WWWords to Live By

"The quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor." 
- - -  Vince Lombardi

With so many of our students using the Internet for research projects, reports, and activities both at home and at school, it is important to teach them how to cite their references. These online bibliography creators can help you and your students give credit where credit is due.

Tangipahoa Parish Technology Training

The New Year 2004 brings new technology training opportunities for TPSS employees. Check out the Tech Training Calendar at http://my.calendars.net/tpsstechcalendar. There is always a link to it from the Tangischools Technology page at http://www.tangischools.org/tech.html. Sign up for some afterschool or Saturday classes, as well as TangiTech, to help you improve your skills as a technology-using educator and ultimately improve student achievement.

Like its predecessors, Windows XP gives you multiple ways to view the documents and files in folders.

• Set your file folder view to Details. Do so by selecting the View drop-down menu and then Details. The default view shows the Name, Size, Type, and Date Modified fields. You can add others.
• Right-click anywhere on the column/fields header (where it says Name, Size, and so on).
• A list will appear with all the field options for the folder view.
• You can add and remove columns by clicking on any of them (those that are set to appear will have a check next to them).
• You can change only one field at a time.
• For more control, click on More... at the bottom of the list.
• A Choose Details dialogue box will appear.
• Select and deselect the fields you want by clicking on the check boxes (or use the Show and Hide buttons on the right side of the box).
• You can even use this dialogue box to change the column viewing order.
• To do so, click on the name of the column and then click the Move Up or Move Down button.
• When you're all finished, click OK.

• Tuesday, January 13, 2004, from 3:30 – 5:00 at West Side Middle in Amite in the new Technology Training Lab.
• Tuesday, February 3, 2004, from 3:30 – 5:00 at C.M. Fagan in the new T3 Lab.

It's pretty much a guarantee that the Quick Launch Toolbar appears on your desktop for those running Windows 9.x or 2000. But Microsoft has gone out of its way to hide Internet Explorer from the standard Windows XP desktop, and as a result it has hidden Quick Launch. The toolbar, which also gives you access to the "Show Desktop" and "Windows Media Play" icons, isn't far away, though. You can access it and have it reinstated to your desktop:

• Right-click the taskbar and select Toolbars | Quick Launch.
• You can add items to the Quick launch bar by dragging any icon from the desktop, Start menu, or any Windows Explorer box to the Quick Launch area on the taskbar.

PowerPoint Tip

During a slideshow presentation, you can annotate slides by drawing freehand lines and shapes to emphasize your message. To do this, your slide show must be running. Right-click the mouse button, point to Pointer Options, and then click Pen. The pointer changes to the pen tool. You can right-click again to choose a different pen color. Now you are ready to draw on the slide. When the pen tool is active in SlideShow view, clicking the mouse doesn't advance the slide show to the next slide. You need to change the pen tool back to the pointer to advance using the mouse button. Ctrl + P will also display the tool pen.  To erase your annotations, right-click the mouse button, point to Screen, and then click Erase Pen. You can also press the E key to erase annotations.

• LEAP Central by Charlie French - http://charliefrench.com/
• LEAP4Fun - http://www.photographicvr.com/leap4fun/
• Louisiana PASS (Practice Assessment, Strengthen Skills) - http://www.louisianapass.org/
• PASS on Paper - http://www.louisianaschools.net/lde/ssa/1797.html
• Assessment Materials for Teachers - http://www.louisianaschools.net/lde/ssa/1460.html
• Practice Run - http://www.spacesciencegroup.org/PracticeRun_online/ ... and you can order your own copies of Practice Run CDs by clicking here...http://www.spacesciencegroup.org/practicerun/
• LEAP21 Tutoring - http://www.doe.state.la.us/DOE/Assessment/Tutoring21.htm
• LEAP21 and GEE21 Practice Tests - http://www.louisianaschools.net/DOE/Assessment/PracticeTests.htm
• LEAP Resources for 4th Grade - http://www.sabine.k12.la.us/fes/leapresourcepage/leaphome.htm
• Parent's Page for LEAP21 Language Arts - http://www.tangischools.org/eciweb/PARENTSLANGUAGE.html
• Parent's Page for LEAP21 Mathematics - http://www.tangischools.org/eciweb/PARENTSMATH.html
• Elementary Test Prep Center - even though this site is practice for the New York standardized tests the format is much like ours and good practice.

Wild Wonderful Web Sites

This feature in the Bits & Bytes Newsletter is where we highlight websites that are recommended by the teachers of TPSS.  Please submit, via email, the sites you feel merit inclusion. Send your recommendations to vickib@tangischools.org  Please include the URL and a short sentence about the site. 

No matter how large your hard drive is, it'll eventually get clogged up with seldom used programs and unnecessary files. Disk Cleanup helps free up space by searching your drive for files and programs you can safely delete.

Here's how to open Disk Cleanup:

• Go to Start/ All Programs/ Accessories/ System Tools and select Disk Cleanup.
• Disk cleanup then calculates how much space you will be able to free. It may take a minute.

The Disk Cleanup wizard will then appear. Check the items you wish to delete. You can also click on the More Options tab for a more thorough cleaning.

Troubleshooting Tips

Microsoft Word Tips

Have you ever wanted to highlight important notes to emphasize them? You can select text before choosing a highlighter color to emphasize points on a Word document. You can also select a highlighting color from the color palette and then use the highlighting pointer to highlight the text even after it's created. This will allow you to use a Word document as a teaching tool, highlighting important points every class period. The highlighted document can then be closed without saving changes... this will allow you to do this for every class.

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Tangipahoa Parish School System Technology Department
59656 Puleston Road, Amite LA. 70422
Voice 985-345-1406 or 985-748-2469; Fax 985-748-2445
Bits & Bytes Newsletter
January 5, 2004
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