Arizona K-12 Center Blog

Zoom into a Computer's Screen

nospam@example.com (Tony Vincent) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:14:06 -0800

Teachers often find themselves showing a computer's screen to a group of students. Whether it's a webpage or software application, chances are that much of what appears on the screen is too small to see clearly (even when projecting the screen onto a large wall).

Windows and Macintosh users have ways of zooming into portions of the screen. Magnifying parts of the screen is helpful to highlight what students should focus on.

Words on screen can be practically unreadable from a distance.You can see from the screenshots below that it's much easier to show an audience a link to click when zoomed.

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Wikipedia's Overlooked Feature

nospam@example.com (Tony Vincent) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:46:46 -0800

Wikipedia is the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It can be a very valuable resource if you keep in mind that, no joke, anyone can edit it. Does this make it more or less accurate? Many educators agree that Wikipedia is a source to be consulted, but more reliable sources should be referenced. Educators should teach students to be careful readers when using Wikipedia.

I want to show you an often overlooked feature of each and every Wikipedia page. First, let's go to the Wikipedia page for Octopus.
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Download YouTube Videos and Use Them at School

nospam@example.com (Tony Vincent) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:06:31 -0700

There are lots of great videos on YouTube that you may want to share with students at school. Unfortunately, chances are YouTube is blocked in your building. That doesn't mean you can't use YouTube videos in your classroom. You can use a free web service to download videos from your home Internet connection and bring them back to school on your laptop, flash drive, iPod, or DVD.
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What is a blog?

nospam@example.com (Tony Vincent) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 07:34:00 -0700

I'm pleased welcome you to the Arizona K-12 Center's blog! What exactly is a blog? It is short for weblog and here's a definition for you:

A blog is an easy-to-update website that is
organized in reverse chronological order.

As a reader, you don't really care that it's easy for us to update the site. But what easy posting means is that we get to focus on what we write for the blog, not the process of getting it online. As a reader you will like that the newer posts are listed first so you don't have to hunt for what's new.

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Inspiration by example.

nospam@example.com (Kathy Wiebke) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:23:50 -0700

Welcome to the Arizona K-12 Center blog, where you can find out more about what is happening in K-12 education statewide in Arizona, specifically in the area of professional development for teachers. In our complex educational system, there are a few simple truths. One of these is that the better the teacher, the better the student. At the Center, we are focused on supporting excellence in professional development as an essential means for improving student performance now and in the future.
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