Tech News & Tips for Parents

What do you know about using the Internet?

The BBC offers Webwise, an informative tutorial on various aspects of the Internet, including getting hooked up, browsers, email and more. The interface is definitely oriented toward younger students, but the content is solid. Want to see how much you know? Go through the tutorials, and then take the online quizzes. There's also a comprehensive glossary. You may learn something new!

Interactive Learning Online

The web sure makes learning fun! One example: from Geometry to DNA to literature to ancient civilizations, the Interactives website has more than 20 practical hands-on lessons, mostly for high school and middle school students (but also fun for adults). Give it a try!

What does that text message mean?

The shorthand kids use online and on their phones is going mainstream. Today I found messages written in this cryptic language on the Valentine Tootsie Rolls I brought to school! If you need help translating your valentine candy messages (or other messages!), try this helpful list from NetLingo: The List of Chat Acronyms & Text Message Shorthand.

Subscribe to this blog's feed (RSS simplified)

As you browse the web, you may have noticed links like the one in the left menu on this blog: Subscribe to this blog's feed. For those who are unfamiliar with RSS, it allows you to have updates from various websites come to you in one place, saving you the time and effort of checking each of your favorite your favorite sites. This is one tool that is invaluable to me; I can quickly scan a number of sites and keep up with what's new in technology (and knitting and gardening too!).

Common Craft has published a very helpful video explaining how and why to use this tool: RSS in Plain English. Warning: using RSS can become adictive! Enjoy!

GMail, here we come!

This fall we have been going through a school-wide transition to GMail and Google Apps. Most teacher and administrative accounts have now been moved, and student accounts will be migrated on November 26. What does this mean?

• Faculty and staff have been very pleased with Google Apps. This program offers not only email, but also an integrated word processor, spreadsheet and presentation program which students can access from any internet-enabled computer.
• Google Apps also features document sharing, which we anticipate will be fantastic for group work.
• Another advantage of this program is that it saves revisions to documents, allowing teachers to comment and grade online, and letting teachers and students track a paper from rough draft to finished product.
• We will have a new domain: c-dh.org. This means that most faculty/staff addresses will be firstinitial+lastname@c-dh.org, and most student accounts will be lastname.firstname@c-dh.org.
• "Old" email addresses will remain valid, in other words either the old or new address can be used.

Look for these changes after Thanksgiving, and ask your student to show you our new program!

Researching? Start here!

Students working on school projects commonly start with a Google search. Savvy students do not end there, however. Our own Library Media Center has an information-rich site full of great resources: http://www.cretin-derhamhall.org/StudentNet/references.htm. You'll find a variety of databases, references, news sites and more. Give it a look!

Keeping Kids Safe Online

Online safety is an issue that is getting a lot of attention these days, and CDH is no exception. This was one of the topics of teacher inservice time before school started this year, and we will continue to address the topic throughout the year.

Yesterday's Pioneer Press had a compelling article about online safety concerns here in the Twin Cities: http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_6794265, which includes excellent suggestions for parents and schools. We all need to work together to keep our kids safe and guide them toward responsible internet use.