Technology How-To
We've assembled some of the most commonly asked technology related questions into an easy to use guide. Click on a letter below to go to a topic or browse down the page to read them all.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A
ACCESS Database Training: Microsoft Access Tutorial
Adobe Acrobat: Acrobat is a free program that is used to view PDF files. If you are still using Acrobat 5.0 or earlier, download the latest version here.
Assessment Teams: We have formed assessment teams in each building as part of this year's educational technology grant. The goal is to develop the capacity in each school to utilize TestWiz to identify individual student and whole school strengths and weaknesses as measured by MCAS and Stanford 9 and 10 testing. The following templates have been developed to assist with this analysis.
- Gr 3 AYP 3 Year Assessment
- Gr 4 AYP 3 Year Assessment
- Gr 6 AYP 3 Year Assessment
- Gr 7 AYP 3 Year Assessment
- Gr 8 AYP 3 Year Assessment
- Gr 10 AYP 3 Year Assessment
Attendance Online: Check daily attendance.
B
Browsers: Browsers are the software which let you view web pages. Currently popular browsers include Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) and Mozilla's Firefox. There are other browsers, including Safari for MACs and Opera, but they have their advantages and disadvantages. Safari only works on MACs and Opera has some issues displaying pages properly. Firefox lets you open multiple tabs to view pages in separate windows rather than creating a separate task for each open page in Internet Explorer. IE has far more third-party plug-ins (which you may not need anyway to do basic viewing). Firefox is independent of your operating system - and does not expose your computer to as many outside security risks. IE version 7.0 promises to catch up with some of Firefox's innovations including tabbed browsing the RSS feeds - but IE 7 is only available for computers running Windows XP with service pack 2 installed. If you are still running Netscape (any version) or IE 5 or earlier, please download a new browser. It is free, easy and fast - and will make your Internet usage faster and more secure.
Bottom line: Firefox is a great browser which is more secure and will work on both your PC and your MAC. It is customizable and has tabbed viewing. You can download and install the latest version of Firefox here.
If you prefer to stay with IE, please be sure that you are running the latest version of IE which includes all the security updates. If you have Windows 98 or 2000, download IE 6 here. If you have Windows XP, download IE 7 here.
C
Computer Basics:
D
Digital Cameras: Introduction and Directions
E
Email:
- How to access your QPS email account from home or on the road
- Directions for using Netscape Communicator Email
- Using Email with Outlook Express.
- Click here for a general online tutorial on using email.
English/Language Arts Lessons Integrating Technology: Use the "Cyber Guides" for tutorial or extra credit lessons.
F
Facility Rentals: How to reserve a facility.
Front Page: Click here for a web page tutorial using Microsoft FrontPage.
G
Geometer's Sketchpad: Training Introduction and Links
Graphic Organizers: Resource kit.
H
History and Social Science Lessons: A resource for technology integrated lessons in history and the social sciences.
I
Incident Reports: Directions for completing the Incident Report template.
Internet Basics:
Internet Explorer - see browsers
J
K
L
M
Math Lessons (K-12): Technology integrated math lessons for tutorials or extra credit
Microsoft PowerPoint: We have free online tutorials and you can download a viewer. See PowerPoint.
Microsoft Word: We have free online tutorials. See Word.
Microsoft Excel: We have free online tutorials. See Excel.
Microsoft Internet Explorer: see browsers
Microsoft Access: We have free online tutorials. see Access
Mozilla Firefox: see browsers
Multiple Intelligences: learn to integrate MI with technology
N
Notices (Daily Notices to Staff): Using a shared folder for daily notices.
O
P
PDFs: Portable Document Format files allow any user to view any document. PDFs are generally a much smaller file size than your original document and provide a way to send a document that cannot easily be altered without the right software. This is handy for posting downloadable files to your web that students can view and print but cannot change.
To view the PDFs, you will need a (free) copy of Adobe Acrobat . To create PDFs, you will need either Adobe Acrobat Professional ($$$) or you can download a free utility. PC users can download PDF Redirect. MAC users can download the Adobe PDF Print Driver which will let you choose PDF as one of your printers.
- Florida Gulf Coast University Course - in depth
- Cyberbee - simple straightforward basics
- PowerPoint in the classroom
PowerPoint Viewer: If you don't have PowerPoint installed on your system, but you need to view a PowerPoint presentation, you can download a free PowerPoint viewer.
Q
R
S
Safari: Safari is a proprietary browser for MACs. This means that it will not run on your PC. Safari is a relatively new browser. Since Safari only works on your MAC, and since there are better cross-platform browsers, go to our browser section to read more about recommended browsers.
StarBase: StarBase is the student registration program used for tracking all students including their SASID, academic and disciplinary information, attendance and more. View the documents and tutorials below.
- StarBase
- Modules
- Reports
- Teacher Information
T
TV-VCR-Computer Use: Directions
TestWiz: TestWiz allows you to track student progress and then create reports and analyze individual and group results.
U
V
W
Webmasters: watch for an updated listing to reflect the changes to the new site!
web browsers: see browsers
Work Orders for DITMS:
- Paper form to fill out and send in - submit the form through inter-office mail or fax to 617-984-8922
- Email request for assistance - In the subject line enter a summary of the problem. In the body of the email describe in detail the problem.