Blue Ribbon Technology August/September, 2004
By Linda Lindroth

Making technology work for you is never more important than during those beginning weeks of the new school year. Here are some software tools that should provide motivation for your young writers and make your job easier.

Stationery Studio
Getting your students off on their best "writing foot" is easy with this customized stationery tool from FableVision. Stationery Studio gives young authors a variety of writing frameworks to help them complete the writing process.

This software lets you design and print writing paper for stories, letters, invitations and other projects. With more than 200 borders and shapes based on curriculum themes, this tool lets you customize layout, text and graphics to meet student needs.

Linda's class used Stationery Studio to create flyers for a play.

First, students choose a shape or border. A layout tool lets you decide the line location on the page. Print in color or black and white (which students can color themselves) and choose full page, half page, folding mini-book, postcard or notecard. If you start with one of the 30 lessons with template or one of 31 additional themed templates, one click lets you build custom stationery.

You'll love the print, manuscript and cursive font selections – there's even a dotted font for handwriting practice. Once the stationery is complete, you can add text such as story starters or other instructions.

Visit www.fablevision.com/ to see sample lessons and writing templates. Call 888-240-3734 for more information. Mac/Win, $69.95.

Inspiration for Palm OS
It's here – Inspiration for the Palm OS provides a concept mapping tool on a handheld device! Now you can use this tool to complete field research and other "on-the-go" activities.

With a similar interface and tool bars to the desktop version, the Palm version is great for elementary-age students. Just grab a link handle with the stylus to resize and tap with the stylus to create a link. You can even circle a group of symbols and move them as a unit, then style them with a color or shape. My students use this to highlight topics and details for paragraphs in their writing. It's a clear graphic representation of where they need to add more detail!

"Beam" your stories for peer editing or sync to your desktop copy of Inspiration 7.5 where you'll see a Handheld option in the File menu. You only need one desktop version of Inspiration to work with unlimited Palm OS versions.

For more information, call 800-877-4292 or visit www.inspiration.com Mac or Win, $29; bundle/desktop and Palm, $89.

Unitedstreaming
You can get a FREE video-on-demand license with more than 22,000 video segments! Discovery Education is giving a free one-year license for Unitedstreaming to one school in every school district in the United States. All this risk-free offer involves is for District Technology Coordinators to go to the Unitedstreaming website, choose a school within their district and set up free access to Unitedstreaming.

Discovery Education's goal is to provide Unitedstreaming to every school district not already using the service as part of their commitment to education. For more information, visit http://vod.unitedstreaming.com or ask your District Technology Coordinator about this offer.

Linda K. Lindroth is Technology Editor and Web Coordinator for Teaching Pre K-8. She is also a Technology Resource Teacher in a K-5 computer lab in Lexington, KY.