LearnKey Blog
Are Students Lacking in Tech Skills?
It sounds funny because most high school students these days could teach us all a lesson or two on how to Tweet, text, or use our iPads, but a recent survey says students are lacking tech skills to get them college and career ready. The survey found that 94% of students think technology skills will improve opportunities in their education and career, but only 39% think their high school is meeting technology expectations. The study also found that the majority, 86% of students, use technology more outside of school. A large percentage of students said that they used technology to complete assignments, although less than half of teachers said they regularly assign homework that requires technology.
This study shows that students see the need for technology education, and they use technology on their own. So what do you see as the biggest hurdle schools face with classroom technology? Is it the lack of budget? Schools lack technology to serve students? Schools lack technical support? Technology is only used as a teaching tool and is not for students to use? Check out the survey to find out what others said and then let us know what you think.
ISTE 2011
Last week LearnKey was exhibiting at ISTE 2011 in Philadelphia, PA. ISTE is an annual tradeshow for educators, and this year there were 18,000 attendees expected. The show was a lot of fun, and it was fun as the planner of these shows to finally be able to be a part of one. We had a steady stream of educators visit our booth over the course of three days. We met a lot of great teachers and administrators from all over the country and the world; I think the farthest visitor came from Taiwan.
The convention center was huge, although you would never have guessed that there were that many people there. There were so many different meeting rooms, and the exhibit hall was so large anyone could get lost in there. There were rows upon rows of vendors with all kinds of different ways to get attendees to stop and chat with them.
Web Browsing Tips – Tab Groups
Personally, I usually use Chrome for the majority of my web browsing. Being LearnKey’s webmaster though, I need to at least have a copy of the major browsers around to test things, and I recently installed an update to Firefox 5. Our graphic designer Kari pointed out a pretty cool and useful feature Firefox recently added to their updates – Tab Groups.
Say you’re working on a few different projects at once, and you don’t want to mix up the different tabs you have open between projects. You could open a new browser window and separate them that way, but Firefox’s Tab Groups feature lets you keep it all in one window, and switch between groups easily. It’s fairly similar to the Spaces feature in Mac OS X.
Premiere Pro CS5 with Ryan James
It’s time for another piece of the Adobe CS5 training puzzle – Premiere Pro CS5 featuring expert Ryan James. Not only is this course made to teach you how to use Premiere Pro CS5, but it walks you through the video creation method, from pre-production all the way to the final steps, all while preparing you to earn your ACA certification by passing the Visual Communication using Premiere Pro CS5 exam.
Find out more about our Premiere Pro CS5 course, or check out the video below for a preview.
Also, if you purchase this course on our website between now and June 30, you can receive 20% off by entering coupon code NEW20 at checkout. Coupon only applies to single-user web purchases.
Web Browsing Tips – Disable Compatibility View
When you work with websites for a living, you tend to pick up on the different quirks of all the web browsers. You know which ones have trouble with spacing, or which ones work better with certain Flash objects, and so on. For most people who don’t live their lives inside a web browser, it can be confusing – and that’s why we’re here to help!
Internet Explorer 8 and 9: “Compatibility View”
At first glance, you may see Compatibility View and feel the need to turn it on, or else your web experience might be glitchy and broken. That may have possibly been the case when IE8 was first released, but these days it does the exact opposite. To understand what I mean, there’s a few things about Internet Explorer you need to know.
Continue reading “Web Browsing Tips – Disable Compatibility View”
Happy Flag Day!
Happy Flag Day! This is a holiday that has always confused me. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that it is a day to honor and celebrate our country’s flag, but why would we celebrate the flag on a separate day from our Independence Day? As we do with most of life’s questions, I went to the Internet for answers.
LearnKey Events – Summer 2011
We attend a lot of tradeshows throughout the year, but summer is definitely our busiest tradeshow season. We wanted to give you a quick rundown of which events we will be attending:
54th PTE Summer Conference
June 15-17, Boise, ID
ISTE 2011
June 27-29, Philadelphia, PA
64th Annual GACTE
July 10-13, Atlanta, GA
HealthStream Summit 2011 Recap
I recently attended the HealthStream Summit at the Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville, TN. One year ago, the first floor of the hotel was covered with 10 feet of water; in fact, much of the Nashville area was pounded by flood waters. What an amazing feat to bring the hotel back to its original beauty. I snapped a couple photos with my cell phone, but it does not begin to capture the grandeur and detail of the environment. It’s a complete ecosystem under a glass shell. If you find yourself in Nashville it is definitely worth a visit.
Enjoy Memorial Day, and a Special LearnKey Offer
As with most holidays, Memorial Day originally had a more serious and specific meaning than typically observed today. Memorial Day was first meant to commemorate those that had died in military service during the Civil War, but was later changed to include all wars. It was also originally known as Decoration Day, named for the practice of honoring fallen soldiers by decorating their graves.
Today, because of most Monday-Friday workers receiving a 3-day weekend, the holiday is usually celebrated with family vacations, cookouts, and shopping. Most stores have large sales during this weekend, as many people will be looking for somewhere to go or something to do on their holiday.
Which leads me to my next point – now through May 31, in honor of Memorial Day, you can receive 10% off all LearnKey video courseware (that means no MasterExams, Workbooks, or Exam Guides) purchased through learnkey.com.
LearnKey offices will also be closed through the weekend, and will re-open again on Tuesday May 31, which means that all sales, support, and shipping staff will be available again starting Tuesday morning.
Have a happy and safe Memorial Day!
Tech Hiring Drastically Improves California’s Economy
In the first quarter of 2011 California added 90,600 jobs, which was an increase from 82,600 over all of 2010. Just a few weeks ago California’s deficit was an astounding $26 billion, but the state recently cut $11 billion. If this trend keeps going, it could potentially shave off another $6 billion. The added jobs in the state are making it a reality that one day, California might actually be able to get out of debt – and it might be sooner than everyone thought.
This drastic improvement comes largely from the tech industry. Information technology jobs grew by 5.3% in March, outpacing all other industries. This is affecting the San Francisco Bay area and the Silicon Valley with many local companies doubling and even tripling their workforce. This is good news for the technology industry, and for California.
To read the full article visit The Wall Street Journal.