Text Messaging

Here is a recent article on text messaging that was forwarded to me by my tech director. I'm now understand how text messaging could be a likely cause of poor student performance and lack of sleep.

http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2009/05/26/texting_may_be_taking_a_toll/?page=full


With texting and cell phone use in schools increasingly showing up in newspapers and on TV, I think there will be challenge for schools and parents to strike a balance. Cell phones and like technology is a great and powerful tool. With increased technological ability and access, there comes a level of responsibility to use the tool correctly and not abuse it. Is technology really a productivity enhancer or an efficiency killer? It all depends on how the technology is used. I believe this will be our greatest challenge in the next 10 years. To teach morality, responsibility, and restraint while using technology. We need to teach this to our students and children, but more importantly, we need to model it. That's the hard part.

ZoomIt

Have students ever complained about not seeing something you are projecting on the screen? Ever want to draw on your projected screen? Set a timer to keep students on task?

Scott Trudeau, an Adobe trainer, shared this cool app. with me this week. It's called ZoomIt.

It can be downloaded from:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx

After you download and unzip the file, save the program file to your desktop.
Double click on the ZoomIt icon any time you want to use the program (it doesn't automatically load into memory)

Ctrl+1 zooms in to your pointer (move your mouse to change zoom location)
Ctrl+2 allows you to draw any where on your screen with your mouse
Ctrl+3 starts a count down clock (time can be changed on your ZoomIt icon on the Taskbar)

Press ESC to stop any of the above functions.

It's that easy.