Tip of the Week - Searching your Computer with Spotlight

Did you know that you can search your Mac computer for files just like how you would search Google for websites?

In the very top right corner of the Menu bar on Mac computers, there is a "Spotlight" icon:

You can also press Command + Spacebar on the keyboard to open the spotlight search window

After clicking on this icon you should see a Spotlight search bar. Search this bar for quick access to open applications, specific files, folders, email messages, dictionary definitions and more. 

Just click on the results to launch an application or open an a file. If you don't see what you want, click on "Show All" to open a Finder window of results.

For more great tips on how to use Spotlight to search your computer, check out Whitson Gordon's article on Lifehacker: All the Awesome Spotlight Shortcuts You Didn’t Know Existed

One of the tips from this post:

Make Advanced Search Queries

• You can search for files of a specific type by using the kind operator, e.g. invoice kind:pdf.
• You can search for files from a specific date range using operators like created or modified, e.g. invoice modified:yesterday for something modified yesterday, or invoice created:1/1/2012-4/10/2012 to find something created in between January 1st and April 10th.

Cool site of the Week: Instagrok

http://www.instagrok.com/

Instagrok is a unique search tool, that shows your search results as part of a concept map with easy access to key facts, videos, images, quizzes, and like concepts.  After creating an account, you can easily "pin" your search queries onto journals that you can then email or print.

As Openlearner tweeted, Instagrok seems like Google "rebuilt with education in mind."

For more information, take a look at the Instagrok PDF Brochure.

Article of the Week: Larry Cuban's "Connecting School Reform to Online Instruction in K-12 Classrooms: The Next New Thing"

This week's article focuses on how online education is frequently being referred to as the "next new thing" in school reform, although Larry Cuban is skeptical of how this transformative technology will reform education.

In this article, Cuban argues, "those high expectations for online schooling, like earlier incarnations of technological  'new things,' will fade as the political realities of wholesale restructuring of schools and classroom practices without widespread cooperation of teachers become apparent."

From the article:

... bringing high-tech devices in schools to transform teaching, learning, and bring schools into the 21st century must be seen within the larger picture of U.S. public schools as targets of structural reform for the past two centuries. Here is the place, then, to note that K-12 online instruction is being promoted as a “disruptive innovation” that will transform, even eliminate, the age-graded school–introduced over 150 years ago–into places that will permit students to proceed at their own pace in learning and achieve at higher levels than in self-contained classrooms with one teacher and 25 to 30 students. Online instruction in K-12 will revolutionize teaching and learning. Again, the technology is the lever that will upend the traditional world of schooling, the overall target of reformers.

To read this article, visit Larry Cuban's website:
http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/connecting-school-reform-to-online-instruction-in-k-12-classrooms-the-next-new-thing/