Have You Heard of Open Office?

Greetings,

I hope you had a Great Fourth of July Week.  This week I will be sharing with you a free open-source office software suite for Word Processing, Presentations, Spreadsheets, Graphics and Databases and More.  There are a lot of people who are not aware about this free software.

If you click on the picture above, it will take you to the site where you can download this free open sources office software package.  That's right for free!  This is a program that has similar functions as the Microsoft Office 2003 software applications such as (Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Access). 

There are free tutorials on the web site and on YouTube where you can learn how to use all of the free open-source office software programs.  The best thing about this free software is you can use it for any purpose you wish and that includes commercial and educational. 

You can also install it to as many computers as you like.  You can make as many copies and give them away to family, friends, students and employees.  If you are not using the MS Office 2010, 2007 or 2003 software applications, I encourage you to download Open Office. 

You will want to learn, practice, create projects and then teach others how to use it.  I hope you enjoy this free resource.  Don't forget, if you are currently learning how to use PowerPoint 2010, you can check out my free tutorials on YouTube.  Just search for the Complabteacher channel.  I will see you next week.  Take care.

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Free Multiplication Tables and Games!

Greetings,

Updated: April 8, 2012: Just added Multiplying 1 to 10 on the Multiplication Chart Video.  Simply click on the video below.



Today I am blogging about sharing some valuable tools I have created to assist your students with multiplication and division.  A lot of students who have performed at a high level in math have memorized their multiplication tables all the way up to their twelves. 

You can start teaching these tables as early as second grade.  These tools will give your son or daughter a great advantage when it come to multiplication and division.  Ok, here are the resources.

Just click on the picture below to save this free Power Point. It also has a blank multiplication table so your students can practice filling out the tables.

The next PowerPoint allows you to print a pocket version of the multiplication table.  When you download this PowerPoint, you can make copies, cut them out and pass them out to your students.  Simply click on the picture below to download this one.

Now you can dowload and print a free Multiplication 12 X 12 Blank Table to practice filling in your multiplication facts with your child.  Simply click on the picture below to dowload the free PDF

The last activity was created in Excel.  When you download this activity, you will get a message to enable macros.  You will want to enable macros. It is a code that will clear all the green cells and turn them all orange, so you can play again.  Follow the steps below.

Step 1

Step 2

You will notice that all the cells are colored orange.  When you fill in the cell with the correct number, the cell will turn green. When you fill in the cell with the incorrect answer, the cell will turn red. Simply click on the picture below to download and save.  When you exit the program, do not save it again.

I hope you enjoy these free tools you can use with your students to learn their multiplication tables.  Next week I will be posting additional PowerPoints on addition tables for your K - 2 students.  See you next week!

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Free Quick References for You

Greetings

Today I will be sharing with you a web site where you can get access to quick references on various software programs for free. Once you download the quick reference guides, you can print the two pages out as a colorful pdf document. You can also glue them back to back and laminate them. You now have a quick reference guide for all the Microsoft Office and Adobe software titles listed above.

All you have to do is go to http://www.customguide.com/ and click on the Product Tour tab. Look on the right hand side of the screen and fill out the following information below to access the free quick reference guides.

These quick reference guides can assist you in your training needs. Hope you enjoy these free guides. We will see you next week with another exciting topic. Take care.

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30 in 48 Days!

Greetings,

Hopefully you are having a great Labor Day today. This week I will be sharing with you the exciting trainings I have been involved in over the summer. Yes, it is true that I had the opportunity to take over $11,000 of advanced technology training classes and received 25 software books with lessons, exercises and online files.

Our technology department was so kind and gracious to purchase Summer PassPort Passes from New Horizons Computer Learning Center for a few of our Computer Lab Teachers. New Horizons is a technology learning center where you can take classes for a nominal fee. I participated in almost 30 advance technology classes. Some of the classes included Adobe CS4 software like Photoshop (web and print), Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver and Acrobat. Other classes included, Web Design with XHTML, HTML, CSS and SharePoint Designer 2007.

I can not forget the MS Office 2007 classes I took, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher and Visual Basics Application (VBA) Programming. VBA is a class where you learn how to create macros or type code in MS Office programs. Out of all these classes I participated in, I had the chance to take Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced classes. Most of the classes were anywhere from 7 hours to 14 hour classes and daily classes would be from 8AM - 4PM, Mon. - Fri.

I knew a lot of the MS Office software programs, but this gave me a chance to brush up and review key concepts, tasks and ideas. I did not realize the value of these classes. If you were to take these classes on average it would cost you around $300 and if you were to take the Adobe classes it could run you nearly $700. What an investment! If I had to add the total instructional hours it would total over 200 hours!

I am sharing this information with you not to impress you, but to impress upon you to really achieve, and reach your goals and to continue to learn in whatever field you are in. I now have build up my technology library and created a reference library. These are invaluable resources and references that will assist me to create additional tasks and exercises for all my teachers and students.

I also met some great instructors and students at New Horizons. I hope to continue my education and attend New Horizons next year to take MS Office 2010 classes and Adobe CS5 classes. For additional resources for your training needs, please visit http://www.newhorizons.com/ or you can get a subscription for online learning video classes at www.atomiclearning.com Hope to see you next week. Have a great week!

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What is Scribd and SlideShare?

Greetings,

Today I am excited to share with you Scribd.com and SlideShare.com in greater details. These are both web sites where you can download or share valuable resources. Ok, let's get started with Scribd.com. If you click on the picture below, it will take you to the website.



Check out Scribd 101
or you can watch the video below.



Remember, if you are interested in creating your own blog, and publishing your own blog, it is as easy as clicking on this link below to get the instructions. http://mikejmoran.typepad.com/visual_media/2009/11/creating-a-blog-using-blogger.html or you can click on this link below to see the document http://www.scribd.com/doc/22339943/Creating-a-Blog-in-Blogger If you want to download the power point or PDF then you can become a member of http://www.scribd.com/ for free and download all types of free informational documents. You can post any online document to share with the community. You can also charge for people to download your document and you keep 80% of profit.

Now we are ready to talk about SlideShare. Slideshare is a web site where you can also download free resources.
If you click on the picture below, it will take you to SlideShare.



Check out SlideShare 101
or you can watch the video below.



Stay tuned for next week. I will be sharing with you how to download YouTube videos for your next presentation. Videos are always useful and helpful in getting your point across to your audience. See you next week.

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How to Find Free Microsoft Office Power Point, Word and Excel Templates

Greetings,

Today I am blogging about how to download thousands of free office templates from Microsoft Office. If you click on the picture above, it will take you to the Microsoft site where they post their free templates. Also if you create a template, you can upload it to their server and others will be able to download it as well. I am currently working on a (5 Year Planner) 2010 - 2015, 3 month planning calendar that I will be posting soon on the site. Stay tuned and I will let you know when I post it. It will be posted under academic year calendars. Hope this helps out. See you next week.

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Free Resources You Can Download and Use in Your Classroom!

Greetings Colleagues,

Today I am blogging about a Great web site where you can find free, and valuable resources that other teachers have created and posted. You can sign up and join the community for free. When you sign up, you can search for all types of Microsoft Word, Excel, and Power Point documents, as well as pdf's. You will find many forms on classroom management, behavioral reward systems and behavioral contracts. I personally have searched the site for many useful documents that I have shared with other teachers. Just click on the picture to the left of this post to get started. Here is a list of 10 additional resources you will find on the site:

1. Beginning Teacher & Professional Development
2. Teaching Practices
3. Classroom Management
4. Managing Student Centers
5. Homework Ideas
6. Writing Ideas
7. Seasonal and Holiday Ideas
8. Science, Social Studies, Math, Reading, Language Arts Ideas
9. Technology Ideas
10. Visual and Performing Arts Ideas

Hope you enjoy the site. This is probably one of the most comprehensive collections of helpful documents I have found. When you get a chance, sign up for a free account and search for many ideas that you can use in your classroom. Hope this helps. Next week I will be blogging about podcasting and vodcasting. See you next week.

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