In Elementary Statistics at the High School, students spend a semester learning all about statistical calculation with Mrs. Melissa Abdoo, (pictured below with some of her students.) To offer them some “real world” application of the math they have been learning, Mrs. Abdoo’s students recently carried out on a technology infused project where they created and conducted surveys of their own design, then interpreted the results using skills they have learned throughout the course. With some guidance from the teacher, the students began the project by deciding who they were going to survey, wrote the questions, and then went to numerous classrooms to conduct the survey. The students surveyed students in study halls and other math classes, and then by hand, tallied over 150 surveys including answers to the questions as well as demographic data about the person taking the survey, including age, grade and gender. Once all the information was tallied, the students then used the high school laptop cart MacBooks in Mrs. Abdoo's class to compute and graph their data in various permutations using Microsoft Excel. This allowed them to visually interpret their results. The results were then shared by writing an article in Microsoft Word as it would appear in a newspaper presenting their findings. By using the technology, the students were able not only to make meaningful use of the skills they have been learning about but they were also able to do so more quickly and with greater accuracy than constructing the graphs by hand. Mrs. Abdoo’s students enjoyed using the laptops in class. “Having the laptops at our fingertips made for an enhanced learning experience,” commented Jake, a student in the class. From the teacher standpoint, Abdoo noted that by having the laptops right in her classroom, students were able to complete the project much easier than if they had to do it outside of class on their own or if they had travel to a computer lab to complete the project there instead. If anyone at the High School is interested in using the laptop cart in their own classroom for a technology project, they can simply contact the IT department about their idea. From there, the tech staff can meet with you to see how your students can make use of this excellent resource in the near future as well!

As educators, we have to give presentations to all kinds of audiences...students, colleagues, parents, administrators, and even community members. Very often, these presentations make use of a computer as well as speakers and a projector to share your message. As you set up for a presentation, you may find yourself clicking away to get your Mac ready for the task at hand and wish you knew a quicker, slicker way to do so. Fortunately with just a few simple shortcuts, you can make the setup process much more elegant and efficient. Below are a couple of handy Mac OS X AV shortcuts so you can get to presenting rather than tinkering with your computer settings!

ADJUSTING SOUND

Shift-volume - This lets you change the volume of your Mac without hearing the "click" sound effect. This is a nice trick to use when you are connected to speakers and don't want to broadcast your volume adjustments.

Option-Shift-volume up & Option-Shift-volume down - With Mac OS X Leopard, you can make fine-grained volume adjustments using these keystrokes. Normally, one key click with the regular volume keys will increase the volume up or down one "notch." By using these keyboard shortcuts, you can increase or decrease the volume by 1/4 increments instead, (see screenshot above.) This can be nice if a regular "notch" up or down seems too much or little and you are trying to find just the right output level for your sound to be heard.

Option-volume - This instantly opens the Sound Preferences Pane. Very handy if you want to change your sound output or input settings very quickly.

ADJUSTING DISPLAYS

Displays menu - This optional menu (which can be turned on using a checkbox in System Preferences > Displays) will be located near the upper right hand corner of your screen. It gives you convenient access to change resolutions on your Mac's display, your projector connection, as well as the option to turn mirroring of your Mac's display to the projector on or off, (see screenshot below.)

Option-brightness - Quickly opens the Display Preferences Pane. This can be handy to apply custom resolution settings on the fly or make other specific display preference changes quickly.

F14 or F15 keys - On a desktop Mac, these keys can be used to decrease or increase the brightness of your Mac's display.

F7 - On a laptop, this will Quick toggle Display mode. In other words, this single keyboard shortcut which lets you either mirror or extend the display of your Mac onto the projector!

Shift-Control-Eject - Instantly sleeps your Mac's display. This can be handy to hide your computer screen without needing to put your computer to sleep or setting the brightness to zero on your computer's display.

If you have ever needed to teach students about topics such as developing effective study habits, steps of the scientific method, or just "learning how to learn" concepts, you may have wished a web-based resource on such topics existed. One such resource does exist and it is the very excellent Study Guides and Strategies website which has been offered as a free learner-centric educational public service since 1996. Study Guides and Strategies started life as a FileMaker Pro database of learning guides that was created by Bob Nelson and a group of educators at the Learning Resource Centers of Rutgers University in June 1993. At the college's Reading and Learning Association Conference in April 1995, Joe Landsberger, an educator himself, attended a presentation by Bob on the database, and they quickly agreed that the resource should be converted to HTML and made available to the world in a web-based format. Rutgers University agreed to provide the Guides free-of-charge and for Joe to reformat them into HTML, and host them on a website. This agreement continues to this day, and the Guides are collaboratively developed across institutional and national boundaries. Since that initial effort, all the content has been revised or replaced in its entirely, over 85 additional topics have been added, as well as translation in numerous languages. The author of the website's main interest is providing and digesting educational research into an understandable and accessible form to help learners help themselves. The Guides have been developed directly from educational research and often are collated digests of existing web pages that have been reformatted with permission to the Study Guides' website style. In some cases, they are copies of information found elsewhere that have been used with permission or simply linked to. All contributions to the site have been voluntary, and used with permission as much as possible.

The Guides are intended to be straight-forward prescriptions on selected topics that can help students find success in the classroom. The vocabulary and concepts have been written at a middle school level so they can be used universally across many grade levels. Learner-developed interactive exercises have been added in conjunction with Dr. Brad Hokanson's Interactive Design course at the University of Minnesota. As you visit the site, you'll see it covers a wide range of topics which can be easily browsed using a well organized Index page. In addition, a Search page allows you to perform a custom Google Search of the entire Study Guides site if you are looking for information on a particular learning topic. A Call for Participation page of the site even invites users to contribute new content to be added to the site's resources. If you want some excellent information to help your students succeed in your classroom, Study Guides and Strategies is a website worth spending some time to explore. As an educator, you're sure to pick up some ideas or tips that can help your students in the classroom. Visit the site today and you will surely be glad you did. For even greater convenience, several of the QuickLinks above in this newsletter will direct you right to some of the excellent education resources Study Guides offers.

Do you have a tech story or tip you want to share?
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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!

Monday, May 11
Mac OS X "Tech Talk, Tips, and Tricks" - May 2009

Wednesday, May 13
Designing a Notebook Lesson

Thursday, May 14
Intro to Google Calendar

Monday, May 18
School Year Digital Scrapbook

Wednesday, May 20
Your Classroom Webpage

Thursday, May 28
Thinkfinity - Spring 2009

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 month known for love. Take a look and see what you can pick up & share with your students!

1. "April Showers Bring May Flowers" Elementary activities
2. Explore "How Stuff Works" in May
3. Watch a Visual Explanation of the credit crisis to help explain
   things to your students
4. See Addictionary. Show these new words to your students, and possibly make one of your own!
5. Have your students create some Mother's Day Projects
6. Watch the alphabet in a whole new way. NOT just for your elementary students!
7. View some free Cybersmart lesson plans for your 21st century learners.
8. Elementary Teachers: make an online calendar with your students
9. View this funny clip of how NOT to use PowerPoint, and pass on some "pointers" to your students.
10. Have your students race each other to the finish line with some math games.