Instructify

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

Before you confiscate your students’ phones this year, take a look at these posts to see if you can put those little devices to work in your classroom.

1. Special ed [heart] Jott
2. How to use your cell phone for education: Mobile podcasting
3. Use cell phones to poll your students
4. Gcast: We Don’t Need No Stinking Microphones!
5. How to use your cell phone for education: Pictures and video
6. Kwiry - Remember to Remember Not to Forget This

Got some more uses for phones in class? Let us know in the comments! -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit: Laughing Squid on flickr.

Can’t get your school district to pony up the cash for an expensive interactive whiteboard with a clicker system? Well, you can take care of the whiteboard part of that set-up here, but how to get the response system? Thanks to the folks at Poll Everywhere, all your students need is a cell phone.

• You can set up a poll with different responses.
• Then, have your participants send a text message to “41411″ with their vote (Cast ####) as a text message.
• You’ll then get results that you can share (on your Wii-remote interactive whiteboard).

Another online tool for polling using cellphones is Wiffiti, which shows results as a as a really neat visualization (shown above). Here’s how:

• Set up a screen at Wiffiti, then have participants call in
• Send a text messages to 25622 (this also spells 2LOCA).
• Start your message with the at sign ‘@’ and the screen code, for example txt: @myscrn2 Hello everybody!
• Sign your messages, txt name John Doe any time, and it will remember your name.

Wiffiti is better for open ended responses situations.

So stop confiscating your student’s cell phones, and start putting them to use in the classroom. -ALICE MERCER

You may already know about Jott, a fantastic cell phone service that will convert your voice to text. You may have wondered, “how is this useful for me besides giving me another way to make a shopping or to-do list?”

I wanted to highlight a couple of uses that are especially suited for Special Education. When you see them, you may get some other ideas about how to use this tool. Please leave a comment below to share them.

Jott for documentation

If you are a administrator, resource specialist, or some other provider of services that demand you document your interactions and interventions with students, Jott can save you a lot of time. Here is an example: at my school, we have been implementing RTI (Response to Intervention) the new federal special education (IDEA) model. This involves a lot of documentation of interventions. I introduced my administrators to Jott. Now, after an intervention with a student, they step out to the hall, call Jott, leave a message, and voila - their message is converted to text, and sent to their email, leaving a paper record. I’ve heard of social workers, and others using it in a similar manner. It’s really great for field notes.

Jott for differentiation

One trick I recently learned is that the speech to text goes both ways on Jott. You can have RSS feeds from news sources, or your class blog to Jott, and it will turn it into an audio feed that students can phone in to Jott and hear. This is great for students who have an audio delivery accommodation on their IEP. Instructions for how to do this can be found by scrolling down to Step 6 Mobilecast. -ALICE MERCER

Slideshare on using Jott for RTI documentation

Cellphones in Learning blog

Cell phones in learning wiki

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Note To Self: Make More Notes To Self

Have you ever needed the answer to some pressing question, but found yourself no where near a computer and yielded only a cell phone to get your answer? I know I’ve been there many times, especially when traveling, and while you can sometimes text message search engines (or call a web-savvy friend), you can’t always get the answer you need. After being in such a predicament, I’ve often resolved to finally getting a smart phone, but now I don’t have to!

ChaCha  is a service that allows anyone with a mobile phone to text 242 242 (CHACHA) or call 1-800-2CHACHA and ask any question in conversational English and receive an accurate answer as a text message within a few minutes. It basically makes any cell phone a “smart phone,” and the idea is genius really: they don’t use a search engine algorithm with automatically generated responses, but rather a network of knowledgeable human “guides.” And since ChaCha uses people to respond with answers, you can easily reply with follow-up questions as if you are exchanging messages with a friend.

So let’s say you can’t remember who Gabriel falls in love with in Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd (it’s Bathsheba Everdene, by the way), or you need a quick weather update, or you just need to find the closest vegetarian restaurant to your current location, you can just call or text ChaCha and get a great answer quickly.

The service is totally free, too (except for any text message or minute fees  that may apply based on your cell phone plan), so you don’t have to worry about encountering any hidden costs when you get your phone bill. So make your cell phone a bit smarter, and maybe make yourself a little smarter while you’re at it! -LAUREN FROHNE

ChaCha

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How to use your cell phone for education: Mobile podcasting
Power up Your Phone with gWhiz

The first time I heard someone talk about Seesmic, I thought to myself: “This person has to be saying it wrong. ‘Seismic‘ is a word, and it’s not pronounced ’seesmic’!” Well, although it is very rare for me to be wrong about something (really, very rare), I was in this case. And not only was I wrong, but I was also totally in the dark about a new, conversational video-sharing site that is changing the way people are able to communicate with each other!

Seesmic is an innovative new site that lets users communicate and connect online through video conversation, and has become known as the “Twitter of video” because of its micro-blogging appeal. Unlike most video hosting sites, though, it’s intended for posting instant videos of what you are doing or thinking about and having others respond to the conversation over time. It’s kind of like a message board, minus the anonymity.

What’s also pretty neat about Seesmic is that you can record your videos directly onto the website (which is handy if you want to post a quick update, or don’t have a lot of editing to do). But you also have the option to use your own camera or mobile phone, upload an existing video straight from your computer, or link to a video posted on a social network.

Seesmic could be a great tool to host an online debate on something you’re discussing in class and share with your students the perspectives of other people from around the world. You can start a thread by posting a video about a specific topic and other users can respond, starting a whole video conversation about your topic. And because conversations on Seesmic don’t happen in real time, you will have control over what you share with your students (as not everyone in the world is a friendly debater!).

While the community is still growing, people on Seesmic are already using the site to have conversations about all kinds of topics, from debates about “hummus vs. haggis,” to discussions about quality and quantity in terms of statistics, to just about anything. So go on, ask an open-ended question or state your opinion on something, and see what kind of conversation you can start! -LAUREN FROHNE

Seesmic

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Okay, so you know how to create a mobile podcast. Your phone has a lot of other bells and whistles, too. Today you’ll learn to make the most of your camera phone.

Pictures and videos are probably the least-used cell feature by the over-30 set, and the most used by folks under 20. Catch yourself up by toying around with these apps.

1. Did you know you can upload pics to flickr straight from your cell phone.
2. Examples of what I take pictures of on Picasa (they don’t have a good way to upload from your mobile phone though, GRRR).

Hey, how about that video camera? If you shelled out big bucks for video capabilities, don’t let them go to waste.

1. YouTube mobile lets you upload or watch YouTube videos in the palm of your hand (and not even your school’s firewall can stop you).
2. Vimeo is a smaller service, but is focused on higher quality video than YouTube.

If you can send text messages, you can also email both text and photos (if you have a photo camera) from your phone. Just type in the email address given in the links above instead of a phone number. Blogging can be done on platforms like tumblr, just look under “goodies” on the dashboard. It will let you email by text. This is a great platform for documenting a summer vacation.

There you have it! You now have a fully functioning multimedia command center that fits in your pocket or purse. How do you use your cell phone for education? Let us know in the comments. -ALICE MERCER

Photo credit: KB35 on flickr

I know, we’ve all seen ugly examples of cell phones being used to message in class, start fights, and film teachers behaving badly, BUT you can use cell phones for the forces of good in education. I’ve recently upgraded my cell phone to a “smarter” model, so I’m discovering lots of cool things, many of which are not limited to smart models.

Instructify has compiled a list of educational uses for your cell phone. Today we’ll look at how to turn your phone into a mobile podcasting studio.

Mobile podcasting (recording audio from your cell phone) is great on field trips, or any time you’re away from your computer. To get started, you’ll first need to find a podcasting service.

Services to use:

1. Record by phone with Gabcast.com -Use your cell to call Gabcast’s toll-free number and start talking. It’ll save your call as a podcast, which you can upload to your blog or website. Gabcast lets you record conference calls, too, so you can do remote interviews, or get your whole class involved.

2. Gcast - Another service we’ve previously reviewed that lets you call their toll-free number to record your podcast

How and why:

Still not sure about this podcasting stuff? Check out these links to see how other teachers are using mobile podcasts in their classrooms.

1. Intelligenic » Post Topic » Kidcast 53 - Podcasting and Fieldtrips
2. Wendy Goodwin of R.A. Mitchell Elementary School in Gadsden, Alabama students’ GCAST podcasts about their field trip to Space Camp in Huntsville Alabama
3. Wes Fryer shows how to do it

Hopefully now you have an idea of how to use your phone for podcasting. Next time we’ll talk about how to use your cell to take photos and record videos for class. -ALICE MERCER

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Sound Field Trip Advice from Kidcast

¿Como se dice Podcast? ESL Pod

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Tune In: Education Podcasting Network

Photo credit: Steve Roe on flickr

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

So let’s be honest, most of us can’t afford fancy digital video cameras, and if even we could, we wouldn’t carry them around all the time. That’s why whenever something exciting happens, everyone whips out their trusty cell phone cameras in order to document it. The problem, however, is that they are phones first, and video cameras second (or third, or fourth), so the quality is generally lacking, especially in the resolution department.

Fix My Movie is a free video enhancement site that makes videos from your cell phone, digital camera, or Webcam look great by increasing resolution by up to 4 times, automatically brightening, and getting rid of any excess noise or side effects of compression. And you don’t have to do anything but upload it! The Web site says it can take anywhere from 2 to 30 minutes for the whole process to be completed (something to note, though: The audio in my video got a little wonky in the fixed version). And the file size limit is pretty big: maximum resolution of 352×388 and 15 MB total size.

With FixMyMovie, your shiny new flick is also shareable: You can embed it on your blog or Web site, send the link directly to your friends or students, or click the YouTube, Blogger or Myspace buttons to send your video over to one of those sites. You can also grab still images from your made-over movie, which is pretty cool if you took a video but really need some quality images, too.

And if you’re curious about how it all works, here’s nice little explanation on their blog about how they do what they do. — LAUREN FROHNE

Fix My Movie

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Grab Online Video With MyMovo

Let me tell you a story. It’s about standards (like writing, and oral presentation). But it’s also about engagement, and having students create media and image-rich reports. When they get together, well that’s a love story that ends with a beautiful marriage of content, visuals and, most importantly, dear teachers, learning. Who wouldn’t want that in their class?

It’s all so easy with VoiceThread. This tool has an intuitive interface to upload, or link to images, and simple-to-use commands to add voice narration (you can do it by telephone if you don’t have a mic), and even upload video and sound files. If that’s not enough, you can add typed text, and doodle.

For examples of VoiceThread in action, take a peek at VoiceThread 4 Education Wiki. You’ll find teachers using VoiceThread for art projects, special needs education, and much more. Use VoiceThread for digital storytelling, and your class projects will all have a happy ending. -ALICE MERCER

VoiceThread
VoiceThread 4 Education Wiki

VoiceThread of this article

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I’m always sharing some kind of large file with friends and co-workers—photos, PowerPoint presentations, or zip files with years worth of documents. Sometimes, these just get too big for e-mail, so I’m stuck using a file-sharing service on the Web. Sure, there are tons of sites for sharing large files, but most of them use infuriating tactics to entice me to buy a premium membership.

After months of using services that forced my friends to wait for downloads to begin, I found drop.io, a free service that allows me to upload files quickly and allows my friends to download them quickly as well. Drop.io doesn’t ask users to sign up, log in, or divulge any information beyond how long shared files should stay on the server—drop.io will store them for up to a year. Once you’ve created a “drop,” you can add files to it by e-mail, web, phone, or fax. Drops stay private until you publicize them, too, as opposed to other file-sharing sites that are indexed in Google.

Drop.io limits files to a sizeable 100MB and has several options for displaying and storing different kinds of files. The interface is elegant and ad-free, which means that I no longer suffer the embarrassment of sharing files with colleagues, only to have them see inappropriate or ridiculous banner ads. –ROSS WHITE

drop.io

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Here’s another way for you to sneak past your school’s firewall, or to automatically download online video or podcasts you like. myMovo lets you search sites like YouTube, or anywhere else on the Web. The coolest feature, though, is myMovo will save it into a format for whatever device you want to watch it on, whether that’s your cell phone, your PSP, your iPod, in addition to your computer. myMovo also lets you import DVDs and download podcasts. You can program the scheduler to automatically grab certain video or audio, too.

Unlike KeepVid, myMovo requires you to download some software to do the converting for you, but it’s not too huge. And now that myMovo can do all the heavy lifting for getting your online video for your class, all you have to do is set up the projector. -BILL FERRIS

myMovo

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I still haven’t gotten my iPhone yet, but it will happen soon. Until then, I’ve been using a highly useful piece of technology to keep my notes and ideas organized. The problem is that I don’t always have a working pen or I am not in a place that is conducive to writing. I do, however, always carry my phone. Kwiry is an easy to use service that allows you to text whatever you want to a standard number, and that message will be delivered to your inbox. It’s not unlike Jott, which we’ve written about before, but this service is for those of you who prefer texting to speaking.

Simply sign up for a free account, and you’re ready to begin. Just text whatever info you want to KWIRY (59479) and it will automatically arrive at the email of your choosing, as well as your account inbox. Be careful, though, as the service itself might be free, but normal texting rates apply. Kwiry seems like a highly useful tool for the forgetful or the organizationally obsessed, but is really about as helpful as tying a string around your finger. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Kwiry

Sure, podcasting sounds awesome, and after listening to the Education Podcast Network, you’re excited about creating one of your own for students and parents. So you sit down at your computer, ready to record, and find there’s no microphone. Now what, big brain?

Gcast can get you out of this fix. Using their ad-supported service, you can create and publish podcasts free, and here’s the best part: you can do it from your phone. We know you’ve got one of those. (At least, we’re pretty sure you do.)

Here’s how it works: Visit Gcast’s website and sign up for an account. Give them the phone number you’ll call from, so their caller ID can match you with your podcasts. Call toll free. Record. Send people to your new podcast so they can marvel at your brilliance.

With a tool this easy, you no longer have any excuses for not podcasting. (And don’t try to tell us you have nothing to say. We know that’s not true.) So holler at us in the comments section and let us know the URL for your new classroom podcast. - ROSS WHITE

Gcast

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Photo credit: Jschneid on flickr.com