it displays.

At its smallest, the panel reduces to just three pop-up menus as seen above - Family, Typeface, and Size. This can really help to save some screen space but still give you access to the most critical controls of the Font panel at the same time!

Data.gov is a new government website launched in late May 2009 as an intitaive of the current Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the United States, Vivek Kundra. Following his appointment by President Obama, Kundra announced on March 5, 2009 that he would be overseeing the creation of the Data.gov information repository, the New York Times reported. As a priority Open Government Initiative for President Obama's administration, Data.gov aims to increase the ability of the public to easily find, download, and use datasets that are generated and held by the Federal Government. In addition to improving access to data, another primary goals of Data.gov is to expand creative use of those data beyond the walls of government by encouraging innovative ideas (such as custom web applications), as well as make for it easier to conduct analyses, and perform research. This is what makes Data.gov such a perfect resource for students and teachers alike! To use the site, data in presented in one of two ways: either through a "raw" data catalog and using tools. The "Raw" Data Catalog provides an instant download of machine readable, platform-independent datasets including XML, Text/CSV, KML/KMZ, Feeds, XLS, or ESRI Shapefile formats as appropriate to the type of data being shared. The Tools Catalog portion of the site provides hyperlinks to tools that allow you to mine datasets. These data mining and extraction tools offer applications that allow users to either produce maps, tables, or charts of the subset of data that are specific to the user's interests or to build their own dataset extracted from a data source. Conveniently, datasets and tools that available on the site are searchable by category, agency, keyword, and/or data format. Once in the catalog, one can click on the "name" (i.e, the name of the dataset or tool of interest) and you will be taken to a page with more details and metadata on that specific dataset or tool.

The ultimate goal of this site is to become a repository for all the information the government collects and to meet this goal the site hopes to publish to the public any data that is not private, or restricted by national security reasons. The data catalogs will continue to grow as datasets are added and as of right now, the Federal, Executive Branch data is what is included in this first and current version of the site. Public participation and collaboration will be one of the keys to the success of the site. To ensure these ideas, the site continues to improve based on feedback, comments, and recommendations from the public and it even encourage individuals to suggest datasets they'd like to see, rate and comment on current datasets, as well as suggest ways to improve the site. Ultimately, Data.gov strives to make government more transparent and is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. This openness hopes to strengthen the Nation's democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government. If you need and want access to a great teaching resource for virtually any grade level and subject area, check out the site and you will certainly see is worth visiting, exploring, and probably bookmarking for use in your classroom! If you wish, the QuickLinks above will even connect you to some key areas of this website right now.

Do you have a tech story or tip you want to share?
Send us your info.

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 over the summer. 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!

Monday, July 20
Introducing Pages 09

Tuesday, July 21
Intermediate Pages: More Projects & Features

Wednesday, July 22
Easy Audio Recording Anywhere!

Thursday, July 22
Learning Keynote 09

Friday, July 24
Enhanced Podcasting with GarageBand

Monday, August 3
Using iPods touches in the Classroom

Tuesday, August 4
Getting Started with Spartan Mail

Wednesday, August 5
Spartan Docs Boot Camp - Document Creation & Sharing

Thursday, August 6
• Spartan Docs Boot Camp - Data Collection Using Forms
• Spartan Docs Boot Camp - Data Analysis & Sharing

Friday, August 7
• Mac OS X Server Blogging in the Classroom
• Mac OS X Server Wiki in the Classroom

iCal Users
Download May Events

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 last month of the school year! Take a look and see what you can pick up & share with your students!

1. Celebrate 40th Anniversary of the Moon Walk with your students.
2. Discover the history of Father's Day.
3. Explore a Random Act of Niceness.
4. Improve your vocabulary with word games
5. Meet Ida and discover the missing Link with your students.
6. Watch the Car of the Future with your Students on NOVA.
7. Do some summer online coloring with your students.
8. Show your students how doing your math homework can be pretty magical.
9. Share with your students this sculptor's mesmerizing kinetic sculpture emphasizing math and knowledge of pulleys.
10. Rock out with your students: watch Schools Out for the Summer with Alice Cooper and the Muppets.