Instructify

BY JASON DON FORSYTHE

We’ve touched on several video-capture tools and web-based file-conversion tools. Sometimes, though, you just can’t wait for Zamzar to get around to converting your file. Or maybe the video you need to work with is a local file and your online video capture tool won’t work on a local file. In cases like this you need a local solution installed on your computer, and Any Video Converter Freeware is an excellent choice for the job.

A completely free application, AVCF can convert most of the industry-standard file formats and output just as many (although you can’t input .swf files — it only outputs them). AVCF includes some editing functionality like cropping videos and arranging video clips to make movies (think iMovie without all the Apple aesthetics).

Speaking of Apple, those of you who don’t like iMovie and want to try something else, there is a mac version of AVCF.

Any Video Converter Freeware

Related stuff:

Zamzar: The easy file converter with an exotic name

Video DownloadHelper helpfully helps you download helpful videos. Helpfully.

BY BILL FERRIS

Samsung will give away 50 SAMCAM 860 document cameras to teachers as part of its Active Learning Grant Program. Award decisions will be based on need, so make sure to spell that out in your application, which by the way, is due by June 1.

FYI, the cameras are valued at around 800 bucks, so they’re probably pretty snazzy. Getting $800 worth of equipment for free would feel pretty snazzy, too, so send in those applications soon.

Samsung Active Learning grant

BY BILL FERRIS

AnyBizSoft has made version 2.5.3 of their PDF to Word program free — a wise move, considering the presence of free alternatives like pdftoword.com. If you need to convert lots of PDFs into Word docs, this downloadable program is a great choice. It’s fast, and the results are reasonably similar to the original PDF.

If you haven’t tried to convert PDFs to DOC format before, something almost always gets lost in the translation. To put AnyBizSoft’s converter through its paces, I ran a semi-complex LEARN NC flyer through the converter. (more…)

BY BILL FERRIS

One of the oldest classroom management tricks in the book is to use a timer to keep your students on schedule. Just finished a math lesson? Let them know they have two minutes to get ready for science. Big test today? They have 45 minutes to finish it. A timer sets clear expectations while keeping class running on time.

Online Stopwatch is the latest free online timer application I’ve found. Obviously it lets you set the timer, which then counts down to zero. However, it has several more features as well. (more…)

BY BILL FERRIS

It’s that time of year again when lazy bloggers rehash old material under the guise of “Best of” lists rather than come up with new stuff. Instructify is no exception.

Below are the top 10 Instructify posts of 2009. The rankings were determined via a combination of Google Analytics, retweets, and the capricious and arbitrary whims of the editor.

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BY BILL FERRIS

As school budgets dwindle and schools focus on high-stakes testing in core subjects, some schools see art programs as the go-to budgets to slash. Fortunately, there are a lot of tools and projects out there for art teachers that don’t cost a dime. The following are five of Instructify’s favorite free tools for art teachers.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Picking a good color scheme is, for me, like calculus — an ordered, complex set of laws that I’ll never, ever understand. Thankfully I can use cheats like referring to the color wheel, or this slick online Color Scheme Designer. Just move your cursor around the color wheel to find your central hue, choose between mono, complement, triad, tetrad, analogic or accented analogic, whatever those mean, and CSD will present you a selection of colors that will look great on our class blog, bulletin boards, art projects, school newspapers, activity T-shirts, or even your daily wardrobe (if you’re like me, you’ll need a lot of schemes based on khaki).

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BY BILL FERRIS

I must have wasted at least an hour of my life typing email signatures and other oft-repeated text (an hour seems like a lot of time when you know it was spent typing, “Sincerely, Bill Ferris” over and over). Signatures, addresses, and standard responses to frequently asked questions eat up a lot of time over the long haul. Take those precious minutes back with Texter.

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BY BILL FERRIS

“Back in my day we didn’t have those fancy calculators,” my dad used to say. “We had to use slide rules.” Which was his way of telling me he wouldn’t be much help with my math homework.

Sure, your math students are probably addicted to their TI-85s, smart phone apps, or online tools like Calc5, but sometimes it’s good to experiment with the tools of days gone by. Now you can make your own circular slide rule by following these directions from the physics department at the University of Montana.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Students have gotten used to doing things electronically. Your classroom doesn’t have to be an exception thanks to LectureTools, a learning management thingy from the University of Michigan.

Developers designed LectureTools with huge, impersonal college lecture courses in mind. However, there’s a lot here that K-12 teachers can use, too (though some of them would probably be best suited for 1:1 laptop environments). (more…)

BY REBECCAH HAINES

Have you ever wanted to make your own animated movie? The script, the soundtrack, the camera angles – if it were all up to you, you’d do an awesome job — probably better than Steven Spielberg, right? Well, move over Steve-o because with Xtranormal’s Text-to-movie website, you can create your own animated flick. Okay, so with the free version of Text-to-movie, your animated features probably won’t win an Oscar, but that doesn’t mean this product isn’t useful in the classroom. With a few simple steps, you or your students can create a movie. (more…)

Venerable note-taking app Evernote has rolled out a few new features that ought to help you and your students. You can now send Twitter messages directly into your Evernote account, use Evernote on your iPhone, or find tips on how you can use Evernote on their tips blog. You can also read the general Evernote blog for updates as they happen. All that is in addition to existing features like saving snippets websites you visit and recognizing text in pictures. -BILL FERRIS

Ron’s Evernote Tips Blog

Evernote Blog

Related stuff:

Evernote: never forget anything ever again. Ever.

Post-its for the Web: MyStickies

Kwiry - Remember to Remember Not to Forget This

Welcome to May’s random roundup. This month’s theme: Little Johnny, one-man stand-in for school-aged children the world over. After a year-and-a-half of hard work, we figured this overused cliche deserved a post of his own before he gets back to studying.

Time-savers for teachers
For other notes and resources the students need, consider giving this stuff to them as a whole, at the beginning of a session or semester. That way you only have to keep a master copy for Little Johnny who struggles to keep himself organized.

Learning exercise: Promote healthy living this school year
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.

Search Visually, Safely with RedZee
RedZee filters out porn and other inappropriate content, so you don’t need to worry that Little Johnny will “accidentally” stumble across something he shouldn’t be looking at on a school computer.

Swap your Stuff at Zwaggle
But Zwaggle might be a good resource to pass along to parents. If you can make their lives easier by showing them where to find Christmas presents on the cheap, they might make your lives easier by encouraging Little Johnny to buckle down and try a little harder for his nice teacher.

Keep Your Grade Book Online with Engrade
If students (and their parents) can track their grades at any time, it may motivate them to stay on task throughout the class. Come parent-teacher conference time, you won’t have to deal with parents who are angry about Little Johnny’s surprise “D.”

Instructifeature: How to Stimulate Class Discussion Using Discussion Forums
In the classroom, you’re limited by clock. There’s only so much time you can devote to class discussion. Students feel the time crunch even more keenly—they’ve got to compose a thoughtful response in mere seconds. And while thinking on one’s feet is a valuable skill, how much better would Little Johnny’s answer be if he had more time to compose his ideas? Using discussion boards, students have the time they need to think of the best answer they can.

Photo credit: khalid almasoud on Flickr.

I’ve always preferred the bumbling around method to learning, whether I’m using a new piece of software or I’ve just bought a new gadget. However, sometimes you’re faced with the choice of reading the manual or causing irreparable harm to yourself or your new toy. By this point, though, you’ve relegated the manual to a shoebox at the bottom of your closet underneath the boxes containing your camping gear and your winter wardrobe. You could try to track down the manual on the company website, or you could simply go to The Manuals, a website containing more than 5 million free owners manuals for everything you own.

Want to try out the advanced features of your SMART Board? Download the instructions and get going. Struggling to hook up your fancy new digital projector for class? No problem.  Whatever you need to know, there’s a manual for that. Well, probably. There’s 5 million of them, and I haven’t had time to look through them all. But with that many, your odds of finding what you need are pretty good. -BILL FERRIS

The Manuals

Related stuff:

Discover how to open mystery file extensions at OpenWith.org

Learn How at VideoJug

Photo credit: Telstar Logistics on Flickr.

Keep your students on task with E.gg Timer, a simple and stylish timer application. E.gg Timer works much like Class Timer in that you can easily set a countdown timer that plays an obnoxious noise when it hits zero. However, E.gg Timer’s interface is much more slick. For starters, you can program the time right into the URL — http://e.ggtimer.com/2minutes will give you a countdown of two minutes. If you just put a number in the URL (http://e.ggtimer.com/10, for example), it will assume you want that number of seconds. Once the timer starts, you get a clean black-and-white numeral display, as well as a status bar for a graphical representation of how much time is left.

You can use E.gg Timer to let students know how much time they have left to finish a test, or you can give them a set amount of time to get organized for the next activity. Or, I suppose, to boil an egg. -BILL FERRIS

E.gg Timer

Related stuff:

Manage Your Time Wisely with Class Timer