Showcase of Teacher Project: Conjugation of Spanish Verbs ending in -AR

Each quarter we will be showcasing a teacher’s project completed during his/her participation in our program. Sometime this fall we are planning to archive these lessons on our website for you to refer to throughout the year. For any students that have previously taken the Certificate we are asking that you complete a Permission to Use Student Work form so that we can compile the archive. Please download the form here and mail or fax it back to Brook Thompson.

As part of the Certificate program teachers need to create what we call a StAIR or Stand Alone Instructional Resource. These resources can than be used in the classroom as a tool: 1)to help students that may be struggling with a particular concept; 2)to provide gifted and talented students with a means to learn higher level concepts; or 3)to provide a class of students a means to learn a particular concept at their own pace.

In this issue we are showcasing a StAIR on the Conjugation of Spanish Verbs ending in -AR created by Lynette Daig, Spanish teacher at Brighton High School in Brighton, Michigan. Lynette participated in the LESA summer cohort program in 2006.

Lynette created her StAIR to help her students understand the concept of conjugating -AR verbs. The final product is done in PowerPoint. There is a review and a quiz that can be done online as well as a printed quiz toward the end of the show.

View the StAIR

If you don’t have Microsoft PowerPoint you can download a free PowerPoint Viewer to see the presentation.

If you find this resource useful please let us know by sending us an email at newsletter@edutech.msu.edu.

Showcase of Teacher Project: Direct and Inverse Variation using PowerPoint

Each quarter we will be showcasing a teacher’s project completed during his/her participation in our program. By next fall we are planning to archive these lessons on our website for you to refer to throughout the year.

As part of the Certificate program teachers need to create what we call a StAIR or Stand Alone Instructional Resource. These resources can than be used in the classroom as a tool: 1)to help students that may be struggling with a particular concept; 2)to provide gifted and talented students with a means to learn higher level concepts; or 3)to provide a class of students a means to learn a particular concept at their own pace.

In this issue we are showcasing a StAIR on Direct and Inverse Variation created by Emily
Parker, Math and Science teacher at Novi High School in Novi, Michigan. Emily participated in the certificate program in 2006.

Emily created her StAIR to help her students understand the concept of Direct and Inverse Variation. The final product is done in PowerPoint. There are two worksheets that students can print out and complete for review.

View the StAIR

If you don’t have Microsoft PowerPoint you can download a free PowerPoint Viewer to see the presentation.

If you find this resource useful please let us know by sending us an email at newsletter@edutech.msu.edu.

Showcase of Teacher Project: Multiplication Lesson using PowerPoint

With this issue we are starting a new format for the For Your Classroom column. Each quarter we will be showcasing a teacher’s project completed during his/her participation in our program. By next fall we are planning to archive these lessons on our website for you to refer to throughout the year.

As part of the Certificate program teachers need to create what we call a StAIR or Stand Alone Instructional Resource. These resources can than be used in the classroom as a tool: 1)to help students that may be struggling with a particular concept; 2)to provide gifted and talented students with a means to learn higher level concepts; or 3)to provide a class of students a means to learn a particular concept at their own pace.

In this issue we are showcasing a StAIR on Multiplication created by Michael Partridge, Technology Training and Support Specialist at Pinckney Community Schools and a new edition to the program’s Adjunct Faculty. Michael participated in the certificate program in 2002 and went on to complete his Masters in Educational Technology from MSU.

Michael created his StAIR to help some of his students that were not understanding how to multiply more than one digit. The final product is done in PowerPoint. He also used Flash to create movies to provide his students with a visualization of how the numbers carry over.

View the StAIR

If you find this resource useful please let us know by sending us an email at newsletter@edutech.msu.edu.

Steps for Using Excel to Create a Digital (Paperless) Assignment

Do you have an assignment that you have students labeling parts of a graphic? Why not make the assignment electronic by following the steps below.

	What the Teacher Must Do
1.	Open Excel, making sure that a clean spreadsheet is available.
2.	Under Format in the Menu Bar, go to Sheet and then Background…
3.	Navigate to where the picture you want to use is stored.  In this case, the image I want is called Watercycle and is in a folder in My Documents called My Pictures.
4.	Select the image, and click Insert to insert it into the spreadsheet.
5.	Click in the blank square above the row numbers and to the left of the column letters.  This will select all of the spreadsheet cells.
6.	In the Format menu, click on Column, and then Width…
7.	Key in the number 1 to make the width of all the columns narrow.
8.	Now back to Format, and click on Row, and then Height… Key in the number 6 to make the height of all rows small.
9.	Now, deselect the cells by clicking anywhere in the spreadsheet.
10.	We’re going to hide the grid lines.  Click on Tools, then Options… and uncheck the check next to the Gridlines option.Also, check to be sure the Comment indicator only radio button is checked.  This will help ensure that students don’t check out each other’s work later.
11.	We’ll want to hide the extra images.  Click on a column heading just to the right of where the picture repeats.  Drag about 20 columns more to the right to highlight them.  Find the “Fill” icon ( ) and fill them in with white.
12.	Drag the horizontal elevator bar back to the left to return to the left side of the image. Now, click in a row heading just below the ocean’s bottom edge and drag down about 30 rows to highlight them.  Fill them in with white the same way.
13.	Add a textbox to an empty area in your image which will tell your students what to label.
14.	Now, save the spreadsheet with a new name: something like “Labeling the Water Cycle”, and save it on a common drive.
	What the Students Are to Do:
15.	Open the assignment, “Labeling the Water Cycle” from the common drive.
16.	Start labeling the image. Let’s look at the cloud in the upper right-hand corner of the picture.  Put the cursor on the black dot in the middle of the cloud and RIGHT-CLICK. Left-click on “Insert Comment”.
17.	A little red “flag” will be created at the upper left of the cell you clicked in, and a text box will be waiting for you to enter something in it.
18.	Backspace to erase any text there, and enter the word “Condensation”,Grab the bottom-right handle and diagonally drag it in to resize the box around your text.
19.	Click in another cell, and notice that the text box disappears leaving only the little red flag. Pass your cursor over the flag and note what happens!
20.	Continue adding comments until you’ve exhausted either the list of words or your knowledge, which ever comes first!
21.	When your students are finished with the assignment, have them click File and then Save As in the drop-down menu.  Have them give it a new name (Water Cycle – George), and click Save!
22.	When you call up a file to check,  go to the View menu and click on Comments.
23.	All the comments will show up together, making it easy to check for accuracy!If you try to print the assignment, the background doesn’t show up.  Thus, this activity is perfect for a paperless assignment!

–Carlton Matteo, Adjunct Faculty Instructor

Making Webpages Available for Offline Use In the Classroom

Have you ever planned to show a particular website for a lesson only to have the Internet not working that day. Here is a method to follow which will allow you to have a “backup” of the website to use in the event that access to the Internet is not an option.

Steps for Accessing Websites Offline

1. Using Internet Explorer, locate and display the website
2. Click on “Favorites” on the Menu bar and choose “Add to Favorites”
3. Click on “Make available offline”
4. Click “Customize” and “Next”
5. Click “Yes, 3 deep, Next”
6. Click “Only, Next”
7. Click “No Password. . . Finish”

Auto-synchronization will take place

To use

1. Open Internet Explorer
2. On the Menu bar select File-Work Offline
3. Select Favorites and then select desired website

–Norman Bell, Co-Editor