Mr. Wasil’s 3rd Grade Class

Ever find yourself needing a calculator right away. Well, your computer has a calculator and if you shortcut it onto your task bar you are just one click away from accessing a calculator. I find myself using this calculator all the time. You can access the calculator by going to the start button and then choosing all programs then accessories and then calculator.  

Of course this is the long way. Refer to the post a few weeks ago on how to create a shortcut onto your task bar by clicking here. Once you put this on your task bar, the calculator is one click away.  My shortcut is the 5th one over from the start button. When I need the calculator, all I do is double click on that icon and it appears. Very fast and effective.

As always, thanks for reading and give it a try!!!

A couple of weeks ago I had a question about backing up files on the network drives here at school. The H drive for teachers is an awesome tool for back up. The question from a colleague was how can I access the H drive from home. You can access the H drive (Click here for directions) from home, but I suggested purchasing a USB flash drive ($12.00-$60.00, depending on the memory it holds) for the same purpose. Flash drives now hold up to 4 GB of information compared to 256 MB of information years ago. This little stick that fits in the size of your hand can hold up to about 6 CD’s of information. That is an incredible amount of information. Computers that are running Windows XP or Vista automatically read the flash drive and there is nothing to load onto your computer. If you are running Windows 98 you will have to download a driver for it. These flash drives work as a hard drive so there is no burning like a cd. You just drag and drop files onto the drive and reverse the process when taking data off of the stick and putting it onto your computer. As always, I have directions on how to do this. Click here.

Below there is a picture of one flash drive. Below that there are 384 discs. A 4GB flash drive could hold about 2,800 discs. Needless to say, I did not feel like putting that many discs in the picture, you get the idea!!!! Or you could walk around like the girl below with your disks around your neck- courtesy of Alvin Trusty. I am sticking with my USB Flash Drive. Believe it or not, I used to have about 300-500 discs full of information that I had to keep around to access. What a pain!!!

Thanks for reading and remember how important it is to back up your data.

I get a lot of questions about this topic. You have a student that moves away or switched classes at the beginning of the year and he still shows up on your report cards. Teachers are supposed to hide this student on their own. This only takes about 5 minutes to do. Click here for step by step directions.

As a homeroom teacher, you are required every morning to use the internet when you take attendance and lunch counts. After you turn your computer on you have to click on the internet and then click on Progress Book to access the program. Well, let’s shorten that step to just one. You can put a shortcut to Progress Book and any other favorite site you may have right on your desktop or task bar. (Refer to last week’s post) This one step saves a few seconds and limits the time you have to stand there waiting. You will just see an icon like the one below on your desktop. Just double click and Progress Book will open right up.  You can rename it by right mouse clicking on it and calling it Progress Book if you would like. Hope this saves you time and thanks again for reading. Click here for step by step directions.

When trying to access a program you have two choices. You can either do it the long and cumbersome way, or my way fast and easy. Today’s post is about creating shortcuts on your computer’s desktop or taskbar. I prefer my shortcuts to be on the taskbar. The taskbar is the bottom of your desktop where the start button is located. Creating shortcuts saves a lot of time and sometimes frustration. Plus, you can enjoy your desktop background more without all of the shortcuts taking up space. As you can see from the picture below, I have many shortcuts on my taskbar. I order them from most used to least. The first one is my internet start page, then email, then Microsoft Word, then Excel and then the calculator and so on…

I hope you find this time saving and effective; I know I do. As always, thanks for reading and give it a try. Click here for a visual and step by step directions.

For my last tech tip of this school year I decided to discuss the maintenance of your computer. I am also going to make this the first tech tip next year too. Here is the scenario-Your computer is slow and sluggish. You are frustrated and then you call your tech guy to help. Well, the first thing us tech guys do is clean up your machine, do an error check and of course check for viruses. You can do a lot of this yourself because the computer comes equipped to do so. I thought the best tech tip to end the year and then start off the year would be this one. Let’s end the year off right by cleaning your computer and making sure it runs at peak performance. The first step is to do a disk clean up. This takes about 3 to 5 minutes. Next, you will defragment your hard drive. This will probably take a lot of you 30-60 minutes so make sure you do not need your computer. You only press a couple of buttons; the computer does the rest for that hour. My computer will only take about 7 minutes to defragment because I do this at least once a month (which is recommended). Wikipedia states under the myths section that defragmenting will probably not make your computer faster, but it has been my personal experience that it does help- especially if you do it at least 1 time a month.Click here for directions on how to defragment and use disk cleanup.

For the internet challenges you will need to clear out your cookies, delete your history and make sure you are running effective antivirus software along with Adware and Spyware protection. Here at school you should be okay. But at home, you need to consider running these programs. Mine are free at home and you can read about them by clicking here. I have been running AVG virus protection for free now for about a year and I love it. Okay, now that I have told you this, here’s what I want you to do. Follow these directions by clicking here. Try to do this monthly and you will be happy with your computer. As always, thanks for reading and please consider trying this on your own. It is very important and will save you lots of headaches in the future. 

This tip can be used for professional or even personal reasons. It is a
free crossword puzzle site that I thought would be fun for the end of
the year. As teachers, we all know that the last couple of days of
school can be challenging when trying to keep the kids involved and
busy. Well, I created a fun crossword puzzle about my students.

I am sure some of you may have better ones and if you do, please send me the free link.

For the end of the year I created a crossword puzzle that consisted of each one of my students.  The clues were a characteristic of each student and the answers are their first name.  When you get to the site, just follow the directions and then press create puzzle. The next screen that comes up is view puzzle. Once you see your puzzle, just print it and off to the copy machine.  This is a great tool to make review sheets for tests and creative homework reinforcements. Again, this is free so you can not edit the size of the boxes and things of that nature but it still looks great. The link is below.

http://www.puzzle-maker.com/CW/

 Click on the thumbnail picture below to view the full size crossword I made.

When you insert a picture into a Microsoft Word document the computer reads that picture as a text letter. This means that you can not freely move the picture anywhere you would like to. You have to just use the space bar or tab key to move it like it was a word or letter. This of course limits your creativity and overall scheme of what you are trying to do. There is a way to freely move the picture anywhere you would like. Click here for directions and a visual. This is great for making parent letters, worksheets for the kids, staff notifications or anything else we are required to do. As with anything, once you have tried it and practiced, it becomes very easy.  Give it a try!!! Any comments or suggestions, please leave below in the comments section.

Many times I go into a staff member’s computer to fix something and I see word documents all over the place. This to me is like having a large filing cabinet in your room with papers just stuffed into it. There is a better way to organize all of your files, pictures and whatever else you may have. As in all filing cabinets, we have hanging folders and sub folders within those folders. In my opinion, the same type of organization should apply to your computer also. I know a lot of you can probably find what you need on your computer quickly, but trust me; there is even a quicker way. I suggest creating folders on your computer per subject and category. For example, I have a folder on my computer titled Everyday Math, and then I have sub folders inside of that tilted Unit 1, Unit 2 and so on. This type of organization within the computer hard drive makes it much more effective and time saving when trying to find and open a document. Click Here for directions and a visual. As always, thank you for reading and if you have any questions or suggestions please leave a comment below.

Alvin Trusty from Findlay University wrote a post last week, titled Efficiency Tip # 12- Windows L,  about being able to lock your computer screen with ease. I did not even know this keyboard shortcut existed. What a great shortcut for teachers and staff around a building full of curious little minds. For example, you are in the middle of an email and something comes up (happens all the time to me) so you need to quickly (under two seconds-I promise) lock your screen and attend to the matter. By holding down the Windows Key and pressing L – your screen will lock.  Click on the picture below to see enlarged version. Then your screen will only show a login prompt for your password. Just type in your password that you use everyday for your computer and the screen goes right back to what you were working on. Last week I showed several teachers this and they loved it. I am now using it every day. Give it a try, I promise you will benefit from it. As always, thanks for reading and any questions or comments please post below under the comment’s section.