Improve Students’ Search Skills

Google in Education has created a series of lessons to help guide students to use search meaningfully in their schoolwork and beyond. On the Google Search Education website, you’ll find Search Literacy Lesson Plans and “A Google a Day” Challenges aligned to the Common Core State Standards. The search literacy lessons are categorized by subject area (Culture, Geography, History, Science) and search expertise (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced). The classroom challenges help students put their search skills to the test and engage them in using technology to discover the world around them.

Click Here To Visit Web Site 

Click Here to Access Free Lessons

Picture of poster, posted from Sandy Karas Liptak's blog with permission

Encourage Digital Citizenship
     
      Common Sense Media’s online glossary will help both teachers and parents—especially those who are new to 1-to-1 programs—discover the latest buzzwords used in today’s educational technology landscape and familiarize themselves with digital classroom tools. In addition, the Common Sense Media website provides a freely downloadable Family Media Agreement for K–5 and Customizable Device Contract, both of which are age-specific tools to help parents talk about technology guidelines at home and set up boundaries with which their children feel comfortable.

Click Here to Access Free Glossary

Click Here to Download Free Family Agreement

Click Here to Download Free Device Contract

Plus: Common Sense Media’s series of 1-to-1 Essentials – Educational Videos may be shared freely in professional development workshops, on your school’s website or at a family engagement night.

Click Here to Access Free 1-to-1 Videos

Dictate Your Text Entries

MAC Tips:  On the iPhone, Siri gets a lot of attention not just for its ability to understand natural-language queries and deliver results, but also for its voice dictation feature. You speak, and your words become text. But Mountain Lion now supports voice dictation in any text field. To start dictation, press the Fn key twice on Macs that include that key (such as laptops), or choose Edit > Start Dictation. (You can change the key in the Dictation & Speech preference pane.) A microphone icon appears, indicating that the Mac is listening. Speak in a normal tone of voice, and specify punctuation where needed ("Dear Jane comma sorry I haven't written recently period new paragraph"). When you're done speaking, click the Done button or press the Return key. Mountain Lion sends the audio to Apple for processing—their powerful data centers can analyze the data faster than your Mac does—and then enters the text. Although the transcription isn't always perfect, it's impressive how well this feature works.

Excerpted from OS X Mountain Lion Pocket Guide by Jeff Carlson

Starting Your New App from Launchpad

Mac Tips
When you purchase an app from the App Store, the download process places the new app in your Applications folder, and it is also accessible from Launchpad. Third-party apps (those not from Apple) appear in Launchpad on a secondary screen, not on the first screen (reserved for Apple applications) that appears when you enter Launchpad. To access the additional screens in Launchpad, click the Launchpad icon in the Dock, and then do one of the following:

• On a Magic Mouse, swipe left with one finger on the mouse surface.
• On a Multi-Touch trackpad, swipe left with two fingers on the surface.
• Click one of the small dots that appears near the bottom of the Launchpad screen, but above the Dock. The white dot indicates which Launchpad screen is currently visible.
• Tap the right-arrow key to go to the next Launchpad screen, or tap the left-arrow key to return to the previous screen.

Excerpted from Mac OS X Lion: Peachpit Learning Series by Robin Williams and John Tollett

Gatekeeper Security

Mountain Lion can monitor the origins of applications you add to your machine and warn you if they might not be what you prefer. This feature is known as Gatekeeper. With Gatekeeper, you can choose to run only apps from the App store written by developers registered by Apple, allow App store apps by unregistered developers, or allow any apps from any source to run. Depending on how Gatekeeper is configured, you'll see various alerts about the security of apps you add to your machine.

1. Go to the Apple menu and choose System Preferences.
2. Click the Security & Privacy icon.
3. Click the General tab.

The Gatekeeper section at the bottom of the dialog helps to control what happens when you try to download new applications. These options control warning messages that you'll see when you try to install something that this choice doesn't allow.

• If you choose the Mac App Store option, apps that you didn't download from the App Store will not be allowed to run when you try to launch them.
• The safest option is Mac App Store and Identified Developers, which limits your new programs to App Store apps created by Apple identified developers. This means that the app has been submitted by a developer that registered with Apple and received a personalized digital certificate they can use to sign their apps cryptographically. Signed apps can be checked to see who developed them and if any modification has occurred since the developer submitted the app to the App Store.
• The riskiest option is Anywhere. Choose this option and you'll instantly see a strongly worded warning message. This option lets you install anything you want that isn't yet known to be malicious software.

Excerpted from OS X Mountain Lion: Peachpit Learning Series by Lynn Beighley

Create Your Own Font Collections

MAC TIPS

A Collection is a subset of the installed fonts. It's simply an easy way to look at fonts you like, instead of having to grope through a lengthy font list of typefaces you don't know or want. To make a new Collection, begin by opening Font Book in your Applications folder or in Launchpad. (If you don't see the Font Book window, choose Window > Font Book.) Then click the plus (+) sign at the bottom of the Collection pane and name your new Collection. Click the All Fonts collection (so you can access all fonts); then drag font names from the Font pane to the new Collection name. To disable (turn off) an entire Collection, select it in the Collection pane. Then choose Edit > Disable Collection Name.

Excerpted from Mac OS X Lion: Peachpit Learning Series by Robin Williams and John Tollett

Make the Spell Checker Behave

MAC TIPS

Options for the spell checker are found at the bottom of the Edit menu in Apple applications. You can also turn these features on or off as defaults in the preferences for the application. The menu option will override the default for that document. You'll have a more successful experience with the spell checker by controlling a few of the options:

• Stop automatic corrections while you're working. Under Edit > Spelling and Grammar, the Correct Spelling Automatically > While Typing setting is what makes the text correct itself as you type. If that behavior makes you crazy, uncheck the While Typing option.
• Ignore the spelling temporarily. If the spell checker keeps telling you the same word is misspelled, but you like the word spelled the way it is, click the Ignore button when that word is highlighted by the spell checker. The spell checker will ignore it for this document, but will correct you again in the next document.
• Teach your spell checker new words. Spell checkers typically don't recognize most people's names or jargon specific to different specialties. If you often use a particular word that the spell checker thinks is a mistake (because it's not in the dictionary that the spell checker is using), click the Learn button in the dialog box to add the word to the current dictionary. It will never bother you again. If you're not using the spell checker dialog at the moment, Control-click (or right-click) a word that the spell checker thinks is a mistake (it probably has little red dots under it). In the contextual menu that pops up, click the Learn Spelling option while the word is selected. The spell checker will add that word to its dictionary and not whine about it anymore. If the word is misspelled, spelling suggestions will appear at the top of the contextual menu.

Excerpted from OS X Mountain Lion: Peachpit Learning Series by Lynn Beighley
Picture thanks to toonlet.com/creator/dcannell (Peachpit MAC Tips)

At Least be in a Different Room

From Jan Fisher's Facebook Post

iCloud Tabs: Continue Your Online Reading on a Different Machine

MAC TIPS

"Since I use several devices throughout the day, I often begin to read something on one machine,and then want to continue later when I'm using another Mac or my iPhone or iPad. With my iCloud account, I can click the iCloud Tabs button to view which windows and tabs are open on any of my devices, and pick up right where I left off."

Excerpted from OS X Mountain Lion Pocket Guide by Jeff Carlson (Peachpit MAC Tips)