Instructify

“Is there any e-mail in your inbox right now that you’ve read but you haven’t done anything about?”

When writer and speaker Merlin Mann asks this question of a packed-to-overflowing audience of Google employees, the world’s most prestigious knowledge workers laugh, ashamed (but relieved) that their dark secret has been brought into the light. You can hear the moment at minute 15:15 in the hour-long “Inbox Zero” video, a recording of a 2007 presentation that adds multimedia sparkle to the “Inbox Zero” series of posts at Mann’s “time, attention, and creative work” blog, 43folders.com.

Teachers, of course, are also knowledge workers, and we get more than our share of e-mail: personal e-mail, administrative e-mail, informational e-mail from listservs and colleagues, e-mail from parents, and, most importantly, e-mail from students. Swing a cat, and you’re likely to hit an educator who has over a thousand e-mails in his or her inbox. Such a mass of messages can cause high stress levels, and Merlin Mann offers compassionate and sensible advice for this 21st-century problem. Mann is one of the technology sector’s go-to guys for productivity, whose enthusiasm for David Allen’s Getting Things Done book has probably influenced the notable proliferation of applications and websites designed specifically to help people implement “GTD,” as Allen’s plan is affectionately called.

There are just a few key points to the Inbox Zero system, one of which is to “process” rather than “check” e-mail. Processing e-mail, says Mann, is “more than checking and less than responding”; it consists of clearing out your inbox (and your mind) by taking a small, simple action on every single e-mail. Often, this action is “delete” or “archive”; sometimes it’s “reply briefly, then delete or archive” or “enter date on calendar, then delete or archive” or “enter task on To Do list, then delete or archive.” Mann’s technology background also makes him a useful source of advice on things like e-mail settings, filters, and templates; and there are in-depth pieces on such advanced topics as how to get rid of an enormous backlog of e-mail with an “Email DMZ.”

So. Is there any e-mail in your inbox right now that you’ve read but haven’t done anything about? — AMANDA FRENCH

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Even if you love what you do, work can be a serious drag. Every once in a while, everyone finds themselves in a place where work feels too much like… well, work. Especially when it comes to teaching, it can be all-too-easy to over-think, get distracted or get bogged down with things that don’t actually matter.

How to Make Work Feel Effortless may sound a little bit like one of those commercials that tell you that you’ll lose 20 pounds in two weeks if you pay them $500 (unbelievable but tempting); however, these tips from Zen Habits don’t cost a small fortune and they could actually make your work seem a little less like a chore. These eight tips offer some basic guidelines to keep your mind and body in line, so that you can be a more efficient and happier teacher.

Tip #8 is my personal favorite: “Refuse to do what you don’t want to do.” But maybe I should apply that one in moderation… -LAUREN FROHNE

How to Make Work Feel Effortless

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Photo credit: Patrick Q on flickr

I am the queen of list making. I tend to make a list to remind me of things I need to put on another list. I live for Post-it notes. My clander boxes are are so full I have a hard time reading what I’ve written. If there is something I really have to remember I just call my house and leave myself a message on the answering machine. It’s not uncommon for me to have three or four messages to myself each day. I am sure this drives my dog crazy as she listens to me talking to myself on the answering machine. However, my salvation is here with Joe’s Goals. I can have all of my lists in one place, easily accessible from anywhere I can find an internet connection.

Joe’s Goals is a site that allows you to create as many logbooks as you would like to help organize your life in the areas of spending goals, food diaries, diary entries, exercises goals, and anything else you need to organize. This tool provides many opportunities to make my life a little easier in the classroom and my personal life. Joe’s Goals allows me to keep track of ongoing student behavior plans, anecdotal records, and check-off sheets. Older students can use this site to help keep track of assignments and projects.

So now whether you’re an over-organized individual with Post-it notes stuck everywhere, or someone who is disorganized and struggling to keep track of important things, using Joe’s Goals can rescue you. -MONIQUE ST.LOUIS

Joe’s Goals

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Evernote: never forget anything ever again. Ever.

Organize your to-do list online with Remember the Milk

Sticky notes are sooo 20th century

Confession: sometimes I leave papers ungraded and e-mails unanswered for just a smidge too long. Corollary confession: I spend (waste?) a fair percentage of my time on books, sites, and blogs that promise to help me manage my time better, get more organized, stop procrastinating, and be more productive. Usually each one has its own proprietary system, trademark and all, and yet there are so many of these systems around that sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart.

To my (overly) experienced eye, “Get Everything Done,” Mark Forster’s time-management site and blog, is on the bland side: as a productivity guru, Mark Forster doesn’t seem to have the bold entrepreneurial personality of a Stephen Covey or a David Allen or a Julie Morgenstern, let alone a Gina Trapani or a Merlin Mann. (Watch this space for more about tech-savvy productivity systems in upcoming weeks.) That could be because Forster is British, and thus naturally more restrained, or it could be because Forster’s system emphasizes, well, just chilling out.

Forster writes that “Thinking should be your number one top priority action,” for instance. Moreover, he’s opposed to to-do lists as well as to prioritizing by importance or urgency, which is almost unheard of. Read more on his site if you’re into that kind of thing, like I am, or consider passing on his tips to your disorganized students. Of particular interest to me, and possibly to you, are these articles: “It’s Like Walking Across a Muddy Field: How to Get Rid of Backlogs“; “Top 10 Tips for Keeping Your Life Moving“; and “Chaining: A Way to Keep Going.”

See you at the annual conference of ninjas, gurus, and maestros. –AMANDA FRENCH

Get Everything Done

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For those of you who use PowerPoint (or are willing to, when it’s useful), you might consider creating a series of short slide shows that can run in automated mode as your students are entering your classroom. I’ve been doing this for several years now at conference presentations, and it works really well to get the audience engaged and warmed up as they come in and find seats. They actually start talking to each other about the session topic!

I use a combination of these kinds of things for my conference pre-presentation shows:

1. Questions and answers (a la movie trivia quizzes while you’re waiting for a movie to start)
2. Quotes related to the presentation
3. Questions without answers that make people think about issues that will be raised
4. Facts, figures, charts, or other simple data I want to reinforce

Teachers can use this to remind students of content from the previous class, or as a way to introduce content in the current class. Or perhaps as an additional reminder to students about upcoming tests or papers.

You can set up any slide show in Power Point to run automatically, and you can determine the amount of time each slide will display before the next one appears. -ELIZABETH A. EVANS

Elizabeth A. Evans works for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Information Technology Services.

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Now they’ve done it. They’ve ruined my ability to forget stuff. That trusty companion—from so many Friday and Saturday nights (and Saturday and Sunday mornings, too), from so many ex-girlfriends’ birthdays/anniversaries/other clichéd relationship obligations, from so many work/school obligations—is gone for good. Now, thanks to Evernote, I have to say goodbye to my ability to forget stuff.

Its going to be a tough loss for me to handle, but I’ll just have to cope by filling the void with my new FRIGGIN’ AWESOME ABILITY TO REMEMBER EVERYTHING! Evernote lets you grab whatever you want on a website for easy reference later. While Evernote still lets you grab whole pages, why bookmark the entire page when you just want that one chunk of info? See an image, video, link, snippet of text, or whatever that you like? Highlight it and with the click of a button you’ve sent it to your Evernote.

I think it was LifeHacker where I picked up the tip to use my camera phone to take quick snapshots of business hours, ads, etc. so that I had them for easy reference, plus I’d save valuable seconds by not actually having to write things down. And I saved paper, so there’s a green spin for my personal PR, too. It’s a nice tip, but it gets annoying when I start to max out the memory on my phone. So eventually I have to waste time deciding which pics get zapped, so then I might just have to actually jot down the info somewhere after all. Someone on the Internet must have been paying attention to my plight because now I can use Evernote mobile.

With a mobile version of Evernote, I can send in those all the snapshots on my phone to have them sync up with the rest of my notes. They’ll even be searchable, as Evernote’s recognition technology can recognize the words in images. That’s some pretty next level Internetwebs technology right there.

The mobile version of Evernote is only available for your iPhone and other phones with internet capabilities, but don’t worry—in a few short years all phones will be internet ready…and shortly thereafter the machines will probably rise up against humanity. But everything will be alright. You’ll be able to easily look back and remember the full life you’ve led, all thanks to this new tool! -NICK YINGLING

Evernote

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I know I’m not the only person to have pulled this trick, which is to use a non-Gmail account for Google applications. I am still wedded to my Yahoo! Mail account for email, and I’ve used that email for some of of my accounts on Google, especially the ones that were acquired by Google after I started an account there (like YouTube).  On the other hand, I also have a GMail address (which generally collects dust, and spam from disuse) on my account as well. With so many online identities to keep track of, how do I get this all together so Google knows who I am in all Google applications?

It’s simple, really. Go to the My Account page, then click on “Edit” next to your name on the right. You can then specify Google to associate whatever email address you like with your account.

This tip comes by way of Mark Wagner at EdTechLife. -ALICE MERCER

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How many of you are still keeping up with your New Year’s resolutions? How many of you even remember what they were? It’s easy to give up on a goal after a few days of slacking, whether that goal is to exercise every day, or to grade student essays faster. The problem with long-term goals is a lack of any short-term reward (which I guess is why they’re long term goals). I’m not saying you should expect to lose ten pounds in a day, but you should have just a little incentive to remind you why you’re grunting and sweating instead of watching TV.

Teachers give incentives every day when they hand students back their homework. Scrawling an A+ or, for young’uns, affixing those little gold stars to a well-done math assignment can give them the short-term confidence boost they need while they strive to meet the long-term goal of learning mathematics.

As an adult, I’m not ashamed to admit I need a little gold star once in a while to keep me motivated and productive. Here are a few tips on how tiny rewards can make a big difference in meeting your goals.

(more…)

120 Ways to Boost Your Brain Power
Some of the best ways to boost your brainpower have nothing to do with studying. Brainteasers and puzzles, critical thinking, and the occasional nap all work as the equivalent of mental calisthenics to keep you thinking faster and more creatively. I’ve started doing #22, learning to juggle, and I feel it’s made me think better on my feet. Plus I can impress friends and loved ones. I’m also intrigued by the title of #14, SCAMPER!

10 Tips for Immediate Productivity Results
Ever feel like you’re working hard but not meeting your goals? This list will help you get organized and get things done. Tips like not confusing “urgent” with “important,” and batching small jobs together and doing them at once are great ways to boost your productivity.

10 Most Common Passwords
It’s a fine line between creating a memorable password and making things too easy for hackers and identity thieves. PC Magazine lists the 10 most common passwords on the Internet. Suffice it to say, if the password to your bank account is on this list, you’d best change it ASAP. -BILL FERRIS

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

With the new school year upon us, are you rushing around trying to get a million things done? If you find that some tasks are slipping through the cracks, or you’re tired of scrawling your to-do lists onto crumpled scraps of paper, consider a digital solution like Remember the Milk.

Remember the Milk adds some serious power to your productivity by letting you organize your tasks based on due dates and priorities. You can also keep tasks for different projects separate, so if you’re checking your list of what you need for your bulletin board, you won’t need to hunt through all your tasks to find the few that you’re looking for.

If you’re a disciple of David Allen’s Getting Things Done system, check out the Remember the Milk blog for a great way to keep all your projects and next actions organized.

One of my favorite things about Remember the Milk is that it works with Jott, which lets you record a voice message, converts it to text, and sends it to your RTM inbox. We all get great ideas at times when we don’t have access to pen and paper, or when writing could prove dangerous, such as while driving. Using my cell phone, I can send a Jott to my Remember the Milk account so I don’t run the risk of forgetting the idea (or driving off the road).

Staying organized is essential to teaching. If a plain old pen and paper work best for you, then by all means keep using them. However, if you need to inject a little digital horsepower into your organization methods, Remember the Milk is a great way to keep your tasks straight, and to prevent those crumpled-up to-do lists from accumulating all over the place. -BILL FERRIS

UPDATE: Broken links are now fixed.

Remember the Milk

Getting Started with “Getting Things Done” via 43 Folders

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Kwiry - Remember to Remember Not to Forget This

In ancient times, back when cavemen could only type cryptic DOS commands on their computers to start programs (or do pretty much anything), they could never have dreamed how much easier the mouse could make computing. Now, however, you can cut back on your mousing with something much faster — your clunky old stone-age keyboard.

The cleverly named Launchy lets you…well, launch programs, documents, music files, anything you like with just a few keystrokes. Hit ALT and the spacebar to bring up the Lauchy window. Then start typing whatever program you want to open (Launchy, being a smart cookie, will probably have a good idea of what you’re looking for within your first few letters). Hit enter, then poof! You’re using that program (or doc or file or whatever) without having to take your hands off the keyboard and hunt through your arcane filing system or flip through a dozen folders on the Windows start menu. Speaking of Windows, Launchy works on Windows or Linux exclusively (Mac users have Quicksilver, though, which does more or less the same things).

Be sure to read the Tips & Tricks section on how to get the most out of Launchy, including how to open files on your computer, quickly bring up a calculator, or perform Web searches in a fraction of the time you’re used to. Launchy may just make your mouse obsolete. -BILL FERRIS

Launchy

15 Awesome Tutorial Websites You Probably Don’t Know About
A couple weeks ago I decided to take up juggling. Right away I was amazed at the high quality tutorials I found online. If you have a random hobby you’d like to try, or you’re looking for a project during these summer months, check out this list of sites.

100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You’ve Never Heard Of
Here’s a great big list of sites you can use to find everything from literature to library references to health care. You can also find fun stuff like the Dialectizer, which can translate your text to sound like Elmer Fudd. Who doesn’t need that?

10 Brain Training Tips To Teach and Learn
Keep your brain fit for optimum learning potential. The folks at SharpBrains have these ten tips to turn you and your students into efficient thinking and learning machines.

Video Toolbox: 150+ Online Video Tools and Resources
Need to edit a class video project? Want some advice on how to create a video podcast? Or do you need to convert video to a different file format? Mashable has all that and more in this great post. -BILL FERRIS

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You may already know about Jott, a fantastic cell phone service that will convert your voice to text. You may have wondered, “how is this useful for me besides giving me another way to make a shopping or to-do list?”

I wanted to highlight a couple of uses that are especially suited for Special Education. When you see them, you may get some other ideas about how to use this tool. Please leave a comment below to share them.

Jott for documentation

If you are a administrator, resource specialist, or some other provider of services that demand you document your interactions and interventions with students, Jott can save you a lot of time. Here is an example: at my school, we have been implementing RTI (Response to Intervention) the new federal special education (IDEA) model. This involves a lot of documentation of interventions. I introduced my administrators to Jott. Now, after an intervention with a student, they step out to the hall, call Jott, leave a message, and voila - their message is converted to text, and sent to their email, leaving a paper record. I’ve heard of social workers, and others using it in a similar manner. It’s really great for field notes.

Jott for differentiation

One trick I recently learned is that the speech to text goes both ways on Jott. You can have RSS feeds from news sources, or your class blog to Jott, and it will turn it into an audio feed that students can phone in to Jott and hear. This is great for students who have an audio delivery accommodation on their IEP. Instructions for how to do this can be found by scrolling down to Step 6 Mobilecast. -ALICE MERCER

Slideshare on using Jott for RTI documentation

Cellphones in Learning blog

Cell phones in learning wiki

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Top 10 Office Supply Hacks - Get some extra mileage out of the supply closet. Lifehacker has 10 bonus uses for everyday office supplies. Keep snack foods fresh by using binder clips as chip clips. Did some clod write on your white board with permanant marker? Dry erase ink will make it come right off. You’ll want these ideas handy before class starts again.

17 Writing Secrets  - Want to bump your students’ writing from good to great (or at least from middling to halfway decent), Writer’s Digest presents these 17 writing secrets to help students make good word choices, and remind them of the importance of fixing stuff that’s kinda wordy and lame revision.

101+ Web Resources for Students - Courtesy of StudentHacks.org, this list is pretty much what it sounds like. It features everything from dictionaries to Shakespeare’s complete works to resources for the yearbook staff. If your students are looking for some handy Web tools, this is a great place to start.

100 Helpful Web Tools for Every Kind of Learner - Different students learn in different ways. What works for visual learners may not make sense to a kinesthetic learner. If you’re fixing to differentiate your instruction, check out these tools that cater to different learning styles. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit: MarkyBon on flickr