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Issue 15,
Volume 5
December
2, 2004
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Thought for the Week
"Learning is a treasure that will
follow its owner everywhere."
-- Chinese Proverb |
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Computers and Cash for Teaching Students about Personal
Finance
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 Any
seventh through twelfth grade teacher who teaches money
management skills is invited to enter the Practical Money
Skills for Life Educator Challenge. The grand prize winner
receives a personal computer, $2,500 merchandise credit for
classroom supplies, a school or classroom computer lab, a
position on Visa's Practical Money Skills Educator Advisory
Board, and more....
http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/english/resources/contest/index.php
Sign-up today to get your entry materials emailed to you.
Last year only 9 schools in Louisiana participated!!!
Deadline: March 18, 2005. |
Win a $1,000 for Your Classroom
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 Enter
the CDW Government/Adobe 2005 Education Contest. The fourth
annual CDW-G Education Contest, sponsored by Adobe(r), in
which high school juniors and seniors are asked to create an
original piece of two-dimensional digital artwork and write
a 250-word essay addressing the topic "How has technology
enhanced your learning experience?" The 2005 art and essay
competition opens to U.S. high school juniors and seniors
September 1 and ends December 15, 2004. Entries are judged
on creativity, style, distinctiveness, use of color, space
and medium, as well as originality, grammar and content of
the essay. The top 10 winners of the CDW-G contest will be
awarded a variety of technology products and will be
featured in an upcoming CDW-G Solutions magalog. Also, the
first place winner's school will receive a $1,000 gift
certificate from CDW-G, which can be used to enhance
technology in the classroom.
http://www.cdwg.com/artcontest
Deadline: December 15, 2004 |
Computer Maintenance Tip
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 With
the holiday season in full swing, we sometimes forget about
the daily routines we have in place. Computer maintenance is
essential to keep your computer updated and running
smoothly. While your classroom computers are connected to
the cpsb.org domain you are receiving regular virus updates
and windows updates, but if you are planning to bring your
computer home for the holidays, it would be a wise decision
to backup all of your important documents and files to an
external source like a CD or Zip. This should be a regular
routine on your part anyway. This will insure that you have
all of your materials safe if your computer for some reason
decides to take an early retirement. While you are
disconnected from the cpsb.org domain, you will not receive
any updates and your computer will be two weeks behind in
updates when you get back. When you plug your computer back
up after the holidays make sure you run an update on your
virus software (trend micro) and it would be a wise decision
to run adaware or spybot, if you have them, before you do
anything else, just to ensure your computer gets “cleaned”
when you connect back to the domain. If you are not familiar
with these programs, refer to the past article in Tech
Connect titled
"Pop Up Ad Headaches". Maintenance on the computer
will ensure that you have minimal problems from the
technology bugs that infest the crevasses of your computer.
In summary, 1. Backup your important files. 2. Make sure
your computer is on the domain while at school. 3. Optional
– download and install adware detecting software like
AdAware or Spybot. 4. Run maintenance on your computer on a
regular basis. |
Kids Hub
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Kids Hub is a free online
interactive learning center for elementary school students.
It features
fun educational games, puzzles, and quizzes. Subject areas
include science, language arts, social studies, math and
spelling. www.kidshub.org |
The Artist's Toolkit
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 The
Artist's Toolkit from The Minneapolis Institute of Arts
offers the chance to explore the principals and elements of
art such as line, color, space, shape, balance, movement and
rhythm by watching an animated demonstration, finding
examples of the concept in works of art from museums and
creating your own composition.
http://www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/index.html |
Three Tips for Taking Holiday Photos
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- When taking pictures
outside in cold weather remember that cold temperatures
cause camera batteries to drain more quickly. Be sure to
have spare batteries handy and keep the batteries in a warm
place before using them
- Holidays are a great time
to take pictures of children. Get down to their level.
Consider lying on the floor to snap your pictures. This will
give you some great angles.
- Pay special attention to
lighting when you are around Christmas trees. Christmas tree
bulbs can look very shiny or appear as a big blur on a
printed photo. Avoid flash unless necessary, and if you are
using a camera with an automatic flash, consider turning off
the flash when taking pictures around Christmas lights.
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Palm Quick Tip
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 Copy
and Paste – You can easily copy highlighted text within and
between applications by writing an upward slash (lower left
to upper right) and tapping the Copy or Cut icon or writing
a Graffiti C or X character, then repeating the procedure
and tapping on the clipboard icon to paste it with the Paste
Icon or a Graffiti P.
Further, you can highlight text in your handheld by dragging
the stylus across it or by tapping once for a letter, twice
for a word, or three times to select a line. Many things can
be copied on the desktop using the standard Windows or Mac
procedures for selecting and copying. |
FrontPage Quick Tip
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 When
working with Front page, you may want to view all the files
in your web folder. To quickly hide or show the Folder list,
press ALT+F1. Another handy tool is the task pane. To
quickly show or hide the task pane, simply oppress Ctrl+F1. |
Add Detailed Pop-Up Descriptions to Folder Icons
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 When
you hover your mouse pointer over a folder icon, you see a
pop-up that contains the folder's size and the names of the
first few files or folders it contains. There are cases when
this information, along with the folder's name, is helpful
in identifying the folder's contents; however, there are
other times when you have to open the folder to really see
what's in it.
You can add a detailed explanation about the folder's
contents to the pop-up by creating a Desktop.ini file, which
is a straight text file, and adding a special entry to it.
In order for this technique to work, you have to assign an
icon to the folder. Here's how:
- Right-click the folder
and select Properties.
- From the Properties
dialog box, select the Customize tab, and then click the
Change Icon button.
- In the Change Icon
dialog box, select an icon from the selections and click
OK.
- Click OK to close the
Properties dialog box.
- Open the folder,
locate the Desktop.ini file, and double-click it.
- Add InfoTip= to the
end of the Desktop.ini file.
- Type your detailed
description immediately after the = sign.
- Go to File | Save and
close Notepad.
You'll see your detailed
pop-up description the next time you mouse over that folder.
NOTE: If you don't see a
pop-up when you mouse over a folder, you need to enable a
couple of settings. Go to Tools | Folder Options and then
select the View tab. Then, in the Advanced Settings list,
select the check boxes for Display File Size Information In
Folder Tips and Show Pop-Up Description For Folder And
Desktop Items.
Click OK. |
Top Ten Viruses Found on CPSB Computers
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| Here are the
top ten viruses found on CPSB computers in the past 7 days.
The stats are based on 648
infected computers out of a total of
9471 OfficeScan clients.
 The
latest OfficeScan pattern as of
11-09-2004 is pattern
2.240.00. Please
check your pattern by placing your cursor over the
OfficeScan icon and viewing the pop-up window that appears.
If your pattern is significantly
LOWER than this
(A HIGHER PATTERN NUMBER IS OK), please
email tech.help@cpsb.org
regarding this or any other question you have regarding
OfficeScan.
 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.
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Best on
the Net!! -- 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)
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An official publication
of the CPSB Technology Department
If you have any questions or comments please e-mail the Webmaster.
For Technical Support:
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Polar
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