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How to Proof Your Paper Like a Pro – 8 Proofreading Tips
If you’re sick of students turning in assignments with spelling errors and confusion among there, their and they’re, this post from studenthacks.org is a must. Drop what you’re doing and send your students there. Or should I say “they’re”?

101 Web 2.0 Teaching Tools
Pretty much what it sounds like, which I guess means you won’t need us anymore. Tomorrow on Instructify: best chicken soup recipes.

Vermont’s 23 Things
Every once in a while, it’s important to review the basics of Web 2.0 tools for folks who came in late. Vermont’s 23 Things gives you a rundown on blogs, wikis, RSS, all that stuff, so you can begin using it in your classroom.

Top 10 Harmless Geek Pranks
Just in time for April Fools Day, Lifehacker has a few computer-based practical jokes you can play on friends and coworkers. Who knows? If you get your printer to say “Insert Coin,” it may be the impetus for your administration to pony up some more dough for supplies. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit: jurek d. on flickr

I love sites like Librivox and Project Gutenberg that let you download books for free. The only problem is that they’re restricted to public domain works, so you’re not going to find anything current.

WOWIO aims to change that. You can download ebooks in many genres, many of them still copyrighted. The selection is pretty limited, but you can find books from the likes of Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury.

Like with any ebook, you’re better off printing it rather than squinting at the text on your computer screen, phone or iPod. Also, while there’s a large selection of literature that students should read, WOWIO is probably best suited for someone who wants to read for pleasure, so don’t feel guilty if you want to download a comic book after you finish Breakfast of Champions. -BILL FERRIS

WOWIO

Related Stuff:
Vox Populi–Download Free Audiobooks from LibriVox
Read Something for Nothing: Project Gutenberg

Learn Languages with LingQ - LingQ lets students sign up for free lessons in the language of their choice (language include Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish).

That’s a State, Right? – National Geographic created My Wonderful World specifically to address the results of the 2006 survey. The “For Educators” page includes a list of ten ways to make students more geographically literate, with links to other excellent geographical resources.

Put Your Scheduling to a Vote with Doodle - As great as democracy is, you may have noticed that a lot of people don’t vote in elections. That’s probably because the democratic process isn’t as easy as Doodle.

Mark Your Calendar and Share It - Assign a Day is an online calendar management system designed for teachers and students. It’s a free service that allows you to create and manage your classroom online and share assignments with your students.

Right now, your high school seniors are probably stressing out about the difference between the cost of college and the amount of scholarship money they received. If you’re a guidance counselor or a teacher who doesn’t want your students to have to decide between buying books or food, show them these financial aid options, courtesy of studenthacks.org. They’ll find information about Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, plus lesser-known options like Plus Loans, as well as Social Security for students unlucky enough to have a deceased parent.

This list is a good resource for students scrambling to fund their education. Juniors can also use it as a primer for all the financial aid rigmarole they’ll have to go through next year. By exploring financial aid options, your students will have the money they need for school, and the peace of mind of not worrying how they’ll pay for their next meal. -BILL FERRIS

How to Find More Cash for School – 9 Financial Aid Options via studenthacks.org

Related Stuff:
Warn Your Students Against Financial Aid Myths
Student Loan Advice for High School Seniors
The Final Countdown – Countdown to College

Assign a Day is an online calendar management system designed for teachers and students. It’s a free service that allows you to create and manage your classroom online and share assignments with your students. The interface is incredibly intuitive and is a great way for you to post current and upcoming tasks. Just register (it’s free to do so, and doesn’t require much information to get started), create a calendar, and begin posting. Set the dates of your assignment and a description and you’re ready to go. The calendar can be viewed in grid or list form, and adding assignments is easy. You can then choose to share your calendar with other educators to edit in case you want to collaborate.

The program isn’t for personal calendars, though, as it is specific for teachers and their students. The whole thing is powered by 4Teachers.org, creators of such tools as RubiStar and QuizStar. This is a great tool for teachers to make sure their students no longer have the excuse “I didn’t know that was due today!” -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Assign a Day

From the “Pretty Much What it Sounds Like” Department comes this Chemical Equation Balancer. True to its name, it balances chemical equations. Just type your equation in and hit the “Balance” button, and you’re set to go. I’m really struggling to say more about it, but there’s not very much to this no-frills app (that’s an asset, not a flaw, by the way).

This is a handy way for students to check their work. Though there are multiple ways to balance an equation, this should help them figure out if they’re on the right track. -BILL FERRIS

Chemical Equation Balancer

You can’t beat the power of democracy. It’s useful both as a system of government and a way to decide what time to schedule a meeting. As great as democracy is, though, you may have noticed that a lot of people don’t vote in elections. That’s probably because the democratic process isn’t as easy as Doodle.

Doodle lets you create polls in about 90 seconds. I created one to decide my dinner plans. You can help me make up my mind here. If you need to set up a staff meeting or plan the day for the music department bake sale, Doodle can do that, too. Just enter possible dates and times and forward the link to the poll to the folks you want there. They can then vote on the times that work best for them.

Unfortunately, you can vote more than once, so it’s not ideal for classroom use. What Doodle does do is help you wrangle dates and opinions from other people with a minimum of sweat. Isn’t democracy great? -BILL FERRIS

Doodle

Sure, Google Maps is cool, but without basic knowledge of how maps work, it’s not an effective tool for students. The ability to use and understand maps is a skill, and it’s one that improves with exposure to maps. Two of my favorite online collections are Alabama Maps from the University of Alabama and the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection from the University of Texas.

Alabama Maps encompasses a contemporary map collection as well as a historical map archive. The contemporary maps are large and easy to use, and are available “free of charge by anyone for any purpose.” They include unlabeled base maps that could easily be turned into classroom games or quizzes. The historical map collection is categorized by region, and includes maps related to special topics like the Civil War, railroads, and National Forests. The cross-curricular possibilities are endless: if you’re an English teacher teaching Huck Finn, why not show your students an 1836 map of the Mississippi River?

The Perry-Castañeda Collection is similarly extensive and easily navigable. Most of the maps are in the public domain and, hence, copyright-free. The front page is updated to align with current events – an easy one-stop search for teachers looking to tie geography to the news: current offerings include Afghanistan, China, Tibet, Iraq, Kosovo, Sudan, and maps showing results of presidential primary elections.

So before your students go off geocaching willy-nilly, make sure they know which way is north. -EMILY JACK

Alabama Maps
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection

Related Stuff:
That’s a State, Right?
Great Literature, Now With Road Maps

Photo credit: Dunechaser on flickr

If you’ve never read Sun Tzu’s Art of War, do yourself a favor and read it now, online, for free. Art of War isn’t just about ancient Chinese battle strategies — the reason this book has maintained its intrigue and republish-ability is because of its ability to be applied to business and social interaction. It’s more of a philosophical guide than a blueprint for combat in our day and age, but you and your students can certainly learn a thing or two from ‘Ol Sun Tzu. The guide at this website allows readers to get insight and further description of passages that may seem a bit archaic. Furthermore, you can use the site for quick searches or even link an easy-to-read, self-page-turning e-book.

If reading isn’t your thing, or if you are my Dad — who has to drive over an hour and a half each way to and from work — you might need an audio version. Luckily, this site — AudiobookTreasury.com — will let you get it just as freely and cheaply as the one aforementioned. Just download the mp3s and you can probably figure out the rest. Either way, you’ll be able to easily realize what has made this literature last as long as it has. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Sun Tzu’s Art of War on SunTzuSaid.com

Art of War – Audio Book on AudioBookTreasury.com

Can your students find New York on a map of the U.S.? The 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survey of Geographic Literacy found that half of young Americans could not. Even fewer could find Ohio.

On the other hand, the winner of the 2007 National Geographic Bee, an 8th grader, successfully answered the following question: “A city that is divided by a river of the same name was the imperial capital of Vietnam for more than a century. Name this city, which is still an important cultural center.” [Answer: Hue]

On which end of the spectrum, from can’t-find-a-large-U.S.-state to knows-rivers-in-small-East-Asian-countries, would you like your students to be?

National Geographic created My Wonderful World specifically to address the results of the 2006 survey.  The “For Educators” page includes a list of ten ways to make students more geographically literate, with links to other excellent geographical resources.  A separate page for students leads them to grade-level-appropriate resources, like online games of the “It’s-so-much-fun-I-forgot-I-was-learning” variety.

Could you be the next teacher to produce a Geography Bee champion? -EMILY JACK

My Wonderful World

Photo credit: woodleywonderworks on flickr

As if you don’t already have a tough time getting students to read, schools keep banning the books kids actually like. Young adult literature is a frequently challenged genre, probably due to the fact that the teenaged protagonists often act like, you know, teenagers.

If you’re passionate about kids being able to access books they love, you’ll want to check out BANNED in the Bookhenge on Monday, March 31. In the young adult lit corner will be Frances Bradburn, Chair of the American Library Association’s first Printz Committee. She’ll speak about censorship, intellectual freedom, and how to advocate for banned and challenged young adult books.

BANNED in the Bookhenge is a virtual conference that will take place in NC State University’s Bookhenge in Second Life (if you’re unfamiliar with Second Life, it’s a 3D online virtual world that’s both cool and well beyond the scope of this article). If you’re not ready to jump into Second Life’s virtual playground, you can still listen in via Internet radio.

Getting kids excited about books is part of a teacher’s job. Help make sure they’ll be able to read the books they enjoy. -BILL FERRIS

BANNED in the Bookhenge

Related Stuff:
Banned Books Week Roundup

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk on flickr

The Federal Emergency Management Team has a fun and educational site, FEMA for Kids, designed just for youngsters. There are plenty of games and activities, all with the intention of educating and preparing children for potential disasters. Hurricane Katrina might have been a devastating occurrence for many, but we can learn from this disaster nonetheless. That doesn’t mean we should hide underground in bomb shelters, but it does mean knowing what to do in case of emergency.

FEMA does a nice job of creating enough content to keep kids engaged, all the while helping them understand how to be prepared. Most of the activities are online, and include games, quizzes and puzzles. There are even a few offline activities that kids can do at home or in the classroom. Additionally, there are plenty of resources and references for parents and teachers to explore more about FEMA, even a “What’s Happening Now?” map to show FEMA’s efforts across the nation. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

FEMA for Kids

Give your foreign language students some extra ammunition. No, I don’t mean teach them obscure French curse words. I’m talking about powerful lessons and practice that can supplement the great stuff you’re already teaching in class. They can get it with LingQ.

LingQ lets students sign up for free lessons in the language of their choice (language include Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish). If you’re teaching ESL, they can also study English (or any other language) in their native tongue. In the assignments, if they see a word they don’t know, they can highlight it and hit the LingQ button. LingQ will define it and create a flashcard for later review.

Students will also get a progress snapshot, which keeps track of benchmarks like how many words they’ve learned, the number of hours spent listening to lessons or speaking, etc. They’ll also get a list of Priority LingQs, which are the 25 most important words they should learn at whatever skill level they’re at. Students can review Priority LingQs by clicking on the the word to view the definition, or display them as flash cards.The free account lets students have five active assignments at any given time.

You can pay extra for more active assignments at once, plus points you can use for personal tutoring, though if they heard about LingQ from you, they’ve already got a live-and-in-person language guru. Still, students can get an awful lot of LingQ for free. The only place with more free knowledge is in your classroom -BILL FERRIS

LingQ

Related Stuff:
Mango: Rhymes with Lingo (Sort Of)
Q’est Que C’est LiveMocha
¿Como se dice Podcast? ESL Pod
Escuchen la One Semester of Spanish Love Song

8 Firefox Extensions Towards Safer Browsing – Personally, I HATE pop-up ads, (and most banner ads) so I do whatever I can to avoid them. Firefox already does a nice job of keeping pop-ups from occurring, but there is a lot of things that slip by Firefox by itself. Luckily, ts/sci Security (a nice, clean, ad-free blog) presents this list of some helpful add-ons that can help give you some peace-of-mind when it comes to web browsing.

30 Tips to Rejuvenate Your Creativity – Lifehack does it again with this list of 30 ways to chop your creative block right in twain. As it turns out “start somewhere” isn’t really as hard as you might think. Also one of my favorites, “Don’t judge your ideas until you have plenty to judge.”

10 Extraordinarily Different Uses for Potatoes – Sorry folks, those delicious tubers aren’t just for mashing and au gratin-ing anymore. Gomestic offers this list of some unorthodox ways of using potatoes other than just eating them. I don’t know if any of the tips could be qualified as being “extraordinarily different” per-se, but they sure are neat. Surprisingly not on the list: make a battery.

100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in English – I’m expecially critical when it comes to people misusing grammar. Whether I’m enjoying an expresso or just reading in the libary, there is always an abundance of people mispronouncing words, mispellling them, excetera. Here’s a list from YourDictionary.com of words people all-too-often mispronounce. I’d love to see a list of phrases people misuse in context, but that would be a whole nother post.

When Wikipedia Won’t Cut It: 25 Online Sources for Reliable, Researched Facts – I blogged about some other alternative-to-Wikipedia resources not too long ago, but here are some more. Students are going to use the internet to do their research, so they might as well have an abundance of reliable places to find information, right? Check out this list of 25 from CollegeDegree.com. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

(photo credit: jaycoxfilm on Flickr.)

Making movies is a great way to harness students’ creativity for good instead of evil. It’s also a good way for students to goof around and get lost in the many steps of the film making process. Good planning is key to any successful video project. You can help them make the process go as smoothly as possible by using resources like Kids’ Vid.

Kids’ Vid will guide you and your class through every facet of making movies, including scripting, shooting, editing, and showing off their hard work on DVD or online (the site has been around since 2000, so they also mention something called “videotape,” whatever that is). Take advantage of their surprisingly advanced storyboarding tools, pick up a few camera tips, and heed their advice on not overdoing effects – even the awesome star wipe can be used too much. -BILL FERRIS

Kids’ Vid