Issue 31

Thought for the Week
"We build too many walls and not enough bridges." - Sir Isaac Newton

PIE Technology Winners

The Technology Department hosted a booth at the annual Partners in Education conference in the Lake Charles Civic Center. Materials concerning summer tech classes, free computer classes for the public in our CTC programs and upcoming NECC in New Orleans were distributed. Cindy Poole, third grade teacher at Vincent Settlement Elementary was the lucky winner of the Palm handheld give-away. Stephanie McCullor, physical education teacher at T.S. Cooley was the winner of a VCR for her classroom.

LCET ThinkQuest Camp - Registration Now Open!

ThinkQuest camps are designed to help teams of 3 to 6 students and up to 2 coaches jumpstart the web development of the educational site they will create as part of the ThinkQuest competition.

"Campers" receive guidance on good web page design, an overview of the ThinkQuest judging rubric, and opportunities to attend break-out sessions on specific web publishing tools such as Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Photoshop. ThinkQuest Camp is a three-day experience.

Teams can register for ThinkQuest Camp at http://www.solutionwhere.com/ldoe/cw/showcourse.asp?137. Camp begins on June 7, 2004 at the Louisiana Center for Educational Technology (LCET) in Baton Rouge.

NEW! GLEs Are Now Available in the Making Connections Builder!

Educators will now have the convenience of using the online Lesson Plan Builder on the Making Connections Website to align the recently released Grade-Level Expectations (GLEs) into lesson plans. Select the Builder link, log in and check it out! Remember GLEs are only available for the ELA, math, science, and social studies content areas. http://www.doe.state.la.us/conn/login.php

One Hundred years of Flight

The Wright Flyer lifted from level ground and Orville Wright achieved the first powered, controlled, sustained and piloted flight. His brother, Wilbur Wright, timed the flight with a stopwatch from the ground. On that first flight, the Wright Flyer traveled slightly more than 9 meters; the flight lasted 12 seconds.

The Wright brothers were the first to fully appreciate the interaction and interdependence of aerodynamic stability, propulsion, and flight dynamics.

The YES I Can! Science Team of York University has created an online resource for middle school teachers providing background information, transparency masters, investigations, and topics for discussion in order to facilitate student understanding of concepts related to aerodynamics and flight.

The URL: http://resources.yesican.yorku.ca/100_years/menu.html

Looking for a thematic unit of study? Try the e-Themes website!!

Looking for a thematic unit of study? eThemes is an extensive database of content-rich, age-appropriate resources organized around specific themes. These resources are created for educators to use in their classrooms. There are more than 750 eThemes on topics ranging from Africa to Yellowstone National Park.
http://emints.more.net/ethemes/resources/by-grade.shtml

Closing Multiple Documents in Office

Rather than close documents individually in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, you can close them all at once.

While holding down the "Shift Key" and Click "File"|"Close All". (The Close All command only appears when the Shift key is held down.)

National Science Digital Library

Are you needing images and content to support your instruction? Take a look at the National Science Digital Library. It is an educational resource for science and technology, engineering and mathematics funded by the National Science Foundation. To browse the collections linked from the site, go to:
http://nsdl.org

Professional Development Content Added to Unitedstreaming

United Learning is considering developing a subscription-based, online program to support teachers' ongoing professional development, and offering it as an additional module to Unitedstreaming. They have added 27 chaptered video titles for professional development from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). These video titles are a sampling of the materials we would offer, if interest exists in this area. Visit www.unitedstreaming.com, log in, and click on "Learning Resources" to view the Professional Development videos. Please let them know what you think by taking the short survey located there.

Flag Contacts for Follow-up

Most Microsoft Office users are familiar with flagging e-mail messages for follow-up. When you flag a message, you can choose one of several actions, including Follow Up, Call, or Forward. What your users might not realize is that they can also flag their contacts for follow-up. For example, say you want to make a note to call a person at a specific time to ask about the status of a project. You could create an appointment in the Calendar folder or a note in the Notes folder. However, you're going to need the phone number, so why not flag the contact instead?

To flag a contact, open the Contacts folder, right-click the contact, and choose Follow Up. Outlook opens the same Flag For Follow Up dialog box, but you'll see a different set of options. Your options include Call, Send E-mail, Arrange Meeting, Send Letter, or Follow Up. Whichever action you choose, you can set a due date and time for the action, which causes Outlook to display a reminder.

Flagging contacts offers the same reminder capabilities as an appointment, but users have the added advantage of being able to easily open the contact form when the reminder appears. This simple feature can make the Contacts folder more useful to your users and simplify a common task.

Microsoft Internet Explorer Tip

There are a couple of ways to open a link in a new browser window. First of all, you can simply right-click, then select Open in New Window. Another way is to hold down the shift key on your keyboard while clicking on the link.

Windows Tip

If you're frustrated with the error report window popping up, here's a simple way to get rid of it. Open Control Panel and click on Performance and Maintenance. Click on System then click on the Advanced tab. Click on the error-reporting button on the bottom of the windows and select Disable error reporting. Click OK then OK again.

Top Ten Viruses Found on CPSB Computers

Here are the top ten viruses found on CPSB computers in the past 7 days. The stats are based on 266 infected computers out of a total of 6088 OfficeScan clients.

The information shows the name of the virus, the number of infected files found, and the percentage of the virus from the total. ALL school board employees need to ensure that their Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM or other PC classroom computers stay virus free. Go to the following link to download the district copy of OfficeScan: http://teacherlink.cpsb.org/officescan and your computer will automatically be updated daily to scan for the latest viruses. You must install the software using Internet Explorer 4.0 or later (Netscape will not work!!!!!) Please answer "Yes" to all prompts as the software installs. If you have any questions, please contact the CPSB Help Desk at tech.help@cpsb.org.

Best on the Net!! NEW FEATURE!! -- Visit this site for hundreds of websites for teachers! We would love to hear from you about the best educational sites you have found on the web. Please submit, via email, the sites you feel merit inclusion. Send to tech.connect@cpsb.org. Please include the URL and a short sentence about the site.

Featured Sites: (These sites were submitted by teachers in Calcasieu Parish)

MOTHER OF INVENTION:
http://www.girltech.com/Teachers/TE_tgab.invent.html
For every cause, there is an effect. For every problem, is there a solution? With this invention activity, your students could work individually or in pairs. If working together, let them create the problems for their partners to work on.

ENTOMOLOGY -- FOR YOUR DINING PLEASURE:
http://www.riverdeep.net/current/2002/03/030402_eatingbugs.jhtml
Bugs for dinner, anyone? Yummy, yummy! American dining tastes might not yet reflect a particular fondness for insects on the menu, but several countries and cultures the world over find that larvae and pupae are actually very much to their liking--a veritable delicacy, in fact, in some regions. Your students will love this lesson exploration on entomology for your dining pleasure... and they might also just be a wee bit
disgusted to find that cinnamon, for one, or maraschino cherries for another, could very well harbor insect parts. The stories are here, along with insect exercises and Xcursions. When finished, there will be much discussion in your class--have your students exercise their persuasive writing skills to create commercials or advertisements promoting insect feasts and products, or create a whole new menu for your favorite local restaurants for an April Fool's gag.

TEACHER FORMS:
http://www.teachertools.org/forms_dynam.asp
Find a wide variety of useful teacher forms to download here for classroom use, including behavior journals, bingo boards, book lists, daily checklists, grade trackers, graphing paper, homework record forms, lesson plan books, and much more.

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