SchoolCounselor.com eNewsletter #91
February 24, 2008

Welcome to SchoolCounselor.com, an electronic newsletter designed to advance counselors' level of technological literacy, application, and integration. You will find practical solutions and answers to technology related problems, especially as they apply to your job as counselor. If you would like to share a tip or trick, or if you would like to ask a question, e-mail Russ Sabella at newsletter@schoolcounselor.com.
 

Coming March 2008  

GuardingKids.com
A Practical Guide to Keeping Kids Out of High-Tech Trouble

http://www.guardingkids.com/

Now Available!

Data Boot Camp for School Counselors
and Administrators - CD

Russell A. Sabella, Ph.D.

My newest CD is designed to help you become more proficient in using Microsoft Excel™ to make data an important part of your comprehensive school counseling program. From data-driven decision making, to monitoring progress, to reporting the positive impact you're having on kids -- this CD will demystify how it's done.

With the Data Boot Camp for School Counselors and Administrators, what you see and hear on the videos is what you do. At your fingertips, you'll have access to 30 videos and lots of graphics, tips, tricks, and resourceful links. This straightforward step-by-step approach makes learning how to use Microsoft Excel™ (and a bit of PowerPoint™) as easy and convenient as watching television. Data Boot Camp will help school counseling students, practitioners, administrators, and counselor educators to more easily unlock the power of data so you can more effectively support student achievement.

The content on the CD is equivalent to a full-day workshop in the computer lab!

Visit and learn more about the contents of the CD and view a couple of sample videos (Remember, these samples may take a few moments to load because you are online. However, on the CD, this is not an issue because the videos are all located on the CD itself!).

http://www.schoolcounselor.com/store/data-bootcamp.htm

$21.95 (FREE shipping)

please allow 5-7 working days to arrive

Check these out ...

Using Video for your Presentations

http://www.schoolcounselor.com/resources/videos-ppt.htm

Technology Tools for Calendaring

http://www.schoolcounselor.com/pubs/calendaring.htm

http://www.schoolcounselor.com/www-bootcamp/http://tinyurl.com/dgfjd

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Technology Training and more for Counselors

Download a booklet with comprehensive descriptions of technology training and resources for counselors (PDF; 116KB).

http://www.schoolcounselor.com/pdf/booklet.pdf

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Posters

Beautiful ... Inspiring .. Motivational ... Touching
Counseling Posters for your Office and Home

http://www.schoolcounselor.com/posters

 

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of SchoolCounselor.com eNewsletter

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TIPS AND TRICKS

Vozme

Vozme is web based tool that turns any snippet of text into an MP3 audio file that you can either listen online or download to your local hard drive. You just have to copy the text from a web page or an e-mail and paste it inside the Vozme text box.

http://vozme.com/

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Anti-Cyberbullying Resources

In December 2007 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sponsored a supplement to the Journal of Adolescent Health and a list of resources on cyberbullying for parents, teachers and administrators is included. The title of the supplement was "Youth Violence and Electronic Media: Similar Behaviors, Different Venues?" and discusses the growing public health issue of the connection between Electronic Media, Violence, and Adolescents.

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Microsoft Office Word: Edit Lengthy Documents More Efficiently

To save time scrolling back and forth when you're editing a long document, you can use the keyboard shortcut SHIFT+F5. This shortcut switches back to the area of the document on which you were working previously. For example, if you were working on the tactics part of your plan and moved to edit something in the budget, by pressing SHIFT+F5, you immediately return to the tactics section.

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Microsoft Excel 2007: Add Rows and Columns to Spreadsheets

To add a row or column: Select any row or column, and then press the CTRL key at the same time as the PLUS SIGN (+) key on the numeric keypad.

To delete a row or column: Select the row or column, and then press the CTRL key at the same time as the MINUS SIGN (–) key on the numeric keypad.

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Windows Vista: Access Programs Quickly

As you settle in to using Windows Vista, you will want to access your most important programs quickly from the Quick Launch bar.

1. Click the Start button.

2. Click All Programs.

3. Find and right-click your program.

4. Click Add to Quick Launch.

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save2pc is a free tool that downloads videos from Youtube or Google Video and saves it as Avi or Mpeg or Flv file to your local computer. save2pc allows you to easily grab and save desired youtube video. The user interface of save2pc is very simple, so you don't need any technical knowledge to use it. No need to use scripts for web browsers. Just run save2pc and start downloading!

http://www.save2pc.com/

I found that it was easier to download the file here.

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Five E-mail Addresses that Convert Documents

Source: http://lifehacker.com/353692/five-email-addresses-that-convert-documents

The Digital Inspiration blog offers up five e-mail addresses that offer free file conversion for Word docs, PDFs, and even MP3s with no fuss, no muss—just attach a file, send it, and wait for the reply with the converted file attached. For mobile device users who can't read or open certain formats or desktop users who need a little audio formatting without downloading software. The full list of addresses, after the jump.

* iPhone@pdfonline.com —Converts any attached Microsoft Visio or Word file (including the 2007/.docx kind) to PDF files, and supports multiple file attachments. Ignore the "iphone" in the address, as it works from any device or computer, but only supports files up to 1 MB in size.

* pdf@koolwire.com —Converts Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint files to PDFs. Like the other Koolwire addresses below, it accepts files up to 10 MB in size.

* doc@koolwire.com —Convert PDFs to Word or Rich Text Format files.

* mp3@koolwire.com —Convert WAV files to MP3s.

* wav@koolwire.com —Convert MP3s to WAV files.

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WORTHY WEBSITES AND SOFTWARE

Audacity

If you ever wanted to do some basic audio recording, look no further than Audacity - it can record, remove noise from audio and also mix multiple sound track. With little effort, you can use Audacity to record live streaming music from Internet radio stations.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

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Handbrake

For extracting movie scenes and MP3 music from DVDs, HandBrake is a good choice. It can also be used to export your DVDs into portable players like the iPod.

http://handbrake.fr/

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SyncToy v2.0 Beta

SyncToy helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers quickly and easily.

http://tinyurl.com/2cu9fh

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Support Personnel Accountability Report Card

The Support Personnel Accountability Report Card (SPARC) is a continuous improvement tool that gives a school site an opportunity to demonstrate effective communication and a commitment to getting results. Modeled after the School Accountability Report Card (SARC), the SPARC has been developed by an advisory group of Los Angeles County counselors, counselor supervisors, counselor educators, and California Department of Education consultants.

http://www.sparconline.net/

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Time Management for Teens

with Jason Womack

http://www.schoolguides.org/timemanagementforteens.html

Also see http://www.schoolguides.org/about.html

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McGruff Kid Safe Software

Claim your FREE McGruff the Crime Dog Kid Safe Browser today!

http://www.mcgruffbrowser.com/

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Doctors Get Patients to Go to 'Wiihab'

By Lindsey Tanner, Associated Press

Nintendo's Wii video game system, whose popularity already extends beyond the teen gaming set, is fast becoming a craze in rehab therapy for patients recovering from strokes, broken bones, surgery and even combat injuries.

Read more ..

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Gcast

What's a podcast? Your own audio broadcast, where you can easily record voice messages, mix in your favorite music, and share it all for the world to hear.

http://www.gcast.com

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DoubleKiller

Eliminate duplicate files quickly. Are duplicate photos, tunes, or other files wasting space on your system? Big Bang Enterprises' DoubleKiller is a fast way to find out. Its Options tab gives you plenty of control over what files are compared or ignored, as well as letting you choose the criteria for finding duplicates. After it completes its analysis, the utility's results list provides helpful buttons to simplify selecting the first or second duplicate plus others to move or delete selected items. DoubleKiller can also check files on networked drives. The product is free for noncommercial use. A version for commercial use and with more features, DoubleKiller Pro, sells for $40.

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Lesson Plans

Website Spotlight: http://school.discoveryeducation.com/?clik=www_nav_school

Lesson plans and creative ideas for the classroom.

If you haven’t already, definitely check out the SchoolCounselor.com Less Plans page at http://www.schoolcounselor.com/macomb/

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Recuva

Recuva (pronounced "recover") is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!

http://www.recuva.com/

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The Bunkum Awards

The Bunkum Awards highlight nonsensical, confusing, and disingenuous education reports produced by think tanks. They are given each year by the Think Tank Review Project to think tank reports judged to have most egregiously undermined informed discussion and sound policy making.

http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/epru_2007_bunkum.htm

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Just for FUN

Become a Celebrity: Put Your Face on Magazine Covers and CNN

Want to see yourself on CNN news, BoingBoing or the front cover of all top magazines like TIME, Wired, Cosmopolitan, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, etc.

Try these fake magazine cover creation tools:

1. MagMyPic - Just upload your picture and this service will instantly put that on the cover of TIME, Rolling Stone, Fortune, People, Maxim, Vogue and other popular magazines. The service is quick but you have no control over the text appearing on the magazine cover.

2.Condenet.com - This is an excellent service for creating a personalized Wired Magazine Cover - you can pick your own picture, tag lines and even control the placement of various elements using simple drag-n-drop. You also get a printable version of the Wired magazine cover.

3. U.R.Celeb - This is an excellent Windows software to create fake magazine cover image on the desktop. Unlike MagMyPic, this software offers you tons of control - you can change the magazine headlines, resize photos and the branding is non-obtrusive.

Supports CNN Breaking News, TIME, Vogue, PlayBoy and other popular magazines.

4. BoingBoing - It’s tough to get BoingBoing editors to link to your blog but with this post generator, you can create your own BoingBoing story. Stuff in a few words and your BoingBoing Story is ready.

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Rockin’ Guitar Solo by "funtwo"

Canon is a rock-guitar version of Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D major. It's a pretty and complicated guitar piece. Funtwo makes it look effortless. His video has gotten over 36 million views on YouTube. Listen to the first few licks and see why. This guy is awesome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjA5faZF1A8

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Desktop Wallpaper: HDRwalls.com

Welcome to HDRwalls.com, your source for free High Dynamic Range (HDR) wallpapers for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Blackberry, iPhone, iPod, and PSP.

http://www.hdrwalls.com/

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PicAnswers

You'll get the idea from the front page of the site -- it's like an answers site, with images. There are a series of pictures with questions attached to them. The pictures at the moment include what appear to be bones on a beach, what look like anime photoshopped llamas, an old tobacco can, and someone's broken patio ceiling. The questions range from "Is this valuable?" to "What IS this?" and "How do I fix this?" Most of the questions I looked at had some kind of answer, and most of the time it was a useful answer.

http://picanswers.com/

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Doodle 4 Google

What if...?

Picture this: You're standing in front of your class, but instead of keeping their eyes on the blackboard, the kids are all sitting there doodling. Welcome to Doodle 4 Google, a competition where we invite K-12 students to play around with our homepage logo and see what they come up with. This year we're inviting U.S. kids to join in the doodling fun, around the intriguing theme "What if...?" However your students interpret our theme, we look forward to honoring their creativity. We'll display 40 finalist doodles on our site and invite the public to vote for their favorites. The winning doodler will receive a $10,000 college scholarship and their design will take over our homepage for a day (the winning school will also receive a $25,000 technology grant). Registration closes on March 28th.

http://www.google.com/doodle4google

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PicHacks

http://www.schoolcounselor.com/posters.htmSee how symmetrical your face is. Simply upload any digital image and pichacks splits the photo in two and joins the halves for a "Chimera" creation which is often quite entertaining. Get creative, it's fun.

http://www.pichacks.com/

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