Humor that Inspires–for Teachers! Part II

funny quotesIf you liked the last Humor that Inspires, here are more to kick-start your day:

  1. “It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion.” – Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
  2. “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” – Mario Andretti
  3. “I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure — that is all that agnosticism means.” – Clarence Darrow, Scopes trial, 1925.
  4. “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” – Henry Ford (1863-1947)
  5. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” – Warren Zevon
  6. “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” – Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
  7. “If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
  8. “The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head.” – Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)
  9. “Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together.” – Georg Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
  10. “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it” – Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
  11. “While we are postponing, life speeds by.” – Seneca (3BC – 65AD)
  12. “Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?” – Bumper Sticker
  13. “God, please save me from your followers!” – Bumper Sticker
  14. “Fill what’s empty, empty what’s full, and scratch where it itches.” – the Duchess of Windsor, when asked what is the secret of a long and happy life
  15. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
  16. “Luck is the residue of design.” – Branch Rickey – former owner of the Brooklyn Dodger Baseball Team
  17. “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.” – Mel Brooks
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Tech Tip #44: Clean Your Computer Weekly

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’m afraid of getting slammed with viruses, malware, all that bad stuff that comes with visiting the internet. What can I do?

A: If you take reasonable precautions, the chances of being hit are minimized. Here’s what I do:

  • Don’t download from music or video sites. They have the greatest amount of malware statistically because the Bad Guys know we-all like getting free music and videos.
  • Make sure your firewall is working. Windows comes with a built-in one. Maybe Mac does too. Leave it active. It’s under Control Panel-Administrative Tools
  • Do the following every week:

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Dear Otto: Any Ideas for Tech Ed Benchmark Assessments?

tech questionsDear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from Lisa and Tamma:

My district is asking us to create assessments. I was wondering what you have included in them and how/when you administer them. Thanks!

Hi Lisa and Tamma

Keyboarding is always good, but there are some other excellent choices. I have an exercise I run students through called the Problem Solving Board. They teach each other how to solve the 20 most common problems (you can get them from this book or from the tech tips on my blog). Follow up with a quiz to see how much they remember–in groups or from a student-generated web-based problem-solving page.
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I also have assessments for Word, Publisher, Excel, and hardware (click links for ideas). Students can take these at the beginning of school and then later in the year to assess improvement. And finally: Here’s a link from The Innovative Educator with some ideas.

Tech Tip #43: Back Up Often

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: How often should I back up my current project? How about my whole hard drive?

A: I teach my students to save early, save often when they’re working on a project. Deciding how often that is means determining how much you can tolerate losing should the computer crash. Ten minutes? Twenty? That sets ‘how often’ you hit Ctrl+S to save your work. After all, if the computer loses your work, you’re the one who has to start over.

As for the entire computer, once a week is good. Me, I save each project I’m working on and then save-as to a back-up location. I also have an always-on cloud backup that saves everything constantly on my hard drive.

I hate losing my work.

BTW, most people skip this full-blown back-up. Don’t! It’s easy, and if you’ve ever lost an important document, you’ll know that the end justifies the time spent.

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Dear Otto: How Do I Teach Citations?

[caption id="attachment_7341" align="alignright" width="176"]tech questions Do you have a tech question?[/caption]

Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from Mary:

Based upon the Common Core expectations, how should we have students in grade 3-4 and 5-6 cite sources for research?

There is no easier way to teach citations than using an online citation creator:

Plug the information in on your SmartScreen to show students how it is done, and let the citation creator do the rest. Take time to explain the importance of each entry so students understand. This is fundamental to molding digital citizens out of the wild digital natives who enter your classroom. Help them understand the responsibilities that go hand-in-hand with the rights they acquire by accessing information on the internet.

Here’s an example using EasyBib:

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spring websites

14 Easy Spring Cleaning Steps for Your Computer

spring cleaningIf you followed my suggestion over the New Year’s holiday, you cleaned your computer out then so this will go much faster for you than others. But, it’s again time for Spring Cleaning. Set aside a couple of hours. Grab a litre of soda (unless you live in New York), get a comfortable chair. Put on your problem-solving hat, and get started:

  1. Make sure your firewall is working. Windows comes with a built-in one. Maybe Mac does too. Leave it active. It’s under Control Panel-Administrative Tools. Sometimes, they seem to turn off by themselves (I have no idea why). Check it to be sure it remains active.
  2. Defrag your computer. To quote Windows, Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your computer. Removable storage devices such as USB flash drives can also become fragmented. Disk Defragmenter rearranges fragmented data so your disks and drives can work more efficiently. Run Disc Defrag by going to Control Panel-Administrative Tools–Advanced Tools.
  3. Run Spybot or a similar antispyware program. Spybot is free, which is why I like it. I’ve had good luck with it. Download.com says this about Spybot: The program checks your system against a comprehensive database of adware and other system invaders. The Immunize feature blocks a plethora of uninvited Web-borne flotsam before it reaches your computer.
  4. Keep your antivirus software active. If you’re paranoid like me, run an antivirus scan weekly to be sure nothing is missed.
  5. Run Ad-aware once a week to keep malware and spyware off your computer. It has a stellar reputation and is still free to all (although there’s an upgrade that you can pay for).
  6. Sort through your My Documents files and get rid of those you don’t need anymore. It’s intimidating, like a file cabinet that hasn’t been opened in months–or years. Do it, though. You may not need the hard drive space, but you don’t need the computer fingering through unnecessary files every time it searches.
  7. Back up all of your files to an external drive or your cloud storage. If you have an automated system for that, skip this. If you don’t have one, consider getting Carbonite or similar. If you use Windows, try their ‘backup’ program. It’s easy to find: Click the Start Button and search ‘backup’.
  8. Empty the trash folder. Don’t even look in it. If you haven’t missed a file by now, it won’t be in there.
  9. Learn to use that program you’ve been promising you would. Evernote is a great example. Use it (and you won’t be sorry) or delete the email from your best friend exhorting you to. Move on.
  10. Go through your programs and delete the ones you no longer use. Here’s what you do:
    • go to Control Panel>Programs and Feature

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14 Factors to Consider for Tech Report Cards

eu-63985_640It used to be simple to post grades. Add up test scores and see what the student earned. Very defensible. Everyone understood.

It’s not that way anymore. Here are the factors I consider when I’m posting grades:

  • Does s/he remember skills from prior lessons as they complete current lessons?
  • Does s/he show evidence of learning by using tech class knowledge in classroom or home?
  • Does s/he participate in class discussions?
  • Does s/he complete daily goals (a project, visit a website, watch a tutorial, etc.)?
  • Does s/he save to their network folder?

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