Mac for Teachers and Parents

If you have struggled with finding a typing program that is fun, effective, and minimizes frustration for the children, I think I have the answer for you. Dance Mat Typing from the BBC across the pond (in the UK) is just what the doctor ordered. I tested it in my classroom and it gets rave reviews. Plus, it's free!

Cleverly-drawn animals in different parts of the world dance and sing as the children learn the correct finger placement on the keyboard. If the child misses the correct key or takes too long, silly voices ask "type on me." When the lesson is completed, the animals sing a song. After about four songs, children can print out a certificate of completion. Due to online privacy the childrens' names are NOT included on the certificate.

This typing program will not give you a "words per minute" list like most stand-alone programs will. Additionally, it is up to the teacher or parent to remember which level the child last accomplished since it does not store information about your child. It is also necessary to start at the first exercise of a level if that level is not completed at the previous session. This requires some encouragement for the children, and I often tell them how lucky they are to get more practice. (That usually works.)

I have found that this program's strength is that more tentative or easily-frustrated students like it and are not intimidated like they are with programs that display errors.

It's silly, it's fun, and most importantly, kids like it and therefore learn from it.

June brought a double dose of Harry Potter with Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the most recent film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Personally, I haven't missed any of the books or the films, and I'm a big fan.

It's a little late in the day to get started on the Harry Potter series, but it's not too late. One of my favorite computer teacher resources, BrainPOP, has a seven-minute animated synopsis of the series.

Check it out and you'll know the basics. Then sit back and read the thousand or so pages to know the full inside scoop.

George Lucas is my hero. As a kid, I sat captivated watching Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo as they made their way across the galaxy. They were smart, they were creative, they were brave, and they always won.

Education in America seems to be crying out for a hero of its own, and I think George Lucas is the man for the job. Why? Take one look at Edutopia and you'll understand. Every month, at no charge to teachers or school districts, Edutopia arrives at the door chock full of hope for a brighter future with technology as the touchstone. Most people already know about what's wrong with education. Edutopia shines a bright spotlight on all that is right with education today, and despite what you may have heard there's a lot that's going well.

Of course, just like the heros of Star Wars, the man who brought us The Force can't do it alone, and the writers and editors of the magazine are top notch. There's more to it than that, though.

The engine behind Edutopia is the George Lucas Educational Foundation, or GLEF for short. According to the Edutopia.org website, "The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF) was founded in 1991 as a nonprofit operating foundation to celebrate and encourage innovation in schools. Since that time, we have been documenting, disseminating, and advocating for exemplary programs in K-12 public schools to help these practices spread nationwide," reports
Now will somebody please get the man a lightsaber?">

Checking email today, I was excited to see that I the following message in my inbox:
"You've received a greeting ecard from a school mate!"

I recently signed up for a service from my college, so at first I thought it might be related, especially since I didn't recognize the recipient.

Hmmm, didn't recognize the recipient.... that's a red flag. So, I typed the title from the email, put it in quotation marks and plugged it into google. Sure enough, it's a hoax that directs the user to a site that can download a virus called W32/Zhelatin.gen!eml. In case your friend's machine got it, here's the info and fix from McAfee.

Recently I received an email offering a free color laser printer for school. I was pretty excited - one of our teachers' classroom printers fizzled out at the end of last term and it needs to be replaced. It's been my experience that laser printers are typically more cost-effective than their jet counterparts.

I hurried to the website, freecolorprinters.com. The site is owned by Xerox, and the offer is for a Xerox Phaser 8560. The same printer at Staples.com currently sells for $1,999.98, on sale from $2,099.98. That looked good, so I looked into it further.

According to freecolorprinters.com, "The Xerox FreeColorPrinters program only asks two things: 1. Submit a monthly usage report 2. Purchase all ink and maintenance kits through FreeColorPrinters.com." Purchase all ink from them? Sorry, Xerox - you had me and then you lost me. I don't want to be penalized financially if I have to run to the store so my students can finish a project.

Curious, I clicked on all the pages of the offer to find the prices for toner and did not see them. So, just to be fair, I got a link from the support chat. The good news is the printer uses individual solid color sticks, so you won't be recycling cartridges that still feel 1/4 full.

Xerox's prices for ink do not seem to be artificially inflated. For example, each order comes with a package of three color sticks. The black ink is $60.99, as compared to $79.99 at Staples.com, and the color ink is $92.99, as compared to $123.99 at Staples.com. There are no sales or coupons, but after a year or two in the program they do offer rebates.

Shipping charges vary from $6 to $40 depending on how much you order and how quickly you need it. Shipping charges are waived for orders over $450 and are sent 2nd day DHL.

Unfortunately, there are more pitfalls in the fine print. In hard-to-read gray letters at the bottom of the page, it says that if your specified usage rate falls below what you put on the application, Xerox will charge you $100 per month. If you don't turn in the usage report, they'll charge you $125 per month. In other words, there is a stiff penalty for buying your ink somewhere else, and an even stiffer charge if you forget your report.

I won't be applying for the program. If you have used it, please let our readers know your experience in the comments box below. Thanks!

If you are a teacher or a student, I sincerely hope you understand the concept of "academic discount." Most computer and software companies offer special versions of their products at a greatly reduced rate to individuals and institutions that can prove they have a legitimate educational reason for the discount. These discounts are available online but not necessarily in a store.

For example, at my local Apple Store I attempted to purchase a math game. When I asked if I could use a teacher discount, I found out that discounts in the Apple Store apply only to computers, some Apple brand accessories and Apple brand software. Teachers and students still pay full price for third party software, ipods, iphones, and most of the cool third party things like midi keyboards, Bose speakers, and all the eye candy that promises to protect said ipod on the accessories wall. The Apple Store, like most other retailers, does not have the special academic versions of most software which has special packaging and an academic license inside. One notable exception is Office:mac from Microsoft, which is available as an academic version off-the-shelf.

On the other hand, if I go to the Apple Store for Education things are slightly different. I can get my academic versions, but I have to select my school from a list. That means the school needs to set up an account, and there is a phone number on the site for that, too. There is also a link for homeschool pricing.

In short, stop overspending on computers and software.

For further details, go to apple.com/education to find out what special deals are available. Right now with back to school, there are some deals which include an ipod (nano, I believe) with qualifying purchases.

The missing link between making your website and hosting it is called an FTP program. FTP stands for file transfer protocol, and it can be a clunky and time-consuming process. If you have the right software, though, it can be a breeze. Or, in this case, a swim.

Enter Cyberduck. It's a free, open source program that works for mac. Let's repeat that last part: it works. Cyberduck also offers secure FTP, also known as SFTP.

Since it's free, as always, donations to the developer are appreciated.

You can find more details and screen shots at
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Web pages and school projects are much better with good pictures. Often, children will want to take pictures themselves, and the NETS technology standards (see article below) do call for them to use digital cameras. Sometimes, though, it's completely impractical to do so. For example, how many of us can jog over to the polar ice caps to take pictures of glaciers?

Stock photo houses and stock photo microsites can help. Most sites have free and paid downloads. The site I use most frequently for most of the pictures in my Squidoo lenses is 123rf. The "rf" stands for royalty-free, which means when you pay for a picture upfront or get a free download, you do not need to pay any additional usage fees.

When you open a free account there, click on the "free photos" link and download free photos from photographers around the world. Each photo has a limited time that it's free, then it moves into the subscription or credit category. It pays to check the site daily because new free images are added and deleted daily. Right now they have a special that if you sign up to get the free photos, both you and the person who referred you get one photo credit to use in the paid or subscription section, so please use my link and we'll both get credit.

For greater picture resolution, or for photos that are no longer in the free category, you can buy credits to redeem for individual photos or a subscription. These images may be used for individual, academic, and even commercial use. If there are people in the pictures, the photographers have signed model release forms which means if you download the picture you may use it without getting permission from the model.

Other stock photo sites include istockphoto.com, dreamstime.com, shutterstock, and fotolia.com.

Enjoy the photos and make your projects shine.

Standards, standards, standards. We hear about them every day as teachers. Each state has standards for math, social studies, reading, and almost every other school subject. We plan lessons around them and students take standardized tests for them. But what about computer class? Read more...

The reason I know there was an earthquake in Vanuatu is because my browser told me. In fact, it even told me the magnitude: 4.8. That must have shaken things up on that island nation. I hope everyone is ok.

Apple computers come standard with the Safari browser. In fact, you're probably using it right now. But did you know that there is another free browser that is used by the majority of web developers? It's called Firefox and it has a nifty feature called addons.

Having eQuake installed can lead to impromptu lessons on earthquakes and other natural disasters, geography, tectonic plate shifting, and human values.

When an earthquake occurs, the whole browser window shakes. It really gets the attention of the people using the computers. If it gets too distracting you can always uninstall it or direct your class back to the Safari browser. Incidentally, Firefox and the eQuake addon also work on Windows computers.

You lucky mac user, you. You get to download a free and easy HTML / PHP editor for your personal use or your whole classroom. It's made by Taco Software, and boy does it make those HTML lessons a breeze!

Here's what the Taco Software website has to say about the program:

"Taco HTML Edit is a full-featured HTML editor and PHP editor. As an HTML editor, Taco HTML Edit empowers its users to rapidly create their own web sites. It is designed exclusively for Mac OS X and has many advanced features including spell checking, live browser previewing, PHP previewing, syntax checking, and much more. To learn more about Taco HTML Edit, you can read the General Description and examine some of the Screenshots. Taco HTML Edit is available for Online Download."

It's a winner, folks. It's very easy to use, and my favorite feature is the color changes to green when you have closed your tags properly. This is sure to make life easier for your students, too.

Download it today and make a donation to the developer if you can.