Category: Word processing

Here’s a great lesson that uses every child’s innate love of color to learn grammar. All you need is MS Word or Google Docs), a quick introduction to the toolbars and tools, and about 25 minutes to complete. If you’re the tech lab teacher, this gives you a chance to reinforce the grammar lesson the classroom is teaching and teach tech skills students need (click to enlarge):

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In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: Speed up MSO with Quick Access Toolbar

Category: MS Office

Q: I tend to do the same actions over and over in MS Office. How do I make that easier?

A: This one will improve the quality of your life immediately.

First, you need Office 2007 or later. Earlier versions don’t include the Quick Access toolbar. Click the drop down arrow (see inset) for the most popular actions–new, open, save, print, etc. Select those you want on the Quick Access toolbar. Toward the bottom is a choice to have the QA toolbar above or below the ribbon. I choose below.

You can also customize it: If there are tools not included that you use frequently (for example, I use strike through a lot), select ‘customize’ and go find it in the endless list.

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In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: Open a New Word Doc without Program

Category: MS Office

Q:  I can’t find the icon that opens MS Word. What do I do?

A:  These things happen and always at the worst time. You might have pinned it to the start menu (see Tech Tip #53: How to Pin Any Program to the Start Menu), but what if you didn’t?

No problem. Right click on the desktop and press New>Word Doc. That’s what it does–opens a new Word doc for you without opening the program first.

Sign up for a new tip each week or buy the entire 169 Real-world Ways to Put Tech into Your Classroom.

What’s your favorite tech tip in your classroom? Share it in the comments below.

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In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: Ten Best MS Word Tips

Category: MS Office, Problem-solving, Keyboarding

Here are popular MS Word tips and links to articles:

1. Turn an Address into a Link–push the space bar after pasting in an internet address–that activates it (or push enter)
2. What’s Today’s Date–press Shift+Alt+D in MS Word. Or, as you start typing the date, Word will populate it for you.
3. Menu command is grayed out–push escape four times (you’re probably in something you don’t know you are). This works 90% of the time
4. How to Undelete–push Ctrl+Z
5. #109: MS Word Skills Assessment for Grades 3-8
6. Dear Otto: How do I set the default font on MS Word
7. Tech Tip #37: My MS Word Toolbar Disappeared
8. Tech Tip #20: How to Add an MS Word Link
9. MS Word for Grades 2-5
10. #45: How to Use MS Word to Teach Geography
11. Easy Photo Editing in MS Word
12. Tech Tip #98: Speed up MS Office with Quick Access Toolbar
13. Tech Tip #24: How to Open A New Word Doc Without the Program
14. Tech Tip #102: Doc Saved Over? Try This

Sign up for a new tip each week or buy the entire 169 Real-world Ways to Put Tech into Your Classroom.

What’s your favorite tech tip in your classroom? Share it in the comments below.

(more…)

In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: #20–How to add a link to MS Word

Category: EDIT/FORMAT

Sub-category: MS Office, Google Apps, Keyboarding

Q:  I want to link a resource in Word/Google Docs to a website. How do I do that?

A:  Follow these easy steps:

• Go to the website you want to link to.
• Copy the address from the address bar (Ctrl+C or Edit>copy from the menus).
• Return to your doc (it’s waiting on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen or simply click Alt+Tab).
• Highlight the words you want to link to the website.
• Press Ctrl+K; press Ctrl+V; push enter.
• The words turns blue with a line under them, showing it’s a link.
• To use the link, Ctrl+click on the words.

There are sophisticated options that go along with adding links, but this is quick and easy.

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Here are ten of the top MS Word tips according to Ask a Tech Teacher readers:

#109: MS Word Skills Assessment for Grades 3-8

Dear Otto: How do I set the default font on MS Word

Tech Tip #37: My MS Word Toolbar Disappeared

Tech Tip #20: How to Add an MS Word Link

MS Word for Grades 2-5

#45: How to Use MS Word to Teach Geography

Easy Photo Editing in MS Word

Tech Tip #98: Speed up MS Office with Quick Access Toolbar

Tech Tip #24: How to Open A New Word Doc Without the Program

Tech Tip #102: Doc Saved Over? Try This

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Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please contact me at askatechteacher at gmail dot com and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from a reader:

MS Word opens with Calibri 11 and I want Times New Roman 12. How do I change that?

The easiest way to answer this is by showing so here’s a quick video on that:

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This assessment is comprehensive, designed not to test students. but assess their knowledge as an aid to you in determining where to begin. Use it when you start a new class or to determine where are the holes in their learning.

All of these skills are covered in a multi-year once-a-week project-based program, such as described in other parts of this blog. If your classes don’t cover all of these skills, adapt the assessment to your needs. If you use Google Docs, adapt it to that program.

Click on each page of lesson plan.

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: My youngers often save a blank document over their MS Word file. How? Instead of ‘file>open’, they use the menu command ‘file>save-as’ and then they lose all their work. Is there any way to retrieve the file?

A: Absolutely, though it doesn’t work all the time. Bring the student’s file folder in Windows Explorer. Right click on the file name for the lost Word file and select ‘Restore previous version’. Select the latest version that’s not today.

Every time I do this, I’m a hero for ten minutes.

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I tend to do the same actions over and over on my MS Office software. How do I create a customized tool bar with my favorite tools?

A: This one is going to improve the quality of your life immediately. It’s so simple, you’ll wish you’d known it months ago.

First, you need Office 2007 or later because earlier versions don’t include the Quick Access toolbar. It looks like this:

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