Instructify

Remember that scene in The Shining when the elevator doors open up and all that blood comes flooding out? In your case, imagine the sliding doors of a Staples or OfficeMax and instead of blood imagine paper and post-it notes pouring out. And your desk was sitting directly in the path of the avalanche.

I shouldn’t have laughed when you called your desk “organized chaos.” I was just trying to be polite. It wasn’t that funny and I’ve heard people say it before, but it’s pretty uncomfortable for both parties when jokes sink like lead balloons. But the worst part about my laughing at your description is that I fear I may have enabled you to continue spending so much of your workday in such a cluttered mess. Let’s face it: your work area is a mess and all of your colleagues are starting to talk.

For your sake, for everyone’s sake, pay a visit to MyStickies.com. You can finally get rid of some of those post-its you have all over your monitor. MyStickies lets you post a sticky note directly on the web page you visit, which really helps you pinpoint what’s important to you on the page. Do you have a million pages bookmarked in your browser? And, like me, sometimes you can’t remember why you bookmarked it to begin with? This will help remedy that mess too.

So, please, clean up your workspace. You don’t want to look like some caricature from a Dilbert comic. And maybe you’ll be free to personalize your space once everything is Clean and Relaxed. –NICK YINGLING

MyStickies

Sure, your phone plays music, surfs the Web, sends email, and has GPS capability (and you can, you know, talk to people with it, too). That stuff is cool, don’t get me wrong, but we’ve only scratched the surface of what these handheld powerhouses can do. Now, with one simple download, you can give your phone some extra power you can use in the classroom thanks to gWhiz.

gWhiz is a suite of mobile learning tools that includes a powerful graphing calculator, a personalized reference library, and a flash card application. If Little Johnny wants to email his friends the graph of a tricky equation, he can do it straight from his phone. Create custom reference guides for an upcoming test on state capitals. Students will be able to get a lot of mileage from these apps, and they’ll always be within easy reach.

Now, the bad news. Right now, gWhiz is only available for BlackBerry phones. They’re working on adding more phone compatibility, though, including Google’s upcoming Android mobile phone platform. Maybe by the time summer vacation is over I can add gWhiz to my Motorola Razr (or maybe not). If you don’t have a BlackBerry, you may want to check back in a few months to see when gWhiz will be compatible with your phone.

Schools can really benefit from enhanced phone technology, since these devices are small, increasingly powerful, and within the price range of many students’ families. Applications like gWhiz can leverage this technology to create a powerful learning tool within the palm of every student’s hand. -BILL FERRIS

gWhiz

Do your students need to study more? Okay, probably a dumb question. How about this one - do you have students who need to learn how to study? Some kids are better at studying than others. Fortunately, by imparting study skills, you can teach kids more effective ways to learn. A great place to start? How-to-Study.com.

Note: make sure to include the hyphens, as howtostudy.com is a much different site (I haven’t reviewed it, so I couldn’t tell you if it’s better or worse).

At How-to-Study.com you can find strategies for overcoming the most tricky subjects students face, including word problems in math, long spelling words, writing research papers, as well as abstract skills like setting goals, time management, and good listening skills. All the study strategies are thorough and free.

With How-to-Study.com, your students can learn to take more effective notes  so they’ll be ready for your upcoming multiple choice test (the site has strategies for those, too). -BILL FERRIS

How-to-Study.com

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I’d really like to use some mind maps. I know I can benefit from using one, but I really don’t have the time to sit down and think one up and then design it and then oh great its 3 a.m. and I’ve got to wake up for work in a few hours.

Pay a visit to Mindomo. Now you’ll be free to stay up late working while filling actual content into the thousands of already created templates - spread out across several different topics and several different languages. -NICK YINGLING

Mindomo

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Teachers have a lot to do on any given day, and it can be difficult to find time to sit down and create nice, simple worksheets that perfectly complement your lesson plans or design calendars to help organize both you and your students. Butthanks to the Internet, there are tons of resources you can take advantage of to make your tough job a little bit easier.

The Worksheet Library is an online resource full of worksheets, calendars, planners, newsletter templates, bookmarks and tons of other useful materials on subjects like math, science, and language arts to use in your kindergarten through sixth grade classroom. You can check out more than 500 materials available on the site for free (all the free worksheets are designated with the little “free” icon next to them), and you can sign up for their free weekly worksheet which is conveniently sent directly to your e-mail.

As an added bonus, the site also offers free teaching tip articles for grades K through 6 on topics like report card comments, time-saving advice, and icebreaker exercises, which are useful to both novice and experienced teachers alike.

To reap all the benefits of the site, you do need a membership, though you should be able to find enough free stuff to be worth your while. And they add new materials each week, so there’s always something new to check out!

We know you’re busy, so let the Internet do a little bit of the work now and again. Really, it doesn’t mind! - LAUREN FROHNE

Worksheet Library

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8 Tips to Help You Think Like a Genius - I don’t need these tips, personally, because me am already genius. You might find them useful, though. ZME Lifetips recommends visualization, being productive, and thinking metaphorically amongst others. Start using these tips and you’ll be a geinus in no time.

5 Questions That Will Save You Time and Money - Lifehack presents this list of questions you should ask yourself to tell if you are being productive or actually wasting time. There are a lot of do-it-yourself-ers out there who think they can do-it-themselves but they end up not-doing-it-right so they end-up-paying-for-it-later. The first of these five questions sums it up nicely: Do I have the skills necessary for the task?

6 Best Ways to Learn Physics… For Free - I don’t know much about physics, but I do know it is easier to understand if you see it in action. Blog Learn Out Loud has compiled this list of a few good video demonstrations you can find on the web. Included on the list is a great video we mentioned before about the 10th dimension.

List of Educational Web 2.0 Apps to Jumpstart Your Productivity - There are a lot of Web 2.0 applications out there, but only a few are catered toward becoming a better learner. DiplomaGuide has found some of the better ones available. These 25 applications are divided into categories like ‘organization’ and ‘note taking’. There seems like a good mix here, so sort your way through to find what you can recommend to your students. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Photo credit: Szagi on flickr

In high school, I swore off backpacks. Therefore, my goal was to carry as few things as humanly possible. So I would get one of those huge 5-subject notebooks which worked great for that purpose; that is, until the end of the semester approached, and it would be practically exploding with a disorganized mess of notes and papers. What I would have given for a laptop and Springnote.

In essence, Springnote is a wiki, but really it’s like a virtual three-ring binder that you can share online. It works similarly to Google Docs, but it’s hyper-organized and super easy to use. All of your documents are organized into a drop-down tree menu with categories and tags, so you can see and access all of your content quickly. And with two gigs of space and the ability to add attachments and embedded links and images, what more could you ask for?

Well, the text editor is simple and intuitive, you can set your documents as private or public, and you can invite collaborators to edit documents, too. Springnote is a great tool for sharing class notes with your students, having your students work on group projects together, or even for collaborating with colleagues on event planning with to-do lists and details and everything you need all in one shareable place.

It’s probably too early to rid the world of backpacks entirely, but it’s a start. - LAUREN FROHNE

Springnote

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I have long held the belief that a British accent is the best way to sound intelligent and credible. The problem that I run into is that my impersonation of a British accent is so bad that I end up looking less intelligent and credible to people who hear my attempts. I need to think of a solution!

Exploratree is a great place to help me with my project. Not only do they offer a multitude of interactive thinking-guides, but they are also UK-based. Here in the States we call this sort of thing “mind-mapping,” so when you refer to these resources with Exploratree’s terminology you’ll ooze with intelligence and credibility.

The ability to share resources online lets students log in and contribute to a group project anytime, anywhere. Think about how much time you might set aside for your students to work on group projects during class time. Now think about what you can get done in all that time that Exploratree just helped you claim back. –NICK YINGLING

Exploratree

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Ever used a mind map? They can be fun ways to brainstorm new ideas. Their best feature is they’re designed to mimic the way the human mind works - that is, jumping from one idea to another. Thanks to free online mind-mapping tools like bubbl.us, your brain can jump around to your heart’s content.

Bubbl.us makes mind mapping easy and interactive, which is vital to brainstorming - a slow or clunky interface could lead to stifled creativity or lost ideas. But bubbl.us makes adding new ideas as simple as hitting your Tab and Enter keys.

Best of all, you can collaborate online by sharing your bubbl.us mind map with others, or save it as an image and email it to colleagues. In your classroom, bubbl.us is an ideal way to brainstorm class projects, fundraising ideas, field trip plans, or simply as an excuse to get students to work together. -BILL FERRIS

bubbl.us

Graphic.org has all you need to know about building and maintaining a graphic organizer for any project, plan, or goal. Even if you don’t currently use graphic organizers, you might want to check out this site to see if there is something right for you. I knew very little about the possibilities a graphic organizer had until I saw the content here. Whether you are writing a story or essay, or just trying to manage your contacts, the examples here surely contain what you need.

There are a few forms to choose from, so while some folks might be more apt to use a matrix style organizer (no, not that Matrix, Keanu!) others might prefer webbing or concept mapping. There are examples of all, as well as tips on how to best utilize graphic organizers for students and educators. Check out the ‘references & links’ section for more in depth research on what kind of graphic organizer might be best for you. –JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Graphic.org

Do you sweat over your lecture notes after class wondering what they mean? Do ideas get lost in a constellation of bullet points? Then take note of a great way to…well, take notes.

Cornell Notes is a note-taking format that divides a piece of paper up into three memory-inducing sections. Draw a horizontal line about four inches from the bottom of the page. Then draw a vertical line about two inches from the left margin, running from the top down to the horizontal line.

When class begins, start jotting in the notes section, the fat column on the right. It’s wide enough for short sentences, but you’re advised to use sentence fragments or shorthand to save space. Eliminate as many words as you can without delving into gibberish. Leave space to add to ideas if necessary.

After class, put off meeting your buddies at the coffee shop for five minutes while you write the key concepts from each page of notes in the skinny, left-hand keyword column. For each main idea, write a word, a question, a picture, whatever works as a concise memory-jogger.

Almost done. Fill in the bottom section with a summary of all the important stuff on each page for easy reference. Viola! You’ve got a handy study guide. Stack the pages on top of one another so only the keyword columns show, and you’ve got flashcards to boot.

You can download free, printable PDF forms, and Word templates preformatted for Cornell Notes. They make a great gift for your glassy-eyed students in your final class period. Their newfound alertness from not poring over their disorganized hen scratch in the wee hours will be thanks enough for you. –BILL FERRIS

43 Folders

Even with the luxurious feature of T9 Text prediction on my cellphone, I still end up with garbled little memos in my message folder that read things like “buy act done” instead of “buy cat food.” Despite getting to adopt a new cat every week or so, this process is not the best way to keep notes of important deadlines or spur of the moment decisions. I could go out and buy a tape recorder or an iPhone, sure, but I have this expensive cell phone so I might as well take advantage of it, right?

Thank ye Internets for bringing us Jott.com, a simple-to-use Web application that allows you to use your phone to leave yourself and others voice messages which will be converted to an email or a text message and sent directly to whatever number or email address you like. The service is free and rather easy to use. Though it’s still in beta, it works just fine. Basically, you sign up with an email address, pop in your phone number, and then call an 866 (toll free) number to access the directory.

It’s all automated in a friendly lady’s voice who will guide you through the steps as easily as possible. The email is sent right away, and you have the option to listen to your recorded message in case anything gets lost in translation. Nonetheless, I was able to conveniently have in my inbox my note to self: “Remember to buy lunch of cat food because otherwise the cat will starve and you don’t want to buy new cat this week.”
jott.com

-JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

It’s that time of year again, so get your ducks in a row while you still can. But what happens when your ducks’ ducks aren’t in a row? This year, instead of hoping all your students have the organizational skills they’ll need to get focused on the school year, give them something that will make it easy for them.

Notely.net is an online organization site that allows students to keep notes in an organized and simple manner. It’s free to register, and the multiple features pack a wallop. Students can create folders for individual courses, add notes as often as they like in a WYSIWYG editor, and even download their notes in an array of formats like .doc and .pdf. To boot, Notely offers primo features like a calendar, to-do list, notebook, a friends list, a links list, and the ability to create a profile and interact with other users.

The site offers a tutorial and demo version of its applications, but registration is easy enough that you might as well sign up. Things are relatively new, so expect a few bugs here and there, but also expect some add-ons and upgrades in the near future. Notely is easily integrated with other sites and applications, so you can even access it from your phone or utilize the Facebook application. Export data with an RSS feature, or just use the online storage to keep useful files and sites right where you need them. Simple and effective, just the way we like it; hope your students do, too. –JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Notely