Quick Links

Today i was at SPS working in Fiona's NE class who have just joined the school network. I loaded a few things on her desktop computer - ArtRage & Tux Typing and tried to load KidPix - tho am having real problems with getting this to install & run in the WinXP os (as i have with the other SPS junior classes) - anyone else know how to fix this??? (i think it might be a conflict in the text-to-speech Windows software...) We looked at some of the projects her kids had been doing & wanted to do & played around with some of these programmes.
I set up her access to the Junior reading resource , Digital Learning Objects & showed her how to make a Quick Links webpage.
Being able to create hyperlinks is a pretty easy skill to do with a very powerful result. Every teacher should be doing this! It allows teachers to easily organise access for their students to specific digital resources (i.e. particular websites or learning objects). I used to encourage teachers to find the web resource they wanted their kids to access & then shortcut it to the desktop but i got a slap over the hand from the network manager (again...) because too many desktop shortcuts load up the user profiles & slow down the system.
So How To? A bit like constructing a WebQuest. You don't need any special web editor. Just use Word - write in the learning activities you want kids to access, find the web address (of the site or the learning object or even a resource saved on your own network), copy the address Ctrl C, highlight the text in your QuickLinks file, Ctrl K to open up the hyperlinks box, & copy the address in Ctrl V. Save As a webpage where your students can access. You can make sure that your passwords are remembered so Juniors can just click straight in there. Easy peasy :-)