Freerice.com is a great way to increase your vocabulary and make a difference. It’s a simple concept. When you log on to the site you are given a vocabulary word with four choices. Choose the correct answer and you just helped feed a hungry person through the United Nations World Food Program. Checkout the site for more details and while you are there it wouldn’t hurt to see if you can get your vocabulary level up a few notches and feed the hungry at the same time.

Update: Freepoverty.com is very similar to freerice.com but instead of donating rice by taking vocabulary quizzes you donate water by answering geography questions in a fun interactive quiz. Check it out and see if you can beat my score of 234!

The future for our students. Whether we want to admit it or not, technology skills are vital for the success of students in the internet age. This picture caught my eye and pretty much sums it up rather nicely.

from: http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/10/mac-presence-gr.html

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I wanted to share an article from Education World that I thought you might find useful. Hopefuly some of the information and resources can be put to use in your classrooms.

Click here to go to the article.

The article mentions ikeepbookmarks which is what we use in the computer lab for easy access to websites for students. I have folders on the top of the page that keep sites organized by subject area and then weblinks at the bottom of the page that are frequently used sites. This makes it easy for students to get where you want them within a few mouse clicks instead of them having to type in a long web address. Feel free to bookmark my page (Click here) or you can easily create your own by following some simple steps on the site. If you are at Center Elementary and want help with any of these shortcuts and tips, feel free to come by the computer lab and I will gladly help you out. If you are from some far far away place, I am not opposed to flying or sailing to your location. (No cold weather, sorry.)”What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

The first tool that I would like to share is a very powerful one. Working on Word or Office documents in multiple places can be quite challenging. One computer might have the program and another might not. The versions may be different or a host of other issues can cause it to be very difficult. ThinkFree.com, Writely.com*, and zohowriter.com are all web based “Word-like” word processors. They look very similar and function almost exactly the same as Word. In some cases, they even have some more features if you are using an older version of Word. These tools can be very powerful for the whole writing process as well because they allow multiple people to work on the same document. You can collaborate, edit, and share very easily. If you have access to the internet you can create, open, and save your documents even if you do not have Word on that computer. Click the links below. Each site will have a tour of their offerings.

* ThinkFree

* Writely

* Zohowriter

*Update: Writely.com was purchased by Google a while back and it is now part of Google’s docs & spreadsheets. This is great because now you have word processing and spreadsheets in one online tool.