Number 3   March 12, 1999
Announcements
- Educyber publishes two editions of Edunotes, one for Educators and one for Computer Users. To change or add to your subscription, contact Educyber (303-421-2223, info@educyber.com)
- Visit our Grants page to get more information about applying for grants or to find the grant that's right for you.

Inside Edunotes
EduWords 
Virus Alert 
Crash
Education Happenings 
Education Conferences 
Creating Your 
Own Newsletter 

Educyber Site Guide
Educators
Computer Users

 

Technology Training
Are you being trained in the use of technology?  Chances are, if you have received training, you still want more. A recent Apple presentation termed staff development the "often forgotten element."  A just released report on education by the CEO forum also details the lack of training for teachers.
The number of opportunities for training is growing though.
It's much easier to train an office worker to use an application and then turn them loose to use it and learn more on their own.  In an educational setting teachers are not only expected to use the software and hardware but to teach the students how to use it.  And the primary goal (except for computer classes) is to learn the content in the curriculum, not to understand how computers work.  While the task may seem daunting, the number and type of resources for development continue to grow.  There are online (credit and no credit) courses available, educational consultants, online tutorials, and a wealth of experienced teachers and focused materials online and ready to share.
Check out the other articles in this newsletter about online seminars and upcoming conferences.  Of course, we at Educyber also provide training for educators.
Connected Calendar
http://www.classroom.com/resource/calendar/
Have you ever heard someone say that teachers are "in the know" about upcoming events? While it is often true, you can be even more in the know and spice up your class activities a little more by including "Music in Our School Month", "Sleep Awareness Week", or "Amerigo Vespucci Birth Anniversary (Mar. 9th)". If that sounds interesting, this is just the site for you!
A part of the Classroom.com site, the Connected Calendar offers a monthly calendar which shows a holiday or special event for every day of the month. In this month's calendar, there is National Anthem Day (Mar. 3rd), First Space Walk Anniversary (Mar. 16th), St. Patrick's Day (Mar. 17th), and Teacher's Day (Czech Republic; Mar. 26th). What makes this site really interesting is each day also has links to related sites on the web so that you can plan special activities for your class or learn more about the activity and the Internet by taking your class there.
Edunotes Newsletter
This newsletter is created by Brian and Maki DeLaet at Educyber, Inc.
Subscriptions in the U.S. are free. Subscribe online at www.educyber.com or call (303) 268-2245.
Educyber is based at:
4251 Kipling St. #190.
Wheat Ridge, CO 80033		 Edu Words (a glossary for computer users)
Template: an empty form or document in a word processing, spreadsheet, or database program in which the layout and styles have already been defined.  This is a great time saver as often used layouts can be saved as templates instead of having to be recreated each time.
Wizard: Whereas a template is basically a blank, pre-formatted form, a wizard prompts you for the information or content to go into a form and also allows you to choose which template to use.  For example, a typical letter wizard will prompt you for general layout information as well as addressee and addressor and can even generate an envelope or mailing label for you.
Macro: A specific series of steps programmed to occur automatically at the touch of a key or key combination.  If you are repeatedly performing the same task in an application, you should create a macro to automate that task for you.  Then when you need it, you can just press the key(s) you assigned to it.
Virus Alert!
You get an email alert telling you about a dangerous virus circulating around the Internet.  Perhaps there are key words in the subject line that will help you identify this nefarious virus before it destroys your computer and all of your data.
Then again, it's probably just another virus hoax unwittingly perpetuated by well meaning but not very cyber-sophisticated individuals who, upon receiving such messages, immediately sent them to everyone in their address book.  Perhaps after this they stop to check the validity of the message. 
The warnings are often very real sounding and speak of dire consequences.  "I opened an email that said Aol4free.com in the subject and a virus deleted ALL the files on my computer." Or the warning that says not to open any message that says "Returned or Unable to Deliver" as it contains a virus that will "attach itself to your computer components and render them useless." But they also suggest or demand the user forward this message to all of their friends.  A word of warning, this is not a good way to keep good relations with friends.
Should you receive such a message from a friend or colleague, don't reply with a vituperative message denouncing their ignorance and calling down the wrath of the gods on their heads.
Instead, reply with a gentle message explaining that the message is a hoax and directing them to one of the following virus hoax websites. The following are also good to check if you're not sure if a warning is a hoax or not.
Semantec's AntiVirus Research Center
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
McAfee's Hoax Virus Page
http://vil.mcafee.com/villib/hoax.asp
Internet Viruses, Virus Hoaxes & Urban Legends
http://spcug.org/hoax.htm
Top Five Hottest Hoaxes
http://www.stiller.com/top5.htm
Computer Virus Hoaxes
http://sassman.net/virus/
How to Spot a Virus Hoax
http://www.av.ibm.com/InsideTheLab/Bookshelf/
WhitePapers/Wells/HOWTOSPOT/howtospot.html
Network Associates Virus Hoax Information
http://www.nai.com/services/support/hoax/hoax.asp
AOL users can also use the keyword Virus and double click on Internet Virus Hoaxes to learn more.

Education Happenings:

REPORT ON TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM
Have you read the STaR Report? Not the Starr Report but the School Technology and Readiness Report prepared by the CEO Forum on Education and Technology.  It's available in PDF format at their website: www.ceoforum.org.
It takes a comprehensive look at technology and education and finds, among other things, guess what?  Teachers need more training in technology.  It also brings together a lot of information about where schools are at in terms of computer and Internet technology, shows the growth in technology use and documents how evenly the technology is distributed.
SEMINARS FROM APPLE
So are you ready for more training?  Apple has some useful seminars coming up.  You can view, at your leisure, the "Choosing Digital Content to Match Your Standards" seminar online.  Also coming up are: "Professional Development" on March 25 from 12:00 - 1:00 PST; and "Using Computers & Networks to Teach & Learn" on May 18 from 12:00 - 1:00 PST.  Check them out at: http://www.apple.com/education/k12/events/semseries/.

Education Technology Conferences Around the World

TechEd99 - Technology in Education Conference & Exposition.
http://secondary.cccf.org/teched/index.html
April 20-24, 1999, Ontario, CA
See, hear and touch technology.  Find out what's happening in technology.
The self-proclaimed "Conference For Educators Passionate About Change"
Technology and Learning Conference
http://www.nsba.org/T+L/
Presented by the National School Boards Association, this conference will be at the Dallas Convention Center from November 10 to 13, 1999. 
International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE) '99
http://www.ai.is.uec.ac.jp/icce99/
The theme is New Human Abilities for the Networked Society. November 4-7,
1999, Chiba, Japan
In you're interested in presenting, the deadline for proposals is June 15, 1999. Early registration deadline is September 15.

Visit the for Educators to buy titles like Netlearning: Why Teachers Use the Internet, The Busy Educator's Guide To The World Wide Web and Science on the Internet : A Resource for K-12 Teachers

 
CRASH . . .
Is the sound of all your computer data vanishing into the nether.  But that's no problem, because you've got your backup ready to restore the lost data, right?
Unfortunately too many people don't backup their data regularly and lose big time when their system does crash.  A tape backup of your entire system may be the best way to go but there are many newer inexpensive technologies that are making it easier for the backupphobics among us to backup. If you work on a stand-alone computer or have a small network in your office you can back up data relatively easily.
Since you've already got all your system disks that have the operating system and applications you use, the only non-replaceable files on your computer are your data. 
As data files take up considerably less space than programs, a simple way to go is with the zip drives or super disks.  These are small drives that can be installed in an internal bay if you have one available on your computer but they can also be plugged into the one of the ports on your computer.  Each disk can hold 100 to 120 MB of information.  (Try Iomega's Zip plus drive or Imation's SuperDisk.)
Once you've got that properly installed (a process that only takes a few minutes), you're almost ready to backup your data.  The next step is to make sure your data is stored in one (two at the most) central location for easy back up.
There are lots of backup programs available.  Windows 95/98 users can use the backup utility that comes with the OS if they want, but there is an even simpler (though slightly more time consuming) method.  Simply drag the folders or files you want to back up to the newly installed drive and drop them.  They'll be copied on to the new drive and you're finished.  PC users can perform this task most easily using Windows Explorer while Mac users would navigate through the hard disk icon and drag the data folders to the new disk icon.
How often should you back up?  That depends on how important your data is and how often it changes.  We back up at Educyber once a week.
Whatever process you use to backup, make sure you backup two copies and, if possible keep another copy offsite for additional protection in the event of catastrophe.  Why two copies?  What if you're backing up and your system crashes?  That's not paranoia (o.k. maybe just a touch) it's just good business.
Spend 10 - 15 minutes a week backing up your data and save hours and $$$ trying to retrieve lost information.

Make Your Own Newsletter

You don't need a desktop publishing software package to make your own newsletter.  MS Word provides more than enough tools to create your own.  If you're not sure how it's done but want to give it a try, use one of these methods:
Using the Newsletter Wizard:
  1. Click on the File Menu and then click on New.
  2. Click on the Publications tab and double click on Newsletter Wizard.
  3. Follow the steps in the Wizard.  First you just click on the Next button.
  4. Select which style you want and whether you want it in color or just black and white and then click Next.
  5. Type the title in the box and indicate whether you want the date and/or volume and issue information.  Then click Next.
  6. Indicate whether you want room for the mailing label or not and click Next.
  7. Click Finish and your newsletter is created.
  8. The resulting document provides details about how to change or add your own content and images to the newsletter.
If you don't see the Newsletter Wizard under the Publications tab, run Office setup from the CD again and choose Add/Remove.  Click on Word and then click on Change Option.  Click on Wizards and Templates and then Change Option.  Click to check the More Wizards box and then click OK twice.  Click on the Continue button.  When installation is finished, the Newsletter Wizard will appear in the Publication box.
Creating Your Own Newsletter
  1. Start a new document.
  2. Click the View Menu and then click on Headers/Footers.
  3. Click the Page Setup Button and, under the Layout Tab, make sure that Different First Page is checked.
  4. Click OK and then type the title of your newsletter on the first page, using a large font.  Insert page numbers at the bottom of page two and if there are more than two pages, at the bottom of page three as well.
  5. Choose Text Box from the Insert menu and use the mouse to create a box for the text.
  6. Repeat step five for as many text boxes as you want.
  7. To save this file as a template, choose Save As from the File menu, give the file a name and, in the Save as type box, choose Document Template (.dot).
To use your new newsletter template, choose New from the File menu and double click on the file you created.
 

This Newsletter is published by Educyber. For more information, or to subscribe, call (303) 268-2245 or Email info@educyber.com ©1999 Educyber,Inc.

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