Instant Classroom Materials

Worksheets or printed tests looking a bit worn and over-copied? Schoolhouse Technologies has a wide variety of programs for teachers and department heads to create just the right worksheet, test or in-class game. From the company’s Math Resource studio to the Map Worksheet Factory, there’s a program for every subject. They start at $34 for a single license and educational discounts are available. My favorite is Schoolhouse Bingo, a way to create a game for just about any classroom curriculum.

Dollars and Sense

It’s a sign of the times that kids don’t really understand how our financial system works. In fact, a Federal Reserve survey found that high school seniors were only correct half the time when asked questions about personal finance and economics.  Realityworks’s TimeMAPS Money Management and Life Skills Program can help with real-world training that can help them be more dollar savvy. There are 54 lessons with topics ranging from credit and debt to budgeting and retirement that are taught through 140 examples. The program includes a glossary that contains definitions of more than 700 terms.

 

Parlez Vous Polyglot

Experts agree that the best time to teach languages to kids is when they’re young, but there are few programs that deliver a world of dialects to school students. PowerSpeak does with the ability to help students learn French, Spanish, German, Chinese, and Latin with online courses that aren’t threatening and emphasize the learning of a natural language, not declining nouns or the intricacies of the intransitive. It’s aligned to educational standards, is available in advanced placement versions and has no shortage or animation and games. A trial is available.

Making Discipline Stick

Is there anything worse than having a disruptive student who is out of control? How about not being able to do something about his or her behavior because you don’t have the records needed to document the problem? OnCourse Systems has a program that tracks and documents a student’s bad behavior and discipline infractions at schools. It fits into the company’s integrated software system that has modules for grades, lessons and student t information, and is Web based so you don’t need to dedicate a computer to this function.

FREEBEE FRIDAY: Ready or Not, It's Here

Windows 7 is here and soon it will be hard to buy a PC that doesn’t have the OS loaded on it. But, what about all those XP and Vista systems at your institution? Most will be screaming for an upgrade or replacement.  iYogi’s Windows 7 Online Readiness Test can help tell whether it’s worth upgrading individual PCs to Win 7. Just go to the site and let it interrogate the machine and the service will assess its ability to run Win 7. On top of  iYogi’s Windows 7 Basic Migration tool, which can help move data and settings to the new PC, the company has offers paid services.  

FREEBEE FRIDAY: Instant Slide Show

The other day, a 7th grader showed me a free program that seems perfect for creating student-created slide shows for reports or presentations without the time, hassle and expense of using PowerPoint. Called PhotoShow 3, it’s one of Microsoft’s best programs because it is simple enough for elementary school kids (and PC-phobic teachers) to use. Just import the images one at a time, crop, zoom in or rotate them, add a title and a soundtrack if you like. Sorry, no movies are allowed, but if you take a photo every second the sequence is a good stand-in for a video clip. I watched him create a slide show in less than five minutes, while to do it in PowerPoint would have taken at least twice as long. 

FREEBEE FRIDAY: Malware Free For All

Tired of spending thousands of dollars a year for virus programs and updates so that your school’s computers don’t get bogged down with all sorts of malicious software? You can kiss them good-bye by either using AVG’s excellent free antivirus software or try out Microsoft’s Security Essentials. The new security download is available and includes protection from rogue software, like viruses, spyware and other malicious programs. It works on Windows XP and Vista systems and the software updates itself as new threats are identified and dealt with.

FREEBEE FRIDAY: Eco-Education

Kermit the Frog was wrong. It’s now getting easier to be green because Discovery Education and Waste Management have teamed up to create an online classroom curriculum about pollution, ecology and our effect on the planet. With activities like a look at trash and getting energy from waste, the resources are categorized by grade, topic and type of classroom activity. My favorite is the anatomy of a landfill, which shows the different layers of the typical trash heap.

Complete Digital Curriculum Toolkit

I have to admit really liking Adobe’s current Digital School Collection as an excellent and comprehensive toolbox for to turn paper curriculum into digital lessons. The only shortcoming was that the major apps in it were too different from each other, and required some time, patience and practice to work through a complicated project. A great way to either create digital class programs or student portfolios, it consists of PhotoShop Elements 8, Premeire Elements 8 as well as a slew of utilities and supporting software.

The next version will be even better because the interfaces of PhotoShop and Premeire are more similar and have a common organizer for files, although they’re still dedicated to the task at hand. A big step forward is the ability to run on netbooks, which are becoming more and more popular with school buyers. On top of Contribute CS4 and Acrobat 9 Pro, the package includes an online service for creating podcasts, but it hasn’t been integrated into Soundbooth CS4. In addition to a lot of teacher and class resources, Adobe will be creating tutorials and lessons over the coming year. It costs $149 with school discounts available.

Bea a Bettr Spelar

I bet you’re as tired as printing, giving and grading paper spelling tests as your students are by taking them. There’s a better way with TedCo’s $30 SpellQuizzer, a program that can prep and test kids on their spelling words. The program assembles the week’s worth of key words and helps students practice their spelling. When it’s quiz time, the software reads the words and students type in how they think the words are spelled. If they’re right, they move onto the next word, but if there’s a problem, SpellQuizzer will correct them. There’s a free 30-day trial of the program, which works in recent Windows releases, but not Macs.