[TIPS] - photosynthesis movie

http://www.fw.vt.edu/dendro/forestbiology/photosynthesis.swf

 

If you or someone you know teaches photosynthesis then this is the site to see. A very nice shockwave video.

 

And I regret to admit that I forget now who it was that sent this to me, but thanks goes out to that person.

[TIPS] - animal verbs (corrected link)

A tip from three years ago. I thought it might be a fun activity for the end of the year.

>>> James Gates 09/19/02 2:47 PM >>>
http://www.hoadworks.com/stampede.htm

Can you doggedly ferret out the answers to these verbs? Fun activity for kids.

See how well you do on these first few questions. Each answer is an animal (bird or fish, too)The number at the end refers to the number of letters in the answer.

1. to score two under-par on a golf hole [5]
2. to outwit by cunning [3]
3. complain [6]
4. to defraud by cheating or swindling [4]
5. to strike with great force; move quickly [3]

[TIPS] - more fun word games

http://www.hoadworks.com/gamemenu.htm

 

Games include Rhyme and Reason ("a good bargain is sometimes called this (4,4)" - a "real deal"), Keyword Server ("What word is found in the definition of each of the following words?), ABC Words (words containing the letters a, b, anc c), Alternating Current (Smaller words found inside larger words), A Collectives Quiz (What do you call a group of crows?), and more.

 

Challenging even for the older students.

[TIPS] - identity theft on the sharp rise

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4663828

From the site:
Millions of Americans have become the victims of identity theft since the beginning of the year. Renee Montagne talks with former FBI agent Kevin Barrows about where that information goes and how it's abused. Barrows led the bust of one of the country's largest identity theft operations in 2002.

----------
Be sure to check out the related links, too, especially "Fighting Identity Theft."

Identity theft is VERY costly to the victims. Don't become one because of your own ignorance or neglect.

[TIPS] - more on Blogs

Thanks to Beth B from Mechanicsburg for pointing out these great links that discuss the dangers of blogging. Like most things dealing with the Internet, when used correctly they are fine. But, when kids don't follow basic "safety first" practices then they can, indeed, be in danger. Remember, most kids believe (correctly?) that their parents don't have a clue how to find their online blog posts so they can say and do things there that would scare a parent to death. Like what? Well, read the articles at the links below.

 

Check out the following links, and...let's be careful out there. :-)

http://www.tampabays10.com/aroundthebay/aroundthebay_article.aspx?storyid=12351

http://www.tampabays10.com/special/special_article.aspx?storyid=12026

http://www.blogherald.com/2005/02/24/fbi-warns-against-teen-blogs/

http://netfamilynews.org/newsletter.shtml#newsitemEEEyVEAVEFpxVeAVjd

 

[TIPS] - the ultimate web filter?

http://j-walk.com/other/googlecb/

 

From Google (not really) comes the ultimate in web filters, still currently in beta. Check it out. What do you think?

 

 

 

 

;-) Thanks to Barry for sharing this one.

--------------------

Now for a REAL tip: Did you know that 43% of adults get 'phished?' (Where a spammer disguises himself as ebay or your bank and asks you for your account information or password so they can verify who you are. yeah RIGHT!) PLEASE don't be a victim. NEVER send that kind of information to someone based upon an email. Read about it here: http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/P/PHISHING_SURVEY?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME

 

[TIPS] - Hello - Introducing BloggerBot

http://www.hello.com/

 

Weblogs (blogs) are really cool. Currently they're free - at least at Blogger. The Tipline blog is just one example. The problem is that I couldn't  post images to that blog unless I first put them up on the web somewhere and then linked to them.

 

Enter Hello.

 

With Hello (a free download) and Picasa (another free download at http://www.picasa.com and the same program that I used to make the slides movie yesterday) you can post pictures right to your blog and share them with your friends. Why not just have a website with your pictures? This link tells you why: http://www.hello.com/how_it_works.php 

 

Ideas: Post images from your classroom. Invite only the parents of your children to view them. Keep a photo journal of your year as it unfolds. Photography classes can of course have a great time with a photo blog. Post images of unusual things and generate discussions. Use your photo blog to post images as writing prompts. I'm sure you can come up with other/better ideas.

 

Today's post will be again added to my Tipline blog. http://tipline.blogspot.com Check it out. I posted an image from yesterday's megaconferencejr there too - directly through Hello. Piece of cake!

 

If you start your own classroom blog I'd sure love to see it. If you're interested in learning more about blogging, look for a class to be offered here this summer.

This is a view of the TV set showing how they had it divided up to show those participants of MegaconferenceJr. What a great day that was. 

[TIPS] - megaconferencejr images

Congratulations to Steelton-Highspire SD for being the first of our districts to participate in the second annual megaconferencejr, the world wide video conference held on Internet2. Byron Kiehl, their tech director and Eric Cripe, OUR network guru, spent much time working out the bugs so that the conference would come off without a hitch, and their efforts paid off in spades.

This link, http://207.103.88.76/gates2/megajr.avi points to a windows media player file of a movie I created in Picasa2 from the images I took during my visit to SHSD this morning to watch them participate. Check it out. Oh, and allow it ample time for it to download, as it's a 65mb file. (That's right, 65mb, so dialup users shouldn't wait up for it. :-) ) And another thing (a bonus TIP, if you will), when the movie starts, if you press Alt-Enter it will toggle to a full screen.

Congratulations again to Steelton Highspire for their successful foray into the video conferencing world. I'd sure LOVE to see more of our local districts participating next year. It was quite painless and the kids were blown away by it.

[TIPS] - Looking for a graphic?

Let's say you're in Word or Powerpoint and you want to insert a picture from a folder of pictures you collected from online, but you're not sure of what it was called. You click the browse button and navigate to the correct folder but all you see is a list of odd-looking picture names. Which one is the one you want?

Change the view of this browse window to show THUMBNAILS of the images right there in the browse window simply by clicking the word Tools up in the right corner of the Open dialog window and choose Thumbnails. Presto! You can now easily tell which picture you're after. (See image below. Groupwise users must be in HTML view to see the image. Click the HTML icon along the top right corner of your Groupwise message window.)

.

P.S. I'm anxious to see what this looks like when it gets posted to the blog (http://tipline.blogspot.com)

[TIPS] - Study Shows WebBased Learning Improves Reading Skills

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=46677

 

-------snip---------

The study, conducted in two Maryland middle schools, showed that 7th and 8th graders who used three online field trips (specifically developed by MPT for social studies and language arts and integrated into their lesson plans) scored higher on a national standardized reading comprehension test than those who used traditional learning methods alone.

-------snip---------

Note: The article does NOT say how MUCH higher they scored, just that they scored higher.

 

BONUS: Here's a neat little site for the little ones: http://ferryhalim.com/orisinal/  Cute games of all kinds. (This tips was first sent out in 2002!)

[TIPS] - tipline blog started

From time to time I've been asked if I have a master document containing past tips. Answer - no, I don't. CAIU employees, however, can ask to share my tips folder and thus see my past tips. But, the rest of you have thus far been out of luck.

 

Enter the blog, or Weblog. At blogger.com you can create your own FREE weblog. It's VERY easy to do. Truly. Then you can post whatever you want on it. You can even EMAIL posts to it - which is what I'm now starting to do with my tips. I send them out as usual, but I also email it to my blog where it gets posted at the top of the list. Now you can just visit the blog at any time to see previous tips - at least tips posted from this day forward.

 

The address is http://tipline.blogspot.com. Check it out. Now, normally you'd be able to contribute to a blog. That's how it works. But, I don't see myself typing in over 900 email addresses to allow that to happen. You CAN comment on tips, however.

 

One more thing. This site automatically archives the blogs each month. So, on June 1st you'll have to click on the May archives link to see those tips.

[TIPS] - basic? windoze tip

Did you know that you don't have to hunt for the [X] box to close a window, or the [_] box to minimize? Nope. Just right click ANYwhere on that blue title bar to see those options. Great for when you've moved a window off the screen and can't see those boxes. And you don't need to click the middle button to maximize or Restore down, either. Just double click the blue title bar.

 

BTW  - I DO know how to spell Windows. It's just so difficult for me to be nice about it. :-) I'm a Mac guy at heart. Ask any of the CAMELOT folks out there.

Phishing Warning

According to this article, 45% of adults with email have been "approached" by phishing scams. A whopping 5% have fallen for them!!! http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/P/PHISHING_SURVEY?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME

Don't YOU be one of them! NEVER supply personal information to a company at the behest of an email. Companies don't do business that way.

The Tips Blog - Welcome!

Greetings all. I thought this might be a painless way of introducing you to the world of Blogs - weB-LOGS, that is. It's nothing to fear or necessarily avoid, and it CAN be educational and fun.

I plan to post my tips to this blog when I send them out each day. (This site will allow you to email a blog post. Cool, eh?) THis way you can always come back here to look for old ones or comment on them or even post your own. Think about it - this COULD be a VERY helpful resource if we use it.

So, to get thing started here's today's tip:

This is a reminder of a stie I sent out three years ago: http://ferryhalim.com/orisinal/What is it? The front page is a matrix of little images. Each image links to a small game designed for the younger ones. Some come with direcitons. Others don't and you have to figure out the object of the game. Flash based. Very nice. Network friendly, too.