Instructify

One of the main things that kept me writing in college was actually going to class and doing the exercises assigned to me. Unfortunately, without deadlines and structure, writer’s block and excuses for not writing are easier to come by. Luckily, you, me and everyone else who wants to become a (better) writer can benefit from these free online writing classes. Education Portal brings us a list of 10 Universities Offering Free Online Writing Courses.

Among the list are MIT, Utah State and Purdue, and topics range from Fiction Writing to Covering Breaking News. Most of the courses are self-guided, and therefore self-paced. Some of the Universities require you to register, but at no cost. Overall, the courses seem appropriate for students and teachers alike – we could all benefit from being better writers, after all. – JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

10 Universities Offering Free Online Writing Courses

It’s high time you started using Google Docs. In their ongoing efforts to take over the world, Google has created a free online word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application. There’s nothing to download, you can save in Microsoft Office formats, and you can share your documents online with as many (or as few) people as you want.

We realize Google Docs have been around for a while. But you can now access your online documents easier than ever before with the new Google Docs Bar. This Firefox extension lets you access all your Google Docs with only one click of the mouse. You can also easily upload documents for collaboration, or for a backup copy.

Of course, you need to use the Firefox Web browser to use the Docs Bar. Honestly, though, you ought to be using Firefox anyway. Once you add the Google Docs Bar extension, you’ll be able to access any file you need, anywhere you have an Internet connection. -BILL FERRIS

Google Docs
Google Docs Bar

Whether you are 7 or 77, you probably love word search games. In fact, those might be the only two ages at which you love word searches. While not as challenging as crossword puzzles or Sudoku, word searches can be a fun way to pass some time and learn some new words. Unfortunately, most of the puzzles found in puzzle books are catered for a younger or older crowd, and are hardly ever applicable to your subject matter. Enter EdCreate’s Free Printable Wordsearch Generator.

This handy-dandy little gadget allows you to choose the words you want your students to hunt for, and it can be as easy or challenging as you like. You have the option to pick which direction the words will go: whether it be backwards or forwards, upside-down or downside-up, diagonal or anti-diagonal(?) – all it takes is clicking the boxes corresponding to the direction you want the words to go. You can also choose how many words will be in the puzzle and how many letters will appear on each row. Then, just give it a title and print away (there’s also an answer key, if you can’t decipher your own creation).

EdCreate has some other fun tools and games useful for learning, but most of the other things you’ll have to pay for. Stick to the easy-to-use word search creator, and have something useful for your students to work on next time there’s a sub. – JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

EdCreate’s WordSearch Generator

Related Stuff:

In Search of Educational Fun? Try 8 Letters in Search of a Word
Round Up your Vocabulary Skills and Play Herd a Word

How do you get people to agree on meeting times? Unless you bribe people with food, getting meeting commitments is next to impossible. If scheduling headaches plague your staff meetings, consider using TimeBridge.

TimeBridge lets you suggest several potential meeting times. Attendees then respond, selecting which times work best for them (and they don’t have to sign up for TimeBridge to do so). Once that’s done, TimeBridge schedules your meeting for you. No fuss, and no wading through a swamp of emails trying to figure out everyone’s availability.

Two features that set TimeBridge apart: you can sync TimeBridge with your Outlook or Google calendar, and TimeBridge can provide free conference call numbers. That means you can easily consult your schedule when setting or accepting meetings. Also, everyone can participate, even if you’re traveling that day.

TimeBridge is also an ideal tool for students juggling extracurricular activities. If you assign a group project and Mary has play rehearsal, but Johnny can only meet after football practice but before Lost comes on his scheduled homework time, TimeBridge is the way to go. So no more excuses, no more grumbling about bad meeting times, and no bribes. Though bringing a snack for the meeting still wouldn’t hurt. -BILL FERRIS

TimeBridge

Related Stuff:

Stop Ducking Me: Schedule Meetings with TimeToMeet

While trying to score for “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” as a duet for flutophone and ocarina I found an open source application called LilyPond that handles the messy job of transcribing music notation. Lilypond handles anything from a simple one-line melody to a symphony or oratorio. That includes not only basic things like lyrics, accidentals, and multiple staves, but polyphony, divisi lyrics, expressive marks, grace notes, instrument-specific notation, scoring for bagpipe, and ancient notation. (If you’ve always wanted to arrange Gregorian chants for bagpipe, this baby’s for you!)

To use LilyPond, you type special notation into a simple text editor, then save and compile the file. LilyPond then outputs beautifully scored, professional-looking sheet music in PDF format. You have to code the music as if you were a programmer, though, using special notation. That can be daunting at first, but the manual is clearly written and thorough (a surprise for open-source software) and the system is fairly easy to pick up. “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” would look something like this:

\relative {
\time 4/4
c4 c4 c8. d16 e4
e8. d16 e8. f16 g2
\times 2/3 { c8 c c } \times 2/3 { g8 g g }
\times 2/3 { e8 e e } \times 2/3 { c8 c c }
g’8. f16 e8. d16 c2
}

If you read music, you can probably read this notation without too much trouble. You can see the output file here.

Unlike some very expensive applications on the market, LilyPond doesn’t let you play in your music on a keyboard, and you can’t play it back to hear how it sounds – all LilyPond does is write it down for you. But it can handle anything an amateur musician or composer would reasonably need, and the price is certainly right for a teacher’s budget. -DAVID WALBERT

LilyPond

Photo credit: selva on flickr.com

Can you list all the countries in South America (and not just the ones who grow your coffee)? How about Europe? More importantly, can your students name those nations? If your answer to any of these questions is, “I don’t know, stop bothering me!” then you may want to invest a few minutes in playing a couple of geography games.

The title of the South American game, Name the 13 South American Countries in Less Than 2 Minutes, is both wordy and inaccurate (you actually get 3 minutes). However, it’s also a fun way to review our continental neighbor to the south.

For a bigger challenge, head across the pond to play the same game in Europe (I am not typing that name out). This time you’ve got to deal with 49 countries in only 5 minutes, which seems unfair considering a similar game gave you a whopping 10 minutes to name all 50 states (for all the good that extra time will do you). But the time constraints only add to the fun. And nothing beats having a breakthrough and remembering countries like Luxembourg and Belarus. -BILL FERRIS

Name the 13 South American Countries in Less Than 2 Minutes
Name the 49 European Countries in Less Than 5 Minutes

Related Stuff:

Choke on Your Own Hubris as You Fail to Name All 50 States in 10 Minutes

11 Great Ways to Earn Extra Money – From Free Money Finance, this list maps out some of the things you can do to make some extra dough this year. Some of the ways are a little more involved than others, but the examples given for each tip make them seem a little more manageable. Though it should be noted, the title does say “earn”– so this money isn’t going to just fall into your lap. My plan, however: sit back, wait for economy stimulating 600 smackers from Uncle Sam.

50 Ways to Start a Conversation – This article is Here is a fantastic Hey, yo, check out this blog What up? Ya’ll gotta read this Don’t Be Shy is a blog for those of us who have a more difficult time getting out in the real world and interacting with others. Here, blogger Dee shares 50 great ways to jump right in to the conversation. I personally have never had a problem starting a conversations, only blog posts.

10 Ways I Have Learned About Myself - Well, not ME, but blogger Peter on I Will Change Your Life.com has learned about HIMself. Truth be told, those 10 things are just the sort we should all be more aware of. Peter’s idea of ‘Living Consciously’ involves everything from sleep to happiness. Be sure to check it out and see how consciously you are living your life.

10 Secrets to Overclock Brain Activity - Unleash the power of your mind! (I really have no idea what that statement means… Sounds Scientologistic, though) But seriously, you can probably be doing more to help yourself think more clearly and productively. Check out Ego Development for these 10 ways to boost your brain juice. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

photo: Arbron

It’ll be a while before your school’s marching band takes the field again. And you’ll need every second if you want to design a show that can top this one: this past season, the University of California Marching Band staged a video game-themed extravaganza. I don’t want to sound like a geek or anything, but it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

Relive those hours spent saving princesses and amassing points as you thrill to the sounds of classic video games. See if you can recognize all of them (and if you’re a nerd like me, you probably can).

It’s funny – the reason I joined my high school band in the first place was because my parents wanted me to stop playing so many video games. Seeing Cal’s video game show brings musicianship eerily full-circle. -BILL FERRIS

University of California Marching Band Video Game Show via YouTube

Related Stuff:

Forgot Your Years of Piano Lessons? Cure Your Amnesia with Synthesia

We Can Make You Stronger, Faster, Better: 77 Learning Strategies – If you’re an aspiring Renaissance man or woman, the Online Education Database has compiled a great list of learning methods in the article, “Hacking Knowledge: 77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper, and Better.”

Back that Thing Up: Backup to Email – This utility means you’re never more than two clicks away from peace of mind. If you’re a Windows user, Backup to Email sends a backup copy of important files to your email address.

Print Calendars for Your Students – Who doesn’t need more calendar templates? The aptly-named Free Printable Calendar Templates allows you to download Microsoft Word templates for monthly, weekly, and yearly calendars, as well as HTML calendars.

This Should Keep them Busy for a While: 100 Books Every Child Should Read - It’s a fact that we’ve all had to come to terms with: the Harry Potter series is complete. What in the world are young readers supposed to occupy themselves with now? The answer of course is that exciting, inspiring, heart-warming books for children abound – so much so that the Telegraph’s list of required reading for children is 100 books strong.

Extend your classroom to the ends of the earth by making a screencast. Jing is a free download that will record whatever you’re doing on-screen and turn it into a small movie that you can share with others. It’s easy enough that even a n00b like me can make my own screencast in just a couple of minutes.

A screencast is a great way to put lessons online, create tutorials for assignments, or make an electronic sub plan for days you’re out of the classroom. -BILL FERRIS

Jing

Related Stuff:

Effortlessly Create Video Demonstrations with Screencast-o-Matic
Make an Electronic Sub Plan

It’s a fact that we’ve all had to come to terms with: the Harry Potter series is complete. What in the world are young readers supposed to occupy themselves with now? The answer of course is that exciting, inspiring, heart-warming books for children abound – so much so that the Telegraph’s list of required reading for children is 100 books strong.

Broken down into lists for the “early years,” “middle years,” and “early teens” you’ll find some great suggestions for filling out your classroom’s borrowing library. The “early years” category is puny compared to the other two, holding only 13 books, but it’s been a few years since the compilers were kids themselves, so we’ll forgive ‘em.

What would your list of must-reads include? Let us know! I’ll go first, with one for each category: The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett, and anything at all by Madeleine L ‘Engle. Now you. -MARIELLE PRINCE

100 Books Every Child Should Read via the Telegraph

The Harvey Mudd College Math Department brings math into a fun light with this list of Math Fun Facts. I’ve never really seen how math can be “fun,” but that might all change with this compilation. The items are not for the novice mathmagician, however. It’ll be helpful if you have a working knowledge of all things calculus, geometry or algebra. Each entry has citations to the sources used and a chance to rate the fact.

This site provides a great opportunity for a class project instead of those less than exciting clusters of math you send home every night. Have your students pick one or more of the facts and allow them to bring it to life through real world examples. The Poker Probability Paradox is a great place to start. Check it out. – JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Mudd Math Fun Facts

Who doesn’t need more calendar templates? The aptly-named Free Printable Calendar Templates allows you to download Microsoft Word templates for monthly, weekly, and yearly calendars, as well as HTML calendars.Since it’s free, you can only get calendars for dates within the next month, but hey, if you’re looking for weekly calendar templates to help students plan their time, these should do quite nicely. –ROSS WHITE

Free Printable Calendar Templates

This utility means you’re never more than two clicks away from peace of mind. If you’re a Windows user, Backup to Email sends a backup copy of important files to your email address. The best part? Rather than logging on to your email, filling out your address, adding an attachment, then giving up because of the hassle and swearing you’ll do a full-scale backup “over the weekend,” Backup to Email takes about three seconds, and works for any file type. It splits large files so your inbox won’t be overwhelmed by one behemoth attachment.

Remember: a failure to plan is a plan for failure. And a hard drive failure can drive you to smack your head against a hard surface. This is a fast solution that beats burning a bunch of fragile CDs, and is infinitely better than “I’ll back up my files tomorrow.” –BILL FERRIS

Backup to Email

Every so often, the Instructify staff combs through all the discussions on ask.metafilter.com looking for topics relevant to teachers so you don’t have to. Here are some of the most interesting questions we’ve found recently:

1. Is it usual for school librarians and teachers to have disagreements and conflicts over “appropriate” content and media in school libraries?
2. I am in a search of a program that will help me memorize words.
3. Web communities in conservative/educational climates: what are some good ones?
4. Please recommend informative documentaries or educational videos that can be found on-line.

Got a question that you’d like to ask the metafilter community? Leave us a comment and we’ll ask for you.