Instructify

BY BILL FERRIS

This week’s by the numbers segment shows you easy ways to be more productive, as well as the tools to help you do it. Read all about it after the jump.

Stripped GTD: 3 Habits That Make You More Productive
If you’ve heard of David Allen’s Getting Things Done system but are a bit intimidated by the implementation process (he recommends setting aside two full days to reorganize your personal organization system), Stepcase Lifehack has a streamlined version, boiling GTD down to its barest essentials. Check out these habits and dial up your productivity.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Welcome back from a long weekend. In this week’s by the numbers, we’ve got the answers to questions you’ll be asked in your next job interview, open-source ideas for educators, and some cool arithmetricks. Or, if you prefer, mathemagic. What’s that? You hate both of those puns? Fine, math tricks. Happy now?

Whatever you want to call them, you can read about them after the jump.

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BY NICK YINGLING

Today’s MBTN is a little short because I don’t subscribe to the same newsfeeds as Bill, so I apologize and beg for your mercy. These two are about going back to school, which, for a good number of you, is very soon. I’m also going to cheat a little bit by calling them “Back-2-School”. See what I did there? By the numbers!

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BY BILL FERRIS

This week’s MBTN features an express flight to Mars, Web 2.0 project ideas, alternatives to book reports, and online sites where you can learn a new language. Read about all of it after the jump.

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BY BILL FERRIS

This week’s MBTN features ways to thwart cheaters in online courses, great web apps for elementary students, and bird evolution in action. More after the jump.

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BY BILL FERRIS

In this week’s by-the-numbers edition, read about the things you need to know before going 1:1, find the best free web-design tutorials, and read the heartwarming story about how the 112th element finally became a real boy got a name. More after the jump.

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BY BILL FERRIS

This week’s MBTN looks at inspiring TED videos for educators, how to sabotage your resume, saving for college, and free ebooks on personal finance. More after the jump.

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BY BILL FERRIS

This week’s MBTN features foods that will keep you healthy, a new job-search site for teachers, and tips for stopping conflicts. Read more after the jump.

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BY BILL FERRIS

This week’s MBTN features the art of persuasion, common literary references, and $125,000-a-year teachers. More after the jump.

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This week’s MBTN features alternative teaching methods, how to use colons & semicolons, a web backpack for students and the best search engines for student research. Details after the jump.

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Six Ways to Transform your Presentation
I’m still learning the whole presentation thing. I’ve probably made every classic presentation mistake, from mumbling to mistaking my PowerPoint slide show for an outline. Stepcase Lifehack has a great list of presentation tips for n00bs like me. Number one: ditch PowerPoint. I tried this for my last presentation and found it very liberating. This info will help you prepare a conference presentation, make your daily teaching more engaging, or come in handy for the forensics team.

26 Must-Have Free Fonts
Have you deleted Comic Sans from your computer yet? If not, I’ll wait here while you do that. Good. Now that that overused typeface is out of your life forever, what will you use for your bulletin boards and newsletters? Presidia Creative brings you 26 free fonts that will make your art projects and handouts look more slick. You’ll never need Comic Sans again.

Five Best Free Data Recovery Tools
Nothing places hard drives in more peril than finals week. At this time of year, the vengeful god Murphy inflicts horrible maladies upon the data of students and teachers worldwide for not heeding his law. Fortunately, atonement is within reach. Lifehacker has a rundown of five data-recovery tools that can bring Little Johnny’s term paper back to life just in time for him to print it out so his dog can eat it. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit: Photocapy on Flickr.

U-2 Spy Plane in Google Earth
Nothing says Cold War quite like the U-2 spy plane incident. Free Technology for Teachers provides a link to a Google Earth file in which your students can find out fascinating facts about this seminal event in American history.

How To Learn Photoshop In 24 Hrs
As long as you’ve ponied up a few hundred bucks for Photoshop, you may as well learn how to use it. DesignReviver has a series of tutorials on how to use this venerable graphics program.

18 Most Scenic Places For Teaching English Overseas
Who among us hasn’t pondered teaching English abroad? See exotic places, learn a new language, and see how people live in another part of the world. MatadorAbroad sweetens the deal by listing 18 of the most beautiful places you could go for your overseas teaching experience. Locales like Rio, Prague and Zanzibar look awfully tempting, especially when winter rolls around again.

Nine Reasons to Twitter in Schools
Get the most out of 140 characters. Tech & Learning has 9 reasons Twitter is a powerful educational tool. FYI, this entry: 138 characters. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit: (nz)dave on Flickr.

10 Foods to Sneak into the Library to Improve Your Productivity
Now, I’m not advocating your students violate your school’s rules about food and drink inside your school. However, a student who isn’t distracted by hunger will likely be more focused during class. But that doesn’t mean they should raid the vending machine — it’s a fine line between getting enough to eat and inducing a carb coma. Studenthacks.org has a list of nutrient-laden snacks you can slip your students on the sly to raise their energy and attention in class.

10 Most Surprising College Majors in Presidential History
Fact: not all American presidents have law degrees from Harvard and Yale. Learn-gasm reports that some of our commanders-in-chief earned degrees in history (Woodrow Wilson) economics and sociology (Reagan), geology (Herbert Hoover) and yes, education (LBJ). Also fact: more than one president never earned a college degree — Harry S Truman studied law but never got a diploma, and William Henry Harrison was a medical school dropout. Perhaps it’s no coincidence he died of a cold after serving 32 days in office.

10 Books that will Substitute A Computer Science Degree
I learned most of my computer skills by playing around with applications until they made sense. If you or your students share this learn-it-yourself mindset, check out Techoozie’s list of 10 tomes to help learn the science of computer…well, science.

Three Good Resources for ESL/ ELL Teachers
Give your English language learners a little online help with these three sites, courtesy of the Free Technology for Teachers blog. These sites address the needs of students from pre-Kindergarten on up. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit: *Grant* on Flickr.

10 High Fliers on Twitter
Still struggling to figure out how to use microblogging app/distraction engine Twitter for educational purposes? The Chronicle of Higher Education lists 10 exemplary Twitterers from the edusphere. Follow these folks for insight and ideas on how you can use Twitter to interact with your students, stay up-to-date with education news, network with fellow teachers, or come up with ideas for your classroom. Number four on the list: former Instructify writer Amanda French.

18 cool sites and apps that teach you about space
Learn more about the final frontier with this list of sites. You’ll find stuff from NASA, simulations of solar systems, space weather, solar flares and lots more. You’ll probably recognize a few of these sites from previous Instructify articles, but try to act surprised anyway. Don’t worry, there are plenty of new ones, too.

Ten Commandments of eLearning
Integrating technology into teaching isn’t easy, especially if you’re used to doing things the old-fashioned way. If you’re trying to figure out where to begin, or you’ve unsuccessfully tried classroom blogging or discussion forums, read this article from Cath Ellis, an English English teacher (she lives in the UK) who blogs about technology in education. She takes an approach other successful ed-tech users have extolled — focus on what you want to do, then pick the technology that will help you do it.

8 Unconventional Student Research Projects
Are your students bored by the same old research projects and science fair ideas? Tell them to have a look at this list of unique projects compiled by the fine folks at StudentHacks. While these particular projects were for college courses, it wouldn’t kill your kids to be ambitious with their projects. Also, after reading about projects like crickets playing Pac-Man or using Star Wars to teach recursion in computer science classes, they might get inspired to do something really creative. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit: delgrosso on Flickr.

20 Kids * 20 Kites * 20 Minutes
From the Big Wind Kite Factory in Hawaii, this link provides a complete rundown of instructions and supplies to get 20 of your students building kites and getting them in the air in 20 minutes. Sounds like a cool springtime project for an elementary art class.

Top 10 Tools for a Free Online Education
Want to learn programming? Maybe you’d like to learn to play an instrument or speak a language. Lifehacker has 10 great tools you or your students can use to learn cool new skills.

10 Must-Try Social Media Sites for College Students
While Instructify’s audience is predominantly K-12, a lot of your students will head off to college someday — possibly in a few short months. These 10 sites can help them thrive in their new learning environment by helping them find internships, stay organized, or maybe just find a ride to class.

20+ Must-Read Education Technology Blogs for Teachers, Students, and e-Learners
If Instructify whets your appetite for even more ways to bring nifty tools into your classroom, check out this list, which is pretty much what it sounds like. The fact that they’ve omitted Instructify is clearly just an oversight. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit: .mands. on Flickr.