Introduction
I am the Technology Associate for our Professional Development Center. Part of my job is to test out technology that I think could have useful applications for faculty and staff.
I’m giving my first presentation this morning, and I will be using this post (instead of something like powerpoint) as a kind of interactive handout. We’ll be in a smart classroom, so the faculty who attend will be able to follow along at their computers.
So, this doesn’t give you complete comprehensive information about any one app, but I think there is enough information for faculty (or off-campus readers of this blog) to get something out of this post.
1. Google Scholar
Excellent search engine for scholarly material that integrates in amazing ways with our campus library and Zotero.
2. Zotero
Open-source alternative to Endnote, and it’s better than Endnote. It works with Firefox to make online research even easier.
- Manage your entire bibliography (also take notes, tag/categorize entries, and stores files).
- Export bibliographies to your clip board and paste into other files (e.g. text files and word documents)
- Integrated tool bars for OpenOffice and MS Word
- Check out 10 Reasons For Your Institution to Adopt Zotero
- 1.0 is the most stable version. If you try 1.5 beta, you can sync bibliographies across computers.
3. Dropbox
Free open-source online back-up, file storage and syncing. This is by far one of the best back-up file syncing system I’ve ever seen!
- Anything you save in your dropbox folder on your computer stays stored on your computer and is synced with your account on their server.
- Access your files on-line through a web browser.
- Saves old versions/revisions of files that you can access online (this doesn’t count against your 2GB)
4. Remember the Milk
Free online to-do list that integrates with just about everything.
- Add to your to-do list from your mobile phone, by email, by Twitter, from a desktop application you download.
- Set reminders and receive them via text message, Twitter reminders, or email.
- Integrate with Gmail calendar
5. Twitter
Twitter is a micro-blogging client. For those of you familiar with facebook it’s like status updates. Incredible for professional networking.
- Make connections (and stay connected) with professionals in your field
- Get up to the minute news about what’s going on in your field
- Use for course announcements. (I do)
- Twitter is so incredibly versatile it’s hard to summarize in bullet points. I’ve said more here and here.
- This came out in the Chronicle of Higher Education TODAY! (and kind of validated my decision to put Twitter on this list 😉
- BTW – you can update your Facebook status with Twitter. Incredibly useful if you want to update your facebook status, without getting sucked into the rabbit hole that is Facebook.
- UPDATE: Here’s an interesting example of Twitter being used in the classroom.
- UPDATE: Oprah is going to dedicate an entire show to it [April 16]
6. Google Reader
Most websites worth reading have RSS feeds now, blogs, scholarly journals. With an RSS reader, you can create your own customized morning newspaper.
- Absorb a lot more information in a fraction of the time.
- If you already have a Gmail account – you already have a reader account.
- Stop visiting the pages of each blog you like, and start tracking the content from a wide range of webpages with an RSS reader.
7. Qipit and Evernote
Imagine an online account where you upload pictures you’ve taken of book pages, whiteboards, handouts from class, journal pages in the library, handwritten notes, your friend’s notes, your own notes (as a backup) that stores these pictures in a nice neat PDF format…It’s actually a real thing.
- Snap pictures and email them with your phone.
- I’ve blogged about this here.
- See the results!
- I even used this to give my students a small section from a book for a paper assignment.
8. Drop.io
Free, secure, private file sharing. It’s incredibly simple, and recent upgrades to their services have made this app vastly more useful/powerful than a simple file-sharing medium. It is so simple to use the basic features, but with a little creativity and playing around with some of the features, you can do even more amazing things.
- share files with students
- create collaborative learning environments
- voice mail
- podcast
- chatrooms for each drop
- conference calling for each drop
- RSS feed for each drop.
- Get text messages when drop is updated
- UPDATE: Drop.io is in the stages of alpha testing a presentation mode. This will be incredibly useful for teaching. [April 16]
9. 3banana
Very nice note program that integrates nicely with iPhone and gPhone. You don’t need an iPhone or a gPhone, but they both have 3banana apps on their market that, when combined with built in web-syncing, make it a no-brainer that this should be your note taking solution.
- Notes can be tagged/categorized
- Each note can be made public and shared via a public HTML link
- Can use your Google Account to log in
Thanks for posting these links, Andy. I’m starring the post in Google Reader for later reference. 3banana is new to me, so I’m especially looking forward to trying it.
Boone,
No problem. I think you’re going to like 3banana. I forgot to mention that you can log in with your Google account…so you already have a 3banana account.
Hi Andrew-
Just wondering if you have ever looked into Microsoft’s Office Live Workspace? Students can use it to share notes or manage a study schedule and Professors can post syllabi for the entire class to view.
Cheers,
Jeff
MSFT Office Live Outreach
http://workspace.officelive.com/Examples
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for the tip, but I tend to favor open source alternatives to Microsoft products. For example, I use Ubuntu and OpenOffice. I have a wide range of compelling reasons for this preference that I won’t go into here.
But these reasons also compel me to support alternatives to Microsoft products generally as long as Microsoft has a largely closed-source outlook (no pun intended)
As long as Microsoft continues with a closed-source model, I will always seek out a viable non-Microsoft solution.