10 quick tips for the Mac OS X and MacBook

1. Screen Shots

Simply Press the command key - shift - 4 (you can see an image of which key the command key is to the left. It is located to the left and right of your spacebar). Once you hold these three keys, your mouse will turn into a +, which lets you know that you are ready to take a screen shot. Hold your mouse button down, and then select the area you want to take a picture of. It's that easy!


2. Spotlight

Ever have a hard time finding that application or file? Located in the top right of your screen is a little magnifying glass. This magnifying glass is a great tool to help you find anything on your computer. When you click on the magnifying glass, you get a search textbox. Type in the file or application you are looking for, and it will list below a top hit, a definition, applications, documents and other files that apply to your search. A great tool to quickly find that missing file!










3. System Preferences

This is a very important tool on any computer. On a Mac, it is located in the Apple Menu. The Apple menu is accessed by clicking on the apple in the top left corner of your screen. Then you select "system preferences". Here you can change the settings of your screen saver, display settings, exposes and spaces settings, and lots of other tools.

4. Program Preferences

Another important feature. Almost every program on a Mac has preferences that you can change. For example, in Safari, if you click on the word Safari on the menu bar, and then select preferences you will be able to set things such as popups, saving passwords and changing your home page.


5. control - mouse click

If you hold the control key and then click you will get a drop down menu of a variety of options that you can do to that icon or in that program. Try it on an icon on your dock, a link or a picture on a webpage. You can copy links, save images and change settings with just control - mouse click!

6. command - tab

Command-Tab and Command - tilde (~) allow you to quickly switch between programs (command - tab) and switch between windows in a program (command - tilde). The tilde is to the right

7. The fn key

The fn on the lower left of your MacBook keyboard allows you to access a variety of tools. Right now, when you press f11, your sound is lowered. If you press and hold the fn key, and then press the f11 key, it will hide all your windows you have open.

Here is a list of things the fn + f keys do:

fn + f9: See all of your open windows
fn + f10: See all of your open windows in the program you currently are in
fn + f11: Hide all windows
fn + f12: dashboard widget

8. adding icons to your dock

The dock is a great way to quickly launch applications. But when you first get your Mac you might not have very many applications on it. To put applications on your dock, there are two different ways to do it.

1. The first is to open up the application. You can do this by going to the applications folder and double clicking on the application you want to open. Then control - mouse click (see tip #5 for more information on this) on the icon in your dock. A menu will pop up. Go to options and select "keep in dock". When you quit the application, the icon will remain on your dock!
   
2. The second way is to just drag that application's icon from your applications folder onto the dock. When it is ready to be added onto your dock, the icons will separate and when you release the icon, it will remain in your dock!
   

You can also add folders to you dock! You can only do this on the part of the dock next to the trash can. You can see that it is separate part of the dock because there is a dashed line. This is a great place to put a short cut to your documents or downloads, and have quick access to those files.

9. managing files

1. Use Two Finder Windows - If you have a finder window open, go to File --> New Finder Window and you now have two windows. You can drag and drop files between these two windows, helping you keep your files organized.
2. Compressing files - If you need to send 2 or more files to a colleague, you can "zip" them. Simply select the files you want to send, control - mouse click (see #5 above) it will create a new zip folder that is smaller, and has all of your files in it.
   
3. "Places" - In the left hand pane of a finder window, you will see a list of folders under "places". You can drag any folders to that location and they will be a quick shortcut to that folder.
   

10. Printing to PDF

If you have a file that you want lots of people to be able to read, but don't want them to edit, you can save it as a pdf. Simple go to file --> print and then when the print window pops up, click on the button in the lower left labeled pdf and choose "save as pdf". It's as easy as that!

Delicious for Educators

Delicious is a social bookmarking website. Why would teachers want to use it?

1. It makes it really easy to share websites with colleagues
(A teacher at PSI asked for websites and resources for the lattice method of multiplication, so i created a tag on delicious called psi4 and sent her this link: http://www.delicious.com/wstenross/psi4. Now anytime I add another bookmark with the tag psi4, it'll appear on that website)

2. You can find great learning websites on your home computer and easily share them with yourself at school

3. It can be easier to find websites for a educational topic than google or yahoo search

4. You can quickly and easily create a link to your delicious bookmarks for your students, no more messing around with rschool to put up links!

MOBI Creative Use #1: Spelling

A teacher an Aquila uses the MOBIs once a week to do a quick review of spelling.

Goal: Keep students engaged while reviewing spelling words.

Prep time: none

Lesson:

1. She connects the MOBI and opens up a new page in Interwrite Workspace
2. She hands the MOBI to a student. The rest of the students have their whiteboards from the HM Math Expressions program.
3. She says a spelling word. All students are expected to write it. The student with the mobi writes it on the MOBI.
4. The class compares their word to the word on the board.
5. The student makes corrections as necessary and passes the MOBI to the student sitting next to him or her.
6. The next student writes the word on another part of the screen.

Extensions:

1. Have students highlight (using the highlighter pen) parts of the word that are tricky
2. Have another student write another word related to the previous word (an antonym, synonym, homonym, capitonym, word family, root word, etc...)

Video:



If you have any other suggestions, add them in the comments below!

Great School and District Websites with Resources

Minot, ND Smartboard Lesson Wiki: Repository of Smartboard lessons based on Math Expressions and NWEA MAP math RIT bands.

NWEA MAP Reading Resources:A website from South Washington County linking to activities based on RIT Band on the NWEA.

Oswego: Great school website with flash games. Lots of math games.

Springfield, IL: Springfield's Technology Department website has a lot of information about the CPS clickers and MOBI systems.

Boston Public Schools OIIT - BPS's technology Department's website with some resources on the MOBI.

Wichita Public Schools - Smartboard Lessons

Woodlands Junior School - Links to great games, organized by math, literacy and science!

Springfield Township High School Libguide - Lots of great videos and links for podcasting, video making, mindmapping, wikis, blogs, and much more.

Center School District - Links to smartboard lessons created by Center, MO teachers.

Tech Sites and Blogs you should be reading

Larry Ferlazzo's Website of the Day: You should be looking through his website for great resources for education. He is a ESL teacher by trade, but his resources tend to be applicable to any grade.

FreeTech4Teachers: An interesting blog that has links to interesting videos and webtools that are very teacher friendly, and very useful. Thanks MizJ for the link!

Teacher Training Videos created by Russell Stannard: A resource of videos created to teach teachers how to use various programs and websites.

Best Links for Smartboards and Mobis

Make sure you check out the Great Links for Teachers for more great tools that are specifically for Smartboards and Mobis.

All Subjects:

Smart Exchange: Website created by Smarttech for teachers to share lessons and activities that they created for use with the smartboard.

Mr. B's List: Great resource for websites that can be used with the Smartboard. It includes ratings by users of Mr. B's List so you can have some idea if it's going to be decent or not.

Teq Smart: A website that has a large number of Smartboard files. Great tools, for example a trash can, fractions slider, and other interactives. Look under learning Objects for a lot of fun objects.

Math:

Starfall Calendar: Great Flash calendar that can be used to talk about the calendar and can be modified to fit with your classes important dates.

Reading:

Storyline Online: About 18 stories including Polar Express and Stellaluna, that are read by Screen Actors Guild Members. Includes a video of the actor reading it, and activities to go along with the stories.

Science:

BBC - KS3 Bitesize Science: Interactive videos narrated by a pleasing British voice. Fantastic science, and very engaging!

BBC - KS2 Bitesize Science: This is the primary grade appropriate version of the BBC Bitesize website. Has reading material, quizes and an interactive game for a number of scientific topics.

Social Studies:

Spanish:

ANAYA: Interactive flash games in spanish in a variety of languages broken into 6 levels, that roughly correspond with grade level. Links to each grade level: 1º de E. Primaria 2º de E. Primaria 3º de E. Primaria 4º de E. Primaria 5º de E. Primaria 6º de E. Primaria

Tech Tidbit: Tab Sidebar for Firefox

When you start really using the internet, particularly websites, you quickly find yourself with multiple tabs in your web browser with sometimes cryptic names. It can be difficult to quickly discern which tab you want. Here is a sidebar add-ons for firefox (which you can install without administrator access). It puts the tabs on the side of your screen instead of on top, and it also includes thumbnails of the page, so you can see what the tab is before you go to it.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6535/

Also, if you want to quickly switch between tabs (even if you don't install the sidebar tabs), hit option-command-left/right arrow.

Hope this helps!