Instructify

BY BILL FERRIS

After three and a half years, Instructify is closing up shop. The reason? We’ve covered every free educational technology app in existence, and there are simply none left to write about.

Well, that’s not quite true. We’ve missed boatloads of great tools along the way, and some clever people develop new ones every day. Free educational technology is an inexhaustible resource, and there will always be new apps, sites, and ideas you can incorporate into your teaching to make a lesson more engaging, to more clearly illustrate a concept, to encourage classroom collaboration, or to make your workflow more efficient. I’ve always been impressed at the dedication and intellectual curiosity of our readers, and smart cookies like you will be able to find new tools with or without Instructify to tell you about them. If anything, I hope that Instructify has left you with a sense that technology isn’t some fancy add-on that you need to shoe-horn into your current teaching, but rather just another tool at your disposal — just like a chalk board or textbook, it’s merely a means to the goal you’re trying to reach.

I also want to thank the long list of smart educators who have written articles for Instructify over the years, without whom this blog would be a lot less useful (and more dull). Thanks to David Barger, Tua Chaudhuri, Megan Curley, Jason Don Forsythe, Aaron Fowles, Amanda French, Dan Froelich, Lauren Frohne, Jeremy Griffin, Rebeccah Haines, Kevin Hodgson, Emily Jack, Dan Kelo, Abby Martin, Alice Mercer, Patrick O’Boyle, Chris Panna, Cindy Phthisic, Marielle Prince, Jackie Regales, Lesley Richardson, Mark Samberg, Gretchen Schaefer, Monique St. Louis, Jerry Swiatek, Melissa Thibault, Jimi Trout, Kathryn Walbert, David Walbert, Ross White, and Nick Yingling.

Special thanks go out to a few people as well, such as Ross White and Jeremy Griffin. The three of us worked to shape the vision for Instructify back in 2006, and set a foundation for great things to come. Also, thanks to LEARN NC’s former executive director, Melissa Thibault for believing in the site and providing a lot of organizational support. Thanks to LEARN NC managing editor Emily Jack, who has been vital in co-editing our Instructifeature series that appeared on both Instructify and the LEARN NC site. And to Rebeccah Haines and Gretchen Schaefer, who, back in 2009, volunteered to keep writing for Instructify even though I couldn’t pay them for it.

Most importantly, I want to thank Instructify’s readers, whether you’ve been visiting from the beginning, or you just dropped in once to read about how to build a classroom website. We wouldn’t have kept this blog running at all without the dedicated teachers who posted comments, sent in tips, and read what we had to say. Teachers have the hardest job in America, and if Instructify has made that job even the tiniest bit easier or more fun, then I consider it a success.

Though we won’t be adding new content, we’ll leave Instructify online so you can still comb the archives and read about tools you may have missed the first time. I don’t want the site to go out on such a sad note, though, so we will publish one more article — a feature on citizen science from Rebeccah Haines — in the next few days.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time serving as Instructify editor, and thanks so much for sticking by us.

Sincerely,

Bill Ferris
Editor

BY KEVIN HODGSON

Sometimes, the tools we stumble upon are just a way to add a little fun into the classroom. I’d put Font de Music into that category. Here, the site takes a small piece of writing — a short sentence seems to be about the limit — and adds a musical backing track, then makes the letters do a little dance to the music. You have some limited options, such as font style, and musical theme, and font color. Other than that, though, you can just sit back and watch your words get jiggy with it on the screen. If you’d like to invite others to your literary dance party, the site generates a link you can share. I did not find an embed code, though, which would be even more helpful.

You might use this site to spice up some lessons around vocabulary — what “mood” would you choose for an individual word? Or, if students were to create one of these musical pieces around their name, what decisions would they make around choice of font, color and music? It’s a simple, fun site with some possibilities for examining how multimedia and text influences our thinking around design choices.

Font de Music

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

You and your students may have heard all about the IBM computer, Watson, playing as a contestant on Jeopardy. You too can match wits with a computerized opponent in a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. It’s not quite the same as Jeopardy, but this game from the New York Times pits humans against an artificial intelligence that learns from the style of play of its competitor (that would be you.)

The site notes:

A truly random game of rock-paper-scissors would result in a statistical tie with each player winning, tying and losing one-third of the time. However, people are not truly random and thus can be studied and analyzed. While this computer won’t win all rounds, over time it can exploit a person’s tendencies and patterns to gain an advantage over its opponent.

The game is simply played: choose whether the computer should be a novice or expert, and begin play by choosing if your hand is rock, paper, or scissors. What is interesting is that after a few rounds, the site begins to post messages about why the computer either won or did not win, making visible the computer’s decision-making strategies. For students, this might be a valuable tool for understanding some underlying logic of computerized players.

(For the record, I started out beating the computer, but it quickly bounced back, winning four in a row. After 21 games, it had the lead 8-6, with six tied games.)

Rock-Paper-Scissors: You Vs. The Computer

BY KEVIN HODGSON

We all have them — words that baffle us, even when we use them all the time. I, for one, still have trouble with “lay” and “lie” and even remember getting an angry letter from a reader about my use of lay instead of lie (or was it the other way around?) when I was a newspaper reporter. The aptly named Confusing Words is a website that might come in handy for those times of confusion. It contains more than 3,000 words that people tend to have trouble with, and it accepts suggestions for more. The site was developed by the husband of a teacher, who had asked if there was some way to develop a system to help her students deal with common grammatical word errors.

Confusing Words is simple enough to use. Just type in a word that you find confusing, spelling it as best as you can (the site’s programming has some special tricks to finding words spelled close to the original). The site then gives you a list of words that might be confusing due to similar spelling or meanings, provides definitions, and then shows examples of how each word is used in proper context.

If nothing else, you should print the read-outs for the their/there/they’re and to/two/too helpers and pass them out to your students. Strunk and White will surely thank you.

Confusing Words

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

You may have heard about text-to-speech programs, but how about text-to-song? Let Them Sing It for You is a site that turns user text into a song montage. Sure, it’s odd and entertaining, but this site may provide another way to get students excited about poetry and writing. Just copy or write a poem or short story into the box and let the site do its work. Then, play your words as a song (and see if you can guess the artists you hear singing your words).

I can’t say exactly how the site works, but it appears to match up words with lyrics in popular songs, pulling out snippets of pop songs (In my sample, I think I heard Lady GaGa, Chris Brown and even Chris Isaak). The result is an amusing musical mash-up. The site allows you to listen and then send a link via email, but there does not seem to be an option for downloading or embedding (perhaps that runs afoul of copyright law).

Let Them Sing It for You

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

One would hope that, amid all of the rancor in discussions around education, that there is still room for biting satire. Mr. Teachbad’s Blog of Teacher Disgruntlement is one little corner of the wired world where complaints about the teaching profession loom large, but this time, the slings and arrows come from inside the classroom. The anonymous writer of this site explains to readers that they are a teacher in a city school and that they write to relieve the tension of teaching. He (?) also notes that he hopes his blog “contributes to a broader discussion of why so many teachers find this job so unsatisfying and, thus, quit….about 300,000 of us every year decide that this is a crappy job and leave. And that’s just the ones who can actually get out. How many more are stuck?”

That seems pretty lofty, considering the odd assortment of humor here. There are sections where readers can write in questions to Mr. Teachbad in a sort of Miss Manners-style advice column, a collection of videos that include a skewered take on differentiated instruction, and even a series of “fake education” news items. It’s not quite The Onion, but some of the material here provides a nice balance to the serious coverage of teaching. I, for one, have found the posts around collecting and using data — and what that does to a teacher — amusing and enlightening and a bit close to home.

This is not a site for everyone. Be ready to be offended, perhaps, and be ready to chuckle uncomfortably. Be ready for Mr. Teachbad to get you thinking about your profession from a different angle once in a while.

Mr. Teachbad’s Blog of Teacher Disgruntlement

BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

If the phrase “Please excuse my dear aunt Sally” means anything to you, then you already know the value of mnemonics. Putting complex ideas into a simple expression can do wonders for our recall ability, and JogLab can help you coin a catchy slogan that your students won’t forget.

At first the page may appear overwhelming with its many windows and scroll bars, but it’s not difficult to use at all, especially after you watch the short video at the bottom of the page. For each letter of your mnemonic, the site suggests words to string together into a phrase. In a few minutes I made the one shown here, and I’m not ashamed to say I think it’s pretty good. My favorite feature is the part-of-speech sorter, which narrows the suggested words to nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on as you specify. This would be great for younger students learning the basics of sentence structure.

Teachers could use JogLab to create mnemonics, but it might be best applied by setting the entire class to the task. A student competition to produce the finest mnemonic would be a lot of fun and could result in the next great “Roy G Biv.”

JogLab

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

Teachers who use a blog as a classroom website, publishing tool, or means of sharing and writing face a yearly conundrum: once the school year ends, how do you archive all that work? BlogBooker, which turns a blog into a PDF-style book, is one option available for teachers. The free site (funded through donations) is available for blogs on the WordPress, Live Journal, and Blogger platforms.

To create your book, you need to first export your XML files (which can be done via your blog dashboard — BlogBooker provides a helpful guide to do this). Once BlogBooker has your information, it converts your site into a PDF document that can be downloaded, shared, or printed.

The site promises to try to capture as much of the information (posts, images, comments) as it can, but does not guarantee 100-percent conversion. Still, a copy of the work done by students allows a teacher to end the year on a positive note and start fresh the following the year.

BlogBooker

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BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

I often use stories and analogies to help my students understand what another place or another time would be like. This has the most impact when I can present facts to back up my story. If It Were My Home provides just that by generating statistical comparisons between two places.

The site was first created to show the scale of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill by superimposing the contaminated area over a location of your choice. If It Were My Home has since expanded to include a fabulous country comparison tool. Choose a country and you get, “If ___ were your home instead of the United States…” followed by social and economic comparisons based on data from the CIA World Factbook. By default it uses the United States, but you can compare any two countries. The page also includes a short description of the country and an Amazon-generated list of suggested books. Just glancing at the titles gives an idea of the country’s identity; for Russia it displayed books about Stalin, the Cold War, and the transition from communism. The comment section on each country’s page adds an interesting social element, but beware inappropriate posts.

For English or social studies teachers, this is a compelling way to show students the facts of life in other parts of the world. The country comparisons also offer opportunities for math classes working with fractions and proportions. And you can still check out the original page about the Gulf oil spill. If you and your students were so lucky, you’ll be thankful that it was not your home.

If It Were My Home

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

Google started it, but other sites are running with the idea of creating a search engine built around reading levels. Twurdy (a mash-up of “too wordy”) is one of the easiest and most user-friendly sites that I have come across for searching and finding information on the web based on the concept of “readiblity.” The site, which is built on the back of Google Search, conveniently color-codes the various reading levels, and a quick click of a button allows you to match up approximate age levels with reading levels.

There are three settings that you can choose: Just Twurdy, which searches using Twurdy’s basic algorithm with medium speed and medium results; Simple Twurdy, which searches using Twurdy’s simple algorithm for fast speed but less accurate results; and Twurdy with Pop, which searches using Twurdy’s most complex algorithm which includes looking up the popularity of words within the text. It has a slower speed, but a higher level of accuracy.

For students, this means that a quick search on a topic yields web resources that are at their reading levels — I did one on the Galapagos Islands and the site was very useful. For teachers, it means that gathering resources appropriate to students’ reading levels might get a bit easier. An interesting experiment, too, is to put in the URL of a website and see what reading level is assigned to it. I did this with my own blog and it was fascinating to see the blog posts broken down by reading levels.

One drawback is that I wanted to be able to better narrow my original search field to just specific age levels (such as, all of the websites about the Galapagos Islands for a 10-year-old reading level). But overall, Twurdy was a satisfying experience and one worth considering for the classroom.

Twurdy

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

To proclaim that you have 1,000 things to write about, as Barry Lane does at this new writing prompt site, is pretty ambitious. But if anyone can pull it off, Lane can. Known in many writing circles for his way with words and for working with teachers, Lane is slowly offering up various starting points for writing at this site, entitled (appropriately enough) 1,000 Things to Write About.

Lane explains:

If one picture is worth 1000 words then, 1000 pictures are worth 1 million words. In the next 3 years I will be posting a picture a day from my personal photos, a writing idea and some of my own writing.

What is nice about this project is that Lane accompanies his writing ideas with his own writing, which teachers can use for inspiration for themselves, as well as for their students. You could do worse than using a few of Lane’s ideas here in your own classroom. So far, topics have ranged from playing a musical instrument, to writing a 3-5-3 poem, to remembering a family ancestor. Three years and 1,000 prompts is enough reason to follow Lane on his journey, and he invites you and I to add our own writing to his mix, too. Go ahead. Write.

1,000 Things to Write About

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BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

Have you worked with that administrator who’s obsessed with collecting data? He wants every decision informed by a test, survey, or committee report (and probably wants you on the committee). That guy certainly goes overboard, but teachers can keep him happy by using Poll Junkie to easily collect surveys.

The first thing you’ll notice is that Poll Junkie is designed to be fast and simple. No registration is required and all the tools you need are right there on the front page. The different types of questions allow you to get exactly the information you want; you can ask responders to rate items on a number scale, rank items in order, or use classic multiple choice. A completed poll generates two links: one with the questions for responders, and one with the results for you. There’s also HTML code for embedding questions on a website.

I’d only change two things about Poll Junkie: I’d give it a more school-appropriate name and I’d add an option for responders to enter their name (currently all responses are anonymous). Otherwise, it works great for surveying just about anyone. You can have students review a lesson, ask parents about their kids’ study habits, or gauge colleagues’ opinion on a school policy.

Poll Junkie

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BY BILL FERRIS

The video games I grew up with involved dodging bullets, lasers, ninjas, and occasionally Mike Tyson. In Spent, the object is to avoid becoming homeless.

Spent is an outreach project from Urban Ministries of Durham, a charity based in Durham, North Carolina dedicated toward giving basic essentials to the poor and homeless. The game paints a grim picture of life for people who can barely keep a place to live. The object is to make it 30 days without running out of money. At the start of the game, you’re down to your last $1,000, and you need to find a job and an apartment. A bad economy means slim pickings for both. Cheaper rent means living farther away from work, which increases both your fuel costs as well as the wear and tear on your car.

Like a computerized embodiment of Murphy’s Law, Spent confronts you with one misfortune after another. To win, you have to make a series of hard choices that have no apparent right answer. For example, you wake up one morning to find that someone has siphoned all the gas from your car. Do you take three buses (and three hours) to show up for work late? Or just call in sick and miss out on a day’s wages? (Your low-level temp job doesn’t give paid sick days.) What do you do when your kid is about to fail his math course unless he gets help? Paying $50 for a tutor means not being able to fix your car, which is falling to pieces because of your marathon commute to work every day. I played three rounds of Spent and successfully made it to the end of the month twice. After completing a winning round with $98 left to my name, the game reminded me, “And your rent’s due again. What are you going to do next month?”

I feel fortunate that I’ve never been in such dire straits as those presented in Spent. The game does a good job of giving a sense of the desperation felt by people who live on the fringes. Spent would be a good addition to an economics or social studies class to illustrate the effects of a recession, or to show how some of our nation’s homeless got that way.

Spent

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

My sixth-graders and I recently had a long in-class discussion about Facebook’s “no one under 13” rule, and about using last names on the site. I’m also a parent of young boys, and my wife and I continue to hold off on Facebook for our oldest son. I can’t imagine I am alone in wondering how to leverage the educational value Facebook while still looking out for the best interests of my students and my own children.

Connect Safely has produced a free resource for parents about Facebook. The Parents’ Guide to Facebook by Anne Collier and Larry Magid provides valuable advice for those who are completely out of touch (“What is Facebook?”), those who use Facebook themselves (how to optimize privacy settings for young people), and those with grave concerns (how to prevent suicide and harm). The guide has numerous screenshots and pieces of practical advice written in clear, concise language. I also found the companion recommended Facebook privacy settings a useful resource that I intend to send to my students’ parents.

In the conclusion of the guide, the authors wisely note:

“… just as in offline life, children need their parents’ help as they navigate both adolescence and the social Web. You can help them understand…

● How important it is for their own online well-being to be mindful of what they say, share, and upload (as well as send on mobile phones)

● How smart it is to present themselves in a positive light online

● How much better their online experiences will be if they stay on good terms with others in their online as well as offline communities.”

This guide has value for teachers as well, including those teachers who are uncertain how to navigate discussions around Facebook. We can’t ignore the phenomenon of social networking anymore. We can use the concept for discussions around learning in a digital age, however. This guide is a good place to start.

The Parents’ Guide to Facebook

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BY DAN FROELICH

About six months ago, I posted a note to my network asking people if the iPad was only a consumption device or if would ever been seen as a truly productive device for creation. I received a mixed response and just sat on the thought for a while. On my way home, I was listening to This Week in Tech, Episode 286 where Leo Laporte, John C. Dvorak, Larry Magid, and MG Siegler were discussing the merits of the iPad as a creation device. Feel free to listen or watch the podcast and make your own decision regarding this debate.

After reviewing the five iPad advertisements, I noticed an interesting trend. The earlier commercials have a 2:1 ratio of content consumption compared to content creation. As you move through the newer advertisements, the focus leans toward a 1:1 focus of consumption and creation. The final tally ended in a count of 22 applications targeting consumption and 13 aimed at creation. It sounds to me that Apple is attempting to capture the spirit of this device as a device primarily used for consumption. I scoured the internet for articles and research. One of the simplest graphics I found outlines the features of Apple’s three mobile platforms. Take a look and comment on it below.

Strengths

The iPad is a very stable device. Thanks to the closed operated system, the average consumer doesn’t notice any instability or crashes in iOS. As a reader and video player, the iPad provides an adequate amount of viewing space and backlight for low-light situations. Through the iTunes Store and App Store, users can access a plethora of games, publications, media, and organizational tools. With applications like Blackboard Mobile, FlipBoard, iBooks, and Amazon Kindle for iPad, teachers have an amazing array of  research content, multimedia, and instructional text available on a single device.

Limitations

The iPad has no means of exporting content to a USB drive, although applications like Dropbox attempt to offer a file system to transfer content. The closed operating system does create limitations to file-system structure for managing photos, media, and documents. The Safari browser for iPad notoriously denounces any support for Flash content which makes millions of websites impossible to render and use.

The App Store is also known as a limiting factor for advanced users. Without cracking the operating system, users can only access approved applications. The biggest barrier to content creation on the iPad focuses around the unexplained decisions that have limited users’ access to a variety of creation tools. Google Docs was one such feature. When it was originally released, the iPad’s browser didn’t support editing in Google Docs, but in recent months things have changed and users can now edit their documents (with limitations). Users will experience mixed results in support for certain content-management systems and even some online learning platforms due to features disabled in the mobile Safari browser.

Another major limitation to many K-12 users is a lack Adobe of Flash support. While Apple contends that this isn’t a major issue, I challenge you to go through many of the common instructional support websites designed for interactive learning and discover just how many sites are programed with Flash. One very popular K-2 website that is rendered useless is Starfall. If you have an iPad and attempt to visit www.starfall.com, you will get a message asking you to update your browser to support flash. This cannot be done, at all, period. Many textbook companies offer companion websites to extend learning online. Many of these are designed with Flash as the foundation for interactivity.

What now?

With more than 300,000 applications and 10 billion application downloads, Apple certainly has the numbers to keep going, but will their restrictive environment stifle creativity and lean more towards consumerism?  I hope not. Fortunately, Android OS 3.0, AKA Honeycomb, was officially announced last week.  Does this mean the iPad is doomed? Not hardly. But just as in the mobile phone market, competition will drive innovation. With two major platforms, users will have greater choice and see the possibilities of tablet devices. Ultimately, we will need to watch as the current generation of tablets evolve into iPad 2 and devices like the new Motorola Xoom. Either way, I can’t wait to see users pushing designers and developers to support our creativity as technology advances.

In the classroom

Educators across North Carolina are exploring the best fit scenarios for the iPad in the classroom. One of LEARN NC’s online instructors, Lucas Gillespie, offers some support for iPads and iPods in the classroom. If you conduct a Google search for “iPad in the classroom,” you’ll get a really rich listing of sites set up to support the iPad in education. One familiar name in handheld technology in education is Tony Vincent. Over the years, Tony has evolved his Learning in Hand site to meet the demands of today’s forward thinking educators and their use of technology in the classroom. Stop by and check out his Do’s and Don’ts.

Additional reading

Content Creation v.s. Content Consumption: The iPad Revolution

Entelligence: the iPad as a productivity tool

Reading as a Participation Sport