Instructify

BY BILL FERRIS

A lot of schools and families shell out big money to Microsoft every year for MS Word. It’s my word processor of choice, but I’ve been lucky in that it came pre-installed on my computer. If I had to actually find a word processor on my own, I’d face a real dilemma: on one hand, I’ve gotten really used to Word’s format, as well as the level of formatting I can do on documents. On the other hand, I’m a cheapskate.

Longtime Instructify readers know there are a bevy of free and web-based word processors out there. Only a few of them, however, are powerful enough that I wouldn’t miss Word. I dare say that Zoho Writer is one of those few.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Do your students struggle with apostrophes? Or is that apostrophe’s? Aaugh! Lucky for them, there’s a handy chart available on the web that shows how those flying commas work. Go to apostrophe.me and check out “How To Use An Apostrophe,” which is exactly what it sounds like.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Everyone needs help wrapping their heads around a book from time to time. If you teach literature, that time occurs every day. You can outsource some of the necessary explanation by sending your students to 60 Second Recap, a site that summarizes the plot, characters, and themes of a book in 60-second episodes for each.

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BY BILL FERRIS

All writers need editors. Lots of writers have their own editors inside their heads. Some of these editors enjoy telling writers they’re no good, and that they’re wasting their time. The National Novel Writing Month Young Writers Program lets kids tell that internal editor to shut up so they can get some work done.

First, a little background: National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) occurs every November, challenging authors of all skill levels to pen a novel of 50,000 words in only 30 days. The exercise is designed to get people to start creating for the fun of it without the pressure of trying to craft the next great literary classic. Last year 119,000 writers took the challenge. I did this myself in 2002 and found it to be a fun (and exhausting) exercise.

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BY BILL FERRIS

As schools move away from rote memorization of facts, what happens to those kids who like to rattle off the state capitals or list all the presidents? They can put their knowledge of educational trivia to good use at Sporcle, a site filled with countless list-style quizzes that will exercise kids’ knowledge of…well, just about everything.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Create time lines easily with xtimeline, a handy web tool that creates time lines. Easily. Time lines. Hence the name “xtimeline.”

To start putting a time line together, you just enter an event, the date it occurred, plus a description and images. There’s really not much to it, folks. xtimline puts it all together in a logical, easy-to-read order.

A history class is the most obvious application for xtimeline, but you could use it for a variety of subjects. It’s an ideal companion for research papers, or reports on anything from the life of Mark Twain to the history of the computer.

xtimeline doesn’t look as slick as Mnemograph (now called TimeGlider), but its usability makes it a great choice unless you need a really fancy-schmancy printable time line for some reason. Hey, I’ve cobbled time lines together in Word and Excel, and I assure you that if you just need a quick time line that looks presentable, xtimeline is a much better way to go.

xtimeline

Related stuff:

Time Lines are on your Side with Mnemograph

BY BILL FERRIS

Do something subversive this week — read a book.

It’s time once again for the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week (September 26 through October 3). Every year, hundreds of books are banned or challenged by people or groups who try to restrict others’ access to certain books.

You can help raise awareness of these censorship attempts by celebrating BBW. The ALA has lots of ideas, including some creative display ideas, sending a letter to the editor, and spreading public service announcements.

Of course, it’s also a good occasion to pick up one of these oft-challenged books to see what all the fuss is about. It may provide good discussion fodder for your class, as well as prompt a debate about who should decide what books are available to whom.

Banned Books Week

BY BILL FERRIS

I love pithy advice. I also love good writing. Twitter user ThatWhichMatter encapsulates both. Named after the distinction between using “that” and “which” in a sentence, ThatWhichMatter dispenses tiny tips that will help drive home those grammar lessons you’ve been trying to impart to your students. Find out how to use hyphens, when to use “either” or “neither,” even lessons in netiquette regarding how not to sign an email.

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BY BILL FERRIS

This week’s MBTN features an express flight to Mars, Web 2.0 project ideas, alternatives to book reports, and online sites where you can learn a new language. Read about all of it after the jump.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Back in my day we had to figure out arcane citation formats by poring through dusty old style manuals. This was during that awkward window after people started putting good information on the internet, but before the style manuals told you how to cite web documents.

Your students don’t know how lucky they are to have handy pieces of software to do this arduous work for them. Below is Instructify’s list of the five best bibliography and citation applications out there. Pass these on to your students and spare them the agony of building bibliographies the hard way.

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BY BILL FERRIS

This week’s MBTN features tips to help you to hang on to your job, a panoramic tour of the new seven wonders of the world, and ideas on how to make Wordle educational. More after the jump.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Keep your lit students reading this summer with The Book Seer, a handy online book-recommendation tool. The interface is simplicity itself — students enter the title and author of the last book they’ve read (or for better results, the last book they liked), and the heavily bearded, titular Book Seer suggests books by similar writers or pertaining to similar subjects. The recommendations come via Amazon and LibraryThing. Not that it matters, but as a fun bonus, the site’s favicon is a stylish handlebar mustache.

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BY BILL FERRIS

For this month’s random roundup, we’ve selected the Library of Congress, our nation’s storehouse of pretty much everything worth knowing. As you’d expect, a lot of great resources for teachers have been derived from the Library. See your tax dollars at work by reading the articles linked after the jump.

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BY BILL FERRIS

This week’s MBTN features the art of persuasion, common literary references, and $125,000-a-year teachers. More after the jump.

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BY NICK YINGLING

Is English your first language? Did you know that if you constantly find yourself at a loss for words and keep making mistakes you might not exactly be considered fluent? Sure, I do hold an impossibly high standard and I am indeed applying a rather narrow definition for language fluency. My point is this: you probably need to give yourself a refresher. What better way to study than by helping someone else learn!

English Portal Community from Talk and Learn is an educational site for users around the world who want to improve their English. Users are able to study online, take quizzes, and after creating their own profile, chat with other members in English. (more…)