McDowell County Schools Technology

New Features in Google Docs

2012-02-09T14:08:00.000-05:00

http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2012/02/january-in-review-styles-sparklines.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OfficialGoogleDocsBlog+%28Docs+Blog%29

January in Review: Styles, Sparklines, Google+ sharing, and more: One of the best things about working on web apps like Google Docs is that it gives us the flexibility to frequently bring you new features and improvements. Starting this month, we’re going to make some small changes to how we communicate what’s been happening in the world of Docs. Instead of writing blog posts for each and every minor update, we're going to try bundling them together monthly to give you a detailed overview of our favorite features and a short list of other notable changes to make sure you don't miss out on anything new.

On that note, we’ve got a bunch of new features that launched today, as well as some great things that improved over the month of January.

Customizable styles in documents

Giving your document consistent and beautiful formatting should be easy. Before today, if you wanted to update all the Subtitles in your document to look a particular way, you had to change each of them one at a time. That’s too many steps. Now you can restyle all your regular paragraphs, headings, or titles with just a couple clicks.
For example, if you want to update all the Subtitles in your document to be a particular size, set one Subtitle to that size, select it, right click and choose Update Subtitle to match selection. This will change all the Subtitles already in your document and automatically update the style for any new Subtitles you create. Plus, with the new Options menu in the styles dropdown, you can set the current document’s styles as the default for new documents or you can load your default styles into the current document.

Sparklines in spreadsheets and more charting options

In Google spreadsheets, we’ve added more charting options and support for sparklines to make it easier to communicate data. The new options give you a bunch of tools to create more sophisticated charts including different Y-axes on either side of the chart, formatting options for the axis and title text, and all sorts of other customization for how your lines, bars, or pies are displayed.
We’ve also added sparklines, which let you display line or bar charts inside of cells and are handy for presenting and comparing data in a simple, bite-sized way. In the example below, we’ve used sparklines to plot currency exchange rates over a 30-day period.

Sharing forms on Google+

Sharing the forms you create in Google Docs with the right people shouldn’t be a hassle. Today we added a Google+ share to the form editor so that you can share your forms directly with your circles with just a couple clicks.

And there’s more…

On top of today’s new features, here are some changes from January that you may have missed:

Adding images to your docs from a high quality stock photo gallery. Simply go to Insert > Image, select Stock photos, and then search for the images that you want.

A more streamlined format for document discussion notifications that batches multiple discussions into a single email.

Quickly opening and selecting items from specific menus with keyboard accelerators. For example, when using Google Chrome, Ctrl+Option+E on a Mac and Alt+E on Windows or Linux will open the Edit menu.

Copying and pasting via the context (right click) menu in documents when you have the Chrome App installed.

Easily adding Google drawings or Google Groups discussions to a Google Site from the Insert menu.

Progress bars while uploading files to Google Sites.

Searching for text inside of PDFs in your documents list using Optical Character Recognition.

If you’d like to learn more about what we’ve been up to in January, I’ll be doing a Hangout On Air later this week this to talk about these changes and listen to your feedback. Stop by our Community Manager Teresa’s Google+ page on Thursday, February 9 at 12 p.m. EST to tune in.

Posted by: Jeff Harris, Product Manager

Discovery Education February Informer: Introducing Discovery Education Live

2012-02-09T09:57:00.002-05:00

Discovery Education transforms classrooms, empowers teachers, and captivates students by leading the way in providing high quality, dynamic content to school districts large and small, rural and suburban, and everything in between.

In order to continue delivering engaging content to your schools, we have just launched a new webinar program called Discovery Education Live. Through Discovery Education Live, we will take your students beyond the walls of the classroom to discover topics like never before before. We have started 2012 strong, with two engaging webinar archives and one upcoming webinar opportunity that we do not want you to miss.

ARCHIVED WEBINARS

"Help Your Peers Stay in School" featuring General and Mrs. Colin L. Powell
http://www.discoveryeducation.com/Live/helpyourpeersstayinschool.cfm
General and Mrs. Colin Powell discussed one of the most critical issues facing communities in America today - dropout rates - in the first of two 'Motivating Students to Make a Difference' webinars. This webinar features facts and figures about the current state and discusses ways that students can help their peers stay in school and stay motivated to graduate themselves.

"Your Role in Combating Poverty in America" featuring Mark Shriver, Senior Vice President of U.S. Programs, Save the Children
http://www.discoveryeducation.com/Live/yourroleincombatingpovertyinamerica.cfm
The second webinar under the 'Motivating Students to Make a Difference' series featured Mark Shriver, Senior Vice President of U.S. Programs from Save the Children. In this webinar, Mr. Shriver discusses poverty in America today and how students across the country can do their part to help reduce poverty in the future.

UPCOMING WEBINAR
Discovery Education Sneak Peek 2012
Tune in on Friday, February 17th for the Discovery Education Sneak Peek webinar, featuring TV's favorite MYTHBUSTER, Kari Byron, and education thought-leader Hall Davidson. Get a first look at exclusive content and hear about the innovation educators are bringing to classrooms to accelerate achievement. Visit DiscoveryEducation.com for more information.

We hope that you will take advantage of these featured Discovery Education Live events now and in the future so together we can continue to improve teaching and learning. Please encourage your educators to register to attend with their classes!

Sincerely,

Cristin

Cristin Sanders
Regional Account Manager
Discovery Education

Augmented Reality in the Classroom

2012-01-06T09:10:00.002-05:00

Here is a fun way to get your students involved in a fun way to discuss biology in your classroom. To introduce it to the students have the printed target taped to your chest when the students come in. Have the site open and projected on the projector. You can use your document camera as your camera and after they are seated walk in front of the document camera and let it display on the screen for them to see. Click Here to view site.

Explore and Discover UNC-TV Digital Resources for the Classroom

2011-12-13T12:12:00.000-05:00

Explore and Discover UNC-TV Digital Resources for the Classroom
Diane Lucas, UNC TV and Carolyn Jacobs, WGBH Boston
Tuesday, January 17th – 3:30-4:30 PM

UNC-TV LearningMedia is a new public media education platform that brings together the best available high-quality media for PreK-13 classrooms and is free to teachers and educators. It will deliver classroom-ready content tied to national and Common Core standards. In this webinar, you will learn how to sign up and navigate the site; search, save and share resources; and we'll take a deep dive into the breadth and depth of content. You'll also hear about enhanced levels of the service that will provide student access, as well as additional features such as mobile apps, content upload, and more. If you're looking for fresh digital resources for your classroom, join us!

This webinar is for all audiences interested in learning more about UNC-TV Digital Resources. To learn about these new resources, plan to participate in this free webinar on Tuesday, January 17th from 3:30-4:30 PM.

Click here to register http://www.ncssm.edu/ncssm-workshop-webinars. The log-on URL and call-in instructions will be emailed to you the week of January 9th.

YouTube for Schools

2011-12-12T12:09:00.003-05:00

If you haven't seen the news from Google and YouTube, they just released YouTube for Schools.

Blog Link: http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2011/12/opening-up-world-of-educational-content.html

YouTube Link: www.youtube.com/schools

YouTube for Schools will allow us to have a limited version of YouTube unblocked for students. Staff will be able to login to YouTube and see all videos. They will also be able to add them to playlist and whitelist them for students. Students will only see educational video and videos that we have whitelists, they will not see comments or the related videos.

In order for this to work, we need to insert a header into all Internet traffic that goes to YouTube. Our current filter and firewall are not capable of doing this. I have been in contact with both of them, and both claim to be working on a solution.

Online Storytime by Barnes & Noble

2011-12-12T09:31:00.001-05:00

Online Storytime is a site published by Barnes & Noble that features children's books read by the authors or celebrities. Each month they feature a new book. This month features Chris Van Allsburg reading his book, The Polar Express. Right now, there are 16 videos to watch. Other titles includes, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Where the Wild Things Are, Olivia, and many others.

You can check it out at: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/storytime

Announcing the 2012 Google Model Your Town Competition

2011-11-22T14:04:00.000-05:00

A competition from Google for our students:

Announcing the 2012 Google Model Your Town Competition:

Following the success of last year’s Google Model Your Town competition, today we're launching the second Google Model Your Town Competition. Model Your Town is about geo-modeling – making photo-textured models of real-life buildings that appear in Google Earth. The Model Your Town Competition is also a chance to celebrate your town by adding it to the 3D map. Of course, the USD$25,000 for a local school/district is a nice incentive too.

Barranco, Lima, Peru
The Model Your Town Competition is open to just about everyone, just about everywhere in the world. Form a team, model buildings (using SketchUp or Building Maker) and upload them by the end of February 2012.

You can model as many structures as you like – which types of buildings you choose to include is entirely up to you. The important thing is that your choices say something about the character and history of your town.

If your town wins, a bunch of us from the SketchUp team will visit, throw you a dinner party and do our best to make you feel like the local hero that you truly are. Check out the competition website for details, and start rounding up teammates!

Here's some inspiration by way of the 2010 winner, Jorge De Albertis, from Lima, Peru (just to get your creative juices flowing):

New to geo-modeling? Learn more at Your World in 3D, then get started modeling your town!

Posted by Allyson McDuffie, Google Geo team

Browse the Google Apps directory from within Gmail Contacts

2011-11-18T14:02:00.000-05:00

The ability to see everyone while browsing in contacts is something we lost from Groupwise. Google has just added the feature to gmail.

Browse the Google Apps directory from within Gmail Contacts: Users can browse the entire Google Apps directory for their domain from within Contacts without having to search. This is especially useful when a user doesn’t know the exact name or spelling of the person they’re looking for or wants to see a complete list of contacts for their domain in alphabetical order. Just click “Directory” in the left sidebar from within Contacts in Gmail to get started.

How to access what's new:
- To enable / disable the ability to browse the Google Apps directory, enable / disable Contact Sharing: Control Panel -> Settings -> Contacts -> Enable / Disable contact sharing.
- To hide specific users (or resources) from being visible to other users from within Contacts: Control Panel -> Organization and Users -> User information -> Contact Sharing checkbox.
- To set the Google Apps directory to be alphabetized by first or last name: Control Panel ->Settings -> Email -> Name format.
- Reload Gmail
- Go to "Contacts"
- In the left sidebar, click "Directory", above "New Group..." at the bottom.
- Browse by using either the next/prev arrow buttons or open the drop down to the left of the next/prev arrow buttons to jump directly to a specific alphabetical range.

For more information:
http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=1628008

New Look for Google Apps

2011-11-18T13:53:00.001-05:00

All of the core Google Apps are getting face lifts. While most of the changes are cosmetic, there are some changes that warrant a deeper look. Google has created a Web site to highlight these changes.

http://learn.googleapps.com/new-look

The site is broken down into Gmail, Docs, Calendar, and Sites. Each section has a slideshow showing off the new looks and printable guides. Most sections also have a video explaining the differences.

Digital Learning and School Reform Now! -- THE Journal

2011-11-09T11:06:00.000-05:00

Digital Learning and School Reform Now! -- THE Journal:

'via Blog this'

Global Education Resources

2011-11-01T09:05:00.003-04:00

Teacher resources supporting the integration of a global perspective across the curriculum. Largely Pacific Rim; however, filled with lessons, tools and project ideas.

http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/globaled/go

The Euro Challenge competition

2011-11-01T08:52:00.001-04:00

The UNC-Chapel Hill EU Center of Excellence invites you and your students to participate in this year's Euro Challenge competition. I'm writing to let you know about this exciting educational opportunity for high school students (grades 9 & 10) to learn about the European Union (EU) and its single currency, the euro. The EU is the largest trading partner of the US – in 2010, $560 billion was traded between the US and EU, whereas $525 billion was traded between the US and Canada.

The Euro Challenge competition is also an excellent opportunity for teachers, as two teachers who enlist a team in our region will be awarded a free trip to Brussels next summer (made possible by a grant from the European Commission).
As the regional coordinator of the Euro Challenge for those in the Southeast area, we will hold an orientation session at UNC-Chapel Hill Saturday, November 12, 10am-2pm, to give teachers a chance to learn more about the competition. RSVP for the orientation by emailing gali@unc.edu by Friday, November 4. Feel free to contact me with any questions, and please spread the word to other teachers who might be interested. More details are below and also at http://www.unc.edu/depts/europe/academicprograms/eurochallenge.html. Many thanks for your time!

--
Gali Beeri :: International Education Program Coordinator
Center for European Studies/EU Center of Excellence
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
919-843-9852
www.unc.edu/depts/europe :: www.euce.org

Ambassador Vale de Almeida speaks with students at the Euro Challenge 2011 Awards Ceremony

"The experience is one we shall never forget. Besides the trip and the unbelievable setting, what we gained most is how to approach issues like the EU sovereign debt crisis not with the goal of finding an answer, but of understanding the problem”

Euro Challenge 2011 Finalist

REGISTER NOW FOR THE EURO CHALLENGE 2012

You are invited to participate in the Euro Challenge 2012, an exciting educational opportunity for 9^th and 10^th grade high school students to learn about the European Union (EU) and its single currency, the euro. The program introduces students of global studies, world history or European studies economics and offers a unique learning experience that moves them out of the classroom into the real world.

For the competition, students research problems and solutions to Europe's economic challenges. A team of three to five students presents its findings in a competition format. The best teams from each region travel to New York City to compete in the national finals at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Conditional on an annual grant, winning teams can win awards and a trip to Washington generously offered by The Moody's Foundation.

During the summer, a study tour to Brussels is offered to teachers from participating schools to learn more about the European Union and euro area.

The competition requires no previous knowledge of economics or Europe, and students and teachers can access an array of educational resources and training materials on our website: http://www.euro-challenge.org/.

Register today to participate in the Euro Challenge 2012. Simply click on the link below to enroll your school:

www.euro-challenge.org/registration.html

If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me via phone at 212-421-2700 or e-mail at danderson@wise-ny.org .

Thanks and regards.

David Anderson
Executive Vice President
Working In Support of Education (WISE)

The Euro Challenge is a program of the Delegation of the European Union to the United States of America. It is managed by Working in Support of Education and run with the help of numerous regional partner organizations (see www.euro-challenge.org/partners for details).

ASCD Announces Free Common Core Webinar Series for Educators

2011-10-27T13:31:00.000-04:00

ASCD will conduct a series of three free Common Core webinars for educators of all levels this November.

The webinars focus on supporting educators as they implement the new standards. The first webinar, Common Core 101 with John Kendall, will be presented on November 9, 2011, at 3:00 p.m. eastern time.

http://www.ascd.org/news-media/Press-Room/News-Releases/Common-Core-Webinar-Series-for-Educators.aspx

WRESA Scholarship for Teacher Travel

2011-10-27T13:28:00.003-04:00

WRESA will be hosting a trip for educators to Germany and the Czech Republic June 23-July 2, 2012. The total cost of the trip is $2,669. For more information visit http://www.wresa.org/berlin/berlin.htm

The Center for Diversity Education is underwriting 2, $500 scholarships for educators in the WRESA region. Please forward the attached announcement to interested individuals. The application deadline is January 10, 2012.

The next meeting of WNC in the World is scheduled for November 18, 10:00 - 11:30 at the Buncombe County Central Office in the Board Room (towards the east end of the building).

YouTube: Space Lab

2011-10-25T09:52:00.000-04:00

Space Lab is a new YouTube Channel (http://www.youtube.com/spacelab) designed to help students discover and learn about space. YouTube is challenging 14-18 to come up with a science experiment which could be streamed live on YouTube from the International Space Station. A video explanation of what Space Lab

Lesson plans for teachers can be found here: https://sites.google.com/site/ytspacelab/teachers/english

YouTube has reached out to McDowell County teachers. If you are interested and participate, they can help setup some media interviews.

2011-10-25T09:12:00.000-04:00

On Monday, November 7, LEARN NC will host their annual fall conference. This year, for the first time, the conference will take place entirely online. You’ll be able to listen to the presenters, pose questions, and interact with other participants from any Internet-connected computer. And, as always, the conference is entirely free!

We’ll be joined by an exciting line-up of presenters, who will discuss topics like how to reach struggling readers, teaching about North Carolina American Indians, modeling-based science instruction, and the state’s adoption of new curriculum standards and professional teaching standards. Presenters include classroom teachers, UNC faculty members, and leaders from DPI.

The conference will consist of eight sessions, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. All sessions will be archived for future viewing. For more details and to register, please see the conference website.

Grants

2011-09-20T10:38:00.000-04:00

LEGO Smart Schools Grant
This is a district level matching grant that will develop 14 regional centers of influence that demonstrate the full continuum of LEGO® Education products and services Showcase Grants: This is available to current LEGO® Education customers who want to showcase their investment in the LEGO® Education System for Learning through a hands-on community activity.
Learn more at www.edublue.org
For more Grant Support visit http://www.legoeducation.us/eng/Grants/

More than $12K for classroom tech
Administrators and faculty of public or private schools and universities in the United States can enter Casio’s Lamp-Free Projector Technology Grant for a chance to win a Mobile Classroom Package worth $12,500. The Mobile Classroom Package includes a Casio Short Throw Projector, Casio Pen & Software, 30 pairs of Casio 3D active glasses and an AVRover Cart equipped with a 3D computer.

$1,000 to support classroom projects

Toshiba America Foundation K-5 Grants
Organization: Toshiba America Foundation
Eligibility: K-5th grade science and math teachers
Grant Value: $100-$1,000
Grant Deadline: Saturday October 1st, 2011

Toshiba America Foundation’s mission is to provide teachers with additional funds to support classroom projects. After school and summer projects, and independent study projects are not eligible. The foundation strongly encourages projects planned and led by individual teachers or teams of teachers for their own classrooms.

Many successful grantees have designed projects that tap into the natural curiosity of their students, eneable students to frame their own scientific questions, and incorporate the expertise of community partners.

Contact:
http://www.toshiba.com/taf/k5_teachers.jsp

Up to $1000 for integrating arts into education

P. Buckley Moss Foundation for Children’s Education Grant
Organization: P. Buckley Moss Foundation For Children’s Education
Eligibility: K-12 teachers
Grant Value: $100-$1000
Grant Deadline: Friday September 30th, 2011

The P. Buckley Moss Foundation For Children’s Education has grants available up to $1,000 to be awarded in 2011 to educators who need assistance to further their program goals.

Applications may be made for a grant up to $1,000 to support a new or evolving program that integrates the arts into educational programming. The purpose is to aid and support teachers who wish to establish an effective learning tool using the arts in teaching children who learn differently.

Contact:
http://mossfoundation.org/national-educators-awards-and-grants

College scholarships for math students
The focus of the competition is on the math skills that students need to hone for their future, while providing the necessary educational funding. The winning team is awarded a monetary scholarship toward the college of their choice and a chance to ring the closing bell at NASDAQ on January 17, 2012 in New York City.

$5,000 grants to help girls pursue technology, engineering
This grant helps teachers encourage girls to pursue engineering and technology studies. Proposals must be new, innovative programs.

$500 for gardening projects
The Healthy Sprouts Awards support school gardening programs that teach kids about nutrition and the issue of hunger in the United States. The top 50 entries will each receive a $500 gift certificate to the Gardening with Kids catalog, NGA's Eat a Rainbow Kit, and a literature package from NGA.

$25K for PreK-12 schools
In honor of American Education Week (Nov. 13–19, 2011), Walden University is awarding $5,000 grants to five preK–12 schools that are hosting an Educator for a Day event on Thursday, Nov. 17, and that have been nominated by a teacher or administrator at that school.

Up to $15M for professional development
The Supporting Effective Educator Development Grant Program provides funding for grants to national nonprofit organizations to support projects that prepare or provide professional enhancement activities for teachers or for teachers and principals. Note: Deadline pertains to notice of intent to apply. Program deadline is Nov. 7, 2011.

$50K for schools
The Power A Bright Future program gives educators a chance to make a difference and win a grant for their school to give students the opportunity to thrive by exploring, creating, and playing.

Thanks to Dr. Joan Marie Conway, Student Services and Information Director/Grant Writer, for sharing.

10 ways to assess learning without tests...

2011-09-19T12:51:00.000-04:00

10 ways to assess learning without tests...

Great 21st Cent. Skills !!! As we are all in the data game right now, we continue to look for ways to assess our students that also is fun and innovative! Students will love doing these projects and might not even know you are assessing them!!!

ELL Strategies for the Mainstream Classroom | TeachHUB

2011-09-12T08:14:00.000-04:00

As we begin this new schoool year, here is a great resource to use in your classroom!

ELL Strategies for the Mainstream Classroom TeachHUB

Teacher Learning Community - Teacher Professional Development

2011-08-30T11:59:00.000-04:00

Hundreds of GREAT videos to use in education! Great site!

Education Article :: Top 12 Teaching Quotes

2011-08-01T11:43:00.000-04:00

Education Article :: Top 12 Teaching Quotes

Education Article :: If Teachers Were Treated Like Celebrities...

2011-07-28T15:14:00.000-04:00

I don't know any fellow educator who went into education with the idea of becoming famous or winning any awards. We do it for the love of the students. But what if....... :-)

Education Article :: If Teachers Were Treated Like Celebrities...

One Extra Degree: Writing Workshop Tips and Tricks

2011-07-20T11:34:00.000-04:00

I found this on one of the many Blogs I frequent. Here is a great resource for teaching writing:

One Extra Degree: Writing Workshop Tips and Tricks: " By now, if you've been following my blog for any length of time, you probably realize how much I LOVE literacy. I am a HUGE literacy junki..."

Thinking Out Loud: Chromebooks

2011-07-20T09:15:00.000-04:00

A Chromebook is a small laptop that boots in 8 seconds and just to the Google Chrome web browser. It only runs the Internet; students and teachers login with their Google Apps Account. I am very excited that EGMS ordered 30 for a number of reasons

1. They are internet only. This forces the teachers and student to use the internet and the internet only. The Internet is where the innovation and collaboration is happening, not PowerPoint or Word. I hope it will trigger a change in how teachers think about teaching.

2. They are platform agnostic. Again, everything is on the internet. Work done on a Chromebook could be accessed from any other PC, Mac, smart phone, iPad, iPod Touch, etc. Student can be at home, the library, at a cousins house, or anywhere there is an internet connection. This will be even more important when schools start allowing students to bring their own devices.

3. Management: From the technical side of things, there isn't a whole lot. We don't have to image them. We don't have to install anti-virus. We don't have to provide network storage space. We don't have to backups the machine We don't have to push out updates.

4. Speed: When the students get their hands on the Chromebooks, I am going to make a video comparing the boot speeds. Our desktops are much slower, going from off to ready to use, than the Chromebooks. That time adds up over the course of a school year.

One thing that really got me thinking is Google's pricing. For $20 a month you get a wifi only Chromebook. When I signed the contract, we had the option of paying $23 per month for a Chromebook with 100 MB built-in 3G data service from Verizon. If we were allowing students to take the device home, we could give them Internet for $3 per month. To me, that is a game changer. Google and Verizon will give us the option to put the Chromebooks on our own Verizon data plan. If Verizon would allow us to pool data, it maybe possible to provide Internet to some students and get an erate discount.

Great Math Resouce by Dan Meyer

2011-07-18T14:57:00.001-04:00

Dan Meyer has created a very user-friendly Blog to help Math teachers see how to "reorganize" word problems to make them both interactive and interesting for students. It is definitely worth your time.

Dan's Blog

77 Web Resources for Teachers to Try This Summer

2011-07-15T21:57:00.000-04:00

77 Web Resources for Teachers to Try This Summer

Chromebooks and Video Editing

2011-07-01T08:23:00.000-04:00

About two weeks ago I purchased a Samsung Series 5 Chromebook. Eastfield Global Magnet School has expressed some interested in purchasing them for their new 8th grade class. I like the idea of the Chromebook, especially since both staff and students are now using Google Apps.

One of my main concerns was video editing. I wasn't really sure that editing video online was feasible. Today I decided to give it a try using nothing but a Flip Video Ultra, a Chromebook, and Jaycut.com. I recored a short video of the Chromebook booting up, it is fast! The file ended up being 16 seconds and was only 10 MB. Uploading to Jaycut was easy, the flip video was recognized as an external device. I had ideal conditions with no students on the network.

I have used Windows Movie Maker and iMovie in the past, so I am familiar with movie editing. Jaycut is pretty straight forward. Drag the video you want to the time line. I was able to add text. I played with the transitions, but decided not to use any. I missed using the spacebar to start and stop the video like in iMovie.

I published the movie straight from Jaycut to Youtube. Overall, I am impressed with the Jaycut and editing on the Chromebook. Again, this was a short video but Jaycut never crashed. I could never say that using Windows Movie Maker. Overall, Jaycut was a quick and easy way to edit a video. It lacks the polish of iMovie, but it is a great web app. You can also add Jaycut in the Chrome Web Store. but they do not offer Google OAuth. Students would have to create accounts.

Somethings I want to test in the future.

1. Longer videos

2. Upload speed when a bunch a students are trying at the same time, especially on wireless.

3. Adding Voiceover

4. Recording from the webcam.
5. Green Screen

BrainPop: GameUp!

2011-06-26T15:32:00.001-04:00

GameUp!

Video games? In the classroom? Seriously?
Yes. For students, video games are where it’s at. We are beyond excited to share our newest development: GameUp. We know that video games – good video games, engage students, encourage creative, interactive problem solving, inspire inquiry, develop critical and systems thinking, all while providing ongoing feedback, so we’ve culled the very best educational video games out there - so you don’t have to. Teaching a unit on Cells? Play Cell Command. Blood Types? Play Nobel Prize’s Blood Typing Game! Want your students to have a better grasp on how to engage with their communities and the government responsibly? Argument Wars is the game for you. From science to math to civics, we’ve got you covered.

And we’ve got the tools for you to go beyond having your students play games - they can become game designers too.

You can count on us for plenty of support to help get you up and running with games. We’ve already got lesson plans, archived webinars, and a line up of upcoming webinars with special guest experts from the field starting in August. And we’ll be looking to you for feedback on your experiences, games you’d like to see added to GameUp, and additional support that would be helpful to you. We’re all ears!
So even though the school year is winding down, GameUp for next year! Play! Seriously.

Google Apps highlights – 6/24/2011

2011-06-24T19:45:00.000-04:00

Google Apps highlights – 6/24/2011: "This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights' and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

There’s no slowing down as we head into summer. In the last couple weeks, we made improvements to Google Sync for iOS devices, streamlined collaboration in Microsoft ® Office files, added mobile display options for Google Sites and welcomed many big organizations, including the state of Wyoming, onto Google Apps.

Search all email from iOS devices, and more

Google Sync brings your email, calendar and contacts to four popular phone platforms. Last Wednesday, we improved Google Sync for iOS devices in three ways. One, you can now search all of your Gmail from your iPhone or iPad, beyond just the messages stored on your phone. Two, you can accept, decline and edit calendar events from your device, and three, you can send email from a custom email address if you use Gmail’s “Send mail as” feature. This is useful if you like to manage email in Gmail, but want emails you sent to look like they’re coming from a school or business email address.

Paste images into Gmail messages

As of Monday, if you use the latest version of Chrome, you can now paste images into Gmail’s compose window right from your clipboard. If you copy an image from the web or another email, it’s a cinch to paste it directly into a message.

Improvements to Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office

With Google Cloud Connect, you can collaborate with others simultaneously through Google’s cloud in Word, Excel and PowerPoint files without sending attachments back and forth. People told us they wanted a faster way to open files with Google Cloud Connect so on Tuesday we streamlined that process. Now you can open native Office files saved in Google Docs right from Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Mobile rendering for Google Sites

It’s important that you can be just as productive on your phone’s small screen as on a full computer display, so yesterday we made Google Sites work even better on mobile devices. You can now configure your sites to automatically render for smaller screens on Android and iOS devices, making the content much easier to read and navigate. In addition, you can also browse and search the sites that you manage through an interface that’s also been optimized for a mobile device’s smaller screen.

Who’s gone Google?

It’s been another bumper couple weeks with tens of thousands more organizations moving to Google Apps. This week, the State of Wyoming became the first to move all state government employees to Google Apps. Matt Mead, Governor of Wyoming, was on-hand for a “cable cutting” ceremony to celebrate the 10,000 user transition to the cloud, which was managed smoothly by deployment partner Tempus Nova.

In the private sector, all 8,400 employees at The McClatchy Company are “going Google” across the business’ 30 newspapers. The company is anticipating a stack of benefits from Google Apps, including standardization on a single email solution, simpler shared calendaring, improved collaboration even when mobile, significant cost savings and a level of service that they weren’t seeing from their historical provider, not to mention great employee enthusiasm for the IT group’s decision.

Even though it’s summer vacation, we saw many schools keeping busy by moving to Google’s cloud. A warm welcome goes out to the Wisconsin K-12 school system (900,000 users), CSU Monterey Bay (10,000 users) and the Indian Youth Congress (28,000 users). Schools will be able to enjoy even more Gmail storage now too; we’re bumping up the quota to 25GB for all education accounts!

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Nakia Carson and Hampton Boggs from MEC Interviewed

2011-06-22T11:51:00.001-04:00

McDowell Early College's Nakia Carson and Hampton Boggs talk about their first day at the North Carolina New Schools Project Summer Institute.

The 21st century skills teachers should have

2011-06-15T08:18:00.000-04:00

The 21st century skills teachers should have

Google Goggles for Desktop

2011-06-14T14:15:00.000-04:00

I was blown away when I saw this demonstration. Very Cool.

Here is the explanation from Google...

Searching with speech recognition started first on mobile, and so did searching with computer vision. Google Goggles has enabled you to search by snapping a photo on your mobile phone since 2009, and today we’re introducing Search by Image on desktop. Next to the microphone on images.google.com, you’ll also see a little camera for the new Search by Image feature. If you click the camera, you can upload any picture or plug in an image URL from the web and ask Google to figure out what it is. Try it out when digging through old vacation photos and trying to identify landmarks—the search [mountain path] probably isn’t going to tell you where you were, but computer vision may just do the trick. Search by Image is rolling out now globally in 40 languages. We’re also releasing Chrome and Firefox extensions that enable you to search any image on the web by right-clicking.

Creating Your First Blog | Digital Learning Environments

2011-06-13T08:56:00.001-04:00

Creating Your First Blog Digital Learning Environments

Great resource for those of you wanting to Blog with your students!

BrainPop: In the News: E.Coli

2011-06-11T12:22:00.001-04:00

In the News: E.Coli: "

If you’ve been following the news lately, you know that a massive outbreak of harmful E.coli bacteria has had ripple effects in Europe over the past week. We’ve already heard from kids who are concerned and have questions - how this can happen, and whether Americans are at risk. For those educators and parents who want to bring their students and children up to speed on the science behind superbugs like this E.coli strain, we recommend showing our movie on Antibiotic Resistance. In it, Tim and Moby describe what can happen when environmental pressures lead to genetic mutations that thrive despite scientists’ best efforts to control them. You may also wish to show our Genetic Mutations and Bacteria movies for primers on the cell biology behind outbreaks like these. Finally, we encourage you to watch and share our Food Safety topic, which explores precautions to take to help prevent getting ill from food contamination.

If you would like to join the BrainPOP virtualPLC, you can find it at http://groups.google.com/a/mcdowell.k12.nc.us/group/brainpop

Google Apps Updates

2011-06-02T10:17:00.000-04:00

Google Calendar

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/change-google-calendars-default-meeting.html

Two new features:
First, you can now change your default event length from the standard 30 minute slot. If you frequently create 15 minute meetings, for example, you can now make 15 minutes the default length for all your events. This way, you don’t need to click into the event page to change the duration every time.

Second, for those of you who still prefer paper and print your calendar, you can now select a specific date range in the print dialog box. Google Calendar will automatically format your printout for the date range you choose.

Gmail

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/3-labs-graduations-1-retirement.html
Superstars
Superstars, one of the most popular Labs features, provides different types of stars in addition to Gmail’s basic one. You can assign a certain star to special conversations and use another as a visual reminder that you need to follow-up on a message later. You can now choose your own set of stars from Settings.

Nested Labels
Labels are a great way of organizing your email; nested labels give you the ability to organize labels hierarchically. Starting today, nested labels are enabled for everyone along with a couple of small improvements such as a sticky collapse/expand state and better editing options.

Advanced IMAP Controls
This Labs feature provided a very useful set of advanced controls for those of you who access Gmail through IMAP clients (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, or your iPhone’s native mail app). Now it’s easier to take advantage of features like syncing only selected labels or limiting the folder size limit to improve your IMAP experience.

People Widget (http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/introducing-people-widget.html)
Email is just as much about the people you communicate with as it is what you communicate about. We think it can be helpful to view relevant information in context, which is why over the next two weeks we’re rolling out a new people widget located on the right hand side of your messages. The people widget surfaces content from friends, family and colleagues that is already available to you but may be hard to find and makes it easier to connect with them. I have this in my personal gmail account, but it hasn't shown up in my Google Apps Account

Every Teacher’s Must-Have Guide To Facebook - Edudemic

2011-05-31T08:36:00.001-04:00

Every Teacher’s Must-Have Guide To Facebook - Edudemic

Internet Outage May 26th, 2011

2011-05-26T09:40:00.001-04:00

A couple minutes after 7AM on May 26th, our main router failed. This is the piece of equipement that connects the entire district to the internet. We attempted to reboot the router a couple of times to no avail. We then called Broadplex, our ISP and wide area network manager. Broadplex immediately sent two technicians to replace the router. They arrived shortly after 8:30 AM, replaced the router and our connection to the Internet was restored. We have requested a backup router to prevent the downtime in the future.

I apologize for the inconvenience this caused.

Google Apps highlights – 5/20/2011

2011-05-23T14:04:00.000-04:00

Google Apps highlights – 5/20/2011: "This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights' and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Over the last few weeks, we made improvements to instant messaging, increased capacity for saved contacts, added powerful data analysis with pivot tables in spreadsheets and introduced more flexible management tools for Google Apps customers.

Better AIM interoperability in Gmail and beyond

Google Talk is built on open protocols for instant messaging, making it possible for other IM networks to connect seamlessly with Google Talk. Yesterday we rolled out improvements to make chatting with your AIM buddies even easier in Gmail, iGoogle, Orkut and Google Talk on Android devices. Now you can invite your AIM buddies to chat from any of these places just by entering their AOL screennames, even if you don’t have or use an AIM account.

Room for 15,000 more contacts in Gmail

We’ve heard from a surprising number of super-connected people who wanted to save more contacts in Gmail than its 10,000-contact limit allowed, so a couple weeks ago we made Gmail better by supporting up to 25,000 contacts. You can also save even more information with each contact, so if you were previously bumping up against the limits, you should have a whole lot more extra space for your contacts now.

Pivot tables in Google spreadsheets

Google spreadsheets now has another tool to help serious dataheads make sense from large data sets: pivot tables. With pivot tables, you can easily summarize rows and columns of information, helping you quickly spot patterns in the information that you might not have noticed otherwise. If you’re new to pivot tables, we made a short video to show what you can do.

Customizable administration options for Google Apps customers

IT staff members in large organizations don’t all need the same level of control in their Google Apps environment. For example, a university IT help desk should be able to reset lost passwords for students, but probably doesn’t need to modify school-wide email settings. On Monday, we made Google Apps much more flexible by introducing delegated administration, which lets full administrators assign partial administration privileges to other individuals.

Who’s gone Google?

In the last three weeks, we’ve seen more than 60,000 organizations choose our cloud products for their communication and collaboration needs, and this week a couple international customers stood out from the crowd. Oxygen Design Agency based in Toronto, Canada chose Google Apps and avoided a big investment in traditional email servers when their previous email solution started to break down. With Google Apps, their downtime woes have disappeared, designers can stay in contact when they’re meeting clients and the system is much simpler and more affordable to manage.

EAT. has more than 100 restaurant locations and 1,700 employees in the U.K. They serve fresh, healthy food—as well as kilobytes to customers through technology programs like an iPhone ordering app, free in-store Wi-Fi, a Twitter feed and a tap-to-pay system. EAT. selected Google Apps to replace their old system to get away from complex, costly upgrades, achieve hassle-free scalability as their business expands and securely support a wider array of mobile devices.

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

BrainPOP + Google Apps

2011-05-23T13:48:00.000-04:00

We recently installed BrainPop on our staff and student Google Apps. This gives teachers and students quick access to BrainPOP from your gmail. Just click the more bottom locate across the top of your gmail, there is now an option for BrainPOP.

This allows students to send their quiz results to a Google Spreadsheet. I have created a screencast below illustrating exactly how it is done.

We are also exploring the possibility of setting up virtual PLCs for a variety of technology topics. If you would like to join the BrainPOP vPLC, you can find it at http://groups.google.com/a/mcdowell.k12.nc.us/group/brainpop

EOG's Finished, Science Exploration Beginning

2011-05-23T13:37:00.005-04:00

Now that testing is finished 8th grade Science students are building electric cars before the school year is completed. Students will test their designs on Wednesday May 25th.

10 Facebook settings to check now - Chicago Sun-Times

2011-05-19T11:03:00.000-04:00

For all your Facebookers..... check out this list. This might also be something to go over with your students.
10 Facebook settings to check now - Chicago Sun-Times

Technology Update May 17

2011-05-17T10:07:00.002-04:00

Just a quick update with some news from the Technology Department. In this email you can find out about:

The most relevant Google Apps for education
How to get free Sophos Antivirus for your home computer
How to track the Endeavour Space Shuttle
SchoolFusion Best Practices
Posts from the Technology Blog

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Google Apps

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When we switched to the new Google Apps Infrastructure, we gained access to nearly all of Google's web applications. We have created a list of the Apps that you can use with your students. You can view the list at https://docs.google.com/a/mcdowell.k12.nc.us/document/d/1PrWHij4FV5-Snu_bNHfZt6PKJFgipLC0DgIr0ttECeQ/edit?hl=en#. This is not the entire list, just the most common apps used in education. Please continue to share how you are using Google Apps in your classroom or school.

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Sophos Antivirus

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Sophos has been pushed out to all locations with the exception of North Cove. We also now have a version for your home computer. It can be found on the T: drive at each school. This can only for McDowell County School Employees, please do not share it with any other person or organization.

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Endeavour

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Endearvour's final voyage started yesterday. NASA has some great resources on its website, including videos of the launch and mission goals. NASA has also teamed up with Google Earth to provide tracking of Endeavour using real-time data from Mission Control.

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SchoolFusion

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We recently held a SchoolFusion training at Nebo Elementary School. One of the goals was to figure our the best use for SchoolFusion now that we have switched to Google Apps. The Technology Facilitators have created a best practices guide for your SchoolFusion Classroom Page and Teacher Profile. This document can be found at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ndrz3i0wNb8g2fhdh_TvJRkfX_iQ9RMzKotGKZy6wQ4/edit?hl=en&authkey=CKymyOgF

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Technology Blog

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Symphony of Science: The world's top scientist auto-tunned and put to music.

Skype with Russia: Melanie Shaver at WMJH Skyping with a classroom from Russia for Earth Day

Interactive Text Books: Maybe this is what future textbooks will look like?

Sophos

2011-05-16T16:35:00.000-04:00

Sophos has been pushed out to all locations with the exception of North Cove. We also now have a version for your home computer. It can be found on the T: drive at each school. Please copy it to your own flash drive.

Sophos Anti-Virus is licensed only for McDowell County School Employees. Distribution to any other person or organization is prohibited.

Installation:

The install package will work on Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7 32/64bit.
Internet access is required for all updates.
To insure a complete installation, remove any other anti-virus programs installed on your computer.
Double click the Sophos_Home.exe. Allow the program to finish and update.
Reboot your computer.

For additional information on this product, please refer to this web site.
http://www.sophos.com

Endeavour Launched

2011-05-16T15:47:00.001-04:00

At 8:56 AM this morning, May 16th, Endeavour Launched from Florida on a 16 day mission. This mission includes delivering the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre. Luckily the NASA website, explains and provides videos of the AMS and other mission goals. There is also a special For Educators section of the website devoted to teacher resources.

NASA and Google are also offering Google Earth Shuttle Tracking. This allows you to track Endeavour using real-time data from mission control.

The KMZ file needed to track the shuttle and the Google Earth download can both be found at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/shuttle_google_earth.html

Google is also running You Talk To Endeavour: Ask NASA Crew Questions for a LIVE Interview From Space (youtube link). Using Google Moderator, you can submit your question to the crew or vote on other's questions. If yours question is selected, it will be answered in a live interview from space.

SchoolFusion Training at Nebo

2011-05-04T10:43:00.000-04:00

On May 3rd, the four Technology Facilitators for McDowell County Schools went to Nebo Elementary to help the staff update their SchoolFusion webpages. We were waiting for our new redesign to be complete before we started to encourage staff to update their pages. Additionally, we had to figure out where SchoolFusion fit now that we are using Google Apps.

While SchoolFusion has a lot of tools teachers can use with students, we feel staff should setup their profile and classroom pages as public facing pages with parents as the intended audience. While working at Nebo, we developed a Best Practices guide for SchoolFusion Profiles and Classroom Pages.

The SchoolFusion Profile Page should include

a professional picture (not a cartoon)
small bio
education and degrees
classes taught
professional memberships
contact information

The Classroom Page should include announcements, schedules, expectations, files for parents, and links to sites that are helpful to your students and parents.

Symphony of Science

2011-05-02T12:12:00.001-04:00

While browsing this weekend, I came across a user call melodysheep on YouTube. I was watching his newest video called Ode to the Brain!

His videos take the words of famous scientists, such as Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and creates a music video. The man behind this project is John Boswell. His goal is to bring scientific knowledge and philosophy to the public, in novel way, through the medium of music.

So far there are 9 videos. I watched everyone of them on YouTube this weekend. They are all awesome. As I was watching them, I thought how great these would be for our science teachers. My only concern was that they were on YouTube and I couldn't make out all of the lyrics. That is when I finally noticed he also has a website.

Symphony of Science

His website contains download links to all nine of the videos. You are able to download the videos is an audio format (MP3, FLAC, Instrumental) and a video format (varies from MPG to WMV. You can also find the lyrics to all of the videos as well.

You can find John Boswell's Symphony of Science here...
Web: http://www.symphonyofscience.com/
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/melodysheep
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/musicalscience
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Symphony-of-Science-Official-Fan-Page/370898037745

Interactive Text Books

2011-04-28T12:43:00.000-04:00

Is this a glimpse of the future interactive text books?

About this talk
Software developer Mike Matas demos the first full-length interactive book for the iPad -- with clever, swipeable video and graphics and some very cool data visualizations to play with. The book is "Our Choice," Al Gore's sequel to "An Inconvenient Truth."
http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_matas.html?awesm=on.ted.com_9AbC

Skype with classroom in Russia for Earth Day

2011-04-25T09:38:00.006-04:00

Melanie Shaver, an 8th grade Science teacher had some of her students Skype with a classroom from Russia for Earth Day. Here are her thoughts.

Last Friday (April 15th), 3 students and I Skyped with a teacher and her class from Russia. The experience was amazing. Though the picture was fuzzy and the connection was slow, we watched about 30 students tell us about their area, sing to us about Earth Day, and answered questions they had regarding our area. My students were amazed. The Russian students English skills were fantastic, they communicated easily and openly with our students. Low quality audio was our only issue in ensuring communication was heard and understood.
My students were amazed that people from other countries could speak their language fluently. We discussed whether or not they felt like they could have discussions fluently in another language. It was eye-opening to us that many other countries are aware of the importance of global communication (and we discussed how that will effect their local economy in the long run), of coarse right now the Russian students are simply interested in cleaning up their Earth.

UPDATE... 5/6/2011 Just received Skype from Russian teacher with link to Youtube video they posted about their Earth Day connections. We were just one of the classrooms they connected with around the world. Check out the video, you can see our students at 1:28 into the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiTh3e3itfo&feature=channel_video_title

Forgot to Sign Out of Gmail?

2011-04-19T11:00:00.000-04:00

Forgot to sign out on another computer? Click “Details” below your inbox to sign out of other open sessions.

Last account activity

What is 'Last account activity'?

Last account activity shows you information about recent activity in your mail. Recent activity includes any time that your mail was accessed using a regular web browser, a POP client, a mobile device, etc. We'll list the IP address that accessed your mail, the associated location, as well as the time and date.
To see your account activity, click the Details link next to the Last account activity line at the bottom of any Gmail page.

How to understand this data

Access type

If you're concerned about unauthorized access to your mail, you'll be able to use the data in the 'Access type' column to find out if and when someone accessed your mail. For instance, if the column shows any POP access, but you don't use POP to collect your mail, it may be a sign that your account has been compromised.

Location (IP address)

In this column we list the last 10 IP addresses your mail was accessed from, and the associated locations.

If you received a warning about suspicious activity in your account, you might also see up to 3 IP addresses that have been labeled as suspicious as well as the 10 normal IP addresses. If you usually sign in to Gmail using a single computer, your IP address should be the same, or start with the same two sets of numbers (for example: 172.16.xx.xx). If you see an IP address that differs greatly from your usual IP address, it could either mean that you've recently accessed your mail from a different location, or that someone else has accessed your mail. Your current IP address is displayed below the table. In most cases, we guess the location by matching your IP address to a broad geographical location. The location and IP mappings might not always be accurate, especially in cases where the logins are old.
If you have POP3 or IMAP enabled, you'll see this in your recent activity table. If you're using Mail Fetcher with another Gmail account, a Google IP will appear; this is simply because the messages are being fetched through our servers. In addition, if you use a third party service with your Gmail service, such as social networking sites, we can't guarantee the security of the third party service. In this case, you might consider using forwarding if possible. If not, please make sure that your account recovery details are fully up to date.
In addition, some mobile providers and internet proxies may also appear in your recent login history, and in some cases, may appear to come from a different geographic location than you are normally based in.
If you'd like to find more information than what's provided in the 'Last account activity section', it's Google's policy to only provide information pursuant to a valid third party court order or other appropriate legal process.

Concurrent sessions

If your mail is currently being accessed from another location, we'll list the other session(s) in a 'Concurrent session information' table. If there are other sessions displayed, this could mean that you simply have another browser window open with Gmail loaded, or that you're sign in on another computer (for example, if your home computer is signed in to Gmail while you're accessing your mail from work.) If you're concerned about any concurrent access, you can sign out all sessions other than your current session by clicking Sign out all other sessions.

By putting up a warning, aren’t you just signaling to the bad guys that they’ve been caught?

We’ve designed the alert to only be displayed to users who have performed logins that we believe are legitimate. If we detect suspicious activity from a particular IP address, we won't show the alert to users coming from that IP address.

I'm receiving frequent alerts in my account. What does this mean?

If you're confident that you're seeing multiple alerts due to frequent traveling or mobile access, you are able to disable this alert from the last account activity details page.
If you're uncertain or you don't recognize the activity, this may be an indication that your account has been compromised via malware. Malware, also called badware, is malicious software that attempts to steal sensitive information from your computer, send spam, or commit fraud. This type of software is often bundled with other free downloads without your knowledge.

I think my account is compromised

If you think your account has been compromised, follow all the steps on the Gmail security checklist to secure your account.
If you'd like more information on account security, we suggest reading some tips on Keeping Your Data Secure.

Can I turn the Last Account Activity Alert off?

You can turn off Last Account Activity Alerts by changing your alert preferences underneath the recent activity table. Clickchange, next to Show an alert for unusual activity and you'll have the option to never show an alert for unusual activity. Keep in mind that we need about a week to disable this feature, to make sure the bad guys aren't the ones who turned off your alerts.

Google Apps Transition

2011-04-18T14:25:00.000-04:00

Over spring break, we will be transferring to the new Google Apps infrastructure. When McDowell County Schools moved to Google Apps we only had access to a few services. This included gmail, docs, calendar, sites, and video. The transition will allow us to start accessing dozens of Google services beyond the core suite of messaging and collaboration apps. Teachers will soon be able to access many new services such as Blogger, Reader, Google Voice and calling-in-Gmail (US only), Picasa Web Albums, AdWords and iGoogle from their Google Apps accounts.

In addition to new products, you will also be able to sign in to their Google Apps accounts from any Google sign in page. For example, Jane can go to http://calendar.google.com and enter her full Google Apps email address, jane@my-domain.com, to sign in to her Google Apps account and view her calendar.

We have about 70 conflicting accounts. A conflicting account exists if a user created a personal Google Account with the same email address username as their McDowell County Google Apps account. Conflicting accounts most commonly occur if your users were logging into Picasa Web Albums, Blogger, or any of these other Google Applications, before the new infrastructure.

Watch a video on conflicting accounts:

Those with a conflicting account, we receive an email with the steps needed to fix the conflict. After the transition is complete, users with conflicting accounts be prompted to rename their Google Accounts upon next sign-in.

McDowel County Teacher of the Year

2011-04-14T14:55:00.000-04:00

McDowell County’s 2011-2012 Outstanding Educator of the Year
Coach Laura Binczak of East McDowell Junior High

The McDowell County Public Schools, in cooperation with Wachovia, announced Coach Laura Binczak of East McDowell Junior High as the 2011-2012 recipient of the Ben Craig Award for Outstanding Educators. McDowell County Schools is honored to include Coach Binczak among our wonderful staff of caring and dedicated teachers; our warmest congratulations to Laura for her achievement.

Ms. Binczak, as the 2011-2012 McDowell County Teacher of the Year, received $1000 from Wachovia, to be used for professional advancement, and was presented with a Wachovia Outstanding Educator Apple, a hand worked sculpture by NC artist Gilbert Johnson. In addition to these gifts from Wachovia, Coach Binczak will receive an Apple iPad 2 from McDowell County Schools.

2011-12 Finalists
The Ben Craig Award for Outstanding Educators

Jessica Sutton – McDowell Early College
Laura Binczak – East McDowell Junior High – Winner
Allison Styles – Eastfield Elementary
Melissa Street – Glenwood Elementary
Tammy Washburn – Marion Elementary
Tiffany Stacey – McDowell High
Ashley Carswell – Nebo Elementary
Sarah Torry – North Cove Elementary
Jennifer Carroll – Old Fort Elementary
Stephanie Roland – Pleasant Gardens Elementary
Renata Crawley – West Marion Elementary
Jenny Lanier – West McDowell Junior High

Each TOY nominee receives $200 from McDowell County Schools to be used for professional advancement and the benefit of their school program. Nominees will also receive a $20 gift certificate from Countryside BBQ.

Congratulations to all the teachers nominated as McDowell County School teachers of the year and congratulations again to Coach Laura Binczak for being selected as McDowell County Schools Outstanding Educator of the Year for 2010-2011.

Education Article :: 99 Reasons Teachers Rocks

2011-04-14T11:20:00.000-04:00

This time of year, we are all tired, frustrated, and wondering if what we do really matters. Here is a pick me up! What we do is important! Here are 99 ways to remind yourself that you are GREAT!!!

Education Article :: 99 Reasons Teachers Rocks

Great Example of Technology use in the Classroom!

2011-04-13T14:42:00.000-04:00

Shout out to Holly Gouge and Tony Campbell for their use of technology in the classroom. Holly is a 7^th grade science teacher at West McDowell, who is now on maternity leave with her newborn baby girl. Tony is her interim for the remainder of the school year. Today via Skype Holly introduced her students to her new daughter and taught a lesson on simple machines from home. After Holly concluded Tony picked up and continued the lesson. The students really enjoyed the interaction and knew exactly what was expected of them. Great Lesson

Kindle Kids Corner - Student Book Reviews

2011-04-13T13:11:00.000-04:00

Kindle Kids Corner

Kindle Kids Corner is an exciting new collaborative pilot project between Kindle Nation, students and teachers at the Westwood School in Camilla, Georgia led by teacher Vicki Davis, and Vicki’s Cool Cat Teacher Blog, named the Edublog Award winner 2008 for Best Teacher Blog.

Did we mention that we’re excited about this? We are, and one of the big reasons is that beginning in early March we will be posting reviews of Kindle books for kids, by kids! There are tens of thousands of great kids’ books available on Kindle, and we think the best way to spread the word about them is to let kids do the sharing!

So please watch this space! If you’d like a heads up when a new review is posted at Kindle Kids’ Corner, or if you would like to participate, just send an email tokindlenation+kids@gmail.com.

Kids' Stories, Songs, Games, Educational Activities for Children - Speakaboos

2011-04-12T12:12:00.000-04:00

Kids' Stories, Songs, Games, Educational Activities for Children - Speakaboos This is a great interactive site where students can watch and listen to stories. It would be great to use this whole group on an LCD as well. There are lots of fairy tales and fables on this site which are a great resource for your ELA curriculum. This is a great Pre-K - 2nd grade website!

Improved printing in Spreadsheets

2011-04-12T09:31:00.000-04:00

Improved printing in Spreadsheets: "In January, we added support for Google Cloud Print to mobile documents. Today, we’re extending that functionality to mobile spreadsheets and adding some additional printing improvements to the desktop version of Google spreadsheets.

Mobile printing for spreadsheets
Now you can print your spreadsheets to any cloud-connected printer right from your phone by selecting Print... underneath the spreadsheet title. This feature will work on most phones and tablets that support HTML5, such as devices running Android 2.1+ and iOS 3+.

Improved desktop printing
We’ve added a number of printing options, including spreadsheet titles, sheet names and page numbers. You have control over which of these you want to print.

We hope you enjoy these improvements to printing.

Posted by: Jakov Krolo, Software Engineering Intern

Gmail: Fixing the little things

2011-04-08T15:15:00.000-04:00

Originally posted by Google at http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/fixing-little-things.html

Fixing the little things: "Posted by Sara Goetz, Consumer Experience Specialist

Ever since I joined the Gmail team, my friends have been eager to tell me, 'I love Gmail! Except for this one thing...' And every day, Gmail users share their 'one thing' that would make Gmail better for them through our suggestions page. While we enjoy creating new solutions to old problems with features like Priority Inbox, those little annoyances and missing pieces are important, too. Recently, we've rolled out several small tweaks to Gmail to show it a little extra love.

Here’s a rundown:

Auto-save contacts setting: Most people like that Gmail automatically saves every email address you send messages to; it can help recover forgotten addresses of former teachers, bosses, and people you contacted once but never thought you'd need to contact again. For some people, though, this feature can cause too much contacts clutter. Today, we're rolling out a new setting to let you turn off the auto-save option. You’ll see it on the General tab of Gmail Settings.

Better warnings for typos in email addresses: We all make typos, even when addressing email. In the old days, when you accidentally left out the '.' in your '.com', Gmail would tell you there was an error but not point it out. Now, it’ll let you know which address has the problem -- much easier when sorting through a long “To:” list.

Fewer annoying error pop-ups: Gmail's filters are really useful for organizing your messages automatically, but sometimes those filters can have unintended consequences, like sending mail you'd like to keep to the trash. When you replied to a message in the Trash, Gmail would show an error message you'd have to click through to continue working. Now, you’ll still see the error, but it's no longer a pop up and it gives you an easy way to move the conversation out of Trash right from there.

Easier transitions between certain actions: You can create filters quickly from the 'Filter messages like this' option that shows up on some messages. Now, after you've saved your filter, Gmail will send you right back to the message you were reading so you can go right back to what you were doing before.

Keyboard shortcut guide for everyone: Keyboard shortcuts can be a huge productivity boosters. If you've never tried them, try hitting Shift+? -- that's one keyboard shortcut that's now automatically turned on and gives you a peek into the rest of them and a quick link to enable from there.

Refresh button: For a long time, people have pointed out the inconsistency of having 'Refresh' as a link in the menu bar, next to all of the buttons. We changed it to a button to match.

If any of these small fixes were your 'one thing,' we hope you've noticed the changes as they rolled out. When you find the next little tweak that would make you love Gmail even more, let us know.

Technology Update April 8th

2011-04-08T10:08:00.001-04:00

Instructional Technology Blog

http://mcdowellcountyschoolstechnology.blogspot.com/

The four Technology Facilitators and myself have created an Instructional Technology Blog. We hope to use this blog to share technology projects students and teachers are doing, share links and lesson plans, and all sorts of technology news.

Some of the posts you can find right now:

Grants: Grants for classroom teachers, and not just for technology.

Google Apps Tip: How turn off conversation view in Gmail.

Book Trailers: How Keith Ledford and Larissa Hernandez at WMJH created book trailers for the novel The Wrestling Game.

Glogster: How Alyssa Kanipe and the fifth grade teaches at WME used Glogster for a State Project

Google Apps Transition

Over spring break, we are going to transition our Google Apps Accounts over to the new infrastructure. This transition will open many more Google services to you. You will be able to use your mcdowell.k12.nc.us address for these products. For example, you will be able to share project images with Picasa Web Albums, track education news in Google Reader, and use blogger like Brandi Silver has with her students at Nebo Elementary (http://silverblog112.blogspot.com/). There are about 70 conflicting accounts. An account is in conflict if you signed up for a personal Google Account using your mcdowell.k12.nc.us email. These people will receive an email from Google during the transition.

Technology Projects

Please don't hesitate to share technology projects you are doing or how you are using Google Apps.

Antivirus Software

We are currently in the process of switching from Symantec to Sophos Antivirus for all computer and servers. Once the switch is complete, we will be able to offer free Sophos antivirus for your home computers. Read more here.

Thanks...Aaron

Switching to Sophos

2011-04-08T10:05:00.000-04:00

The technology department recently decided to make the switch from Symantec Antivirus to Sophos. A number of factors went in to this decision and was only made after evaluating Sophos for a number of weeks.

We were having issues with the latest version of Symantec allowing malware through.
We were having issues and the technicians and Technology Assistants were spending too much time installing/correcting/reinstalling Symantec.
Symantec was dropping support for our Novell servers.
Sophos supports our Novell servers.
Sophos costs less.
Sophos offered free work at home rights.
Sophos offers a Mac client

Over the next couple of weeks, the technology department will be pushing out Sophos to all computers. We will start with schools that are having the most issues with Symantec. After Sophos is installed at all schools, we will begin to offer Sophos for home computers.

Google Apps Tips and Tricks: Unthread Gmail

2011-04-06T15:13:00.000-04:00

With the new Unthreaded Gmail feature, you can now switch between conversation view, where messages are threaded together in a single conversation, and the traditional, message-based, unthreaded view.

Click here for the complete instructions

Available Grants

2011-04-06T15:05:00.000-04:00

For addition grants, please visit the McDowell County School Grants page.

$2,500 for an inspiring social studies educator
This grant program aims to help a social studies educator make his or her dream of innovative social studies a reality
http://www.socialstudies.org/awards/grants/mcauliffe

Bringing the Arts Into Schools ($2000)
Music, art, dance, drama and visual arts are all part of the well-rounded education our kids deserve. Through grants, Target helps schools bring more arts and culture into the classroom, enabling them to expand their creativity... and their horizons
http://sites.target.com/site/en/company/page.jsp?contentId=WCMP04-031819

Fund Your Dream ActivClassroom
Conduct a PTA sponsored fundraiser during the 2010-2011 school year at your local school and Promethean will match the dollar amount raised, up to $3,800 per school, towards the purchase of any combination of qualifying Promethean ActivClassroom products.
http://www.prometheanworld.com/server.php?show=nav.21613

LEGO Children's Fund
Provides grants ranging in value form $500 to $5000 for educational projects with a special interest paid to collaborative efforts and in providing matching funds to leverage new dollars into the receiving organization. The foundation's two areas of focus are early childhood education and development that is directly related to creativity and technology and communication projects that advance learning opportunities.
http://www.legochildrensfund.org/mission.html

Toshiba America Foundation (up to $5000)
The foundation is dedicated to supporting science and math education in the US.
http://www.toshiba.com/taf/

Education Article :: Standardized Testing: Prep & Recovery Tips

2011-04-06T09:39:00.000-04:00

Education Article :: Standardized Testing: Prep & Recovery Tips This time of year we all need recovery.....

Education News : Professional Development Articles :: Awesome Facebook Apps for Educators

2011-03-28T07:54:00.000-04:00

Education News : Professional Development Articles :: Awesome Facebook Apps for Educators This is an article dealing with the educational uses of Facebook. Should Facebook be used for Educational purposes? Read this and you decide...

Video Book Trailers

2011-03-07T15:09:00.000-05:00

Presented this topic at NCTIES 2011. Had a great response to it so I thought I would share the site with everyone. All resources you will need to complete the project is included in the website. My contact information is there as well. Would be glad to help you with any questions you may have. https://sites.google.com/a/mcdowell.k12.nc.us/book-trailers/

Digital Tools with Kevin Honeycutt

2011-03-02T09:19:00.001-05:00

Digital Tools with Kevin Honeycutt

Glogster

2011-02-23T11:50:00.001-05:00

The students in the fifth grade at West Marion (and one fourth grade) have been making state Glogs. What are Glogs you say? I actually had a student that said, "Miss Kanipe, I think you are pronouncing it wrong. It is BLOGS." Ha haha! As defined by the online dictionary "Glogster is a social network that allows users to create free interactive posters or Glogs." I teamed up with our wonderful media coordinator, Mrs. Ashley Greene. The students are doing research in the library on an assigned state. They are learning how to research, save images, and then finally take their knowledge and create! They will be using a rubric to peer assess. Glogster is a perfect way for teachers to assess student learning and for students to show their creative flair. Here are some photos of the students working on their Glogs. Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions on Glogster. I am also attaching links to my projects.

My website for the project: http://5thgradestateproject.yolasite.com/

Education News : Professional Development Articles :: Why Students Treat Teachers Like TV Sets (and How to Combat It)

2011-02-21T13:41:00.000-05:00

Do you feel like your students are tuning you out? Check out this interesting read!

Education News : Professional Development Articles :: Why Students Treat Teachers Like TV Sets (and How to Combat It)

Toy Fair: Top 10 Tech Toys For�2011

2011-02-18T12:32:00.000-05:00

Toy Fair: Top 10 Tech Toys For�2011

Check out the new techie toys for 2011! Angry Birds Fans - there is even a board game for you!

Explore our U.S. Presidents on a map

2011-02-18T08:51:00.000-05:00

Originally Posted By Tina Ornduff, Geo Education Program Manager at the Google Lat Long Blog

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When I was in elementary school, I got two days off every February; one for George Washington and another for Abraham Lincoln. I remember classrooms were usually wallpapered with a potpourri of decorations left over from Valentine’s Day and token silhouettes of these two Presidents thumb-tacked to the bulletin board. My teachers would talk about the significance of the holiday during class but with lack of visuals to pique my interest, it was always hard to retain (and fully enjoy!) the information. With that in mind, we’re pleased to celebrate the President’s Day holiday by letting you go back in time to learn more about our past presidents in a visually fun and interactive way.

We’ve created a U.S. Presidents Showcase to map the birthplaces of all 44 presidents, and provide details about their presidential terms, using the Google Earth plug-in. You can also see the states that voted during each president’s election by clicking on the tours in the left column of the showcase.

Whether you’re a history buff or simply curious to learn more about U.S. presidents, we hope you enjoy exploring a little further using Google Earth. In addition to the U.S. Presidents map, educators can use some of our other resources in their classroom to explore more aspects of history. Here are a few ideas:

Explore the White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and other historical monuments in 3D and have students explain how architecture is used to honor people, concepts and establishments
View a 3D model of Valley Forge National Park in Google Earth
View a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln and map the areas where slavery ended, as well as the areas that were not initially covered by this executive order
Discuss the famous painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware” by German American artist Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze and use the ruler tool in Google Earth to measure the width of the Delaware River

We hope you have fun exploring and learning a little more of the history behind the President’s Day holiday. And when you’re done, go out and enjoy your day off!

Posted by Tina Ornduff, Geo Education Program Manager

Nooks, Kindles, and E-Readers

2011-02-10T12:44:00.001-05:00

Are you or your students into the new E-reader craze? Do you use Nooks or Kindles in your classroom? Are you interested in finding ways to use E-Readers in your school? This Ning is a great resource for funding, how-to ideas, and general information. Check it out!

Kindle, Nook (and more!) Educators

Assessment of Students using Google Sites and Google Documents

2011-02-10T08:05:00.000-05:00

A Physical Science teacher at McDowell Early College has designed a student assessmnet system using a Google Site and Google Docs that allows transparency in evaluating his students. Mr. Kirk has created a Google Site for each of his classes that includes links to objectives (goals taken from the NCSOS but worded so that they are easier to understand) for which students must demonstrate mastery. Students are allowed to demonstrate mastery in a variety of ways including an ongoing discussion with Mr. Kirk that is conducted using GDocs. Students use their GDocs Journal to dialogue with their instructor using instructed created questions, observations, and/or class activities. Mr. Kirk offers suggestions and feedback daily on the student GDoc. Although this type of grading system does require a great deal of initial setup, it has proven to be beneficial to the students, instructor, and the parents of the students. The URL for Mr. Kirk’s Mastery Learning GSite is as follows:

https://sites.google.com/a/mcdowell.k12.nc.us/physci/2nd-period.

Note: Student journals are protected to ensure confidentiality for our students.

edmodo.com

2011-02-07T08:28:00.001-05:00

What is Edmodo?

Edmodo is a free, secure, social learning platform for teachers, students, schools and districts.
Edmodo provides teachers and students with a secure and easy way to post classroom materials, share links and videos, and access homework, grades and school notices. Teachers and students can store and share all forms of digital content – blogs, links, pictures, video, documents, presentations, and more. There are also special institutional features for schools and districts that can be accessed for free by administrators FAQ

See how it is used in a 21st Century Classroom

Steps to get you started:

Follow this link and create a teacher account using the "I'm a Teacher" button: http://mcps.edmodo.com/
After you create an account, you may now create groups for your classes. When the Groups have been successfully created, you will receive a code to give to your students to securely join your site.
Joining students is easy. Have them follow the same link above, use the "Student Sign-up" link and create an account. They will use your code to join your group. They DO NOT have to provide an email address.

What does Edmodo do for you?
It creates a free, secure environment to post files, assignments, tasks, discussions and idea exchanges for you and your classes. The students can connect just as they would other Social Networking sites they are familiar with and can also access Edmodo from many of their personal devices such as smart phones.
It's a 21st Century tool to extend your classroom.
Create an account and check it out today. See how Edmodo might work for you.