Instructify

BY BILL FERRIS

As the perpetrator of some of the worst handwriting in a fifty mile radius, I’ve grown to love choosing the right font. The right typeface can produce the sort of artful lettering my hands can’t. Or so I thought. FontStruct lets me use my hands (by way of my mouse) to create my own fonts that I can download and use. Oh, okay, so it’s not exactly handwriting, but it’s the most legible thing my hands have ever produced.

FontStruct works via a grid method. Simply fill in the grid with blocks of various shapes to form each letter. Some of the existing fonts on the site allow you to clone them, so you can get a better look at how the magic happens. There are a lot of shapes to try out on the grid, and creating an entire alphabet will take some time, but isn’t it worth it to have your own custom-built typeface?

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BY BILL FERRIS

“Back in my day we didn’t have those fancy calculators,” my dad used to say. “We had to use slide rules.” Which was his way of telling me he wouldn’t be much help with my math homework.

Sure, your math students are probably addicted to their TI-85s, smart phone apps, or online tools like Calc5, but sometimes it’s good to experiment with the tools of days gone by. Now you can make your own circular slide rule by following these directions from the physics department at the University of Montana.

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Welcome to May’s random roundup. This month’s theme: Little Johnny, one-man stand-in for school-aged children the world over. After a year-and-a-half of hard work, we figured this overused cliche deserved a post of his own before he gets back to studying.

Time-savers for teachers
For other notes and resources the students need, consider giving this stuff to them as a whole, at the beginning of a session or semester. That way you only have to keep a master copy for Little Johnny who struggles to keep himself organized.

Learning exercise: Promote healthy living this school year
If you’re concerned about your students’ health, you can do something about it by extolling the virtues of healthy exercise. Ask Little Johnny how his little league team did over the summer. Do you have any joggers or climbers in your midst? Take an interest, and maybe they’ll get more active.

Search Visually, Safely with RedZee
RedZee filters out porn and other inappropriate content, so you don’t need to worry that Little Johnny will “accidentally” stumble across something he shouldn’t be looking at on a school computer.

Swap your Stuff at Zwaggle
But Zwaggle might be a good resource to pass along to parents. If you can make their lives easier by showing them where to find Christmas presents on the cheap, they might make your lives easier by encouraging Little Johnny to buckle down and try a little harder for his nice teacher.

Keep Your Grade Book Online with Engrade
If students (and their parents) can track their grades at any time, it may motivate them to stay on task throughout the class. Come parent-teacher conference time, you won’t have to deal with parents who are angry about Little Johnny’s surprise “D.”

Instructifeature: How to Stimulate Class Discussion Using Discussion Forums
In the classroom, you’re limited by clock. There’s only so much time you can devote to class discussion. Students feel the time crunch even more keenly—they’ve got to compose a thoughtful response in mere seconds. And while thinking on one’s feet is a valuable skill, how much better would Little Johnny’s answer be if he had more time to compose his ideas? Using discussion boards, students have the time they need to think of the best answer they can.

Photo credit: khalid almasoud on Flickr.

I’ve always preferred the bumbling around method to learning, whether I’m using a new piece of software or I’ve just bought a new gadget. However, sometimes you’re faced with the choice of reading the manual or causing irreparable harm to yourself or your new toy. By this point, though, you’ve relegated the manual to a shoebox at the bottom of your closet underneath the boxes containing your camping gear and your winter wardrobe. You could try to track down the manual on the company website, or you could simply go to The Manuals, a website containing more than 5 million free owners manuals for everything you own.

Want to try out the advanced features of your SMART Board? Download the instructions and get going. Struggling to hook up your fancy new digital projector for class? No problem.  Whatever you need to know, there’s a manual for that. Well, probably. There’s 5 million of them, and I haven’t had time to look through them all. But with that many, your odds of finding what you need are pretty good. -BILL FERRIS

The Manuals

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Photo credit: Telstar Logistics on Flickr.

How often have you found yourself thinking about screen printing projects? Not that much, I’d guess. Well check out this awesome idea. If that doesn’t get you motivated to transfer some print ideas of your own I don’t know what will.

This guide to DIY Screen Printing on Instructables takes you through the process from start to finish. Not even just start to finish, it’ll tell you what supplies you need beforehand and how to clean up after you’re done. This project says that the supplies will cost less than $10, so that’s not a bad cost to cover.

Instructables will rope you into registering with their site to get access to additional images and additional access. Don’t sweat this — registering a username with them is quick, painless and you won’t be bombarded with spam emails. The handiest of those extra materials is a PDF file for you to download, allowing you to print it and take it in to the classroom.

This project seems like an obvious fit for an art classroom, you don’t need me to point that out. But last time I checked, schools also still have sports teams and various student organizations. How much would it cost to send away for a bulk order of t-shirts? I don’t know. But how about this scenario: you buy the blank shirts, buy the $10 for DIY screen printing supplies, and make the shirts on the cheap. Meanwhile, the rest of the group thinks you’ve sent the order off to a professional place…you pocket the difference!* -NICK YINGLING

*Editor’s note: Embezzlement is illegal. Neither Instructify nor Nick Yingling advise or condone illegal activities (though sometimes Nick will encourage people to perform illegal acts because he is a twisted manipulator of others. Think of a sort of Loki/Pan trickster character). You will be a terrible jerk if you steal and betray your colleagues’ trust. Besides, your organization will probably ask for receipts.

DIY Screen Printing on Instructables

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Turn Useless Totes into Stylish Messenger Bags

Do It Yourself Learning

Create Liquid Ice Sculptures

10 Foods to Sneak into the Library to Improve Your Productivity
Now, I’m not advocating your students violate your school’s rules about food and drink inside your school. However, a student who isn’t distracted by hunger will likely be more focused during class. But that doesn’t mean they should raid the vending machine — it’s a fine line between getting enough to eat and inducing a carb coma. Studenthacks.org has a list of nutrient-laden snacks you can slip your students on the sly to raise their energy and attention in class.

10 Most Surprising College Majors in Presidential History
Fact: not all American presidents have law degrees from Harvard and Yale. Learn-gasm reports that some of our commanders-in-chief earned degrees in history (Woodrow Wilson) economics and sociology (Reagan), geology (Herbert Hoover) and yes, education (LBJ). Also fact: more than one president never earned a college degree — Harry S Truman studied law but never got a diploma, and William Henry Harrison was a medical school dropout. Perhaps it’s no coincidence he died of a cold after serving 32 days in office.

10 Books that will Substitute A Computer Science Degree
I learned most of my computer skills by playing around with applications until they made sense. If you or your students share this learn-it-yourself mindset, check out Techoozie’s list of 10 tomes to help learn the science of computer…well, science.

Three Good Resources for ESL/ ELL Teachers
Give your English language learners a little online help with these three sites, courtesy of the Free Technology for Teachers blog. These sites address the needs of students from pre-Kindergarten on up. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit: *Grant* on Flickr.

Don’t hand-count that stack of worksheets you need to pass out in class tomorrow. Let your printer do the counting for you. A recent article on Lifehacker features this great tip from one of their readers.

Say you’ve got a stack of 200 worksheets you need to divvy up into stacks of 25 for your classes tomorrow. Put your pre-printed worksheets into the paper drawer of your printer as if they were regular sheets of printer paper. Open a new, blank Word document, and print 25 copies (or whatever number you need) of the blank page. Your printer will spit out exactly the number you require. Repeat as needed (just don’t forget to remove any extras from the printer lest someone else print over them).

This little trick finds that rare axis of simple and clever that makes me feel embarrassed for not thinking of it myself. Give this a try next time you have to sort handouts or worksheets. Your fingers will thank you. -BILL FERRIS

Use a Printer for Counting Stacks of Pre-Printed Documents via Lifehacker

It’s time again for our random roundup. This month’s theme: NASA, pioneers of space and subjects of an awful lot of posts.

Do-it-yourself is in, even with podcasting at NASA!
It seems that every time you turn around these days someone’s encouraging you to complete a DIY project.  Why pay for someone else to do it when you can do it yourself?  Apparently, NASA has the same attitude on its website on Do-It-Yourself Podcasts.

Set the controls for the closest planet to the sun: NASA Mission to Mercury
This site includes up-to-the-minute clocks that record the elapsed time of the mission as well as the Orbit Insertion time. Watch the actual August 3, 2004 launch of Messenger from mission control. You can take your class through a tour of images already taken by Messenger as it zooms toward Mercury.

Blast Off with the NASA Kids’ Club
NASA Kids’ Club is a great way to learn more about space exploration. It’s got great pictures, games and activities that will pique the interest of space-minded kids. As a no-cost way to learn about the space program, the NASA Kids’ Club is the Right Stuff.

Observe NASA’s Earth Observatory
What if we were able to turn our telescopes around and get a closer look at what is happening right below our feet? The folks at NASA have done just that with their Earth Observatory site. Teachers, head right for the Experiments tab and give your students interactive ways to study global warming and plant biomes around the world. If you love reading blogs (and I know you do!), check out the Expedition to Siberia blog that offers almost daily updates and pictures of this fascinating trip.

Cool satellite image from the inauguration
Check out this great picture from the presidential inauguration. As the GeoEye-1 satellite hurtled through the cosmos,  it took this snapshot to commemorate the historic occasion. That’s a lot of people! Not only that, I now know the roof of the Capitol is tarheel blue.

Observe Mars in 3D
Still have some of those promotional 3D glasses kicking around from after the Superbowl? Fire up one of NASA’s 3D image galleries to take your students on a tour of Mars.

25 Item To-Do List Everyone Should be Doing - If you’re not already making to-do lists in order to be the most productive you can be, maybe now is the time to start. This list from BANDBMAMA’s Blog is a great place to start. Such helpful items as taking a walk to smiling at others can really make your day feel great and productive.

9 Things Every New Blogger Should Know -Blogging doesn’t have to be difficult. If you and your class aren’t blogging already, don’t get overwhelmed before you even start. There are a few things you should know before you get started, however. This list is a good place to start, as it illustrates a few of the crucial things to producing a blog that’s approachable and engaging. Check out these tips and more from Blogging Agenda.

10 Ways to Eat Natural - I’ve been doing my best to start eating more healthily lately. I’ve stopped eating fried foods and cut down on other processed items, and I’m honestly feeling a lot better already. Eating healthy and natural doesn’t mean you have to completely restructure your diet, however. If you abide by a few of these tips from Health.com, you’ll find that eating natural foods might be easier than you think.

10 Most Popular DIY Sites -  Do you like to get your hands dirty and create from scratch? Does the look and feel of something that you’ve made all by yourself give you a thrill? Do you simply just like to make things with your own hands? Well, there are plenty of resources on the web for you to find ways of doing-it-yourself when it comes to making projects with things at your disposal. This list of the 10 best resources might even lend you a great opportunity to do some fun projects with your students. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Photo credit: Arbron on Flickr.

It seems that every time you turn around these days someone’s encouraging you to complete a DIY project.  Why pay for someone else to do it when you can do it yourself?  Apparently, NASA has the same attitude on its website on Do-It-Yourself Podcasts.

Essentially, this website is a hub for high-quality, NASA-created video clips, audio files, and still images that you or your students can download to mash up with your own files to create a finished podcast (or vodcast).  The topics NASA offers for download are not all-inclusive;  currently you can download media about lab safety, Newton’s Laws, sport science, and spacesuits. Once downloaded, you can use various editing software programs (such as Animoto, which we blog about here, or the video editing software already on your computer such as Windows Movie Maker) to create your podcast.  Once the podcast is complete, NASA gives you permission to publish it in any way you want.  It could be a neat showcase of student work on a class or school website.

If you’re a teacher and you think this is a great idea but don’t really know where to start, the website also offers a DIY Podcasting Blog. The blog has some pre-posted ideas about how to use the website to make podcasts and videos in your classroom and it encourages teachers to share how they’ve used the site in their own classrooms via comments (also, here is a post we did on producing videos in the classroom). Overall, NASA seems to offer a great way to get started with podcasting using some very high-quality multimedia resources. So get your students out there DIY-ing some podcasts and vodcasts. -REBECCAH HAINES

Do-It-Yourself Podcasts

DIY Podcasting Blog

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Produce an Educational Video in Your Classroom

How to use your cell phone for education: Mobile podcasting

15 Awesome Tutorial Websites You Probably Don’t Know About
A couple weeks ago I decided to take up juggling. Right away I was amazed at the high quality tutorials I found online. If you have a random hobby you’d like to try, or you’re looking for a project during these summer months, check out this list of sites.

100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You’ve Never Heard Of
Here’s a great big list of sites you can use to find everything from literature to library references to health care. You can also find fun stuff like the Dialectizer, which can translate your text to sound like Elmer Fudd. Who doesn’t need that?

10 Brain Training Tips To Teach and Learn
Keep your brain fit for optimum learning potential. The folks at SharpBrains have these ten tips to turn you and your students into efficient thinking and learning machines.

Video Toolbox: 150+ Online Video Tools and Resources
Need to edit a class video project? Want some advice on how to create a video podcast? Or do you need to convert video to a different file format? Mashable has all that and more in this great post. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit:  zen on flickr

Ever wanted to make plastic? Okay, have you ever wanted to make something out of plastic, but didn’t know how? Just curious? Instructables, recently mentioned here, has a nifty video for making plastic with milk and vinegar. This makes a “plastic” called casein (I think it makes a nifty knitting needle).

The nice thing about Instructables are the related videos, which have extensions like making “green” plastic toys. There are also comments, which with this video helped to explain some of the science behind the process. Teach your kids, and yourself something new with Instructables. -ALICE MERCER

Homemade Plastic via Instructables

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I loved playing with Legos as a kid. Trouble was, I was always a brick or two short of creating the perfect fort for my G.I. Joes, thus leaving them vulnerable to Cobra attack.

If only I’d had Lego Digital Designer back then, I could’ve designed the forts, plus helicopters and tanks for good measure. With Lego Digital Designer, you have access to hundreds of virtual Lego blocks of all shapes, sizes and colors (plus a wide assortment of little Lego people, too).

Lego Digital Designer lets you build from scratch as well as with pre-loaded kits. LDD will also walk you through the more difficult designs. The download is free, but if you’re willing to spend a few dollars, it lets you order a custom set of blocks to make your digital masterpiece a reality.

This is a great re-creation of a classic childhood toy, and is a good way to prime your students’ creative juices. Now that I’m an adult, I won’t be using Lego Digital Designer for childish pursuits like designing G.I. Joe fortresses. I’ll be using it to design my next house instead. -BILL FERRIS

Lego Digital Designer

Not too long ago, I wrote about Johnny Lee, who made a marvelous interactive whiteboard from a $40 Wii remote. This is a great example of how doing-it-yourself is a viable option when it comes to learning how something works, and how you can make it work differently. Not only is do-it-yourself learning fun and educational, it is inspirational, too. Edutopia, website of The George Lucas Educational Foundation, presents this great article about the different ways you can access DIY projects and the resources that will help you along the way.

Check out the growing communities of DIYers online, where aspiring hackers swap instructions for all kinds of projects. Web sites such as Instructables and Make offer project plans, videos, and tips any teacher can find useful. The excellent Howtoons has simple, inexpensive projects that kids would enjoy, presented in a fun cartoon format. These simple projects are not as elaborate as Lee’s, but the sense of satisfaction is the same.

If you’re wondering what to do with your students in order to help them use their creative and technical skills, this article has some great places to start. Who knows what they might be inspired to create, or as Lee did, re-create. - JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Hack Attack: Do-It-Yourself Projects Enhance Learning

Way at the top of Bloom’s taxonomy is the often ignored task of creation. Now the Ad Council along with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation is working to “inspire invention.” You certainly have a couple kids in need of a project like this, the bored, the kids who are already inventing mayhem in your classroom, albeit in an unfocused way. Give them a chance to use that inventiveness for the forces of creativity and good, instead of dropping stink bombs during class.

First, there is the InventNow.org - World which is an interactive online cartoon environment where kids can learn about inventors, and invention and get a creative spark to get the brain cells going. Then go to InventNow.org - Invent, and have kids start to put their ideas together. The website has had a redesign since I first used it last Fall, so if you haven’t seen it recently, or have never been there, check it out. -ALICE MERCER

InventNow.org
Ad Council : Inspiring Invention