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Sometimes I think about how the internet has become such a dominant presence in our lives and how it’s changed everything about how we communicate with each other around the world, and I get scared. I mean, I once used Skype in order to have a quick meeting with a professor who was in China, and it was like we weren’t even half the world away from each other. We were just looking at each other and talking about normal stuff like we would in person. With all of these new web-based technologies, sometimes I worry that we will never ever have to leave our houses again in order to do the things we do everyday. That’s the scary part. What if the internet turns us all into reclusive hermits who never have to leave the house because we can teach our classes, attend our meetings, and meet our friends for lunch over the internet?!?!

Contributing to my paranoia and hysteria is Dimdim, a web-based conferencing tool that makes it easy to not only have a web conversation, but also allows you to show pictures, PowerPoints, PDFs, live screens, and even video as part of your conversation. With Dimdim, you don’t even need a desktop client like Skype or Outlook, and it’s totally free. Basically, it is so advanced and so effective, you may never have to leave your house again.

Dimdim is a great site to use to set up a “virtual classroom” and share class materials on the web, or even to gather colleagues from around the world for a quick meeting. Just remember that even though the internet has made it so that we don’t have to go outside anymore, you should step out and see the sun every once in a while. -LAUREN FROHNE

Dimdim

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I misspelled a word in the title of the first research paper I ever wrote in school (“The Death Penalty Contraversy”). That’s when my teacher, Mr. Goedken, told me about this magical thing called “spell check” (don’t laugh, this was quite a novel concept for me at the time). As a result, I became a better speller, wound up with an English degree and get to edit this blog.

Sometimes a clever piece of technology can help students learn a difficult concept or shore up a few weaknesses they have. At Instructify, we want to hear what nifty tech toys you’ve used in 2008 to help your students, whether they’re stand-alone programs, web sites, class movie projects, whatever. Tell us about it in the comments. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit: Matthew Clark Photography & Design on Flickr

This time of the year usually focuses on year-in-review posts, taking stock, etc., which makes this month-in-review stuff kinda anticlimactic. Nevertheless, our December posts deserve their place in the spotlight too, so try to muster up a polite smattering of applause for our best posts this past month.

Owl pellet dissection made easy

Candy as a way to teach science? I’m in!

Create web forms and polls with Google Docs

Cold weather science for kids

The Educator’s Guide to the Creative Commons

Missing the point: teacher confiscates free software

Someday when computers are animatronic robot pals, all you’ll need to say to them is “LogMeIn, Hamachi.” Well, provided your robopal is named Hamachi.

Protect yourself from pop-ups — and much, much worse

Merlin Mann on Time and Attention

Karaoke to learn English? I thought it was Japanese?

Happy New Year from Instructify. At the risk of jumping the gun with a whole day left in the year, we’re rolling out this list of Instructify’s 10 most popular posts of 2008:

1. Add Flash, Widgets, All that Stuff to Your Website with Sprout
2. Missing the point: teacher confiscates free software
3. Johnny Lee: Interactive Whiteboard From a $40 Wii Remote
4. Have Students Take Your Tests Online with ClassMarker
5. Owl pellet dissection made easy
6. Access, Analyze, Act: Three cheers for representative democracy!
7. Learn Languages with LingQ
8. The new essentials: Top 10 school supplies for today’s students
9. Access Firewalled Videos with KeepVid
10. Ask the readers: Smart Boards for administrators

Thanks for reading, and we hope you’ll keep reading in 2009. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit: holeymoon on Flickr.

Who can forget those first images from Hubble once it got its “cataract” surgery? This image of gas pillars from the Eagle Nebula is the first one I got to see and it blew me away! It’s had some breakdowns, but with repairs it should last into 2013 when it gets replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope.

If you love astronomy and the Hubble, like I do, then you’ll love hubblesite.org, which provides information and lots of great images from the Hubble Space Telescope. The site has a gallery section (which has my favorite, a video called Revelations loaded with tons of awesome images, with a thumping techno track), information on the telescope, discoveries it’s made, and a section for education and museums with activities for students. You can even see the new James Webb Space Telescope which the site informs us will be almost a million miles from Earth and operate in near zero temperature conditions (makes this winter almost seem warm in comparison). Learn about space, space telescopes and see some great images from space at HubbleSite.org. -ALICE MERCER

HubbleSite.org

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Seriously! Karaoke is good for more than just drunken businessmen (and others) letting off steam. It can be a great way for language learners to practice and improve English language skills. The lyrics rhyme and are repeated, it comes with a written prompt, and the music helps to bring it all together. As Larry Ferlazzo says, singing is a lot less threatening to language learners than having a conversation (since it’s acceptable to hum through the parts you forget or don’t get).

So where to go? My two favorite sites are Sims on Stage. Both are easy to use and have a minimal registration process. You will need a microphone if you are recording your or your students’ singing, but you can just practice. You can find easy classics under the Kids category. My school does a monthly “sing-a-long” assembly. I had the kids practice singing “Jingle Bells” for this month’s show. -ALICE MERCER

All of these ideas are stolen come from Larry Ferlazzo and his great blog

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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

During this holiday season, we at Instructify hope you put down your computer to spend time with loved ones, drink some egg nog, and recharge your batteries for next semester.

To help you do this, we’ll be cutting back on posts for the remainder of the year.But don’t fret, we’ll be back in full force January 5. Until then, cough all the chalk dust out of your lungs and relax. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit: krisdecurtis on flickr.com

2009 is nearly upon us. Y2K… err, IX. The New Year holiday is always a moment to reflect. Whether you’ll be pensively staring out the window from a comfortable easy chair or passionately throwing a whiskey bottle at your reflection in the mirror, the question remains the same: “What am I doing with my life?”

That’s a heavy existential question, and I don’t know what to tell you. Also, for certain legally binding reasons, I’m no longer allowed to tell you what to do with your life. If you’re searching for brilliant advice on how you manage your time and attention, however, I would recommend none other than Merlin Mann.

This isn’t the first time Mann has shown up in Instructify. I’ll just leave it at saying that he has a lot of solid advice on productivity, has built an impressive web presence and that I’ve swiftly become a fan. I recently discovered 43 Folders and I was hooked. I’ve been poring through all of his other websites and projects, too. You’ll just have to search for his other stuff on your own. I’m approaching my link limit.

Check out this presentation of his about managing limited time and working in a team in this video from the Google Tech Talks presentation series. One thing you should factor into this is that he’s speaking to an audience of Google employees so the translation to the education sector is a little rough. For example, you should mentally dub in the word “semester” whenever he says “cycle.”

This video isn’t going to provide you with direct instructions about how to manage your time, but it does frame the issue of how your time can sometimes get railroaded. Identifying the obstacles in your way is the first step to solving them—we all know that. Mann points out that you need to identify when well-intentioned helpers also turn into obstacles, like the “ding” noise your email makes to let you know you just got an email. -NICK YINGLING

Google Tech Talks: Merlin Mann on Time and Attention

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It seems that the news lately has been full of teachers running afoul of technology. There’s the case (ably covered by Instructify editor Bill Ferris) of the Austin teacher who incurred the Wrath of the Internet by writing, very mistakenly indeed, that “No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful.” There’s the case of the “Drunken Pirate” student teacher who posted a rollicking picture to her MySpace page, was denied her degree in Education just before her graduation from Millersville University, and then sued — and lost.

And then there’s the case of Julie Amero. In 2004, Amero was substituting in a seventh-grade classroom when inappropriate, possibly pornographic pop-ups began appearing on the computer. Amero was arrested and then convicted in January 2007 of four counts of child endangerment, and she was facing up to 40 years in prison until her conviction was vacated a few months later and a new trial ordered.

When I first heard the case described on the radio, it was immediately obvious to me that the computer had been hijacked by malware. I’ve only had a computer hijacked once, but once was more than enough, believe me. No one who has been startled by the appearance of multiple pop-up windows that spawn yet more pop-up windows when you try to close them would be likely to doubt Amero’s protestations that she hadn’t been deliberately visiting porn sites in class. Since my own hijacking, I’ve been very careful about installing and automating programs like the free Ad-Aware on my own computers. Ad-Aware updates itself and scans my system automatically, but every once in awhile I look at it, and it’s catching some nasty stuff every time, let me tell you. All the major web browsers now also allow pop-up blocking, and I make darn sure that it’s turned on, especially since I can grant pop-up exceptions when I need to. Your school’s IT staff almost certainly puts such protections in place for your classroom’s computer(s), but it might be worth a delicate inquiry — especially since evidence shows that the IT staff at Julie Amero’s school weren’t taking basic precautions.

It’s widely agreed in the tech community that the Julie Amero case was a tragedy and a travesty and a farce and just, well, extremely frustrating. At least it’s now over: on November 21st, 2008, Julie Amero chose to end a four-year court battle by pleading guilty to a single misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct, paying a fine of $100, and having her Connecticut teaching credentials revoked. What does she think about computers, after all this trouble? She doesn’t “touch them except for e-mail.” — AMANDA FRENCH

State of Connecticut vs. Julie Amero (Wikipedia)

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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

So one day you’re checking your mailbox at school and there is a letter from central office delineating your CEUs. You scan it and see that you’re in good shape except…yikes! Renewal is due at the end of this school year and you’re short some content area credits. What are you going to do? Never fear, NSTA’s Web Seminars are here.

Like everything else produced by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), these seminars are well worth the time — and of that they don’t take much. The seminars are offered on weekday evenings and typically last one-and-a-half hours. You can participate in them from home (in your PJs if you like), and they’re free to everyone! What could be better?

The seminar topics should appeal to a wide range of science teachers — from elementary to high school level. While NSTA hosts, coordinates, and provides reliable technical support for the seminars, they are taught by experts in the field, or produced by such big name organizations as NASA, NOAA, and the FDA to mention a few. If you can’t decide which seminar would be most useful, you can see the state standard correlations for each topic in order to help you select the best one. The seminars are presented using the Elluminate platform. The program allows you to hear and see the lecturer, their slides and diagrams, and chat with other seminar participants. Once you sign up for a seminar, NSTA will guide you through setting up and using the program both before and on the day of the seminar.

Still not enough time to take the seminar live? See one on the list that you missed? Well, luckily, the seminars are also archived so you can still view the ones you missed.

All in all, this is a very painless way to accrue content area CEUs. The seminars are interesting and relevant, not to mention quick and free. So, when that dreaded renewal notice comes, you’ll be prepared with a great way to catch up on some professional development. –REBECCAH HAINES

NSTA’s Web Seminars

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Cold weather science for kids
As the weather turns frosty outside, the internet offers some great opportunities for learning more about wintry weather, snowflakes, hot and cold temperatures, and the science behind winter fun from snowballs to ice hockey.

The Educator’s Guide to the Creative Commons
Copyright is confusing. Fortunately, you can spare yourself the headaches by taking advantage of the smorgasbord of material that’s licensed for educational/not-for-profit use at Creative Commons.

A more productive commute to school
Your daily commute isn’t just a time to swear at motorists practice defensive driving. It’s several minutes every day that you can use to knock out tasks, communicate, or devote to personal improvement. In that spirit, studenthacks.org presents seven tips on How to Make Your Commute More Productive.

Missing the point: teacher confiscates free software
Here at Instructify, we comb the web for free or open-source software, sites and gadgets that can save teachers time, money, or allow them to teach in new and exciting ways. We believe in the value of these sorts of tools — that’s why stories like this one are so alarming.

Someday when computers are animatronic robot pals, all you’ll need to say to them is “LogMeIn, Hamachi.” Well, provided your robopal is named Hamachi.
Designed to allow users to instantly access remote network resources, Hamachi takes only a short amount of time to set up and guarantees that you’ll have to perform ZERO configuration to get it to work. I set up Hamachi on my laptop at work, and then I raced home to set it up on my home computer.

Seems like everybody’s built a platform for you to store and share files online. Given that everyone I know has suffered a hard drive crash at some point in their lives, it just feels safer letting Adobe or the almighty Google take care of important documents and files. Microsoft has joined the fray, too. No, they don’t have a free version of Word online, but they will keep your critical MS Office files safe and sound on their servers at Microsoft Office Live Workspace.

Once you’ve uploaded a file, you can edit it immediately if you’ve installed the latest Office Live Update. When you save changes to the file you’re working on, those are saved to the Office Live server as well, so you don’t have to worry about uploading the latest version. Of course, no cloud computing app would be complete without the ability to share your files with collaborators. This is a good option for students working on class projects, or if you and your colleagues would like to update worksheets within your department at school.

Writing for Instructify, I can always count on Microsoft as an easy target for ridicule. All snark aside, this is a nice feature that, if you’re an MS Office user, you should take advantage of.  Your important files won’t be vulnerable to a dropped laptop or busted hard drive, and you’ve got a lot less of a chance for the patented Microsoft blue screen (sorry, couldn’t help it). -BILL FERRIS

Microsoft Office Live Workspace

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Here’s a little holiday treat for you: one lucky Instructify commenter will receive free tuition to a LEARN NC online professional development course.

We’ll randomly select one comment made between now and January 14 (that’s the date of the comment, not the date of the post, so if you comment on an older post, you’re still in the hunt). The winner will receive a free spot in his or her choice of one of LEARN NC’s new e-Learning for Educators courses:

• Science 2.0: Using Web Tools to Promote Inquiry-Based Science (beginning on January 21)
• Using Patterns to Develop Algebraic Thinking (January 21)
• Integrating Primary Sources into the Social Studies Classroom (January 26)
• Data-Driven Decision Making: Using Objective Measures to Improve Student Learning (January 28)
• Getting Ready for Algebra by Using Virtual Manipulatives (February 25)
• Classroom Assessment Enhanced by Technology (April 22)

We’ll post a reminder between now and the 14th. In the meantime, we’d love to hear from you, so post a comment. It could get you some free professional development. -BILL FERRIS