About Basics
Shortcuts to Make Teachers More Productive

The following are Word tips," must know" keyboard shortcuts and an online bookmarking tool that we believe every teacher should be aware of and use.
 
One way for teachers to be more productive is to start using the built-in features of Microsoft Office products. Many of these features have been available for a long time, however most teachers do not know they exist. The purpose of this segment is to introduce you to a few shortcuts that we feel are the most beneficial.

Pre-Assess your skills for this "Thing"

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REMINDER:  Before beginning this "Thing", please complete the Pre-Self-Assessment of your technology proficiency for this "Thing". (This is part of your hands-on activity/assignment).

Aligned to NETS-T: 1.b, 1.c, 1.d, 2.a, 2.b, 2.c, 2d, 3.a, 3.b, 3.c, 3d

Connections to Marzano Strategies: Summarizing and Note-Taking; Objectives and Feedback; Questions, Cues, Advanced Organizers

The following videos will demonstrate the tips. Create your own practice document, then watch the video, and stop along the way to try each shortcut. You can download the 'Wacky shortcuts you should know" (pdf file) below. This is a helpful guide to work from and covers both the Mac and PC platforms. We have included video recordings for both platforms below as well.

Check out these Wacky Shortcuts for Mac and PC

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Click the button to download the wacky shortcut pdf document.

10 common shortcuts for the PC on the left

10 common shortcuts for the Mac video on the right

Online Bookmarking of Favorite Bookmarks

One of the easiest ways for teachers to improve productivity is to organize their web bookmarks, and to have them available from any computer at home, work, and around the globe. To do that we suggest using one of the following online social bookmarking tools called Delicious or diigo. These are both FREE bookmarking tools. Delicious and diigo are both web 2.0 tools that allow users to save favorite web sites to an online account. You can tag (categorize), manage and share your bookmark pages with others. With both of  these  free applications you can bookmark any web-based resource, and retrieve your bookmark list from anywhere you have  Internet access. By placing your bookmarks online you will eliminate the need to remember what you saved at work or home. They will all be in one place and easily accessed or added to. Bookmarks may either be marked public or private depending if you want others to view them. This benefit means that you can share your favorite bookmarks with your peers and students.

A great feature of these bookmarking tools is the ability to add descriptions and tags to your bookmarks. Tags are words that help categorize your bookmarks. Another feature they offer is called Tag Bundles. Think of Tag Bundles as folders where bookmarks that have tagged can grouped together. We will go over everything in the following videos. Have fun getting organized. Click on the images below for a tutorial on each of these.

Aligned to NETS-T:1.b, 1.d, 2.a, 2.b, 2.c, 3.a, 3.b, 3.c, 3.d, 4.b, 4.d, 5.a, 5.c

Connections to Marzano Strategies: Cooperative Learning; Questions, Cues, Advanced Organizers

diigo

To create an educator account, click here. Watch the video below for an overview of diigo. Here is a handout with instructions on how to create teacher and student accounts.

Delicious

To currently create a Delicious account you must create an account. Watch the following video below for an overview of Delicious. A good idea will be to open a separate browser and have http://delicious.com ready. Play the video and pause along the way to try each feature.
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Click on the image to view tutorial.

21things Hands-On Activity and Assignment:

MS Office keyboard shortcuts

1. Before beginning this "Thing", complete the Pre-Assessment of your technology proficiency.
2. Open any Word document or PowerPoint file, try out the shortcuts we have shown you, and create something that shows you have used some of the formatting shortcuts.
3. Capture a screen shot (using the Print Screen shortcut), paste it into your portfolio, and write some reflections on at least three other shortcuts you used. Reflect on how this helps increase your productivity.
4. Create your own diigo (or delicious) page; add at least 5 bookmarks with at least three tags per bookmark. Copy and paste the URL to your diigo/delicious page in the portfolio. Take a screen shot of your page and reflect on how diigo/Delicious will help you be more productive.
5. As you learn about new tools from this point forward make sure to bookmark them in diigo/Delicious
6. After completing all of the activities for this "Thing", take the Post-Assessment of your technology proficiency for this "Thing".

Post-Assess your skills for this "Thing"

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After completing all of the activities for this "Thing", take the Post-Self Assessment of your technology proficiency for this "Thing". (This is part of your hands-on activity/assignment).

Additional Resources

SHORTCUTS
1.  Keyboard Shortcuts from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449
2.  More from Computer Hope:
        http://www.computerhope.com/shortcut.htm
BOOKMARKS
3.  Diigo in Education Home
     Diigo in Education FAQ's
     Diiigo tutorial for Research - annotate, archive and organize
     Diigo tutorial via Slideshare- Socialbookmarking & Annotation with Diigo by jdorman

4. Delicious Bookmarks:
        http://delicious.com/mjwhite61
        http://delicious.com/cmccarthy
        http://delicious.com/jpmoore67
           http://delicious.com/janharding
5. Delicious Tutorial site with screencasts by Willard School District, Missouri
6.Using diigo in the Classroom  A site with lots of info for the classroom by Vivan Cockrell, 
        Christian Howd, Jeffrey Murry, Rebekah Price, Lindsey Tinney, and Jessica Valasek
7. Delicious Tutorial: step-by-step directions (40 page .pdf) from Willard School District, Missouri
Google Bookmarks (another option)
8. Google bookmarks  tutorial from a Craig Daniels
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21 Things for 21st Century Educators by CCRESA, IISD, MISD, SRESD is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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Page updated August 17, 2011.