Tag: Apps

Why Twitter is Rising in Importance in My Personal Learning Program

DSCN8780It’s my research day. I just helped Leo the Great Pyr onto his Central Bark Doggie Day Care bus
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and had a team meeting with Lizzy and Alison, two of my student research assistants. Before I gave them research assignments, I shared with them my Christmas ritual of opening up Jacquie Lawson’s marvelous Advent Calendar App. Thank you, Jacquie, for giving us reasons to smile and be in awe.
While we are working I receive a Facebook communication (and feedback) that Katerina and Tim Miklos, now in England, enjoyed the wedding video that Alison produced with Imovie as one of her research projects with me on Tuesday. I hope in the near future to research and develop with my students global communication tools such as Skype by communicating with Katerina in England, Ben in Hungary, Maren in Madagascar, Andrew in Switzerland, and Hersonia in Mexico. Who else abroad is willing to help us learn together?
I’m monitoring my Twitter feed as I write this blog piece and find 10 ideas, resources, and thought-leaders worth following. The dross is outweighed by the nuggets as I refine my Twitter filters and make better use of Twitter applications. I still am not quite ready to explore Twitter Chats. Just because a technology learning tool HAS capabilities, doesn’t mean that I need them –or that I should change my teaching to accommodate them.
Thank you Teri Johnson and Jane Hart for firmly but gently nudging me into exploring the use of Twitter.
Here are 10 tweets that informed me or guided my personal learning today:

  1. I see that Maria Konnikova has a new book out in January. She writes so well about psychology and pseudo science. I preorder the book and send her a brief note. Thank you, Maria, for your clear thinking, your lucid writing, and your thought-provoking ideas.
  2. Alec Couros recommends a Ted Talk about “Where Good Ideas Come From.” If I can find time, I’ll take a look at that before teaching my research Seminar. Thank you, Alec, for the inspiration.
  3. The indefatigable Richard Byrne alerts me to some free Technology Tools for Teachers.
  4. While I am data mining resources from K-12 I take a quick glance at my Edutopia feed.
  5. A colleague on LinkedIn suggests reposts an article about skills every young professional should have. I see value in sharing this with my advisees.  Thank you, Rebecca!
  6. I see a Mac 911 MacWorld piece about how to incorporate special characters into documents. I’ll need this as i try blog pieces in different language. I snag it (oops, gotta be careful. I own that App and I am starting to use my Dictation software as I write blogs).
  7. Richard Kiker’s use of Paper.li motivates me to return to exploring its utility as a curating tool. I assign that protect to Arianna.
  8. I am reminded and convinced that it is important that I incorporate thinking about climate change—and doing something about it into my life.
  9. I take a quick look at a recent EverNote blog post since I continue to struggle with most best to master its features.
  10. I glance at recent posts from LifeHacker—always fun to read and read one about how there just doesn’t seem to be enough time.

YIKES! Tempus fugit (or as Mrs. Bode, my Howland  High School Latin teacher often punned, Time fidgets!)
Time to protect myself against Internet Distractions.


Banishing Computer Clutter (Part 1)

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I am about to go through all the different applications that I have on this Mac and attempt to winnow them. Then, I need to do the same for all my other machines. Yes, I have done this before and yes I have written about it before (e.g. here). Appluenza is difficult to extinguish!
I call up 1-Password. Increasingly I am relying on such software to avoid the    F-word–the forgetting that seems to be an increasing concomitant of aging.  I am much more interested  nowadays in software or research claiming to enhance, protect, and expand memory. Fortunately this old man can find inspiring older role models in individuals like Roger Angell and his marvelous new book.
I load an application from hell. I bought this particular MAC software several years ago to convert videos to the many different formats existing.  Alas it won’t accept the registration code which somehow is encrypted in a fashion that doesn’t allow cut and paste and which consists of a long string of numbers, letters and hieroglyphics. Customer support is a series of FAQs that don’t address my needs. Humbug. Trash it along with another app that I never have used.
I discover several Apps built into the Mac whose existence I did not know or whose function I never realized. Embarrassing. Annoying. Wasteful. More to learn.
I load my Day One “journaling” software to record my progress. The newly downloaded voice dictation software works pretty well with it. I have all my student assistants using a shared Day One app to help us co-ordinate our work efforts.
And suddenly I am distracted by my Comic Life 3 software!
Time for a Thanksgiving holiday break and playing with the grand-nieces and grand-nephews!
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Leveraging My Technology Learning Tools

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I am sandwiching in (actually eating donuts!) some brief writing time between my two labs for Statistics and Experimental Design (PSY205). The students seem to have indeed come in prepared, having looked at the screen cast I had made using Screenflow for them about how to do a two-way, between subjects ANOVA with SPSS. One of my students offered to use Quizlet to make a review for their fellow students of the “language of statistics.”
Student research assistant Alison has been at work in my office since 8:00 updating our Macs with the new WordPress app. With no formal direction from me, she has reviewed our latest blogs, given thought as to how we can (and if we should) move up in the “elearning feeds ratings” and investigated how to use CreateSpace for the book we shall be writing together. I alert her to several more tools i want her and my other three student assistants to explore: Scoop.it, Paper.li, and either Feedly or Inoreader. She bounces the idea off me of my mentoring a Carroll Pioneer Scholar research program about technology learning tools.
I check my Twitter feed and discover  Much Ado about Nothing brouhaha among Wikipedia editors. That might make my colleague and Shakespearean scholar  (and Object Lesson author) John Garrison laugh. I share it with John. Time to head back to teaching my 2nd lab. Technology CAN be a tool as long as I don’t allow it to control me.


It's about Time: Carpe Diem

A canceled meeting! How best to make use of that unexpected 50 minutes—that gift of time. I know, let’s see whether this new faster, better, WordPress.com Mac app lives up to its promise.
How best to use this unexpected time? Catch up on the last 10 Profhacker blog pieces that sit on my RSS feed? Here are five of them:

  1. When technology changes on you? Seems germane.
  2. Slowing down and learning about “deep listening”? First I should close my door since too many of my colleagues lecture loudly with open doors. Second, I should also turn off my twitter feed that tempts me with messages from some of my favorite thought leaders. I am easily distracted yet try to avoid using technology to reduce distractions and undermine my self-control.
  3. Hints for teaching a large online course. Germane to a Task Force I am on exploring the viability of online courses—-perhaps at a graduate level— at my institution.
  4. Making a WordPress Site Multi-lingual: One of my goals for next semester is to engage in more global outreach.
  5. Exploring “gamification“: I’m still somewhat chary of moving in this direction

Finished reading last night David Mitchell’s erie, spell-binding, soul-sucking novel Slade House. Maybe those Atemporals caused the Carroll computer to crash just now necessitating my completing this blog on my cell phone!


A Student Guide to EverNote's Skitch Feature

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A new learning tool that Dr. Simpson introduced us to recently is Skitch. From what we have discovered so exploring the capabilities of this app it is very useful for easily creating visual aids. You can take a screenshot or upload an image you already have. One can either take a screenshot of the entire screen (full-screen) or  select what part of the screen will be in the screenshot (screen snapshot). You can edit the picture by adding arrows, highlighting, and adding annotations.Text boxes can be added to the images for further explanation. One can also add ovals, circles, or squares on the image to emphasize where you wish the reader to focus. The pixilate feature on Skitch allows one to blur out sections of the image. One can also use the “marker tool” to draw lines, words, or shapes on top of the image. The highlighter tool  allows one to call attention to the main points of the image. Words that are highlighted will not be covered up by the highlighter but rather will be emphasized. Moreover, the highlighter, marker, text, and shapes can be customized with different colors, including red, yellow, blue, green, white, black, pink, orange, or even a customized color.
Once one has completed the image, the file can be saved in multiple formats including JPG, Skitch JPG, PNG, PNG Skitch, TIFF, GIF, BMD, and PDF. One can also share their image on social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr. In addition the image can also be saved to your computer, your Evernotes, or emailed to other individuals.
Here is a video that was created by Evernote illustrating some of the features we described above that one can use with Skitch.


 
We are in the process of making our own more detailed Skitch and Evernote student guide which will be included in our forthcoming e-book. Do let us know if you would be interested in it.
We would appreciate any feedback from personal experiences using Skitch or Evernote.

Controlling my APPetite…

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Too many APPS. Too little time to master them. I’ve struggled with this issue before.
Here (read me) and here and here and here:). I decided to consult with some members of what Howard Gardiner referred to as the “APP Generation”. Here is what several of them told me are “must-have” apps for college/university students.
Tia writes :
As a college student, having access to multiple apps on my smart phone helps make me a more efficient learner by staying organized. The apps I use academically are Gmail, Safari, Notepad, and Calendar. Each of these apps helps me stay on top of all my homework with the heavy course load I have this semester. I use my Gmail frequently on my smart phone because it is faster to check my email from here rather than logging on to my laptop and waiting for the slow Carroll wifi to start up. Instead of a five to seven minute process, I can have my email checked within seconds of opening the app. When I am not able to use my laptop, the Safari app is very convenient when I need to Google a quick question I have. Also, I use the Notepad app when I do not have a pencil or my agenda book to write down my assignments or meetings I have with my professors. This helps me to remain organized and on top of all my assignments, especially now with a month left in the semester. Lastly, I use the Calendar app to put in important dates such as exam dates, final exam dates, or study sessions for a certain course. All of these keep me organized, and I always have them in the palm of my hand.
As a college student, the social life is just as important as the academic life. Some apps I use when I am not studying are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. All of these apps help me stay connected with my friends from other schools, my friends at Carroll, as well as my family members all over the United States. Having multiple forms of staying in contact with these people helps with maintaining social supports, which is extremely important towards the end of the semester when stress is at an all time high. One more app I use is Two-Dots, which is just a random game. It’s a puzzle game kind of like Candy Crush. I play this game in between studying different material to give my mind a little break.
All in all, these are the apps I use on a day to day basis to stay caught up with my social life as well as staying organized academically.
Arianna tells me:
Much like most 20 year olds, I have a smartphone. With a smartphone comes several apps, but which of those apps are a must have? And which must have apps are we missing out on, requiring us to download?
Well, in my opinion, there are eight must have apps. Those apps include Gmail, Reminders, Notes, Safari, Calculator, Find iPhone, Maps, and Camera. As a college student having my Gmail and student email linked straight to my cell phone is a necessity. It allows me to easily stay in contact with professors and students, never showing up to a canceled class, easily noting changes to the syllabus, or getting missed information. Reminders and Notes have saved my life on a number of occasions. I tend to forget things rather often, and rather quickly, thus, being able to set a reminder for a day, a week, or a month from now and being able to create to do lists or grocery lists right on my cell phone has changed my life. I doubt I am alone when I say there are times I cannot think of a word or need information quickly but am on the run, well, that is where Safari comes in use. Being able to quickly surf the internet wherever I am has brought ease to my day to day life. I am able to quickly google anything I would like, especially useful when I am doing my homework far from a computer and need to research a topic or look up an unfamiliar word. The fifth App I find to be a must have is the Calculator. Although most of us can do basic mathematical operations, it is very nice to take the lazy route and calculate out things such as tip money, how much money you will be making this month, or the discounted price that will be applied to the bill you have from shopping online. Find iPhone is an app I have not yet had to use, knock on wood, but I see the potential it has. Should someone be missing, should someone’s iOS device/Mac be stolen, or should you just have misplaced your iPhone, Find iPhone uses remote location-tracking to locate them. Maps, much like the Calculator, is not entirely necessary if you prefer the old school way of paper maps. However, unfamiliar with such resources, I whole heartedly approved of the Maps app. In fact, my first few times driving to and from Carroll University I had to use Maps in order to ensure I would not get lost. In my opinion, if you are alone, Maps is a safer way to travel than a paper map, as Siri will tell you exactly when to turn, which exits to take, and so on, without you ever having to take your eyes off of the road. The last app I find to fall under the “must have” category is the Camera. Recently I traveled to Italy and, of course, I brought my cell phone. Having a feature like the Camera directly on my cell phone made it so I had one less thing to carry on all of my excursions, rather nice when you are backpacking for 10+ miles a day.
For me, these are must have apps, but, depending on the person and his or her day to day life, must have apps could vary wildly. So what are your must-halves?

Decluttering Revisited


I seem to return to certain topics—like reducing virtual desk top clutter. I am once again in the process of reviewing “applications”—I’ve installed (first on my Mac, then on my Ipads, then on my PC’s).I read a thoughtful piece in the New York Times this morning suggesting that the urge to declutter or the perceptions of succeeding in the task may be misguided.And I just ordered a copy of a revised Stephen Covey book to assist in my reordering my priorities.
I have a goal of reducing the 37-years of accumulated office clutter by pulling together all the institutional research have done the past 37 years (thank you former research assistants) and combining it with present data collection processes. however, I am amused and annoyed to discover how technology sometimes makes data acquisition more difficult.
Right now two of my student research assistants are helping me pull together a blog piece dedicated to the Carroll alumni I have known as students across the past 37 years. Take a peak at a work in progress.

Let me know if you’d like a picture of you from year’s gone by. I’ll trade you for one of me OR of you today.