Can’t wait to get another teacher supply catalog? Worried that the 25 catalogs you have stacked around your house and classroom won’t be enough for your shopping needs? If so, then ignore this post. But if you would like to cut down on unwanted mail, marketing calls, even emails, both at school and at home, then check out the read link below.

The Direct Marketing Association has up a helpful list of links on how to remove your name from various mailing, calling and email lists. It does seem a little like tobacco companies helping people to stop smoking, but if you are getting a lot of junk mail or other unsolicited communications, these suggestions might save a little time and a few trees.

READ

Teachers end up collecting bookmarks on their internet browser, lots of bookmarks. And it’s quite frustrating when you know you have a site bookmarked, but it’s either at home, or at school, and you just happen to be exactly where the bookmark is not. It can also become an organizational nightmare when you start mixing bookmarks: school, finances, home, fun stuff, kids’ websites.

Here’s where Foxmarks comes in. It will not only allow you to synchronize bookmarks to all your computers, but will now let you synchronize just the bookmarks you want, to the computers you want.

Read the rest of this entry »

Someone wise once said, “Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future.” I’m not quite sure where time goes, but I do know it keeps slipping somewhere, especially in a class of 30 kids. Asking questions, talking to students, preparing for the next part of the lesson…all these things can create distractions and send time slipping off somewhere.

One simple way to keep students, and teacher, on track is to use a timer. The problem with conventional timers is that, while they do keep track of time, they don’t easily allow a class to monitor the countdown as it progresses. Some companies have realized this and have created timers that can be displayed on overhead projectors. For a cool $35, you can snag one of these. Or, you can do the same thing for free.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes I need to remember something and I don’t have an opportunity to write it down. Maybe I just don’t have a pen and paper at the moment. Maybe I’m in the car and it just isn’t convenient to write a note. Or maybe I’m just being lazy at the moment. But when I need to remember something and I can’t immediately write a note to myself, I just use this quick trick to tide me over until I can capture the idea on paper:

Grab a random item and let that be your idea placeholder.

Here’s how it works:

Read the rest of this entry »

Wavy lines, wavy lines. Now we’re in full flash-back mode. See the card catalog over there? Students are taking notes on index cards, only one idea for each card. Some are looking through book bibliographies to hunt down books for further study. Some are tracking down articles through those proprietary research databases. Just insert your copy card to print them out. Wavy lines, wavy lines.

Okay, we’re back. Collecting information and research sure is different than it used to be. In fact, it’s a lot different, according to a recent survey:

Seventy-one percent of teens say the Internet is their primary source for information for completing their most recent school project or report. Research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that teens are increasingly using the Web as an essential study aid outside the classroom. For instance, 78 percent say the Internet regularly helps them with classroom assignments…

While this doesn’t mean completely eliminating the old methods of research and organization, it does mean that students should be taught how to effectively use the web for research. They are already doing it, so let’s help them do it better. But that’s not the only reason. Accessing information online will only grow in the future, and it will be imperative for their future careers to be able to effectively collect and organize information online.

If you are planning on your students doing any type of research in your class(es), then why not also introduce them to a way to organize that information online? You will not only be targeting language arts standards, but technology standards for information literacy as well. Here are 12 resources for information collection and organization:

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve blogged before about the hidden locations in which clutter can reside in a classroom. But what happens when you locate clutter? How do you get rid of it? In the vein of “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure,” give it to someone else. And by give, I mean, sell.

You could go to eBay. But you have to pay listing fees and deal with the hassle of shipping your items to their purchasers. For a quick, easy and free way to sell your stuff online, try a location-based classified ad site instead.

These sites allow users to post classified ads to a specific geographic location. While the pool of potential purchasers is smaller than with eBay, the advantage is that the listings are free and the inconvience of shipping is usually eliminated as your purchaser can just swing by to pick up their item.

If you want to give this a shot, try these two free online classified ad sites:

Read the rest of this entry »

“The stapler’s jammed!” a student shouts from across the room. Argh! Now you have to stop everything, fix it for them, locate more staples, go ask the office because you are probably out of staples, and hope that the staple cache lasts to the end of the year. Staplers are one piece of classroom tech that is used frequently, but can oftentimes underperform, causing frustration and time wasting. But being able to staple papers together is an organizational must. So what to do about this little problem?

Read the rest of this entry »