Instructify

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.

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.

In today’s economy, two things are certain:

1. Lazy writers will lead off their stories by saying how bad the economy is.
2. People are looking harder for good deals.

If you’re an educator who’d like to find good deals on books, head to your local Borders bookstore March 19 through 25 and get 25% off. Just bring “proof of educator status,” which I assume includes school IDs, lanyards, and lungs full of chalk dust (you may want to check on those last two, however).

Borders seems to do these events a couple times per year, so this is a good promotion to keep track of (FYI, they also have educator discount program you can apply for).

On Friday, March 20 there will be a special reception, too, which means you can probably get some cookies in addition to saving a few bucks. That’s a smart move no matter how the economy’s doing. -BILL FERRIS

Borders Educator Appreciation Week

100+ More Ways to Organize your Life - 2009 is going to be the year I get totally organized. I think I got a good start in ‘08, but new years allow for new beginnings. So for me, you or anyone else who is interested in sorting out his/her life, Mashable has a great article full of tools you can use to make sure all your ducks are in a row. Some notable and cool looking apps on the list include these: WhatYah!, Listaculous, iProcrastinate and tons more.

10 Simple Things we Should All Say More Often - I try to say “please” and “thank you” and “yes ma’am” and even “hello” as often as I can, but I don’t know if it is just my personal upbringing or a regional Southern thing. Either way, I get funny looks when I say “you’re welcome” sometimes, as if people seem to think I am doing it unnecessarily. Dumb Little Man provides a list of some of the things we should all say more often, and why they are so important.

100 Windows Keyboard Shortcuts that will help you Work Faster - First of all, I’m pretty sure the whole point of a shortcut is to improve efficiency and speed, but nonetheless, here is a list of some quick keystrokes that will have you burning through lesson planning in no time. Brought to you by Gnoted.com, you should know most of them by now (Ctrl+C=Copy=duh) but there are plenty you might not know (NUM LOCK for five seconds=Switch the ToggleKeys either on or off).

10 Natural Ways to Gain More Energy - At the end of the day, it’s tough to find the last bit of energy you need to get the last of your list done. Here’s a few ideas to help you discover ways you can find and maintain your energy throughout the day. PlantMiracle recommends exercising (go figure), meditation, and aromatherapy, amongst others. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Photo credit: Leonid Mamchenkov on Flickr

Welcome to the last week of 2008. It’s been a fun year for us here at Instructify, and we hope that 2009 brings good tidings and an onslaught of (attainable) resolutions for you and your classroom. Here are a few lists to end the year right.

77 Colorful Words - Stop trying to think of another word for “red” and just use this handy reference guide to pick the right one. Not much here except for different words for all your favorite basic colors, but there are a few activities that might be great for some simple fun around the classroom. Via TeachersDesk.org.

Archaeology’s Top 10 Finds - While most of us are content not digging in the earth for relics of history, there are many who go in search of our world’s buried treasures to discover more about the past. The real life Indiana Joneses at Archaeology Magazine have compiled their top 10 finds for 2008, and amongst the list are such wonders as the Masked Mummy and, erm, “Brown Gold” in Oregon. Check out the rest at MSNBC’s CosmicBlog.

430 Best Books of 2008 - When your students aren’t busy reading all that “required” stuff, let them know about these books, courtesy of Goodreads. The rankings are based on user votes, so social media decides who’s who in the world of lit here. Which, I guess is why it is no surprise that Stephanie Meyer holds the #1 & #2 slots for books in her Twilight series.

50 Best Websites of 2008 - Time Magazine presents this list of helpful, fun, odd, and otherwise creative websites that hit the scene in 2008. These are the best that 2008 has to offer for the World Wide Web, and cover topics ranging from finding good gas prices to peer advice to celebrity gossip. Surprisingly, Instructify didn’t make the cut this year, but there’s always a chance to make the 2009 list, right? Happy New Year, everyone. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography on Flickr

Happy Holidays, teachers and students. Here’s a little gift from us to you to of some lists upon which everything is nice, ne’er naughty. Hope you enjoy these numbers and have a wonderful holiday season.

10 Things They Need to Teach in High School - Most of my high school classes were there for the masses, and while I got a great dose of Spanish and traveled to a magnet school for a television production course, there are skills I had to wait until college to take. InstigatorBlog presents a list of 10 things they SHOULD teach in High School to help better prepare our students for the real world. For example, Personal Branding, Entrepreneurship, and my favorite Technology & Social Media.

7 Rules for Making a Good First Impression - With the new year upon us, we’re bound to make new relationships, have more conferences and makes more contacts. It is important that students as well as teachers know some of the basics to make sure they won’t be left in the dust when it comes to meeting new people and making a good first impression. Here’s a list from BusinessWeek that is mostly applicable for the office types, but can easily be altered to suit the needs of those in the field of education.

100 Words for Obama’s 100 First Days - With the inauguration right around the corner, Obama is going to have quite a lot on his hands in this troubled economy. What would you do if you were in his shoes? Wait, before you start talking, you should jot your ideas down for this essay contest and get a chance to be published on AlterNet. The rules are fairly simple, basically answer the question: What would you like Obama’s first 100 days in office to look like? in 100 words, and you could see your suggestions be published, and who knows, maybe even come to fruition.

6 Lessons You Learn by Playing Santa - My own dad was once a mall Santa, and despite the fake beard and lack of “bowl-full-of-jelly” belly, he really looked the part. More importantly, he earned a lot of respect from me (I was too old for Santa at the time, and while I was horribly embarrassed at the time, now I realized he did it because he volunteered to, not because someone made him do it). I’m sure having your lap pulverized by kids day after day is lesson enough to buy some thigh pads, there are other lessons to be learned. Dumb Little Man presents 6 of them here, including Appreciate the little things, and When in doubt, ho, ho, ho. - JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Photo credit: Wyscan on Flickr

Even if you love what you do, work can be a serious drag. Every once in a while, everyone finds themselves in a place where work feels too much like… well, work. Especially when it comes to teaching, it can be all-too-easy to over-think, get distracted or get bogged down with things that don’t actually matter.

How to Make Work Feel Effortless may sound a little bit like one of those commercials that tell you that you’ll lose 20 pounds in two weeks if you pay them $500 (unbelievable but tempting); however, these tips from Zen Habits don’t cost a small fortune and they could actually make your work seem a little less like a chore. These eight tips offer some basic guidelines to keep your mind and body in line, so that you can be a more efficient and happier teacher.

Tip #8 is my personal favorite: “Refuse to do what you don’t want to do.” But maybe I should apply that one in moderation… -LAUREN FROHNE

How to Make Work Feel Effortless

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Get everything done. (Maybe.)

Instructifeature: Get a gold star for productivity

Photo credit: Patrick Q on flickr

The folks at the Internet Public Library know what every good public librarian knows: Teens need their own space. Teens are loud and opinionated, and they need to be convinced that hanging out in the library is worth their time. While the volume element isn’t such an issue in the virtual world, the second part (seeming hip and relevant) certainly is. The Internet Public Library (IPL) provides a virtual space for teens — IPL Teenspace that mirrors the atmosphere of the best teen rooms in brick-and-mortar libraries.

IPL Teenspace collects the best resources for teens and makes them easily accessible. Like in a real library, those resources consist a healthy mix of the things teens need in order to succeed academically and things that speak to who they are on a more personal level.

In the first category: Sites offering homework help, support for students writing research papers, and advice for college preparation.

In the second category: A guide to graphic novels and a poetry wiki where teens can contribute their own work. Best of all is a page called “Procrastinator,” which offers links to all sorts of enticing, time-sucking websites that are really and truly hip and fun.

Somewhere in between the two categories — what teens need and what teens want — is a list of websites providing answers to “frequently asked embarrassing questions,” most of them about health, sexuality, relationships, and substance abuse.

And be sure to check out the “Thing of the Week,” where the IPL librarians pose a question and teens post their responses anonymously. You’ll be amazed at how teens open their hearts when someone bothers to ask what they think. And you’ll be even more amazed at how terrible their “best pick-up lines” are. -EMILY JACK

IPL Teenspace

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Young poets get valuable feedback at the Teen Poetry Wiki

How many of you are still keeping up with your New Year’s resolutions? How many of you even remember what they were? It’s easy to give up on a goal after a few days of slacking, whether that goal is to exercise every day, or to grade student essays faster. The problem with long-term goals is a lack of any short-term reward (which I guess is why they’re long term goals). I’m not saying you should expect to lose ten pounds in a day, but you should have just a little incentive to remind you why you’re grunting and sweating instead of watching TV.

Teachers give incentives every day when they hand students back their homework. Scrawling an A+ or, for young’uns, affixing those little gold stars to a well-done math assignment can give them the short-term confidence boost they need while they strive to meet the long-term goal of learning mathematics.

As an adult, I’m not ashamed to admit I need a little gold star once in a while to keep me motivated and productive. Here are a few tips on how tiny rewards can make a big difference in meeting your goals.

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Schools get hit hard by rising gas prices — not only do teachers and staff have to pay more in gas, but so do parents dropping off their kids. A lot of kids take the bus to school, but it’s not an option for many families.

GoLoco is doing its part to encourage car pooling by making it easier to find folks to share rides with. You can sign up for a free account to find other commuters going your way. Fewer cars on the road will save you pennies, reduce traffic congestion, and do a good turn for the environment.

Your fellow teachers will love the idea of saving a few bucks, but don’t forget to let parents know about GoLoco, too. The more people sign up, the more likely it is to find rides. And the more people in your car pool, the more money you save. -BILL FERRIS

GoLoco

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Save Money and Your Taste Buds - Bring Your Own Lunch

The classroom is changing pretty quickly, but most accounts of why the classroom is changing tend to start with an alarmist perspective.  “U.S. students aren’t globally competitive!”  “Gaps are widening!”  Have you heard statements like these at the beginning of a professional development session?  Have you attended professional development sessions that offer you a series of harrowing facts, but no real solutions?  Yuck!

It’s nice sometimes to step back and look at how society is changing and consider what that means for the classroom without the klaxons ringing.  Matt Mason and Nicholas Felton have put together Hard Times, a very short presentation with some interesting statistics and insights about modern life, but few “the sky is falling” statements.  This handsomely-designed pamphlet, also available in PDF format, steps you through some of the basics of digital life in chapters like “Part IX-A. Our Parents Killed Bad Ideas With Music.  Part IX-B.  We Kill Bad Ideas With New Business Models.”

Hard Times is part of Penguin UK’s We Tell Stories, an innovative, six-week series of digital fiction inspired by classic novels, which also serves as a fine model for digital storytelling and re-interpretation of literature.  Hard Times refers back to the Charles Dickens novel of the same name, but perhaps Mason and Felton’s work is mis-titled.  I’d call this “Exciting Times.”  Still, who knew that re-interpreting Dickens would yield something so… concise? -ROSS WHITE

Hard Times

We Tell Stories

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In recent years, a lot of schools have told their physical education programs to hit the showers. Greater emphasis on testing, budget cuts, and so on. But as school wallets get lighter, the children are getting heavier due to lack of exercise.

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.

Of course, the best way to generate excitement about exercise is to let students see you do it yourself. If you’re a runner, show up early and run at the track before class starts. Maybe volunteer as a coach.

Personally, I’m a walker. I’m not going to pretend it’s a huge workout, but almost any activity is better exercise than sitting. If you live close enough, consider walking to school. If you live in a small community, or you have errands within walking distance, try taking a walk down your town’s main street. You’ll be visibly modeling good behavior, and parents will like the fact you’re out and about within the community. You can check out Walk Score to help gauge how walkable your area is, as well as to look for ideas for neat business or attractions you can find within walking distance.

Teaching kids healthy habits should be a goal of every school. Even if yours doesn’t have a dedicated health or P.E program, you can still teach them a lot about healthful living. -BILL FERRIS

Walk Score

Obesity Up, Phys Ed Down

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk on flickr

Pencils? Check.

Notebooks? Check.

Online word processor application? Check.

In addition to standbys like pens, pads, and the ever-popular Trapper Keeper, today’s learners need a new set of school supplies, too.  These tools enable students to take advantage of the new learning possibilities the Web has to offer, such as making research easier, or finding better, cheaper ways of doing what they’re already doing.

In that spirit, here’s my top 10 new-school school supplies (all of which, by the way, are completely free).

1. OpenOffice — Why pay a bunch of money to Microsoft when you can get top-quality, MS-compatible programs for free? The OpenOffice suite packs a word processor, spreadsheets, presentation software, graphics software, and a database program. The open-source OpenOffice can do pretty much anything Microsoft Office can do, except drain your bank account.
2. A Cell phone — Whether it’s for podcasting, conducting surveys, or staying organized, the cellular phone has a huge amount of educational potential for those who know how to use it.
3. Remember the Milk –Back in my day, I wrote inky scribbles on my palm to stay organized. Today’s kids have Remember the Milk, which can keep track of assignments, activities, chores, and all applicable due dates and priorities. It also has fewer smudges.
4. Diigo — Invaluable for research, Diigo lets students bookmark and annotate webpages so they won’t forget why they bookmarked a page in the first place. They can also read other folks’ notes or annotations for further insight. Like any good Web 2.0 tool, Diigo lets them share their bookmarks and annotations with friends, too.
5. BibMe — Once students have found some great sources on Diigo, how do they cite them? Nobody has the time or energy to leaf through their MLA style manual to find the proper citation format for a newspaper article or whatever. If your students can muster the effort to enter a title, author, or ISBN number, BibMe will do the hard part and churn out a citation pre-formatted for the bibliography. If only the entire research paper process was this simple.
6. Google Docs — Does many of the things OpenOffice does. Google Docs also adds a collaborative element, as multiple students will be able to edit a document, spreadsheet or presentation.
7. OpenDrive – No more excuses about hard drive crashes. OpenDrive offers 1GB of storage online. Students can sync it with files on their hard drive for backups, collaborate with friends on projects, or use it to store their ever-expanding music collection. And for the time being at least, it’s free.
8. VoiceThread — A slideshow with a soundtrack, VoiceThread lets students tell stories visually as well as textually. Easily upload video, audio, even record narration via their cell phone (I told you those things were handy), with any luck VoiceThread will replace PowerPoint.
9. Adobe Photoshop Express Beta — If you thought Microsoft Office was expensive, check out the price tag for Adobe Photoshop. Fortunately, Photoshop Express Beta performs most of the photo editing functions students will need without costing a cent. They don’t even have to download anything. Now that’s express!
10. PB Wiki — Wikis are great for class projects and to cross-reference other pieces of information. And PB Wiki makes setting up a wiki a breeze, even if you don’t know a wiki from a blog.

As with any top 10 list, I had to exclude other worthy applications. Now’s your chance to tout your favorites (or to tell me what a jerk I am) in the comments. -BILL FERRIS

UPDATE: Okay, so cell phones aren’t exactly free. However, your students probably own them already, and most of the educational uses for them won’t cost you anything to implement.

Photo credit: jgodsey on flickr

With the new school year upon us, are you rushing around trying to get a million things done? If you find that some tasks are slipping through the cracks, or you’re tired of scrawling your to-do lists onto crumpled scraps of paper, consider a digital solution like Remember the Milk.

Remember the Milk adds some serious power to your productivity by letting you organize your tasks based on due dates and priorities. You can also keep tasks for different projects separate, so if you’re checking your list of what you need for your bulletin board, you won’t need to hunt through all your tasks to find the few that you’re looking for.

If you’re a disciple of David Allen’s Getting Things Done system, check out the Remember the Milk blog for a great way to keep all your projects and next actions organized.

One of my favorite things about Remember the Milk is that it works with Jott, which lets you record a voice message, converts it to text, and sends it to your RTM inbox. We all get great ideas at times when we don’t have access to pen and paper, or when writing could prove dangerous, such as while driving. Using my cell phone, I can send a Jott to my Remember the Milk account so I don’t run the risk of forgetting the idea (or driving off the road).

Staying organized is essential to teaching. If a plain old pen and paper work best for you, then by all means keep using them. However, if you need to inject a little digital horsepower into your organization methods, Remember the Milk is a great way to keep your tasks straight, and to prevent those crumpled-up to-do lists from accumulating all over the place. -BILL FERRIS

UPDATE: Broken links are now fixed.

Remember the Milk

Getting Started with “Getting Things Done” via 43 Folders

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The English Fale Fail Blog might be just the thing if you love those silly LOLCats as much as I do, but get a kick out of that other undying meme known only as FAIL. The idea is simple, a photo or video that captures a moment of utter failure in an attempt to do something commonplace. For instance, a photo of a semi truck taking out a sign that says Clearance 16′ needs only the caption FAIL to let us know that some dummy thought he could do something that was clearly impossible, or at the very least, implausible. There’s also the caption EPIC FAIL, which denotes a failure on a much higher level.

There are examples all over the ‘Net, but one special blog has decided to concentrate on the moments in which the English language is marred, bastardized and downright butchered. The occurrences are more often than not found on handwritten signs and notes, but occasionally, the English language is damaged more thoroughly on a fixed structure such as a menu or a tattoo.

All of the pictures on EnglishFailBlog.com are user-submitted, so if you see an instance that you know is a travesty of English misuse, you could find your find on the site. Though some of the submissions are of gross translations, there are still plenty of examples of why being a good teacher now can prevent this kind of ridiculousness in the future. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

English Fail Blog

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