Free Teacher Guides from Microsoft - great resources

Microsoft has some great Teacher Guides available for free. The guides have teaching tips and step-by-step instructions on a variety of topics and tools and technologies.

The guides are all free and downloadable in PDF form.

Topics include: Critical Thinking in web searches, Windows Movie Maker, Free tools from Microsoft, Digital Storytelling, Microsoft Office, web apps, OneNote, Bing and Mathematics, and Accessibility in the Classroom.

The guides are easy to use and read and a great resource.
http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/guides/Pages/index.aspx

Microsoft Mathematics - math help and graphing calc

Microsoft Mathematics 4.0 is a free download from Microsoft. Mathematics 4.0 is a set of math tools for students to use. It helps students learn how to solve equations step by step along with learning the fundemental concepts in pre-algebra, algebra, trigonometry, physics, chemistry and calculus.

It includes a graphing calculator that works just like a handheld calculator. There are also tools for evaluating triangles, converting units, and solving systems of equations.

The layout is similar to the popular handheld graphing calculators. It is easy to use and navigate, and free.

This is a great resource for math and science teachers and students.

HP Teacher Experience Exchange

Hewlett Packard (HP) has a free online resource for teachers called the HP Teacher Experience Exchange. The HP Teacher Experience Exchange has two different areas in it. One is a repository of courses, articles, lesson plans, classroom resources, and more available to community members. Registration is free, as are the resources. There is also a forum section where educators can discuss, share, and learn from each other.

You can also sign up for free email newsletters that bring tips, ideas, and resources to your inbox.

HP has partnered with Microsoft on this project, so there are references and links to Microsoft products and services.

I have found a lot of great resources and information on this site, and recommend it to my colleagues.

Follow on Twitter @HPTeachExchange 

Microsoft Research Worldwide Telescope

Microsoft Research has created Worldwide Telescope.

WorldWide Telescope (WWT) enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world. Experience narrated guided tours from astronomers and educators featuring interestingplaces in the sky.

A web-based version of WorldWide Telescope is also available. This version enables seamless, guided explorations of the universe from within a web browser on PC and Intel Mac OS X by using the power of Microsoft Silverlight 3.0.

Note: The web-based version will ask for more local storage (about 40MB), but that shouldn't be a problem for anyone.

You can just explore the skies by location, constellations, planets, stars, and more. You can select from digitized skies, ultra-violet, and more. You can even look at earth!

There are also guided tours available. These were set up by astronomers and researchers and are very well designed and informative. The guided tours include galaxies, planets, stars, Apollo missions, Mars missions, and much more.

The earth at night view is great to use to show students where the most lighted areas are. The United States and Europe are the brightest areas at night (Japan is pretty bright too).

I had way too much fun playing with this today. I think that this would be a great resource for science classes to show our solar system and galaxy.

Microsoft Announces Office Plug-In for Moodle

Info I received about Microsoft announcing an Add-in for Moodle:

As teachers look to simplify and reduce the time spent on planning and administrative tasks in order to spend more time teaching, truly integrated solutions are few and far between. Two of the most widely-used technologies in classrooms today are Microsoft Office and the learning management system, Moodle. However, using these solutions together in an integrated fashion has typically required teachers to go through a significant number of steps to perform basic tasks.

Today, we are announcing the Microsoft Office Add-in for Moodle . This new add-in provides teachers with an easy, time-saving solution for finding, opening and saving Office documents housed in Moodle, and allows documents stored in Moodle to be opened from Office without multiple and sometimes complicated steps. For example, teachers will have “Open to Moodle” and “Save to Moodle” as options directly from their Office menu button. The Microsoft Office Add-in for Moodle is free and available for download today at www.educationlabs.com.

A handful of K-12 schools and universities have already had the opportunity to experiment with the new add-in. Elisabeth Kraus, Associate Director for Curriculum of Extended Education at Northwest University, shared her thoughts with us:

“We’re always having to move quickly to get things done and even when every class is different – different syllabus, different curriculum and different student needs to name a few. Any quick and easy technology like the simplicity of this add-in are helpful, and especially when it requires little to no training.”

The Microsoft Office Add-in for Moodle is the latest innovation from Microsoft’s Education incubation group called Education Labs. Education Labs was formed in July 2009 to quickly create prototypes of new tools and applications to showcase how Microsoft technologies can meet the needs of teachers and students in the classroom. The Office Add-in for Moodle is one of several free tools created by Education Labs to help teachers use technology to meet students’ needs and become even more efficient in their classrooms.

We have two video demos of the Office Add-in for Moodle available here; there is one that provides an overview of the tool, and another that shows the “before add-in”/”after add-in” experience. News about the Office Add-in for Moodle is also featured on the Microsoft Blog.

Also released today is a white paper that guides IT administrators on how to set up SharePoint Server as the file system for Moodle. IT pros can save the day by recovering accidentally deleted files or restore previous versions of overwritten files. It also allows for a great search feature, so a teacher can use SharePoint search to search for files across all of their Moodles. To download the white paper, click here.

This could prove very useful to Moodle users who also use Microsoft products.

(I am not compensated by Microsoft in any way for this post.)

Free Teacher resources from Microsoft

I received this email the other day listing a lot of great education resources from Microsoft. Instead of re-writing everything, I figured I would just post the email with the links. I have used some of the resources and they are very good.

Hi David,

I thought your readers might be interested in the free teacher guides, step-by-step instructions, and resources from Microsoft. The guides are designed to make it easier for teachers to integrate technology into the classroom.

To help teachers engage students in a variety of subject areas – from art to music to science – Microsoft is providing free software and online tools, step-by-step instructions, videos and getting started teacher guides. Beyond learning about access to free software and tools, the getting started guides will also help teachers get the most out of the software they use every day. I have included a brief overview of each teacher guide below.

Microsoft offers a number of free tools and software that make it quick and easy to engage students and create energized lesson plans. Why not introduce a new subject with a 3D viewing experience using Photosynth or take a virtual celestial tour with Worldwide Telescope? Or showcase your students’ musical talents with Songsmith or create a movie in a minute with Windows Live Movie Maker? Microsoft provides the tools and instructions to make this possible.

Microsoft will be providing daily teacher technology tips, tricks and ideas for the classroom leading up to May 4, 2010, National Teacher Day. Twitter users can follow @TeachTec or hash tag #TeachTips for teacher technology tips. Facebook users can follow Microsoft TeachTec. Check out the Microsoft Teacher Tech or the Microsoft Blog posts for additional details.

Please let me know if you have questions.

Regards,

Kristin

Teacher Guides

• Free tools

• The Free tools teacher guide and materials will help teachers engage students, energize lesson plans, and save time using free tools that can be download today.

• Free software downloads and online tools include: AutoCollage, Worldwide Telescope, Photosynth, Songsmith, Photo Story for Windows XP, Office Live Workspace, Windows Live SkyDrive, Bing Search, Bing Maps, Bing Translator.

• Windows Live Movie Maker

• Enhance classroom lessons with movies made with Windows Live Movie Maker. The teacher guides and materials show how fun and easy it is.

• Microsoft Office

• Office 2007 and 2010 can help improve collaboration and increase productivity with Microsoft Office OneNote, PowerPoint, Office Word and Office web apps. The teacher guide and materials will help teachers get the most of Microsoft Office programs.

• Windows 7

• Make everyday tasks easier, and take less time to complete them. Quickly discover shortcuts to the things you use the most, including the interactive whiteboard.

• Digital Storytelling

• Creating digital stories ignites a love of learning and is a powerful student-centered learning activity. This eBook helps teachers get started with digital storytelling in the classroom.

And some more details from the Microsoft Blog:

Free software downloads and online tools include: AutoCollage, WorldWide Telescope, Photosynth, Songsmith, Photo Story, Office Live Workspace, Windows Live SkyDrive, Bing Search, Bing Maps, Bing Translator. *AutoCollage and Songsmith are available for free to members of the Microsoft Partners in Learning Network. Participation in the Partners in Learning Network requires a free one-time registration. Learn how to take advantage of these free tools in the classroom with the Free Tools teacher guide and resources.

Teacher guides and resources are available for Free tools, Microsoft Office 2007 & 2010, Windows 7, Windows Live Movie Maker, and Digital Storytelling.

You can also watch a video about our free tools and a video about our Windows 7 interactive whiteboard.

Microsoft Power Toys (Alt-Tab, Calculator, Synctoy)

Microsoft has some great, free tools to add some neat functionality to Windows XP.

Check out Microsoft Power Toys. These are small programs that integrate into Windows XP. Microsoft engineers created them for fun, and then Microsoft decided to offer them to the public.

There are currently 14 Power Toys available for download. I currently use 3 of them on my computer.

The first one I use is the Alt-Tab Replacement. This PowerToy lets you see a thumbnail preview of the application you are switching to. For those of you who don't know about Alt-Tab: alt-tab allows you to switch between all of your open applications. Normally, you just see the name of the application. This PowerToy also shows you a preview image, which is very useful.

Another one I use is Power Calculator. This is a great replacement for the built in calculator in Windows XP and allows you to graph, evaluate functions, do conversions, and much more.

The PowerToy that I have used the most though, is SyncToy. Synctoy gives you the ability to sync any two directories, folders, or devices. For instance, I use it to sync the files on my school computer with a flash drive that I can take home or use as backup. Instead of copying the entire directory everytime, Synctoy compares the two directories and only updates the new, deleted, or changed files. It is also great to keep your desktop and laptop sync'd if you connect them.

These free applications can help make your life more easy and efficient when using Windows XP.

Bing - Microsoft's New Search site

Microsoft has launched a new search site, Bing. This site is different than Windows Live, Google, and Yahoo, in how it presents search results.

When searching the internet, the results are displayed not based on relevance to the search term like the others, but based on how popular a site it is. Some early reviews and comments show a split among people, with some liking it and some hating it. Like anything else, it is personal preference.

The layout is similar to other search results, but you can click on an icon to the right of the result and see the first parts of that site.

In image search, you only get the images themselves in the results. However, hovering over an image brings up more details, like the source web page. This allows for a clean appearance, but I like Google's way of showing the source site because I use that as a guide for evaluating the image.

Video search will play a thumbnail view of the video in the search page when you hover your mouse over the thumbnail. There is a problem here though. If a user changes the filtering settings for Bing they can see ANY video in the thumbnail, even if there is a filter on the system that they are using. This means that a student could search for videos and watch them in thumbnail version, even if the source site is blocked by the school's filter system, so teachers beware.

Overall, Bing is a nice, different way of searching the internet. I suggest that people should try it out with the same search that they do on their normal search engine and see which they personally prefer, or which one gives them the best search results for them.

Sources of Funding for Teachers

(cross posted at Tech&Learning) 

Teachers have always had to scrounge for funding and the current economic situation only makes this more of an issue. Even with the government stimulus package, teachers will not see much money for our individual use. We've all wished we had more money to purchase books, supplies, equipment, and other items for our students and our classrooms. But what do we do when the money just isn't there?

The first place to look is grants. There are a lot of grant sources out there. Not all of them are easy to get though. I always suggest that people ask for help from grant writers or other teachers who have been successful in getting grants. Most grants have tips and advice on their own web site also.

Some schools may qualify for Priority School District grants and other State and Federal grants. These are for low income districts and can be used for supplies and equipment to help with extra programs related to drop out prevention and improving student performance.

A great resource for funding classroom projects is Donors Choose. Donors Choose was actually started by teachers. You sign up for an account, fill out a project proposal, selecting the items you need from a variety of vendors, and then people with money to donate go to Donors Choose and select projects to fund. I have had multiple projects funded through Donors Choose. It is a very simple process and the staff can help you with any problems.

Corporate grants are another source of funding. Toyota, Toshiba, Verizon,Microsoft, Best Buy, and Target all have grant programs you can apply for.

Some vendors have their own grant programs, special pricing or can help you find grants to buy their products. Smart Technologies, Epson, Mimio andVernier are some of the companies that will work with you to hep you find funding.

Donations are another source. Local Businesses may be looking to donate money, supplies or equipment. Many companies would rather donate old equipment and supplies to a school rather than just throw it out. Your school gets supplies and the company gets a tax write off. I have gotten lab supplies from a DNA company that updated their labs, a computer from a small company that upgraded theirs, and our school has gotten office supplies and furniture from a nearby business that was moving their headquarters. Many teachers have contacts at area businesses through friends or family. Use these contacts to your advantage.

Do more with less. Look for cheaper or free alternatives to the major brands. There are a lot of manufacturers of interactive white boards out there. Shop around and find the best deal. Use free software and web services instead of paying for licensed software.

Partner with local colleges. Sometimes they have older equipment that they can donate to you. They may also have grants that they can get that can also benefit the K-12 system.

Look for grants and funding opportunities on the web. Tech&Learning has a great section on funding tips. There is a Grant Guru column, as well as a data base of grant sources.

Edutopia and Nortel Learn It also have grant and funding resources. And of course, you can always "Google" for more information. Educational conferences are another great way to find funding resources and talk with vendors on different ways of funding purchases.

Please share your funding and money tips with us!

Free Certificate Maker Web Site

MyAwardMaker is a free site with templates for certificates that you can download. They have a lot of different templates and they are organized by topic. 

To create a certificate, you pick your template and then download it to your computer. You need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader (version 8.0 or later) to open the certificate. You can get Acrobat Reader HERE if you don't have it. 

Once you open your certificate, you can then enter text into the open spaces and print it out. You can not save the certificate with the text added to it, but you can keep the template forever. You can also just print out the template and hand write the information.

Microsoft PowerPoint also has some certificate templates that you can use. You click on Design Templates and then go online. The site for the award templates is HERE. You then edit the slide and print it out.

I suggest printing them out on a color printer for best results and best appearance.

NASA and Microsoft Release 3D viewer of International Space Station

NASA today released an interactive, 3D photographic collection of internal and external views of the International Space Station and a model of the next Mars rover. This project was done in cooperation with Microsoft using Microsoft's Photosynth technology and Virtual Earth.

The site is a great, fun way to explore the ISS. Kids will love it.