Instructify

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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By now, we should all be well aware that Microsoft Office is not the end-all, be-all of word processing and spreadsheet programs. In fact, lots of other programs out there make up for Excel’s weaknesses and are much more powerful. EditGrid is one of those programs.

EditGrid is an online spreadsheet program that lets you create collaborative spreadsheets that you can work on with colleagues or friends in real time. Its main strength, however, is how you can format cells with images, JavaScript calls, and colorful charts and graphs. And, you can even exchange data between your own spreadsheets and spreadsheets hosted by other users.

EditGrid is a great tool for creating fancy spreadsheets that you can easily post to your blog or website as a “live” chart or table, so when you edit your spreadsheet, EditGrid will also update it wherever you have it posted. The site also offers various templates, like the ever-handy calendar template, and it has a neat iPhone version, too. Honestly, what more could you ask for from your spreadsheets? Take that, Excel! — LAUREN FROHNE

EditGrid

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Manage documents and spreadsheets online with Microsoft Office Live Workspace

Box your important files online

College ruled 2.0: Google Notebook

Many people are happily using Google Docs as a free alternative to costlier productivity suites, but did you know that there are templates for Google Docs, too? While not huge, the Google Docs Templates directory has some valuable tools to help you get the most out of Docs with very little effort.

Students can grab templates for writing reports and research papers, as well as for creating bibliographies or study schedules. For teachers, you can keep your grade book and attendance using a spreadsheet template, or use the lesson plan or one of many calendar formats to organize your time and teaching. There are budget tools, calculators, letterheads, and even a nifty math quiz generator found in the templates directory.

In what might be a sign of the times, the most popular templates being used right now are for creating resumes. To view them all, check out the directory by going to the link below, or, when creating a new document in Google Docs, choosing “From template…” will get you there too. -GRETCHEN SCHAEFER

Google Docs Templates

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Create Web Forms and Polls with Google Docs

Seems like everybody’s built a platform for you to store and share files online. Given that everyone I know has suffered a hard drive crash at some point in their lives, it just feels safer letting Adobe or the almighty Google take care of important documents and files. Microsoft has joined the fray, too. No, they don’t have a free version of Word online, but they will keep your critical MS Office files safe and sound on their servers at Microsoft Office Live Workspace.

Once you’ve uploaded a file, you can edit it immediately if you’ve installed the latest Office Live Update. When you save changes to the file you’re working on, those are saved to the Office Live server as well, so you don’t have to worry about uploading the latest version. Of course, no cloud computing app would be complete without the ability to share your files with collaborators. This is a good option for students working on class projects, or if you and your colleagues would like to update worksheets within your department at school.

Writing for Instructify, I can always count on Microsoft as an easy target for ridicule. All snark aside, this is a nice feature that, if you’re an MS Office user, you should take advantage of.  Your important files won’t be vulnerable to a dropped laptop or busted hard drive, and you’ve got a lot less of a chance for the patented Microsoft blue screen (sorry, couldn’t help it). -BILL FERRIS

Microsoft Office Live Workspace

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Someday when computers are animatronic robot pals, all you’ll need to say to them is “LogMeIn, Hamachi.” Well, provided your robopal is named Hamachi.

Securely share your files online with Adobe Share

Box your important files online

Get 1GB of storage for free with OpenDrive

Google, the internet behemoth that just keeps creating more indispensable applications you can’t say “no” to, has done it again! Google Forms is the latest addition to their Docs suite of online productivity programs. You can create fill-in forms, polls, etc. AND embed (or put) them on a wiki, blog, or email. Here’s an example that I use for feedback on my trainings.

In addition to letting you create forms, for input, all the data that respondents fill in gets saved to a Google Docs spreadsheet. You can then have it create graphs based on this data. So easy, so good, so hard to resist assimilation! -ALICE MERCER

Google Docs

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Keep Important Documents Only a Click Away with Google Docs Bar

Finding email unity in your Google accounts

Have writing, will travel: Adobe Buzzword

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

I’m a virtuoso at Microsoft Word. Whether it’s mail merges, macros, and the Ctrl-arrow key trick to skip ahead a word at a time, I can do it all. But I use Excel like a Yankee trying to talk Southern. I can do the basic stuff like sums and averages and such, but I don’t know the time-saving tricks that separate the advanced user from the dude who tries to shoehorn a text document into a spreadsheet because the tables in Word are so crappy.

If this sounds familiar, TechJive can help you become an Excel master with a listing of Excel shortcut keystrokes that streamline common tasks like selecting columns and rows, or cycling through various worksheets. Plus, helpful users post their own shortcuts in the comments, making this a valuable resource next time you need to update your grade book or put together a budget proposal.

Give some of these a try, or enlighten others by posting a comment. As for me, once I get these keystrokes down I can attempt to dominate another Microsoft program. That’s right, I’m looking at you, Minesweeper. –BILL FERRIS

Excel Keystrokes via TechJive

It’s high time you started using Google Docs. In their ongoing efforts to take over the world, Google has created a free online word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application. There’s nothing to download, you can save in Microsoft Office formats, and you can share your documents online with as many (or as few) people as you want.

We realize Google Docs have been around for a while. But you can now access your online documents easier than ever before with the new Google Docs Bar. This Firefox extension lets you access all your Google Docs with only one click of the mouse. You can also easily upload documents for collaboration, or for a backup copy.

Of course, you need to use the Firefox Web browser to use the Docs Bar. Honestly, though, you ought to be using Firefox anyway. Once you add the Google Docs Bar extension, you’ll be able to access any file you need, anywhere you have an Internet connection. -BILL FERRIS

Google Docs
Google Docs Bar

I’m an avid Microsoft Office user. I use Excel pretty much every day, and most of my posts on Instructify were composed using Word. Except for Word’s horrible table system, I really don’t have many complaints about it. But even a shill like me can’t resist the allure of OpenOffice, which does pretty much everything Microsoft Office does, except for free. Yeah, that’s right, free.

If you’re tired of receiving essays written in hen scratch on ragged notebook paper, tell your students to use OpenOffice Writer. Need to get organized, but don’t want to pirate your friend’s MS Excel? OpenOffice Calc will handle your spreadsheet needs. There’s a doppelgänger for pretty much any MS Office program, like PowerPoint and Access (I’ve never used Access and am not about to start just for this blog post, so you’re on your own as to how Access-ible it is). I wrote this post with Writer, and it appears to be compatible with all consonants and vowels. Best of all, I can save in MS Word format, so if I email a document to Bill Gates, he’ll be able to open it.

OpenOffice is a lot older than Instructify, so we realize we’re late to this particular party. Still, enough people don’t know about this great resource that we had to mention it. I highly recommend you give OpenOffice a try. Just think about how your administration will love you once you show them they don’t have to keep shelling out licensing fees to Microsoft. -BILL FERRIS

OpenOffice