“If you get the dirty end of the stick, sharpen it and turn it into a useful tool” Colin Powell

To begin again…
August is coming and teachers are starting to think of the coming year. Students are trying to avoid thinking at all. I know have mentioned this before but I think it needs to be restated. Google, you may have heard of it, is really useful. I recommend trying some of the other free services that Google has to offer. Now I am going to use a teacher slant with this but it could be used for any possible business or project. First off register for a Google service because once you do you will have access to all the rest of the services right away. It is free and quick. Gmail is just the tip of the Googleverse. Gmail is their version of email. One of the reasons I recommend using it is that it is searchable just like Google. This means if a student emails you during the year you can find it fairly easily. Also it does have other abilities like IM (chatting with students built directly into it) or the ability to take all emails from a specific conversation and creating a dialogue out of them instead of scattered emails through out the system. Google calendar allows for sharing of schedules and appointments throughout a group or organization. Also these can be saved to a website to make it viewable to all without registering. Google Docs and Sites are the two most underused by teachers. These together are so easy to use and useful it is unbelievable. Docs is an online Microsoft Office like set of tools. All you do is sign in and you have something that looks like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This alone is good but once you think of the ability to share it between others it makes it supreme. It can be viewed or editable by others at the touch of a button. Finally Google Sites is the culmination of all of these. It is creatable webpage that you can use to communicate info with groups of all sorts. As an example lets say a teacher has a book group. They can post all the info about the book they are going to read and then add photos and music from where the book is set. The great thing is that it requires no real HTML ability. If you can use Microsoft Word then you can easily use Sites. Now I know I am being very general about this post but that is what it is supposed to be. I recommend checking all the sites above and see if they fit a use. Give it a try.

“The first rule, indeed by itself virtually a sufficient condition for good style, is to have something to say” Arthur Schopenhauer

Every time I do a PowerPoint presentation I use the same old background templates. I decided it was high time I found something a bit more creative. Templateswise is a website devoted to templates for your presentations. Everyone is tagged for easy finding. They also have basic categories like business, nature, or travel. Once you find one just download it. It does need to be unzipped using a zip utility. Most of those are free. Once you extract your files you should have four files, three images and one that when clicked throws you right into PowerPoint. Now the unfortunate part is that it does not seem to add these new styles to your list of backgrounds but they are still easy to use. When the PowerPoint opens you will have three slides. All you have to do is copy and paste the slides as you go along. So if you want to make your presentation stand out give this one a try.

“I will gladly lecture for fifty dollars, but I'll not be a guest for less than a hundred” Elbert Hubbard

I attend lectures were PowerPoint is used. Unfortunately many times it is used to replace a speech or to back up a poorly planned speech. This is not the goal of PowerPoint. It is made to illustrate your points with pictures and charts and to highlight your main ideas. Below is a fantastic slideshow looking at the good and bad of PowerPoint. The slideshow is geared towards the business aspect but I still think it can help no matter what business you are in. If you are planning to give a speech in the near future give this one a try and take some notes.

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“Fortunately in my work there's always a choice: I can choose to do it willingly or unwillingly” Ashleigh Brilliant

For the past two days I have written about word processing for Macs so what about the larger percentage of people out there? Is there a good piece of software for word processing? Yes it is called OpenOffice. Below is a list of all that is comes with. Many people and business are turning to it because of two reasons. The price is free and it works. Give it a try.

• Writer – a word processor you can use for anything from writing a quick letter to producing an entire book.
• Calc – a powerful spreadsheet with all the tools you need to calculate, analyze, and present your data in numerical reports or sizzling graphics.
• Impress – the fastest, most powerful way to create effective multimedia presentations.
• Draw – lets you produce everything from simple diagrams to dynamic 3D illustrations.
• Base – lets you manipulate databases seamlessly. Create and modify tables, forms, queries, and reports, all from within OpenOffice.org
• Math – lets you create mathematical equations with a graphic user interface or by directly typing your formulas into the equation editor.

“If you like overheads, you'll love PowerPoint.” Edward Tufte

Recently I have either been sitting through presentations or I have been teaching PowerPoint. Unfortunatley a presentation can be used as a crutch for a good an underdone speech or it can be a distraction. The site PresentationZen is a really good blog exploring the good, the bad, and the ugly of the presentation world. They explore not just PowerPoint but how to give a speech. They have some wonderful clips of really excellent and powerful presentations. The discussions range from questions like do you need a logo on every page to when is is appropriate for animation. Click here for a stand up comedian that really reinforces the problems that are faced when we are forced to sit through a badly designed one. I have always believed that presentation tools like PowerPoint or Keynote are good as tools but they are not a replacement for a well designed speech. Take a look and give it a try.

“To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to steal ideas from many is research.”

I teach Power Point and sometimes I recommend that people see a lot of other people's presentations. This is a great way to learn and get different perspectives on the way to deliver a presentations. The only question is where can you see all of these examples? Well Google has a nice feature that allows you to search by the file type. In the search box, type in the words filetype:, and an extension like PPT. PPT is the extension for Power Point but there are many others like PDF or DOC. Now once you have all that in, type in the word to describe the search, like vacations. To give you an example click on the link to see a search for Power Points about libraries. Give it a try!