Over at the ed tech blog Free Technology for Teachers, they’ve compiled a list of 15 tech tools to help students organize demands on their time across classes, organizations, fraternities and the million other activities college students find time for.

Photo by Orcmid

Among the aps are the always popular Remember the Milk and Google Calendar aps, but they share a few sites you may never have heard of.

Nexty is a personal planning tool that falls somewhere a basic to-do list creator and a full-fledged project management tool. Nexty offers users the ability to create lists, prioritize lists, and set reminders. Nexty users can create project folders to which they can add to-do lists for completing each project. The settings in Nexty are intuitive and easy to adjust. Getting started with Nexty takes only seconds as you do not have to enter an email address to create an account.

For more ideas on keeping students productive in the new year, check out the full article. Know of other tricks to help students stay organized? Let’s hear about it in the comments.

15 Tools to Help Students Keep Organized [Free Technology For Teachers]

Inertia is powerful.

It’s nearly impossible to drive the speed limit on the interstate when all the cars around you are going five miles over.

Inertia is the resistance to change from the status quo. Inertia is why it is hard drive the speed limit. Inertia is why it is hard to buck the trend.

I recently stumbled upon a Dvorak Simplified Keyboard. This keyboard was patented in the 1930′s and was designed to address the problems of inefficiency and fatigue which characterized the QWERTY keyboard layout. How many people do you see taking the time to relearn how to type in order to use the more efficient Dvorak Keyboard? Not many, including me.

While succumbing to inertia is fine for trivial issues such as driving a few mph over the speed limit or choosing what keyboard to use, it is costly for classroom instruction.

How to Buck the Trend

I have been in far too many classes where the lecture tends to go something like this:

1. Turn on the computer
2. Start up PowerPoint
3. Read the slide
4. Add a few thoughts
5. Click to next slide
6. Repeat steps 3-5 until the slide show ends
7. Repeat for next lecture

This kind of lecture happens far too often. From a students perspective these tend to be the most uninformative kinds of lectures. I for one would love to see some professors try and buck this trend.

Perhaps trying

• Lecturing without notes at all
• Role Play
• Use Props
• Bring in stuff that students can touch
• Have guests lecturers
• Teach somewhere besides the classroom

It took me roughly 2 minutes to come up with these ideas. So next time you have to give a lecture, think twice before booting up PowerPoint. Try something new. Try bucking the trend.

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Like many high school students, Jenna was forced to hand write assignments for her college preparatory English course.

Instead of embracing the power of word processors, her instructor insisted that every draft be hand written to avoid plagiarism. Her instructor’s misunderstanding of technology led to misguided rules in an effort to decrease cheating in the classroom.

In Jenna’s case, plagiarism didn’t decrease, but her engagement certainly did.

Some instructors, however, see technology as a way to engage students in the classroom. A recent U.S. News & World Report article describes how several educators are going high-tech to engage students and are finding ways to use technology to enhance their classrooms.

The rise of information availability on the internet is a large part of the struggle that collegiate professors are facing. What should educators do about wireless and near 100% mobile device penetration in the classroom? Glenn Platt, professor of interactive media studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio has this to say:

Professors are not so much people who stand and spout facts with students taking notes. The Internet has all of the information. And students aren’t going to come to class for a lecture if it’s on a podcast. So that means many instructors are trying to make the classroom more interactive.

The question is how do we achieve the ever elusive interactive classroom? What technology is helping? Blogs, wikis, SMART Board’s and Twitter have been used with success, but other technologies, like cell phones and other mobile devices, have been harder to use for classroom benefit.

We are firmly in the camp that believes technology can be a powerful learning tool for the classroom. We have seen the powerful benefits of educational software like SAGrader, but we do realize that technology can be a distraction if used improperly.

For instance, PowerPoint is a great tool that allows instructors to prepare and distribute lectures, however, far too often instructors use PowerPoint as a crutch and in turn improperly communicate information to students.

So remember, technology is a great way to enhance your curriculum, but it cannot replace your curriculum. Make sure that you use it in a way that assists your student’s learning rather than detracts from it.

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Like most children of the ’80s, many of my earliest memories of using a computer involve “The Oregon Trail“. Developed by a student teacher to supplement his history class, The Oregon Trail allowed students to get a glimpse of life in 19th Century America while also teaching them budgeting, decision-making skills, and how to hunt for buffalo (or waste your time shooting squirrels).

Today, instructors are using more complex video games to teach students about the scientific method, physics, math and literacy. It’s a strategic move by educators who hope to capitalize on the popularity of video games (97% of teens ages 12-17 play computer, web, portable, or console games) and keep students engaged in the learning process.

Educational Games

In the same vein as Oregon Trail or Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? some gamemakers are designing video games with a specific educational purpose. MIT-based The Education Arcade’s newest game, Caduceus , is a puzzle game for tweens focused on logic, reason and creativity skills.

It’s also designed to promote compassion:

Caduceus is a key content element of a new pediatric medical research awareness…designed to help parents teach their children to care about others and believe they can make a difference.

Another gamemaker, Education Simulations, created “Real Lives 2007” to let students experience how people live in other countries. Based on real statistical data, the game randomly assigns the user an identity – such as a factory worker in Brazil or a policeman in Nigeria – and teaches them life skills while letting them explore the global community.

Of course, “educational” games are a double-edged sword; the same elements that make them explicitly educational discourage students from playing them. Few of these games will be played outside of the classroom.

In response, some instructors are reappropriating mainstream games for educational purposes.

Mainstream games

In a commentary for Wired, Clive Thompson tells us about the “eureka!” moment for Constance Steinkuehler – an assistant professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison – who discovered that many of the teenage boys playing online games such as Lineage or World of Warcraft were employing the scientific method to figure out how to beat game bosses.

A group of [the teenagers] were building Excel spreadsheets into which they’d dump all the information they’d gathered about how each boss behaved…Then they’d develop a mathematical model to explain how the boss worked — and to predict how to beat it…Some would offer up new data they’d collected, and suggest tweaks to the model.

That’s when it hit her: The kids were practicing science….They were using the scientific method. They’d think of a hypothesis — This boss is really susceptible to fire spells — and then collect evidence to see if the hypothesis was correct. If it wasn’t, they’d improve it until it accounted for the observed data.

Thompson goes on to point out that these same kids are “the same ones who are, more and more, tuning out of science in the classroom. ” The instructor’s job is to harness the high-level thinking skills young people use to beat a video game and apply it to real-world mysteries.

Other popular games like SimCity, Civilization IV: Warlords or Caesar III can allow students to experiment in simulated environments, while learning about history, economics and leadership.

Of course, with the bad press video games have gotten for being violent and socially isolating, schools are understandably skeptical about allowing games in the classroom. Certainly, some games shouldn’t ever be condoned by educators.

But many games are safe and provide educators with a tremendous opportunity to engage their students.