Earlier this month, I wrote “10 Important Skills Students Need for the Future.” After reading a few articles about specific tech skills, I thought I write what I think are the 10 Important Tech Skills Students Need.

1. Internet Search – students need to know how to do a proper internet search, using search terms and modifiers. This skill is needed for school, work and life in general.

Tips on Better Searches (from Google)

Infographic on Better Searches

Common Craft Video on Web Search Strategies

2. Office Suite Skills – students need to now how to create, edit, and modify documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. Businesses still use MS Office for the most part, but iWorks, OpenOffice / LibreOffice, and Google Docs are all getting more popular. They all work similarly so the learning curve when switching isn’t that big.

Alternatives to MS Office

Free Alternatives to Paid Software

3. Self learning of tech and where to go for help – knowing how to search a help menu on software or hardware, where to go to find user forums for help, and where to find the manual for technology is a huge skill that many do not know about.

Free Tech Tips and Help

TechEase – technology tips

Online Tech Tips – hardware, software, and more

Tech Support help

4. Typing – yes, typing. I can get much more work done since I know how to type, then people who don’t. It’s a skill that is necessary for any kind of writing.

Learn to Type

5. Social Media – how to properly use social media for school and work, how to protect yourself on it, the issues of cyberbullying, connecting with others in your profession (PLN).

Twitter, Google+, Facebook comparison

Twitter, Facebook, RSS, Email, Google+ – tips on use

Facebook and Google+ security and privacy

Common Craft Video on Social Media

Create a Personal Learning Network

6. Netiquette – Internet/Email/Social Media etiquette – proper way to use the internet, write professional emails, use social media in relation to your job (not complaining about the boss).

Netiquette – Wikipedia

7. Security and Safety – antivirus, spam, phishing, too much personal information sharing, stalkers, and more are all issues they need to know about.

Internet Safety Resources

Google Family Safety Center

Google Good to Know online safety and internet data

Common Craft Video on Secure Passwords

8. Hardware basics and troubleshooting – knowing what different parts of technology are called, how to make minor fixes, and how to do basic troubleshooting for WiFi, networks, OS won’t load, etc.

Free Tech Tips and Help

TechEase – technology tips

Online Tech Tips – hardware, software, and more

Tech Support help

9. Backup data – with all of the data that students create for school and work, it is important to back it up and have access to it at any time.

Backup your Data – tools and resources

Google Takeout – export your Google data

10. Finding apps and software – how to find, evaluate, and use apps for school and business. Also, how to find quality, free alternatives to paid software, apps and services.

Quixey – Search engine for apps

Free Alternatives to Paid Software

Google Apps Resources

Free Apps

On device apps/software vs. web apps

SmartPhone Experts – apps, reviews, tech tips, and more for all smartphones

Bonus:

11. Copyright and Citing Sources – students need to understand copyright laws and rules, how to cite a resource, and how to integrate someone else’s work into their’s properly.

Taking the Mystery out of Copyright

Citation Help

Also found a similar list here: http://staffroomhq.com/2012/01/23/10-essential-tech-skills-students-need-to-know/

Open a magazine, a catalog, or take a look at sign in your local grocery market these days and you’re likely to see a QR code.  To that end, Russel Tarr has developed the QR Treasure Hunt Generator.

The QR Treasure Hunt Generator provides you with all of the things you need to get started creating your own QR codes and using them in your classroom. To use the QR Treasure Hunt Generator type out a series of questions and answers, generate the QR codes using the tool Russel Tarr provides, then print and display the codes around your classroom or school.

What is a QR Code?

This is a QR or Quick Response Code.  Simply put,  it is a 3D barcode read horizontally and vertically.  Because QR Codes can contain up to 4000 characters of information you can put a ton of information in just one code. For example, it could be something as simple as a web address. QR codes are also beginning to appear on business cards because, again, they can contain lots more information. But by far their most popular use is for web addresses. Ads contained codes to sales information that didn’t appear in the ad or on the regular website.  In a nutshell, you need a device that has a camera so you can scan or take a picture of the code, a program to do the decoding and web access to see where the code takes you. This is usually used with cell phones and ipads, but a web cam with software installed can read these as well.

Apps:
You will need a reader installed on your phone. There are lots to choose from and most are free. For the iPhone NeoReader seems to be the most popular. On Android the Barcode Scanner from Zxing is very popular. But NeoReader works on most Android phones as well. There are other apps too for non-smartphones. Just do a Google search for your phone and “qr code reader” and you should come up with something.

Ideas in the Classroom:

• I have seen them is at a zoo. You can walk up to the exhibit, scan the code and get more information about the animals and even video and audio. (Great for those times when the animals aren’t active.)
• One idea for use in the classroom that comes to mind is books.  If you threw in a QR code on the front cover. The students can scan and read a book review written by a student from last year or even watch a video trailer of the book that a student created as part of a project. All of that information  contained in a small black and white square on the cover of the book.
• Create a QR with the answers embedded right in the code and put it on the top of the next week’s homework assignment.
• Create a QR code for each teacher outside their classroom for students and parents alike to scan the information.

Creating QR Codes:
There are lots of different websites that will allow you to make QR codes. One of my favorite is from Kaywa.   Just select the ‘text’ radio button and start typing. When you are finished, chose the size that you want and click ‘generate’. A QR code will appear on the screen.  Right mouse click it, copy and paste into your document or embedded on website.  It’s that easy.  Or if you want just a website for the user to be directed to, it is very easy.

Google forms are fabulous for gathering information, but sometimes, the data in the spreadsheet can be difficult to view. In this post, I’ll share a simple-to-implement formula and a bonus tip that will make it much easier to deal with (and even print) form-fed data!

The Original Data:

When you collect data into a Google spreadsheet from a form, it will look something like this:

If you have a large amount of questions (and especially if some of them are essay questions), it requires a lot of scrolling to view the data.

The Transpose Formula: By using the “Transpose” formula, you can easily make the data look like this:

Notice that the information is now vertical instead of horizontal, making it much easier to view individual responses.

How to do it:   Transpose Formula
Changes data from rows to columns

1. Create a new sheet.
2. Enter the following formula in ceel A1 of Sheet2:  =Transpose (Sheet1!A:H)
   Note: Adjust A:H to the desired range of columns. If you don’t want the timestamp to show, enter B:H.
3. Press the enter key and watch the data fill the sheet!

Inserting Rows (optional)

• If you want, you can insert rows (use the “Insert” menu) within the data to add labels, notes, or formulas.

• Once you’ve entered a label or formula, grab the square in the bottom-right corner of the cell and drag across to the right to fill the label/formula across.

• For printing purposes (see bonus tip below) select all cells and change the alignment to “left” and “top.” (Use the “alignment” icon in the toolbar at the top of the page.)

•Change fonts, colors, styles, and sizes, as desired.
• Resize the rows to change the spacing within the data.

Example:

Bonus Tip
Printing All Records (One per page)

1. Follow the directions above to transpose the data
2. Follow the directions above to insert rows and add labels (optional).
3. Click the triangle at the top of Column A and choose “Hide Column.”
4. Select all columns with data.
5. Click a triangle in the column header area and “resize” the column widths to 725.
6. Note – The number 725 may need to be adjusted for different printers.
7. Choose the print options shown in the screen shot below.

If all goes well, each “record” will print on a separate page:

C

Education blogger David Kapuler has created a free slideshow of 50 great sites for education, creativity, organization and more. Each slide includes basic information about the site, a link to the site, and a link to Kapuler’s review of the site.

Also has other slide shows on this SlideShare channel.

All types of tools for students and teachers–research tools, slideshow tools, music tools, graphing tools.  Excellent jumping off point for Web 2.0 tools.

Another site that shows a lot of promise is a blog by the David Andrade, “Educational Technology Guy“.

Simple Booklet is advertised as the “Web’s Simplest Do-it-yourself Digital Booklet”.  Using templates, you can create any type of booklet on the web.  The booklet can be any size, and you can publish it anywhere you want.  It can be emailed, embed it on a website or blog or even store it on simplebooklet.com and share a short URL directly to it.  Add text, images, web pages, video, music, embeddable widgets and more from your computer or from anywhere on the web.  Items can be drag and dropped, resized or layered on the page.  These booklets can be viewed on the iPad, iPhone and any mobile device with web browser that supports the touch to flip through pages.

Five Ways to Make Word Clouds from Text

Wordlings is a new service for creating word clouds from blocks of text. Sign into Wordlings with your Twitter or Facebook account to have it create a word cloud of your posts. You can also copy and paste chunks of text into Wordlings. Wordlings allows you to choose from a large variety of shapes and sizes for displaying your word clouds.

Tagul is a free word cloud generator that offers the option to link every word in your word cloud to a Google search. Click on any word in your word cloud to be taken directly to a Google search results page for that word. Tagul creates a word cloud from text you copy into your Tagul account. Tagul will also generate a word cloud from any url you specify. Just as you can with other word cloud generators, Tagul allows you to specify words to ignore in creating your word clouds. Once your word cloud is created Tagul provides you with an embed code to put your cloud on your blog or website.

Word It Out creates word clouds out of any text that you paste into the word cloud generator. Once the word cloud is created you can customize the size and color scheme of the cloud. You can also customize the font used in your word cloud. The feature of Word It Out that I like the best is that you can choose to have Word It Out ignore any word or words you choose. Ignoring words keeps them out of the word cloud.

Tagxedo makes it very easy to customize the design of your word clouds. You can select from a variety of shapes in which to display words or you can design your shape for your word cloud. You can enter text into the word cloud generator manually or simply enter a url from which Tagxedo will generate a word cloud. As with other word cloud generators you also have options for excluding words from your word clouds.

Amongst educators Wordle is probably the most famous word cloud generator. Wordle provides many options for color, shapes, and fonts for displaying your word clouds. A couple of years ago Tom Barrett started an Interesting Ways presentation about using Wordle in the classroom. That presentation now has 51 ideas. Check it out below.

The Teacher’s Guide:  Great interactive resource websites for the SMARTboard, PowerPoint, printables, and other interactive links with virtual field trips, whiteboard templates, book activities, songs organized by grade level, themes, or technology items.  Also included teacher-submitted materials all free for use by students or teachers.

ClassTools.net: Create free educational games, quizzes, activities and diagrams in seconds and then post them to your own blog or website. No charge, no signup required. Templates abound in all areas of the curriculum. Students can design multiple interactive games from the same set of questions and answers. Newest template is “Fakebook” (a Facebook template that allows teachers and students to create imaginary profile pages for study purposes for book characters, historical people, chart the plot of a book, the development of a character, a series of historical events, the debates and relationships between people, and so on.)

Solar System Scope:  Interactive, 3D model of solar system planets and night sky.

PhET :  Fun, interactive simulations of physical phenomena–physics, chemistry, earth science, physical science and math simulations– from the PhET project at the University of Colorado.  These simulations can run online, download them or even embed them in your website for student use.