Instructify

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 CHRISTOPHER PANNA

We’ve heard it so many times that it’s become cliché: The power of the internet, limitless information at our fingertips, etc. Now the danger is getting lost in a sea of too much information. A new service called Qwiki understands this and seeks not to provide more information, but to present it in a more compelling way.

Like any web reference, Qwiki begins with a search box on its main page. But instead of an article on a topic, Qwiki offers what it calls an “information experience.” The topic is explained by an automated voice while pictures, maps, and statistics appear to complement the spoken facts. It’s a revolutionary approach and I found myself more engaged in a topic by watching it on Qwiki than by researching it traditionally.

There are, however, a few things educators should know before diving in. First and foremost, Qwiki is only in its alpha release, which means it’s incomplete and possibly full of errors. You should also be aware that Qwiki’s main source is Wikipedia. The information read by the smooth voice comes directly from a topic’s Wikipedia article, as do most of the pictures.

In a school setting Qwiki would be appropriate for giving a brief introduction to a topic rather than for serious research. It could also serve as a great example of effective multimedia. Despite its current limitations, Qwiki is a promising project and could very well represent “the future of information” as its founders claim.

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BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

Gone are the days when teachers have to rely on the limited selection of paper-bound “readers” for supplementary material like primary documents or scholarly articles. There’s a plethora of sources on the web, and Google’s specialized searches make it easier than ever to find what you want.

If you’re looking for past news articles, Google News Timeline provides a fun and intuitive way to search. Simply enter a year, month, and even day to see news articles published on that date. You can then refine your search by entering a subject and clicking “add more queries” to select a type of media like newspapers or magazines. The best thing about News Timeline, however, is the easy-to-use display that arranges the results chronologically. The example above is the result of searching Time Magazine exactly 30 years ago. Clicking an issue took me to Time’s page where the full articles were available. Using News Timeline I’ve found articles as far back as the early 1800s, and in some ways the older ones are the best because you get an image of the original print!

Another source for high-quality readings is Google Scholar. It searches publications like academic journals, public domain books, and court opinions. The options give you the same ability as News Timeline to refine your search by subject, author, and date. For some of the results, only an abstract is available, but for many you can read the full text. My Scholar search for works about Emily Dickinson published since 2000 yielded an entire book of academic reviews and several journal abstracts.

These search engines can open more options for you and your students as alternatives to textbook readings. Historical articles from News Timeline can give a perspective from a different time period, while Scholar can ensure that you keep up with recent developments.

Google News Timeline

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

Following the money is almost always easier said than done. A big push of the federal stimulus package was to prop up school districts beset by fiscal difficulties in the economic downturn, to the tune of at least $62 billion. But where did the money go?

EdMoney Schools Database is designed to track that money flow, and it is pretty interesting to see the breakdown. The site has an interactive map for each state, or you can type in geographic locations to see where the money is going. I checked out my state of Massachusetts, and used EdMoney to track the $1.5 billion awarded to it under the stimulus plan. Of that, only about $590 million has been spent. I then went even deeper, digging into my own school district’s allocation of funds (we’ve spent about 90 percent of what we were awarded by the state, it seems). Interestingly, when you get to this level in the database, it allows you to compare your own district with other districts of comparable size. The site also shows various news stories related to the stimulus in education and visitors can register and submit stories of how the federal funds have helped (or hindered) schools.

The site is funded in part by a grant from the Gates Foundation, and its data and analysis comes from a group called the Education Writing Association, which seeks to improve education reporting to the general public. The site says, “We will code stories and tips by state, school district, and schools to help reporters and their communities understand how these funds are being spent.”

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BY AARON FOWLES

Sometimes you want your students to visit websites. At other times, you want your students to visit websites that you’ve chosen. At yet other times, you want students to visit websites that you’ve chosen in a particular order with a minimum of fuss. For those times, there’s fur.ly.

Fur.ly is a link aggregator that will take as many links as you’d like to feed it and generate one short URL. When that URL is accessed, the first page in the list is displayed, along with a yellow fur.ly banner across the top. The webpages in the list can be accessed using left/right arrows or a drop-down list. The list created from the sites in the photo above can be seen here.

Since students sometimes have a tendency to wander while online, this could be a great tool to keep them focused on the task at hand. In the same way that a webquest sets out a list of sites for students to visit, a fur.ly list could take students along a predetermined path designed by the teacher to aid in discovery.

This site has the additional benefit of generating short URLs (similar to services such as bit.ly or is.gd), but fur.ly’s URLs are not yet customizable. I can’t imagine this will be long in coming.  Besides the webquest-type of use mentioned above, I can imagine using fur.ly to group similar URLs together for reference if your students do a lot of work online and will need to get quick information from the same sources over and over.

fur.ly

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BY DAVID BARGER

Classroom Earth is a dynamic website that synthesizes materials from numerous sources into a virtual cornucopia of useful environmental information. Are you an environmental news junkie and not getting what you need from the mainstream news media? The In the News section should be your first stop to see real-life stories of how the environment is affecting us all. Recent stories include how students in LA can attend environmentally themed classes and a look at America’s 10 most-endangered species.

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BY BILL FERRIS

As further proof that my pop-culture awareness stopped sometime in the mid-90s, this month’s random roundup features Indiana Jones, apparently Instructify’s go-to reference to convey that a history or archaeology tool is exciting or adventurous in some capacity.

Of course, now that they’re making a fifth Indiana Jones movie, I don’t feel quite so dated.

National Geographic’s Explore a Pyramid: Archaeology with No Risk of Snakes or Nazis!
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an archaeologist like Indiana Jones and I dreamed about being on Nickelodeon’s Legends of the Hidden Temple. Sadly, I’m not currently exploring foreign lands for ancient artifacts and getting chased by Nazis, nor did I ever get the chance to be a Blue Barracuda. But with National Geographic’s Explore a Pyramid, your students can have the opportunities that I never did, and learn while doing it!

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BY NICK YINGLING

MBTN last week was a straight up embarrassment. Bill called in to Instructify headquarters and handed down two options: I should commit seppuku immediately OR I should make certain that MTBN for 8/24/09 is a slam dunk. Did I choose the razor-sharp samurai sword or rapier-like witticisms? Find out after the jump.

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BY THOMAS RHEINECKER

Searching the internet for information is a tricky business. There are countless resources out there but there is not a lot to govern the quality or accuracy of the information that you find. A web site may look genuine but may still contain inaccurate information.

This is even more important when you are using the web to conduct scientific research or to look up information to support any stage of a research project. Inaccurate information could invalidate your research and leave you with useless results. You will have wasted time, energy, and not have furthered the quest for knowledge as you had originally anticipated. So how do you find authoritative web resources for scientific research?

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BY BILL FERRIS

Back in my day we had to figure out arcane citation formats by poring through dusty old style manuals. This was during that awkward window after people started putting good information on the internet, but before the style manuals told you how to cite web documents.

Your students don’t know how lucky they are to have handy pieces of software to do this arduous work for them. Below is Instructify’s list of the five best bibliography and citation applications out there. Pass these on to your students and spare them the agony of building bibliographies the hard way.

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Perform searches of computational knowledge

BY JASON DON FORSYTHE

WolframAlpha is an ambitious knowledge repository that functions similar to a web browser. It’s important to note the difference between a knowledge repository and a search engine — this isn’t a competitor to Google. In fact, it functions as a much different application. The concept is to show useful, relevant information based on your query, not give you a list of links to click on and find the information yourself. For example, if you enter a famous person it gives you a basic breakdown biography, more of a when, where, what response that would put important dates at your fingertips.

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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.

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.

Remember back when dial-up modems were the coolest and Jimmy Ray was burning up the charts? Back when a search of the internet would dump a bunch of ugly search results back at you? Then after about 30 minutes of searching, you’d be lucky to find the exact phrase you were looking for. Then you’d be luckier still if that was even in context.

ChunkIt! is a plugin for Firefox and Internet Explorer that is designed to make search results more relevant, displaying them in context and with more information than the small excerpt we’re used to seeing. By refining results, ChunkIt! is able to provide users with a preview of sites, thus eliminating the need to click through a search result, back out, then try the next search result, and so on. One example when this comes in handy would be apartment hunting on Craigslist. Anyone who has ever slogged through that stark search result format can easily imagine the amount of time ChunkIt! could save you. Now, imagine how this might help a student save time during academic research, like on an eyeball-terrifying Lexis-Nexis search result page. Maybe if I had such a time-saver when I was in school I would have had higher than a 1.25 GPA.

ChunkIt! isn’t without some drawbacks. I was a bit annoyed to have to give up a little bit of browser real estate for another toolbar. Another unpredictable thing was how unconsciously familiar I was with Google results, so I had a little bit of mental resistance to a new style at first. There were also a handful of reviews and comments floating around out there of people who were a bit unimpressed, or suggested another tool for the same task.

Really, the user should be the judge. This is a plugin, so if ChunkIt! isn’t for you, it’s easy to uninstall and it didn’t cost you anything. Maybe when your Boolean logic tricks aren’t quite cutting it, you would want to crank up ChunkIt! for a short time. Like an annoying and ghastly song from 1997, it’s just good to know it’s available whenever you want to refer to it. -NICK YINGLING

ChunkIt!

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I love Google, but it does get irritating to have to wade through a bunch of junk and irrelevant search results to find what I’m looking for. SweetSearch aims to remedy that by pairing the power of the search engine with the common sense of the human brain.

SweetSearch is an offshoot of findingDulcinea, which bills itself as librarian of the internet. Like any good librarian, they’ve dedicated themselves to finding useful info quickly and efficiently. According to the horse’s mouth, “The sites included in the SweetSearch engine were hand selected by the team of Internet researchers at findingDulcinea.com. Every site included in SweetSearch has been reviewed for content, quality and reliability.”

You’d think that poring over websites by hand would mean a dearth of useful resources. Not so. A search on “North Carolina history” turns up information on items like the Lost Colony of Roanoke, population and geographical info, and a lot more. While SweetSearch won’t make me completely forsake the almighty Google for web research, I do like knowing I can easily find information that appeals to someone other than SEO gurus and search bots. -BILL FERRIS

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