Instructify

Teach students Internet safety with iKeepSafe.org
As many more of our students are becoming active participants in the community of the World Wide Web we need to teach them safe ways to interact without shutting them down.

Search the Web visually with Searchme
Searchme brings up a screen shot of each search result, and you can flip through each like you would album covers in iTunes. Yeah, so it’s not totally original. But it looks really, really nice, and you can get an instant look at a site before you visit.

Diigo: How do you say that?
Diigo is a social bookmarking tool, but so much more. In addition to letting you bookmark pages, you can also annotate, highlight and comment on them.

5 (More) Good Reasons to Start Blogging
A few months ago, Instructify posted about reasons you should be blogging, but now, I want to extend that idea and give you some more reasons why. As if the first post wasn’t convincing enough.

LEARN NC, the same group of good-looking, smart and cool people who bring you Instructify, is now on Twitter! LEARN NC finds the most innovative and successful practices in K-12 education and makes them available to the teachers and students of North Carolina — and the world.

So after you’ve got your regular-sized blog fix at Instructify, head on over to twitter.com/learnnc to get your dose of micro-blogging. Oh yeah, and we want that section of who’s following our tweets to get packed so full of people it crashes the Twitter site, so follow along! -NICK YINGLING

LEARN NC on Twitter

A few months ago, I posted about reasons you should be blogging, but now, I want to extend that idea and give you some more reasons why. As if the first post wasn’t convincing enough.

• Not Enough of You Are Doing It – For those of you who are already blogging, skip to the next tip. For those of you who aren’t: why not? Blogging is a great avenue to connecting with other teachers and sharing information. Of the blogs I search on a daily basis, not enough are based in personal experience and lessons learned from the classroom. Sites like ours are designed to share tools and tips, but you are the ones on the battlefield. Who knows? You might connect with someone and learn some valuable lessons yourself.
• Your students are already doing it – Your students are already spending a boatload of time on the web. In fact they’re the ones who are making it. Do your part and represent your teacher brethren and sistren by having an online presence. In order to understand what youngsters like these days, you have to get in there and take a look around yourself. I’m not saying you should be a snoop or a tattler, but it is a good idea to know how and what they are talking about in hushed snickers around Billy’s iPhone.
• Organization – Remember last year when you had that one great comparison of Tom Sawyer to Sawyer from LOST? How did that metaphor go again? Drat, if only you had blogged about it when you got home, you could use it this year, too. Oh well. Blogging can help you keep a searchable record of your lessons.
• Get Some Attention – The web is a big, big place, and just because you teach in Greasy Corner, AR doesn’t mean you can’t be a rockstar on the web. With social networking sites in your niche, it is easy to become a teaching authority by accessing information from all over the world and helping to aggregate it.
• The Tools Are There – Remember that the web is growing, so you might want to have a good grasp of the tools that are available before 20 more pop up. There are some great blogging platforms out there, many of which are free. Check out WordPress, Blogger, and perhaps a more appropriate, niche built-in platform like TeacherLingo.

Until next time, friends. Remember: there’s no better time than the present to get going. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

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Photo credit: aditza on Flickr

I always had teachers that I either loved or loathed; there was very little gray area. My friends and I would often sit around and talk about whose class we hated the most, and which teachers we wished we could have forever. And of course, our upperclassmen friends would tell us horror stories of how hard-nosed the English teacher was, or give a heads up as to which Physics class was a breeze. Now that technology has begotten social media, the chance to praise or trash teachers online has reared its head in the form of RateMyTeachers.com.

The site is a utility that allows students and parents get the inside scoop on the teachers at nearly any school. If you are a parent, this tool is especially useful to get some insight as to what students really think of their instructors, and equally as handy for students to prepare themselves for a year of boredom, brown-nosing, or brilliance. For teachers, this might be just the place to get some honest feedback, since the student comments are made anonymously. You can search the listings by last name or by school, and the database seems surprisingly populated. According to the site, 1.5 million teachers are represented here, so there is a good chance people are already talking about you even if you’ve never heard of the site.

The rating system is on a three-category five-point scale. Students can report on a teacher’s easiness, helpfulness, and clarity. Comments seem to be quite mature and honest, and the platform allows raters to respond to one another’s comments. I found a few of my teachers from my own High School here, and the comments seem to be spot on. Looks like some teaching methods may never change. This might be just the place to do some OLR (Online Reputation Management) to make sure your good name isn’t being dragged through the mud. It might also be the place to go if you want to strike a little fear into the hearts of your incoming class: Mr. Griffin has eyes in the back of his head, and will make you read Atlas Shrugged  backwards! Also, there are sometimes pizza parties and Jeopardy rounds on Friday. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Rate My Teachers

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Instructify is finally letting me share information about one of my favorite online tools, Diigo. Diigo is a social bookmarking tool, but so much more. In addition to letting you bookmark pages, you can also annotate them. There are two tools you can use for this, highlighting and comments. Highlighting lets you highlight the actual text on a web page, and stores the highlighted words with your bookmark.Think of how useful this can be for online reading assignments in a class (no wonder it’s caught on with some high school AP teachers).

In addition to highlighting text, you can leave comments behind, and even position them using floating sticky notes. You can use these to direct students to specific part of a page, or leave vocabulary or other tips explaining parts of text that may be a little complex for students. Just go to Diigo, sign up and download the Diigo toolbar (or lighter Diigolet bookmarklet). -ALICE MERCER

FYI: it’s pronounced dee-go (Digest of Internet Information Groups and Other stuff).

Diigo

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Visual Web searching is apparently the hot new trend (see previous entries on Cuil and RedZee). If you’d rather get your search results in pictures instead of words, you should definitely have a look at Searchme, by far the most visually impressive visual search engine.

Searchme takes a page from iTunes’ Cover Flow interface. And by a page, I mean pretty much the whole darn book. Searchme brings up a screen shot of each search result, and you can flip through each like you would album covers in iTunes. Yeah, so it’s not totally original. But it looks really, really nice, and you can get an instant look at a site before you visit.

You can save your searches in “stacks,” in which you collect your visual search results for later use like a stack of baseball cards in a shoebox. Of course, it wouldn’t be a true Web 2.0 tool if you couldn’t share your stacks with your friends. You can also filter out adult content, and have video results play automatically.

Searchme is still in Beta, so you might find a bug or two. But it looks so good, you won’t care. -BILL FERRIS

Searchme

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If there’s one thing we know about history, there’s an awful lot of it. The world has changed a lot in the past several thousand years, and it’s tough to keep track of it all. But keep track of it you can, thanks to Macrohistory and World Report.

Macrohistory uses timelines to illustrate historical events. Think of it like SportsCenter — since it’s impossible to catch all the action, you can still see the highlights. And MWR has highlights from the last 200,000 years all the way up to the present day, showing classics like the extinction of neanderthals, the beginnings of agriculture, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In addition to condensed history, you can also find summaries of books on a wide range of historical and geographic subjects, including terrorism, the Middle Ages, and my favorite, “general.” Macrohistory and World Report is a great place to visit to get a handle on events from antiquity, as well as what’s been happening in Europe over the last few months. So even though you’ve missed most of recorded history, you won’t have to miss the most interesting bits. -BILL FERRIS

Macrohistory and World Report

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Have you ever tried to have every computer in your class, or better yet, every computer in your lab go to Google Earth at the very same time? If you haven’t, don’t because those of us who have done this, have often earned the unending enmity of our school/district tech support. This is because there is no surer way to bring a network to its knees than running Google Earth, especially multiple copies from one site or node on a network. After many cookies, and cheerful smiles, you may repair that relationship with your network administrator. But how do you use Google Earth (a really wow tool) without causing a Google Earthquake on your network?

Your first option is to “cache” some of the big image files used in Google Earth. A less time and technically intensive solution is available though. Google Maps is starting to get a lot of the functionality of Google Earth, with less memory and bandwidth. Recent upgrades will let you add placemarks, and images to a map, and to save and share that information on maps. There are some “basic” overlays of photos and Wikipedia entries that can be added, and views include a satellite option. You can even export KML files to Google Earth. People are starting to do Google Lit Trips on Maps.

Don’t let “poor” memory keep you from using Google to teach geography in your class or lab, just use Google Maps instead. -ALICE MERCER

Google Maps

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FYI: Instructify moderates comments for all first-time posters. This is an educational site, after all. Nothing will trigger your school’s firewall faster than a bunch of spam slipping through. We’ll try to approve comments quickly, though it’ll probably happen faster during business hours. Just don’t panic if you submit your comment and don’t see it appear right away.

The good news: once you’ve been approved, we’ll remember your email address and allow future comments without moderation. Not bad, eh? Eh?

So if you’ve got stuff to say, a good way to get that first comment out of the way is to take a minute to say how awesome Instructify is.

If you read Instructify every day, it’s safe to say you like finding nifty tools for your classroom. Believe it or not, there are more places than this one to find out about these resources (wait, don’t leave! Come back!).

Vicki Davis, owner of the Cool Cat Teacher Blog, is one such teacher who enjoys spreading the word about useful ed-technology. This Thursday, August 28 at 8 p.m., you can talk to her live and sort-of-in-person via Second Life in her presentation, “New School Year: Cool Tools Here.” Davis will share some of the tools and tips she (and hopefully you too) will use this coming year.

Davis’ session is part of “The Future Is Already Here,” a series of interactive professional development sessions from USDLC (you might remember their session, “BANNED in the Bookhenge” from earlier this year). The series is designed to give teachers a chance to hear from and talk with outstanding teachers who integrate technology such as Web 2.0, 1:1 computing, robotics, or serious gaming / 3D Web into their everyday teaching.

If you’re not sure about this whole social networking through Second Life thing, you can still take part through Internet radio and chat at  www.Literacy2Learn.org. USDLC plans more of these events throughout the year, so keep checking back. Isn’t it nice to know there are so many places to find out about great tech resources for teachers? All I ask is that you don’t forget about Instructify. -BILL FERRIS

Cool Cat Teacher Blog

The Future Is Already Here

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Stranger Danger! Children are taught at an early age how to recognize a stranger in their community and how to respond appropriately. However, in the 21st Century our students are socializing in more communities, on and 0ffline, rather than just with their local neighbor. As many more of our students are becoming active participants in the community of the World Wide Web we need to teach them safe ways to interact without shutting them down.

iKeepSafe is a website full of ideas on how to keep our students safe online. They focus on the three main dangers students will face: inappropriate contact, inappropriate content, and inappropriate conduct. They provide great resources for parents on hot topics such as social networking and cyber-bullies. For educators, iKeepSafe has resources that can be customized to align with your state’s laws. The site also includes game simulations for students to put into practice what they have learned to keep them safe.

This site would be great to introduce to your parents during an open house or a family reading night. So the next time you are teaching your students safety rules, don’t forget the global community. Remember, as parents and educators we have a responsibility to our students to keep current, keep communicating, and keep checking! -MONIQUE ST. LOUIS

iKeepSafe

So, you’re reading about all these great Web 2.0 tools on Instructify, and you want to start using them in your class, but as you try to set things up, you run into a little-bitty hitch…when you go to sign up students, the sites ask you for an email for each student.

You ponder the wisdom of giving twenty-plus 6-10 year olds their own email. Your district may explicitly forbid this (in addition to your own common sense about things). What to do?

Some Web 2.0 applications (like Wikispaces, and VoiceThread) will let you set up classrooms with an email. For Wikispaces, just email help@wikispaces with a list of student names/user names and a password for each one. For VoiceThread, sub accounts are built in. Just go to your account page, and click on the add identity button.

You could also sign up for Gaggle Mail, a service that will provide free emails to schools (with ads which can be turned off by paying a fee).

What if you have a service that is not as accommodating as Wikispaces and VoiceThread, but you don’t want to be administrator to a classroom full of emails even on a service like Gaggle Mail? Well, there is a GMail work-around. It’s called the “append” feature. Here is an example:

1. First, you will need your own GMail account (but only one is necessary). Let’s say you are awesometeacher978@gmail.com
2. You go into Ning, or Tumblr, or Edublogs to set up a blog for a student (you can do this as a batch process in Edublogs).
3. When it asks for an email, type in your gmail account name, but add a plus sign and something that will identify that student.
   ex: awesometeacher978+malik@gmail.com
4. The beauty of it is that if the service requires that you answer a confirmation email it still works because GMail ignores that +malik, and will send the email message through to awesometeacher978′s account.

So don’t fear the Web 2.0 gatekeeper asking for an email, and try some of these solutions in your classroom. -ALICE MERCER

Hat tip to Sue Waters at the Edublogger

Toyota and the National Science Teachers Association want to give you a bunch of money. All they ask in return is you use it for an awesome project.

If you’re a middle school or high school science teacher, you should apply for a Toyota TAPESTRY Grant, which I assume is an acronym for something. Toyota and the NSTA will award more than half a million bucks to teachers who propose “innovative projects that enhance science education in the school and/or school district.”

The grants will take the form of 50 large grants (as in $10,000), and 20-32 mini grants ($2500). That’s a lot of dollars. More importantly, that’s a lot of projects, which means you’ve got pretty decent odds of winning some money for your classroom. For full details, click here. You’ve got until January 21, 2009 to come up with something, which is plenty of time to make your idea a good one. -BILL FERRIS

Toyota TAPESTRY Grant

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