Tech Tips #10

Add a “New Mail Message” button to your Outlook toolbar

…or to the Office Toolbar

Transferring pictures from a floppy disk to the Photo Archive

TimeLiner Ideas

“After being introduced to TimeLiner at an immersion technology workshop, I found so many uses for it in my classroom. My favorite has been to have the students interview their parents for a list of important dates in their (the student's) life. They find out how old they were when they walked, talked, played ball for the first time, started kindergarten, etc. The students use the TimeLiner software as part of a unit project titled, "All About Me." In creating a time line of their lives, the students learn so much about themselves and their families. In the process, a keepsake is created. I allow this to be the first of a series of technology activities that lead to the creation of a family tree. This worked very well with 5th graders, but could be easily be adapted higher or lower.”

Norwood has a site license for TimeLiner, so it is installed on all of the student computers (including the two labs). If you would like to do a project with it, I would be happy to help. You might also want to check out the TimeLiner web site for Ready Made TimeLines, for display in your classroom if they have one on a topic which you are studying.

Web Site Directories of Lesson Plans & Resources

Finding good lesson planning ideas and resources on the web can be overwhelming due to the quantity of sites, the pop-up advertising, and general chaos of the web. That being said, there are some good places to start, and I’ve listed a few of them below…

MarcoPolo

http://www.marcopolo-education.org/teacher/teacher_index.aspx

(if you click a link that asks for a log-in, you can register for free)

Blue Web’n

http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/categories.html

Kathy Schrock Guide

http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/history/histg.html

Lesson Plan Exchange

http://www.teachers.net/cgi-bin/lessons/sort.cgi?searchterm=Middle

…and don’t forget our ad-free resources: Grolier Online Encylopedias, AP Multimedia Photo Archive, and eLibrary Magazine database, accessed from the Norwood web site under “Academic Resources… Online Resources.”

Adding a “New Mail Message” Button to the Outlook Toolbar

I wanted a button on my toolbar that would always create a “new mail message” no matter what part of outlook I was in. The problem was that if you are in calendar or tasks in outlook, and click the toolbar button for “New” you get a new appointment, or new task window.

To add a button to your outlook toolbar that is just for making a mail message, do this:

Click on: View à Toolbars à Customize

Click on tab for “Commands”

Find the “New Mail Message” button and then drag that button to your Outlook toolbar. The Outlook “toolbar” is the row of buttons under the menu. The red arrows above are pointing to two buttons on this toolbar.

The Office Toolbar

Another option is to add a “New Mail Message” to your Office toolbar. If you right-click on the Office toolbar, choose “Customize”… choose “Buttons” and then check the box for “New Mail Message,” you will add that button. I also added buttons for other programs and things on my computer. I wanted easy access to my floppy drive, so I added a button for it.

Another way to add buttons to this toolbar is to just drag them onto it. In the case of the floppy drive, I just opened “My Computer” and then dragged the icon for the floppy drive onto the Office Toolbar. This created the button.

Transferring Pictures from a Floppy to the Photo Archive

We like to get the digital photos you take into our Photo Archive on FileServer. If you have some pictures on floppy disks (or in your network space) please consider putting them into the archive. We used the archive to create PowerPoints for the admissions open house. We also use it for the web site. It will also be a nice tool for the alumni office when the class of 2003 comes back here in 30 years.

To get images from a floppy disk into the photo archive:

insert the disk in the computer
click on: “My Computer”… “3.5 Floppy Drive A”
minimize that window
click on “My Computer” again, but then click on “SharedDocuments(faculty)”
click on “PhotoArchive”
then find an appropriate folder or make a new folder where you want to put your photos
now switch back to the window for your floppy disk that you minimized
click “Edit”…. “Select All”
click “Edit”… “Copy”
now switch back to the window for the PhotoArchive that you opened in step 6
click “Edit” … “Paste”