Cyber Bullying: Responsibility of Schools to Protect and Educate

No child should ever be bullied by their peers whether the bullying happens in person or online.

Today I'm over on DC Metro Moms talking about how students are waging online attacks on each other through social networking groups like Facebook. These attacks are personal, hateful, and are leaving kids emotionally scarred just like any face to face attack would.

While many school systems have policies that prosecute perpetrators of cyber bullying, others do not. As technology changes, curriculum in today's schools needs to include education about becoming a responsibile digital citizen exercising proper online behavior.

Teaching students about online social behavior in schools needs to be combined with parental involvement at home. Later this week I'll share some resources that you can use with your child to talk about cyber bullying. Raising awareness of the issues surrounding cyber bullying will hopefully help ensure that your child never victimizes one of their peers.

Click here to read my post on DC Metro Moms and feel free to leave a comment either here or there. Thanks!

How To Recycle Printer Cartridges

Your printer is blinking that it is out of ink. You swap out the old cartridge for a new one but what do you do with the empty one?

We’ve always recycled our laser and ink jet cartridges and I just figured that everyone knew what to do with their empties until a neighbor asked what to do with their old one.

Why recycle? According to RecyclePlace.com, the plastic from the 25 million cartridges that go into land fills every month will take over 1000 years to decompose. An article on e-How states that a third of businesses use remanufactured printer cartridges. Recycling the plastic from your cartridge not only helps to reduce the amount of trash in our landfills, but repurposed cartridges can be used up to six times with the same functionality as new ones.

Recycling is easy! There are a number of different ways you can recycle your printer cartridges:

HP cartridges come with a postage paid envelope inside each package for easy recycling. Find the envelope that is usually located along with the instructions, slip in your old cartridge, mail it back, and HP will take care of the rest.

Take your cartridge to Staples and exchange it for $3 coupon good towards new ink. According to the Staples website, they accept HP, Lexmark™ or Dell cartridges but we’ve found that our store will also take Epson cartridges back. Staples also offers InkDrop service that allows customers to drop a new cartridge in their printer and mail us the empty using the prepaid shipping materials. They will send a replacement automatically and shipping is free.

Check with your local school to see if they have a recycling program. The elementary school where I teach has a collection box inside the front door for parents, staff, and the community to drop off the cartridges. Cartridges are shipped back and our school receives money that we use to purchase new ink for our classroom printers. In a time where school budgets are extremely tight, the money generated from cartridge recycling programs is invaluable!

If your school or organization would like to get a recycling program started for your printer cartridges, here are just a few of the many sites to get one started for your family, school, or charity:

• RecyclePlace
• Cartridges4Kids
• eCycle Group
• Funding Factory
• Recycle4Charity
• Free Recycling

While the recycling programs may not seem to pay a ton of money for each cartridge, each little bit adds up and there is no price that can be put on helping the environment by keeping tons of plastic out of our landfills each year.

How do you recycle your cartridges? Do you have a recycling program that you currently use and recommend? Feel free to leave a comment!

Old School Meets New School

Check it out... A mix tape USB flash drive from Fred Flare

Unfortunately with only 512 MB of storage, it's novelty outweighs its usefulness.  

Note to FredFlare- Send me an e-mail when you upgrade the drive space to 1, 2, or 5 GB!  Then I'll buy in bulk!

Around the Blogosphere

Jessica over at A Parent in Silver Spring has a comprehensive review of DreamBox Learning K-2 Math on her review site. It looks like an awesome program for the early elementary set! Now if only I could get Little Miss Techie off of One More Story and PBS Kids Play!

I’m loving iomoi.com that allows you to send handwritten notes on gorgeous e-stationary. Thanks for the tip Aimee!

Speaking of writing notes, Stefania over at CityMama wrote a fantastic post called Thank you, Steve Jobs. Apple aficionados will totally get it and probably get a little weepy but even if you are a die-hard PC person, read it because Steve’s vision extends well beyond Apple and Stefania's letter is pure poetry.

And finally, Smarty Pants Mama shared that Quamut.com is offering popular knitting and crochet patterns for free for the rest of February. While I can only knit things that are either rectangular or square (think scarves, lots and lots of scarves!), the free patterns are an incentive for me to branch out and try something new! By the way, you do know that knitting is the antidote to carpal tunnel syndrome, right?

Share the Love Week Giveaway Winners!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Congratulations to ShoreThings who won the Microsoft LifeCam VX-5500 and a Wireless Mobile Mouse.

Smiling Mama, galugo, Terri Fisher, Donne, Jennifer A., and Miss Vickie will be tuning up their PCs thanks to System Mechanic.

Update: Play With Pictures

I just got an e-mail with my code to get my full licensed version of Play With Pictures! If you haven't had a chance to download a trial of Play With Pictures yet, there are still free licenses available to download the full version.

For more information about Play With Pictures and the details of getting this awesome new photo-editing software for free, read my original post here.

Keeping in Touch With Loved Ones: Microsoft LifeCam VX-5500 and Wireless Mobile Mouse (plus giveaway!)

Have you noticed all the great giveaways this week? Yes, dear readers, it is share the love week on Tech Savvy Mama in honor of Valentine’s Day. Today I have another great giveaway courtesy of Microsoft- a prize package containing a Microsoft LifeCam VX-5500 and a Wireless Mobile Mouse 3000.

Having a video camera connected to our home computer is essential. With grandparents who live in California, Little Miss Techie and Captain Computer spend a fair amount of time doing video chats to keep in touch with their Paw Paw and Kung Kung (Chinese for grandmother and grandfather). The video chats help maintain a connection to grandparents who live over 3000 miles away and ensure that they are never farther away than the computer screen. My parents have watched their grandchildren open presents, put on puppet shows, seen new haircuts or evidence of Captain Computer’s latest injury, and listened as Little Miss Techie has read her favorite books to them. The video camera helps to eliminate the physical distance between grandparents and grandchildren.

While our old video camera has always met our video chatting needs, it was a treat to try the LifeCam VX-5500. I love the LifeCam because it is a compact little device that can fit anywhere on my overcrowded desk (or on top of my flat screen monitor) and lets us chat online with text, voice, and video. It has an impressive list of features that include 3 interchangeable faceplates that allow for customization, 3x zoom, ability to work with many types of messaging programs, and is always in focus. Oh, and the 3 year warranty is also a very nice feature when the kids get super excited and the camera just happens to tumble off whatever surface they have shaken it off of!

Being a mom on the go who is constantly connected to the computer, Microsoft also sent me a couple of Wireless Mobile Mouse 3000s. I threw one in my laptop bag and immediately dazzled everyone upon pulling it out for the first time. It’s compact, the colors are amazing (I love the red garnet and pink topaz!) and it has to be one of the most comfortable mice I have ever used. I also like that it functions as a wireless mouse but has a snap-in receiver that plugs into your USB port to help conserve battery life. Of course it has tons of other fabulous features but really, the colors had me at hello.

So if you’d like to win the ability to video chat with loved ones from afar with a LifeCam VX-5500 ($59.95) and want to bring sexy back your computer workstation with a new Mobile Mouse ($29.95), here’s how you enter to win this amazing prize package:

1. Leave a comment telling me who you would like to chat with and if you’d like the Red Garnet or Pink Topaz Wireless Mobile Mouse.
2. Write a post linking to my site and giveaway then leave an additional comment with your permalink.
3. Twitter about the contest (I'm @techsavvymama on Twitter) and leave another comment.
4. Add me to your blogroll and leave an additional comment letting me know!

Huge thanks to Microsoft for sharing the love with Tech Savvy Mama readers and providing products for this wonderful giveaway!

And other great Tech Savvy Mama giveaways this week:

• Disney on Ice tickets for DC Metro readers.  You have until Midnight Wednesday to enter.   
• 6 copies of System Mechanic to help speed up the performance of your PC.  Click here to enter!  
• My new favorite photo editing software, Play With Pictures is offering a full version to the first 10,000 who download the trial.  Check out this post for more details!
  

Fine print: To be eligible, enter by completing the above tasks and leaving your comments by Saturday, February 14 at Midnight. One person can enter up to four times by completing each of the tasks as outlined above. Winner will be chosen at random by random.org and will need to reply with their mailing address 48 hours to claim their prize. Products will only be shipped within the United States.

Fun Easy Photo Editing with Play With Pictures (Plus Free Download!)

I’ve always wanted the ability to do cool things with photos but am still trying to find time to learn PhotoShop. I just had the opportunity to try my hand at photo editing made easy with a new program called Play With Pictures. Officially launching today, Play With Pictures allows users to take photos and turn them into unique and imaginative compositions. You can use an unlimited number of people and props from images using a straightforward technique that resembles paint-by-numbers. The cut-outs are then layered onto a background of choice using a set of tools that are fun and super simple to use.

After downloading the 15 day trial of Play With Pictures, I selected two pictures to use. I chose a street with neon signs taken by Tech Savvy Daddy during a trip to Korea as my background and another picture of Little Miss Techie and Captain Computer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium to put in the foreground. I didn’t alter my Korean background photo but cut out Little Miss Techie and Captain Computer so it would look as if they were in Korea.

The finished product above literally took me 5 minutes to create. Maybe if I had spent 2 more minutes, Little Miss Techie wouldn’t be missing her hair to the left of her face and Captain Computer wouldn’t have a huge dent in his head. But you get the idea.

There are tons of features that I look forward to trying when editing my next picture. There’s an automatic blend tool which smoothes over any hard edges and provides a seamless transition between background and foreground layers, simple slider tools for adjusting the transparency of each cut-out, as well as its color tint, and a quick copy button will duplicate the cut-outs as many times as needed. Personalize your images by adding text boxes for titles and captions, or insert pieces of text throughout the image. Speech bubbles are available to provide dialogue and can be independently adjusted for the perfect look. Play With Pictures also provides online tutorials to acquaint users with the software.

Play With Pictures is certainly worth your time to download since it is fun and easy to use. It seems like the perfect editing tool for kids of all ages and I’m sure that Little Miss Techie could probably figure out how to use it before too long if given the chance.

To celebrate the launch of Play With Pictures, the first 10,000 people to download a 15 day trial of the software will receive an e-mail from the company containing a license key to fully register your copy. Click here to go to the Play With Pictures site and simply enter your name and e-mail address to download your free trial.

Restore Your PC in Honor of Clean Out Your Computer Day!

Did you know that today, February 9, is Clean Out Your Computer Day?

Anecdotal evidence demonstrates that many valuable hours are often wasted because of slow computers. Psychological research also documents the negative influences of clutter - digital or otherwise - in our life. Despite this research, few users take time to proactively clean out their computers. Today is the perfect day to jump-start your spring cleaning, remove frustrating clutter and recover lost hours in your days.

If you are experiencing problems with your PC, you might want to try System Mechanic from Iolo Technologies. System Mechanic is a program that is designed to fix, speed up and maintain PCs so they run like new forever. The software allows you to tune up your PC so it will run quickly, safely, and error-free. With one click, System Mechanic enables you to detect and repair problems, run essential fixes, and perform automated maintenance.

Iolo Technologies gave me a couple of copies of System Mechanic to try and I shared one with a colleague who mentioned that her home computer was sluggish. She ran different optimizers using System Mechanic and while it took awhile, she felt that the main advantage of System Mechanic over using Windows Systems Applications is that everything she needed was in one place.

If you are feeling like your PC is in need of a tune-up in honor of Clean Out Your Computer Day, enter to win a copy of System Mechanic by letting me know why your computer is in desperate need of an overhaul.

6 lucky Tech Savvy Mama readers will be sent a code to download the full version of System Mechanic for up to 3 PCs which is good for an entire year. Be sure to leave your e-mail in your comment so I can contact you when you win!

Good luck and happy Clean Out Your Computer Day from Tech Savvy Mama, Iolo Technologies, and System Mechanic!

Fine print: System Mechanic is good for PCs only. Comments must be left by Midnight on Thursday, February 12. Winners will be sent a code via e-mail to download the full version of System Mechanic from the Iolo website.

DC Readers: Win Disney on Ice Tickets!

If you reside in the DC area and have any Disney fans in your house, I’m giving away 4 tickets to Disney on Ice’s Disneyland Adventures at the Verizon Center on Being Savvy Washington DC. One lucky winner can choose to attend an afternoon performance on either Saturday, February 14 or Sunday, February 15!

We just saw Disney on Ice in Baltimore and Little Miss Techie and Captain Computer loved it! Little Miss Techie loved seeing all of her favorite princesses on ice skates, the silly antics kept cracking Captain Computer up, and I enjoyed reliving my childhood memories of Disneyland trips and endless rides on Space Mountain and the Matterhorn!

So go ahead, click here to enter and enjoy tickets courtesy of Disney on Being Savvy! And when you click over, notice the new Being Savvy site redesign! Woo hoo!

And leave a comment below for an extra entry!  It's just my way of saying thanks for always reading Tech Savvy Mama!

If you aren't local to the DC area but are clamoring to see when Disney on Ice may be in your neighborhood, click here to search for performances in your area.

Website of the Week: FreeConference.com

Late at night when Little Miss Techie and Captain Computer are sleeping, I’m on conference calls. This week has been filled with them and while most are arranged through corporate call services that I dial into, others I’ve had to arrange myself.

While my office is pretty equipped for working from home, I don’t have a corporate conference call service for the same reason Tech Savvy Mama doesn’t send out company holiday cards.

So this week I have to give a huge shoutout to FreeConference.com as my Website of the Week. This free conference calling service is every cheapskate’s dream who needs the occasional conference call service.

FreeConference is so easy to use that you can create a login and be on a conference call in minutes. Yes, minutes! I love that FreeConference sends out meeting invites to all my conference participants. Attendees click on a link to RSVP and I get an e-mail back saying who is planning to join the call. FreeConference also saves the e-mails of everyone who you have ever invited to a meeting, making it easy to schedule follow up calls.

While there isn’t a toll free number to use for calls, no one has ever complained to me since long distance charges can be covered by cell phone minutes, especially if calls are after 9 pm.

FreeConference really has been my best friend this week. It’s eliminated my need to have face to face meetings and has allowed me to put my kids to bed then do calls from home in my PJs without spending a dime!

Doodle 4 Google: Win for You and Your School!

Have you ever noticed the Google doodles when you go to the homepage to start a search?

Google has a competition called Doodle 4 Google, a competition where K-12 students create new designs with the homepage logo around the theme “What I Wish For The World.”

Students in U.S. schools in grades K-12 can submit doodles through their teachers. The competition is open to private schools and all homeschoolers but only teachers may submit doodles on behalf of their students.

Of course there are prizes. Lots of prizes! The National Winner gets:

• $15,000 college scholarship towards the school of their choice
• Trip to Google’s New York Office
• Laptop
• T-Shirt printed with the winning doodle

There are also prizes for national finalists, regional winners, and state finalists. This year there is a new new District Quality Participation Prize. The school district that that most encourages high-quality participation from its schools receives $10,000. The District Quality Participation Prize also includes a grant towards the establishment/improvement of a computer lab! For the full list of prizes and information about judging, click here.

So what are you waiting for? Register now! Schools must register by March 17, 2009 and all entries have to be entered by March 31, 2009.

Click here for more information about the contest. To view winning Google Doodles from last year’s competition, click here.

Good luck!

Reinforcing Reading Skills with Interactive Websites

Today I’m on the PBS Media Infusion site talking about reinforcing reading skills with interactive websites.

Learning to read can be a difficult challenge for children when the traditional methods of teaching with books, paper, and pencil don’t fit their learning style. When I was teaching, I always varied my methods to make sure that information was presented in different ways to meet the multitude of learning styles in my classroom. As a parent, I provide Little Miss Techie with different kinds of experiences to advance her love of literacy: books on CD, listening to books on the One More Story website, using her LeapFrog TAG, and lots of time snuggling on the couch with a stack of books.

Regardless of if your child is a beginning or a fluent reader, they can benefit from the practice and instant feedback from interactive websites provide as part of their literacy experience.

To read more about why interactive websites benefit readers of all levels and my favorite sites for beginning to fluent readers, click here.

Tech Savvy Daddy's Deal Sites and Money Saving Tips

The economy stinks. People are losing their jobs, foregoing raises, and watching as retirement and college funds evaporate so some days it just feels so wrong to review the new flashy tech products. On one hand, I’d hate for you to waste your money on some lackluster product that won’t serve its purpose but if you are going to spend money, it is worth it to find the best deal out there and save some cash.

Where can you find the good deals?

Tech Savvy Daddy is the best deal hunter out there. I swear that if he had a superpower, it would be the ability to scan technical specs on any computer to find the best deals in cyberspace in a heartbeat. Like any superhero, it is just what he does to save our family and friends from exorbitant retail prices.

Here’s his super list of where to go to find the deals on computer related items:

• DealNews
• SlickDeals
• Ebay (auctions are too time consuming, find the Buy It Now listings)
• DealMac
• MacPrices.com
• FatWallet
• StreetPrices

In the market for a monitor? Tech Savvy Daddy also offers the following advice:

Monitors can be easily and cheaply be purchased through local Craigslist listings…People buy new laptops and dump their old monitors for low prices. People who are moving also dump their monitors because they’re fragile (CRT and LCD), and heavy (old tube monitors). Instead of a $500 Apple or $300 Dell monitor, you could probably do just as well with a $20 tube monitor or $100 LCD from Craigslist. Even if you buy a new Apple computer, don’t buy an Apple monitor… they look fabulous but are way overpriced. If you covet a 30” Apple Cinema display, consider a 24” or 22” monitor made by another company. Samsung and Dell have high quality monitors that are easy to find and a fraction of the cost of the Apple Cinema Display. But the Dell monitor prices do fluctuate wildly so watch DealNews carefully before you buy to make sure you get the best price.

And as an FYI- I use a 24” Samsung monitor purchased from Costco. It is a gorgeous thing that allows me to have 2 full size windows open side by side. I was able to indulge my desire for a super huge monitor because of Tech Savvy Daddy's diligent research which proved that Costco had the best price for a high quality 24" monitor. So do you research online but also stroll the aisle in your local warehouse store too for comparison purposes!

If you are looking for overall money saving tips to help reduce your household budget, many of the January posts on Being Savvy Washington DC were focused on saving money. Here’s a roundup of the month’s posts with my favorite being National Resources for Local Bargain Hunting. You probably know CraigsList but if you don’t know Freecycle, Freepeats, or Baby Cheapskate you have to read this post to save money on tech and kid stuff!

So even if you aren't in the market for a new computer, monitor, peripherals, or baby/kid stuff, file this post away in the back of your mind, click the star in your reader, or social bookmark it. And you can thank us later!