Technology Tip Number 39 I can't believe it...
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."  ~ Winston Churchill With the internet it is possible for a lie to get all the way around the world several times before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.  So how do you find the truth online?  How do you check the facts? Here are a couple of websites that can help you sort fact from fiction and outright lies: For sorting through urban legends and dubious emails there is no better website than: snopes.com This site is dedicated to stomping out “eRumors” that show up in your email: truthorfiction.com This site was made famous in the last presidential election.  To sort through all the political information out there the Annenberg Foundation set-up factcheck.org Speaking of politics, if you prefer your facts with a specific political slant you might want to consider one of these two websites: mediaresearch.org  Fact checking with a conservative slant mediamatters.org  Fact checking with a liberal slant Since most of these sites cater to adult audiences you might want to consider this website as a resource for students:  http://lii.org/
PRACTICE ACTIVITY:   Try checking out a fact sometime today using one of these sites.  All of these sites are full of interesting information. TO KEEP ON LEARNING:  If you'd like to learn more about websites you can trust for accurate information try searching for: Website credibility Evaluating internet sources

Technology Tip Number 38 Form me a letter in Word
Doesn't it seem strange that when you receive junk mail they often address their letters directly to you as if they knew you?  Did you know that you could easily put individual names and addresses into your own mass mailing by using Excel and Word together?  Today's technology tip is all about how to create a form letter. First you’ll need a data base of information to work with.  For this example I’ll be using an Excel file of names and addresses for the crew on Gilligan’s Island: Once I have made and saved my Excel spreadsheet I'll have to create a nice form letter next using Word.  Below is my sample form letter to each of the castaways explaining my idea for getting them off the island. Now the fun part.  How to mail merge in the names and addresses of the castaways.  We need the mail merge tool bar to do this.  If yours isn’t currently available go to “View” on the menu bar and select “Toolbars” and then choose “Mail Merge” from the list.  On the mail merge toolbar we need to select “Open Data Source” to open up our excel file with the names and addresses in it.  Below I have circled the toolbar button you need.  Remember you can hover over any toolbar button and a popup will appear that tells you what it does. Next, select the Excel file (or other data base) that you want to pull information from for your form letter.  If you are using an Excel file it may ask you what “sheet” you want to use.  Usually your information is on “Sheet1$” Now go to the spot in the letter where you want to insert your first merged field.  In this example I’m going to start by putting in the addresses.  Click at that spot and then click on the “Insert Merged Field” button on the toolbar.  See below. Then just keep inserting the merged fields you want until you are done.  You may have to put spaces where needed so it looks like this: Now you can check what the letters are going to look like by clicking on the “View Merged Data” button.  You can then use the arrows to see what each letter will look like. OK, you might want to save at this point and then you are ready to print, just make sure you have enough paper in the printer.
PRACTICE ACTIVITY:   Try making a form letter sometime soon.  Even if its a fake form letter. TO KEEP ON LEARNING:  If you'd like to learn more about making a form letter try searching the internet for: Creating a form letter in Word Word tutorials Sample form letters

Technology Tip Number 37 Try Doodling With Paint
Your computer came with lots of standard software that you might not even be aware of.  In a previous technology tip (Number 33) we showed you how to access the calculator on your computer.  Today's technology tip will show you how to access a very simple program for manipulating images and just doodling. The name of the program is Paint and if you have a computer with Microsoft Windows on it you should be able to find it by going to: START menu then All Programs then Accessories and then look for PaintDepending on the version of Windows you have the pathway might be a little different but you should find it under Accessories (the same place where you found the Calculator). The program is pretty simple to use.  Try doing these activities to get the feel for it: Enlarge the Work Area: If you opened Paint and the work area (the white space) appears to be too small you can easily enlarge it by grabbing the bottom right hand corner of the white space and dragging it down: Draw a Rectangle: Click on the tool bar button on the left.  Move your pointer into the work area, left click where you want the top left corner of the rectangle to be, hold the button down and drag out a rectangle: Fill a Shape with a color: At the bottom left of the screen you'll see a color palette.  Choose a color for inside your rectangle by clicking on it.  Then select the "Fill with Color" tool bar button.  Then just click inside your rectangle and it should change to the color you selected.  Pretty easy so far right! Try Doodling: Lets experiment with some other tool bar buttons.  Try each of these: With some experimentation you can make some simple drawings.  If you don't like how it's going you can always start over by going to "File" and selecting "New" to clear your work area.  If you like your art work you might want to save it by selecting "Save" off the "File" menu.  Copy and Paste a Picture into Paint: You can also copy images off the internet, put them in Paint and make changes to them.  Try this:  Right click on the "180TechTips.com" log below and select "Copy" from the menu that appears.  Next, go to Paint and go to "Edit" on the menu bar and select "Paste" from the drop down list.  You should now have a copy of the image above in paint.  Have some fun messing around with it! Paint is a great little program for messing around with pictures and doodling.  There are many more practical purposes for it such as setting your desktop background but that will be for another technology tip.
PRACTICE ACTIVITY:   Sometime today use Paint make an original logo up for something.  If you're a classroom teacher it could be for your classroom or school.  If your in business make one up for your company.  Or just make one up for yourself.  Even as adults we often learn best by playing. TO KEEP ON LEARNING:  If you'd like to find more information about paint your could check out the Help menu in the program.  Or you could search the internet for: Microsoft Paint Tutorials Using Microsoft Paint

Technology Tip Number 36 Current Event Me Please
You probably remember doing them when you were in school and if you're a teacher you still have your students doing them:  Current Events.  Well the students of today have access to a whole lot more news articles from all around the world  than most of their teachers could even imagine.  Here's how to find some current events online: First we're not going to waste any time at the website of your local paper or TV stations.  We're going to go right for websites that are the pulsing jugular of online current events. Google News: 1)      Go to http://www.google.com and select the “News” tab in the upper left hand corner. 2)      When you get there you’ll be viewing a list of the top stories by category. The stories are gathered from online news resources from all around the world.  The stories are categorized and updated routinely.  You can even see how old the stories are.  Some of them are only minutes old.  You can't get much more "current" than that, can you. 3)      Categories include Science & Technology,Sports, U.S. National News and evenEntertainment.  To find more stories in that category just click on the tabs in the top left of the web page. 4)      Maybe you’d prefer to view your news from a Russian, Chinese or an Indian perspective.  Just click on the country of your choice at the bottom of the screen and you'll be viewing current events from those countries: This is an example of an automatic news aggregator which is a website that pulls together top stories from all sorts of news outlets and puts similar stories together.  It's one stop shopping for all the current events you could ever need. There are other examples of news aggregators that you could also try. Bing has one that includes videos: Bing.com/News Yahoo also has a news aggregator: News.Yahoo.com NewsAggregator.com is another example of a quick place to check for the current top stories. Matt Drudge is famous for his news aggregator that is created by humans and not a computer program: DrudgeReport.com
PRACTICE ACTIVITY:   Try checking out the news this morning using a resource you’ve never used before. Try using an online news aggregator. TO KEEP ON LEARNING:  If you'd like to find more sources for current events online try searching for: Current events Internet news resources Online news index

Technology Tip Number 35 How to catch the BIG images
Do you have trouble finding pictures on the internet?  When you do finally find a picture from the internet does it look all grainy when you enlarge it to fit in your PowerPoint show? Today's technology tip offers you some help with finding images online and also some advice on how to find the largest possible images so your next computer project isn't full of grainy looking pictures. First, image search engines.  Just as we can search the internet for words you can also search for images.  There are many good search engines that you could use.  For starters most of your major search engines have an image search engine too:  For example:  Google Images, Bing Images, and Yahoo Images.  Here is how to sort your images results to just the largest images. 1) Go to an image search engine like http://www.bing.com/images 2) Search for something like "old truck in desert" 3) To find only the largest images look for the "Size" tab and select "Large" from the drop down menu: 4) When you find the image you want to use make sure you click on it and then click again to see the image full size before you copy and paste it. What kind of a difference does this make?  Well if you’re making a PowerPoint presentation and you don’t use large pictures you will have to stretch the small ones you find.  The result is pixilated or grainy pictures.  You know the look: Instead of this:
PRACTICE ACTIVITY:  Try searching for a large image on picsearch or any of the other search engines mentioned above.  Make sure you can find the "advanced search" option and find a nice large picture that you could use in a presentation. TO KEEP ON LEARNING:  If you'd like to learn more about computer images try searching for: How jpg images work Digital image formats Pixelation Dots per inch

Technology Tip Number 34 Calculating in Excel
Now for a tip about using Microsoft Excel.  As mentioned in Technology Tip #25, Excel is a spreadsheet program that you can use to create simple databases and to calculate formulas.  The software has obvious applications for accountants but what could teachers use it for? In this Technology Tip we’re going to try doing a simple calculation in Excel. 1)      Open up Excel by clicking on the desktop icon or finding it on theSTART menu.  I'm afraid today's tip will be meaningless for you if you don't have access to this program.  To the right is a sample of the icon that you're looking for. 2)      Type the following information just as it appears below.  Make sure that the data is in separate cells on the spreadsheet.  For example “Apples” should be typed into cell A2 and the number “4” should be typed into cell B2 3)      Now for our first formula.  Select cell B5 by clicking in it.  A dark black rectangle will appear on it (just like the one on B5 above). 4)      In the formula bar type the following:  =sum(B2+B3+B4) 5) When you hit the Enter key the answer to the formula should appear in cell B5 “18”   6) The cool part about the formulas in excel is that they are dynamic, meaning they change instantly.  For example, change the number of bananas to 4 and the total should automatically change from 18 to 20. For more information about writing formulas in excel try this website:  Tutorials.Beginners.co.uk Featured YouTube Video Introduction to Excel
PRACTICE ACTIVITY:   Try the above activity.  After you have that down try changing the formula to subtract the numbers (using – for minus), multiply the numbers (using * for times) and divide two of the numbers (using / for division). TO KEEP ON LEARNING:  If you'd like to learn more about creating formulas in Excel try searching the internet for: Excel tutorials Making formulas in excel Excel templates

Technology Tip Number 33 The Original Computer Function
Computers weren't invented for email or the internet.  They were never intended to be used to keep track of your bank accounts or 2nd marking period grades.  The very first electronic computer was created during World War II and it's intended function was to help American soldiers hit their target. Often cited as being the very first electronic computer, the ENIAC was built at the University of Pennsylvania from 1944-46.  At that time the US Army was employing hundreds of young ladies with mathematical ability to serve as "computers" and physically do the math to create ballistics tables for military weapons.  The function of the ENIAC was to electronically do the math that previously had been done by human computers. Here's a link in case you'd like to read some more about the distant ancestors of the computer you're looking at right now: History of Computing Information For today's technology tip we'd like to show you how to find the calculator on your computer.  These directions will work on most computers that are using a Microsoft Operating system: 1)  Go to the START menu in the lower left hand corner and click on it. 2)  Click on "All Programs" or "Programs" 3)  Look for "Accessories" and then select "Calculator" You can use the calculator that appears by either using your mouse to click the buttons or by using the number keypad on the right side of your keyboard. Note that the computer uses "/" for division and "*" for multiplication.  Featured YouTube Video Girl figures out how to program giant computer: Kay Mauchly and ENIAC
PRACTICE ACTIVITY:   Try finding the calculator on your computer today and experiment with it.  It can be a very handy resource.  TO KEEP ON LEARNING:  Besides the calculator that's on this computer there's also plenty of online calculators that you might find useful.  To find some of these online calculators try searching the internet for: Online calculators Financial calculators Online graphing calculators