Tech Tip #50: The Easiest Way to Outline

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q:  My fifth graders are learning outlining in the classroom. Is there an easy way to tie that into technology?

A:  Outlining can’t be easier than doing it in Word. Here’s what you do:

• Select the Numbered List or the Bullet List in MS Word. MS Word 2010 even lets you select the style up front. MS Word 2003–it’s a bit more complicated
• Your first bullet or number appears on the screen. Type your item
• Push enter to add another number or bullet
• To create a subpoint, push tab after you’ve pushed enter to start the next bullet/number
• To push a subpoint up a level, push Shift+tab after you’ve pushed enter for the next bullet/number

That’s it–three keys:

Tech Tip #49: The Fifteen Second Slideshow

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q:  My kindergarten and first grade students are too young to create their own slideshows for Open House (or any parent day) and I’m just too busy. What’s an easy way to display their work digitally for parents that also involves the students in the preparation?

A:  I had this problem last year. I simply ran out of time trying to prepare so I offloaded the work onto the students. I was worried it would be too much, but it turned into a wonderful experience for students and parents alike. Here’s all you do:

Tech Tip #48: Quickly Switch Between Windows

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I’m copy-pasting between a Word doc and an Excel doc on my computer. I know how to do that, but here’s the problem: I have three Word docs open. I don’t want to close the other two because I’ll need them soon. It takes a lot of time to click down to the taskbar, bring up the Word group and find the correct Word doc. Is there an easier way?

A: Oh yes, Much easier. Use Alt+tab. That takes you to the last window you visited. If you’re toggling between two windows, this is the perfect solution. I use it a lot for grading and report cards.

Tech Tip #47: Tool Tips

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

This week’s tip: I’m supposed to find a tool on the toolbar, but there are so many and I have no idea what they are for? It’s just as bunch of pictures to me. Is there an easy way to figure this out?

A:  To figure out what a tool does on the toolbar or 2007/10”s ribbon, hover your mouse over the tool (place the mouse above it without clicking). A tool tip will appear with a clue as to what it’s for.

This works in any program with a toolbar or ribbon–MS Office, the internet, Photoshop, and more.

Tech Tip #46: The Easiest Way to Explain Right and Left to (Little) Kids

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I teach kindergarten. They don’t always understand the difference between left and right.

A: There are two times kids get confused about right and left when I’m teaching:

• right mouse button
• clicking in front of a spot (to edit, use the tab key, format–stuff like that)

I’ve found an easy way to clarify. Here’s an example:

Tech Tip #45: Your Screen Upside Down?

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: My screen is sideways 90 degrees. How do I fix that?

A: If you ever needed this, you’re going to be blessing me. If you’ve never faced that off-kilter screen, you’re going to wonder why I’d post this tip.

Of course, I’ve faced it–I run a tech lab and there are always those pesky prodigies who want to outsmart me. They know if they push Ctrl+Alt+(down arrow), it’ll turn the screen upside down. The first time it happened, I was at a loss. That’s when a different pesky prodigy told me how to fix it:

Tech Tip #36: The Internet Toolbar Disappeared

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q:  My internet toolbar disappeared. All I see at the top of the screen is, more of the page I’m on. No tools. What do I do?

A:  Push F11. You can hide the internet toolbar or unhide with F11. It’s that simple.

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Tech Tip #31: What’s Today’s Date

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I can never remember today’s date. And, I can’t remember where to find it on my computer. Help!

A: There are lots of ways:

• Hover over the clock and it tells you the date
• Shift+Alt+D in Word
• Ctrl+; in Excel
• Start typing the date in a Word doc and Word finishes it for you

Tech Tip #106: Fastest Way to Add a Period When Typing on an IPad

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: Typing on the iPad keyboard is slow. You have to access two different screens to type most messages. How do I speed that up without buying (and installing) a separate QWERTY keyboard?

A: Here’s one time-saving tip: IPads and most Smartphones will add a period (which inconveniently is on the second screen) if you double-space.

Cool.

BTW–double-tapping a key seems to be a secret shortkey for other tools also. For example, if you double-click the shift key, it turns the CAPS LOCK on.

Tech Tip #24: How to Open A New Word Doc Without the Program

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q:  I can’t find the Word icon that opens MS Word. What do I do?

A:  Let’s say you looked on your desktop and the Word icon that usually opens MS Word has disappeared. These things happen and always at the worst time. You might have pinned it to the start menu (see Tech Tip #53: How to Pin Any Program to the Start Menu), but what if you didn’t?

No problem. All you have to do is right click on the desktop and pick New Word Doc. That’s what it does–opens a new Word doc for you without going through opening the program first.

Snazzy.

Tech Tip #22: Quick Exit from 97% of Programs

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q:  My child has a program on the computer and I can’t figure out how to get out of it. There’s no File-exit, no menu. What do I do?

A:  Try the old standby from Windows’ earliest days–Alt+F4. It works on almost all programs. I use it on the kindergarten programs in my lab all the time.

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Tech Tip #94: Shortkey for Find

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: Isn’t there a shortkey for searching a website?

A: There is. It’s Ctrl+F. It’s been around for, well, forever, but I’d forgotten about it until my efriend Sandy reminded me. As she posted on her blog, EdTechSandy, If you didn’t know about CTRL+F, don’t feel bad. According to the article, 90% of folks don’t know about it.

Tech Tip #89: Use Keyboard Shortcuts With Students

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q:When tech gets difficult, my students stop trying. Class goes fine when the skills are similar to those used in their online games, but if it gets challenging, like remembering all the steps required to add a border to an Excel cell (or you fill in the blank with that show-stopping skill that everyone turns off to), they aren’t interested. What do I do?

A: After twelve years of teaching K-5, I know as sure as I know who our president is that kids will try harder if its fun. The challenge for us teachers: How do we make a multi-step skill that they may rarely use ‘fun’?

Tech Tip #18: Ten Best MS Word Tips–How Did You Survive Without Them

Here are the most popular. The ones with links are from my Tech Tip Tuesday series. Go ahead and click them for more detail. The others–they’re coming up. Sign up so you won’t miss any (see below).

1. How to Undelete–push Ctrl+Z
2. How to Show the Entire Drop Down Menu at once instead of clicking the menu item, clicking the double arrows at the bottom of the drop down list just to find your choice
3. If your screen freezes, check around your workspace before you declare it frozen. There’s probably a dialog box that needs to be handled

Tech Tip #73: Alt+??? Brings up which Menu Command?

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I always forget the keyboard shortcuts for the menu commands. Can you give me a list?

A: I’ll do one better. MS Office 07 and 10 makes that easy. Just push the Alt key and it tells you what number or letter is associated with which menu command.

Tech Tip #68: Check History in Your Browser

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q:How do I check to see where my kids/students have been online without making them think I don’t trust them?

Tech Tip #67: How to Add Accents and more

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I teach Spanish and need a quick way to add accents to words. Can you help?

Tech Tip #59: Shortkey for the Copyright Symbol

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: How do you create the copyright symbol in Word?

Tech Tip #56: Force a New Page

Tech tips

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #45: Your Screen Upside Down?

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #22: Quick Exit from 97% of Programs

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q:  My child has a program on the computer and I can’t figure out how to get out of it. There’s no File-exit, no menu. What do I do.

A:  Try the old standby from Windows earliest days–Alt+F4. It works on almost all programs. I use it on the kindergarten programs in my lab all the time.

Questions you want answered or to sign up for Tech Tips delivered to your email, click here.

To purchase 98 Tech Problems from the Classroom and How Students Can Solve Them, click here.

Tech Tip #50: The Easiest Way to Outline

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #36: The Internet Toolbar Disappeared

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #19: How to Activate a Link in Word

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #20: How to Add A Link to Word

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #31: What’s Today’s Date

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #18: No Excuse for Spelling Errors

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each week, I’ll share one with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #30: Menu Command is Greyed Out

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #27: My Taskbar Disappeared

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #24: How to Open A New Word Doc Without the Program

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #17: Don’t Know the Date? No Problem

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #15: Save Early Save Often

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #10: How to Undelete

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q:  I was typing and wanted to make a change (formatting, etc). Suddenly, my whole paragraph/sentence/document (fill in your disaster) disappeared. How do I get it back?

A:  Let me start by saying, this Undelete tip doesn’t apply to deleted files or folders. I’m talking about when you’re typing and for some reason known only to God, all or part of your work is deleted. One moment you have two pages of your work memo completed; then, before you can scream Stop! it’s gone.

Two ideas:

• Push Ctrl+Z to undo your last steps. You may not even realize you deleted, so go back in time one step at a time until it comes back
• If the entire program disappeared from your screen, check the taskbar. It might be sleeping down there. Click on it to awaken.

Tech Tip #9: Quickly Hide Your Screen

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

How do I quickly hide what I’m working on from prying eyes. Not just the Win 7 key that minimizes everything to the desktop, but so it looks like I’m working on something else than what I am?

Press “alt+tab” simultaneously on your keyboard (or Command-Tab on a Mac). It’ll hide the window that’s on your screen and bring up one from behind it. This trick is used most often by office personnel, hiding the fact that they’re surfing the Net at work, but it’s useful for any number of other reasons. It’s also a verb, as in, “I had to alt+tab when my boyfriend dropped by.”

Questions you want answered? Leave a comment here and I’ll answer it within the next thirty days.

#102: 23 Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts

Nothing makes computer work faster than keybaord shortcuts. And, it is the rare student who doesn’t claim them as their own and pass on to friends their favorites.

Tech Tip #7: Transparent Backgrounds

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

End-of-the-week-Laugher #2

Useful shortkeys

–thank you Dave Salgante

Tech Tip #5: Reveal a Program

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

How to Automate an MLA Heading

This one is a quickie–teach students how to create a macro. Use an MLA-appropriate heading as an example.

Tech Tip #2: The PrintScreen Key

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!