Tutorials for teachers- Essential softwares for your computers

This tutorial is about essential software programs which you may need to use your computer effectively. Most of the software programs are available at no cost.

Whenever I re-install my 'Windows' I keep a folder ready at 'software' drive which is named as 'Essential software' as I need those programs to install every time I install new 'Windows'. Let's learn basics about 'Windows'
Windows is the most popular PC operating system in the world. An operating system, or OS, is a software program that enables the computer hardware to communicate and operate with the computer software. Without a computer operating system, a computer would be useless. Other programs can't run on a PC until the OS is loaded and running. Windows 98, Windows XP, and now Windows 7 or 8 are examples of operating systems.

Tutorials for teachers - Learning about software programs and how to install them?

While I was taking the computer training session for my co-teachers, I noticed that teachers are enthusiastic about use of computers and internet. During online search for education materials, we need to save our documents, but often it becomes difficult to open that file.
What kind of files we need to open?
Mostly these files are in Word, PDF, PowerPoint, Zip, Rar format. So if your computer doesn't have specific software to open these files, you cannot get results from your search. I am listing here essential software programs which are helpful to open specific kind of files.

Why Muslim Women Wear Hijaab and is there any Hijaab in Other Religions?

Hijaab (or burka) is an Arabic word meaning barrier or partition. Hijab is the principle of modesty in Islam and includes behaviour as well as dress for both males and females. The most important thing about Hijab is that it gives you an identity of a Muslim. Moreover, it is another way of obedience to Allah's (SWT) command. How the communities of world can abide a muslim woman to wear hijaab when there is no restriction for other religions to follow the dress code according to their customs or religious teachings?

In Islam, the words of Allah (God) are that the women should be modest and follow the principle of clothing. She should cover her beauty. At home or among family or in front of her husband there is no need to wear the Muslim headscarf. Many Muslim women wear the headscarf.

Teachers tutorial - Refining your online search with web directories

If you are clear about the topic of your query, start with a Web directory rather than a search engine. Directories probably won't give you anywhere near as many references as a search engine will, but they are more likely to be on topic.

A web directory or link directory is a directory on the World Wide Web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links. A web directory is a subject-tree style catalogue that organizes the Web into major topics such as education, health, science, etc. A web directory is not a search engine and does not display lists of web pages based on keywords; instead, it lists web sites by category and subcategory.

Tutorial for teachers- use of specific keywords for online search

It is an art to learn to refine our online search to get the effective results.
What are the techniques or tricks which can help us maximize our chance of finding what we want with online search?
This article helps you learn effective online search tips and techniques.
I am an educator dealing in reception years and thus I suggest early year teachers to start searching for educational stuff by using these keywords:
- Early years
- Foundation stage
- EYFS (Early years foundation stage)
- Type the subject in search field such as 'art, religion, numeracy, literacy etc.

Which are printer friendly fonts to save money with your printing jobs?

Printer ink is expensive, either black and white or color. In this article we are learning about use of 'printer friendly fonts and how we can save money with printer ink? Printer friendly fonts can help you save with printing jobs.
Fonts like Arial, Times News Roman, Courier, Helvetica, etc. are generally used in most of the cases, but which one is the most economic typeface when it comes to printing?

A Dutch printing company did some research and found that Century Gothic and Times New Roman fonts use far less ink or toner than Arial and Sans Serif. In fact, they found that Century Gothic uses around 30% less ink than Arial. They carried out a case study at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay who spent around $100,000 per year on ink; they switched from Arial to Century Gothic and saw a saving of around $10,000 per year.

Computer training- Using search engines to prepare resources and worksheets

Being an educator at any school means a lot to us. We educators get a lot of opportunities to participate in 'self development' training or workshops during whole year. After successful completion of a year, various training sessions or workshops are held to train all teachers. The purpose of these training or learning sessions is "skill development and become excellent teachers"
I was assigned to take a training session for early years teachers today.
The topic was, 'Using search engines to prepare resources and worksheets for classroom use/educational needs'.
15 teachers participated in this training. I prepared a 'Power Point Slide' to introduce the basics of search engines, keywords, searching tips etc. It was my pleasure to see that after watching slide teachers were enthusiastic to apply the knowledge practically.

Best ways to download YouTube videos

We teachers need to download videos from internet often. I have tried many softwares to download these videos but usually these free to use software programs don't give you the satisfactory results. I searched online to find best ways to download 'YouTube' videos and sharing the result of my findings.

YouTube is the most popular video sharing site on the internet, allows its users to upload and share videos easily but doesn’t provide any way to download them.

Best ways to download YouTube videos:
I don't recommend using professional downloading software programs to download YouTube videos, as there are many ways to grab these videos and save at your pc hard disk.

Join Google Advanced Search Course online

It was a good news for me to get this news that 'Google is offering free e-course on advanced search which is called "Power Searching by Google". It is a great opportunity for people who browse a lot of information at net. 
>

Join this course and become a power searcher. This free course is open for everyone but you need to register TODAY
Google is providing '50-minute classes' in a total of six sessions to help us quicken our search time and also extract exactly what we need. I am sure you realize the value of this course. 


More details and registration for this free e-course on Power Searching by Google can be found at http://www.google.com/insidesearch/landing/powersearching.html 


When you pass out the sessions, a printable Certificate of Completion will be emailed to you. 
Register today. Registration process is very easy, just write your full name at provided box and if you already have a 'Google' account, you will be registered without any hassle.


The sessions start on 10th July. 

Tutorial for teachers- Downloading files from the Internet

When I was novice to computers and internet, it took weeks and months to learn the basics of internet and computers. Sometimes I found useful links or sites and saved them at my computer and found the files but after many trial and error efforts, I learned to save the files from the internet to hard disk. These simple tutorials can save your time to learn the basics of internet. Interestingly most of these tutorials are offered by renowned sites like 'Microsoft' itself.

Downloading a file from the internet: When you download a file, you transfer it from the Internet to your computer. The most commonly downloaded files are programs, updates, or other kinds of files such as game demos, music and video files, or documents. Downloading can also mean copying information from any source to a computer or other device, such as copying your favorite songs to a portable music player.

Where are downloaded files saved?
When you download files, Windows usually saves them in the Downloads folder which is located under your user name in the users folder on the drive where Windows is installed.
It is stored at the location: C:\users\your name\downloads.

When you are saving the file, you can choose to save it to a different folder. Some different types of files are saved to different folders by default. For example, if you right-click a picture on a webpage and then choose Save Picture As from the menu, the picture will be saved to the Pictures folder by default. If you're not sure where the file was saved, you can search for it from the Start menu.
When it take so long to download a file, there may be many reasons for delay: 

• Your connection might be slow. If you have a dial-up connection, it takes a lot longer to download files than if you have a broadband connection, such as DSL or cable.
• Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) might be offline or experiencing heavy Internet traffic. Wait a while, and then try again.
• If you are on a corporate network, the network settings might be the problem. Check with your system administrator.
• If you use a file or music sharing program, someone might be downloading a file from your computer. Try disabling file sharing services while you're downloading and see if the process gets faster.
• You might have too many programs open at the same time. Try closing unnecessary programs.
• Your computer might have spyware running. Try scanning your computer for spyware. For more information about removing spyware, see Remove spyware from your computer.
• Missing updates can affect your computer's performance. Go to the Windows Update website and check for updates.

Reference: http://windows.microsoft.com/

Useful links:
Find a file you have downloaded

Tutorial for teachers- Using image search engines and sites to find images and clip art

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Tutorial for teachers - How to select keywords to get the best search results?

Learning to find information quickly and effectively is essential to successfully using the Internet. Specialized search Web sites allow users to search for content that meets the selection criteria they specify. Keyword searching is an effective way to locate information on the World Wide Web.
Keywords are used to find relevant Web sites and pages. "key" has more than one meaning; here it means "important.
We are now learning  'how to select keywords to produce the best search results?'
Following procedure can help you get the best search results.

Procedure for selecting suitable keywords and use them to get the best search results:
Fine-tune your keywords: 
If you're searching on a noun (the name of a person, place or thing), remember that most nouns are subsets of other nouns. Enter the smallest possible subset that describes what you want. Be specific. Try to meet the search engine halfway by refining your search before you begin.

Example: If you want to buy a car, don't enter the keyword "car" if you can enter the keyword "Toyota." Better still, enter the phrase "Toyota Dealerships" AND the name of the city where you live.

Be Refined: 
Read the help files and take advantage of the available search refining options. Use phrases, if possible. Use the Boolean AND (or the character +) to include other keywords that you would expect to find in relevant documents.
Also learn to EXCLUDE with the Boolean NOT. Excluding is particularly important as the Web grows and more documents are posted. Run your initial query over again several times, each time adding further refinements to narrow down your list of relevant hits.

Example: If you want to find out how medical details about your grandmother's diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease, try entering "Alzheimer's" AND "symptoms" AND "prognosis." If you want to find out about Alzheimer's care and community resources, query on "Alzheimer's" AND "support groups" AND "resources" AND NOT "symptoms."

Query by example: 
Take advantage of the option that many search engine sites are now offering: you can "query by example," or "find similar sites," to the ones that come up on your initial hit list. Essentially what you're doing is telling the search engine, "yes, this looks promising, give me more like this one."

Anticipate the answers: 
Before searching, try to imagine what the ideal page you would like to access would look like. Think about the words its title would contain. Think about what words would be in the first couple of sentences of a webpage that you would consider useful. Use those words, or that phrase, when you enter your query.

Tutorial for teachers: Using the information friendly search engine for your educational needs

Internet have become an essential part of educational industry, for being great source of information. Educators are now able to grab load of information within seconds use it effectively for educational needs. To make our search effective and time saving we need to look for specific search engines which are 'Information Friendly'.Information friendly are the search sites or engines which provide the specific and reliable information for our educational needs.
You are going to learn 'why educators need to use 'information friendly search engines' to narrow their search and find the specific information saving their time.
Are popular search engines, information friendly? I will say 'NO' and the reason is:

• With billions of pages, you could spend a lifetime hunting for specific information.
Popular search engines let you define search criteria in very specific ways, but not all function identically.