The Mobile Professor

Virtual Office Hours Using Google Hangouts

2012-04-26T12:53:00.001-05:00

I have begun using Google Hangouts to work remotely with students who are unable to meet with me in my office. Thus began virtual office hours. Others are doing this, but here is how a local television station (KXAN-TV in Austin, Texas) covered the story.

Teacher scraps old school office hours: kxan.com

My thoughts on the new Google+ format

2012-04-12T09:11:00.000-05:00

Much time and energy has been expended in the past 24 hours discussing and complaining about the new Google+ format. My initial reaction was good - I generally like new things and get excited about it. But, I decided to spend a day with it, read the various comments and complaints, and then put a few thoughts together.

In short, I see no serious problems with it, at least none that it did not have before. Anytime a change occurs, the expected response from a significant number will be complaints. So, complaints alone are not a criteria for worry. What matters is the nature of the complaints.
Issues such as those raised by and the sudden and unannounced "breaking" of his well-used Chrome Extensions is cause for worry. There is little doubt that he was one of a group of influential Google+ users. Even was aware of his work and thought it good for the community. My guess is that Google will reach out to him (and others) before they do something like that, again.

The complaints are specious, but understandable. I like a simple interface. After all, the Google.com page has been full of white space for years and everyone thought that was just fine. I see the white space as "future proofing" and room for expansion an growth.
The main complaint is that Google+ is not, yet, perfect. Well, "duh!" Not sure that anything on the internet meets that criteria. The other complaint is that the columns are not customizable. Well, they weren't before, so what is different.

Now, customization is a good thing and is something that it appears that Google is attempting to do. The ribbon on the left side is already customizable, so I would not be surprised to see more coming down the pike.

Performance is clearly better. I see the interface as already being more snappy. Good job there.

As to the graying out of comments...that could be better and easily fixable. For starters, there is a Chrome Extension that fixes it, now. I expect that to change in the near future.

More on this as I take more time to live with the new format.

Writing More Simply

2012-04-04T11:21:00.003-05:00

Shortly after I entered the Naval Postgraduate School I was talking about writing with one of the professors. I told him that I was looking forward to my time away from the fleet so I could learn how to write in an academic environment. He quickly stopped me and said that I had it backwards. Academics needed to learn how to write from military officers. In the Navy we are taught to get to the point quickly, usually in the first sentence, and then succinctly back your point. Then, quit.

A former Executive Officer once taught me how to write a Naval Message:

Para 1 - "Next Tuesday at 10:30 am I want you to stand on your head for ten minutes."
Para 2 - "This is why I want you to stand on your head next Tuesday."
Para 3 - "This is the background reasoning that led me to ask you to stand on your head next Tuesday."

Both my professor and my Executive Officer said that most writing is done exactly the opposite of that format. In my experience, they were correct.

In the case above, para 1 leaves the reader no doubt what it is the writer wants. The reader is now curious and will read on. Para 2 answers the why. If there is time and if necessary, the reader can go on to para 3 to learn the background material. If written the other way around, the point is either lost or the reader has become bored with the message and never gets to it.

I was also taught that if a message was more than a page or two long, it was too long. Now, I readily admit that keeping all writing, particularly in research presentation, to just two pages may be difficult, but it recalls a point made by none other than Albert Einstein.

“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough”

I find that to be true. Another quote variously attributed to Samuel Clemons and Blaise Pascal is, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time."

The last quote betrays the real issue. We don't take time to simplify our thoughts and to say it with the minimum words possible.

So...I would have written the above in a single paragraph, but I just did not have the time.

Google Drive about here

2012-03-28T15:29:00.003-05:00

Om Malik of GigaOm is pretty sure that Google Drive in nearly here - perhaps as soon as next week. Not much on details other than a free 1GB of storage and, apparently, tied in with Google Apps and Google Docs. Can't wait.

LA Times version of the story.

Non-tenure track professors - quantity vs. quality

2012-03-26T07:35:00.000-05:00

The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article today discussing the growing efforts by non-tenure track teachers at institutions of higher education to gain more control over their lives and, subsequently, the educational quality of their students. Coincidental with the article published is the arrival today of the Program Review Team at Texas State University. The PRT will be reviewing the Political Science program and as part of that will be interviewing the faculty. What I found interesting is the special session they set up with the Lecturers and Senior Lecturers, non-tenure track full time teachers. I do note, however, that they are not meeting with the Adjuncts.

I find the PRT's taking time to talk with non-tenure track professors encouraging and will be interested in finding out just what they are wanting to learn from us. I will report here.

Texas State University is expanding rapidly, soon to rise to nearly 40,000 students, close to the size of the University of Texas and Texas A&M. The increase in student population will also increase the teaching load in Political Science as all those students are required to take American Government, a course that we teach. To be able to cover those classes, the department will likely have to maintain a stable of qualified Instructors and adjuncts. I hope the quality is kept high.

Virtual Office Hours: Google+ Hangouts

2012-03-22T10:48:00.000-05:00

I just completed "virtual office hours" with one of my Independent Study students using a Google+ Hangout. This particular student is working on a series of research papers and essays on Hezbollah. With the exception of our first meeting in January, we have not been face to face and successfully have organized and managed his project via the internet.

The student writes the papers in RTF format and posts them to Google Docs, sharing with me. I organize them into a "collection" which makes it easy for me to locate. I make my comments and editing suggestions directly into the shared documents. As I discover references that might help the student, I will share them, posting them to Google Docs as well. For example, I found several articles in JSTOR and Google Scholar on Hezbollah of which the student was not aware. I downloaded the pdf and then uploaded them directly to Google Docs, sharing them immediately.

For our "virtual office hour" sessions, I usually initiate the meeting from Google+. The gets the notification and can then join. Now that normal Hangouts are integrated with Google Docs, I only have to click on the _Docs_ button at the top of the Hangout page and can then select the documents of interest for the session. We can also create a new one as we talk, perhaps developing a "to do" list for future work.

Using Google+ Hangouts with integrated Google Docs we have eliminated the need for the student to travel to campus and have made the times during which we can meet much more flexible. I can also watch the development of the papers and essays and comment on them in real time.

I am still looking for more creative ways to enable teacher-student interaction and creativity.

Google Drive and Dropbox - A needs assessment

2012-03-06T17:56:00.000-06:00

Over the past few days a number of bloggers have been discussing the apparent imminent advent of Google Drive, some sort of cloud document storage system that will seemingly be related to Google Documents. All of them make comparisons to Dropbox, a good cloud document storage service that I use routinely.

All of this made me stop and think about what was really needed to solve my own particular needs. I have discussed this in early posts in which various applications, all web-based, enabled me to address the peculiar needs of a mobile professor, writer, and researcher. The problems to be addressed include the following:

1. Access to my documents and data from multiple locations without the need to physically carry them with me.

2. An easy system that manages version control of documents and data regardless of which venue from which I access them.

3. The ability to share the documents and data with collaborators (and maintain version control.)

4. The ability to work with the documents regardless of the platform (Windows, iOS, Android).

5. Automatic, essentially immediate backup and synchronization.

6. The ability to keep a dynamic calendar that can be shared with collaborators.

7. The ability to keep a dynamic task list that interfaces with the calendar when required.

As of now, I have chosen to use the following applications to meet the above requirements, at least partially:

1. Microsoft Office, in particular Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

2. Offisync plug-in for Microsoft Office

3. Evernote.

4. Dropbox

5. Google Documents

6. Google Calendar

7. Google Tasks

8. Blogger

Each of the above solves some part of my list of problems/needs, but there is a missing element. It is not completely integrated. Now, don't get me wrong - using the above applications are possible and not excessively difficult, but there is an element of smoothness that is missing, at least in part.

For example, as noted in earlier posts here, I use Evernote as my primary text entry tool. Microsoft Word is also used, but is secondary and only in those cases where specific formatting is required. Even in that case, the original writing is usually accomplished in Evernote and then pasted into Word for format editing. What is missing is an easy way to transfer the text to the various end locations, whether that is Word, Blogger, a Google Document, or other location. Additionally, while Evernote does an excellent job of automatically synching my note and making it available on multiple platforms, there is no way to access the notes directly from other platforms.

A second example concerns the interface between Google Documents and Dropbox. I use Dropbox as my default document storage for all my Microsoft Office documents. That way they are automatically available from all locations, whether work, home, or someone else's computer while traveling. Google Documents is a superb means of quickly saving documents that arrive by email and making them easily sharable with a collaborator...even keeping track of who accesses and manipulates the document. What is missing is an easy way to combine both capabilities. Various methods to integrate the two are discussed on the Internet, but all involve another third-party application, some of which cost money.

It would be handy if a single service that permitted the ease of saving documents provided by Google Documents with the seamless ease of saving Microsoft Office documents and synchronizing them into the cloud offered by Dropbox. I am perfectly happy to pay for storage access - I already pay Google and Dropbox (and Evernote, too) for extra storage space. I just want to be able to easily access and save documents across applications without any extra steps.

Enter Google Drive. Perhaps we are close to that ideal. What if such a service enabled the ease of access that Google Documents gives with the ability to put the MyDropbox folder into that drive? We may have gone a long ways toward solving a major issue that has confronted me routinely.

Note: Robert Scoble, while on a recent showing of TWiT with Leo Laporte, reported that he saw Eric Schmidt (Google) grab Drew Houston (Dropbox) at the recent meeting in Davos and disappear for an apparent discussion in private. That opens some interesting discussion about collaboration between the two companies.

I would enjoy hearing your thoughts on the issues you face with the management of documents and data and how you have solved your particular problems.

Google, More Google, Dropbox, and Evernote - Oh, yeah...Blogger, too

2012-03-05T22:03:00.000-06:00

This post got a lot of traffic back when I first put it online. For the most part, it is still what I recommend, but a few things have changed. At the request of some of my readers I have made a few edits:

More and more teachers are finding themselves mobile. Whether it is merely moving between work and home or something more complicated like teaching on multiple campuses, traveling to conferences, or just out of town for a few days, the issue of maintaining connectivity with class work and research as well as managing document version control is a very real concern to a growing number of professors and other teachers.

Before I go much further, I need to say that these recommendations are based on having used them for a long time "in the wild." Second, they work. Third, they are reliable enough for continued use. Fourth, it is easy to implement and use them. I do not say that these are the only way to solve these problems, but they do provide an inexpensive (and in most cases, free) solution. My cousin, Les Inbody is into Ubuntu, OpenOffice, and LibreOffice, and can say much more about those than can I.

My goals were twofold - maintain maximum communication connectivity and minimize the need to carry equipment or files, particularly between home and work. Additionally, based on one very special near-disaster while writing my doctoral dissertation, I wanted to solve the problem of document version control.

I have over a decade of teaching experience in higher education and the need to be able to work at home, from work, and on the road without needless complication is important. At a minimum, I need to be able to ensure that the document I am working on is the latest version and I don't inadvertently end up with two versions, neither of which is the correct one. I think I have good solutions for those goals - at least until something better comes along. I encourage those reading this post to offer their solutions.

After several years of experimentation, I have settled on a few fairly easy and inexpensive (or free) tools to remain able to conduct research, grade papers, communicate easily with students, and minimize the amount of necessary hardware to lug around.

All of what I describe can be managed with a laptop computer. A minimal version of this can be maintained with a smartphone and/or iPad. I suppose other tablets would also be capable, but I have no direct experience with them so I will leave that advice to those with actual experience.

So, what are the tools that will help the mobile professor be more effective? You will note a pattern, immediately, i.e., Google...lots of Google. Why? Well, the tools are effective and, most importantly, they are free for the most part.

In short, they are:

Google Chrome (w/ extensions)
GMail
Google Voice
Google Calendar
Google Tasks
Google+
Google Docs
Dropbox
Evernote
Blogger (this is a new addition to the original list)

Okay, the details:

Google Chrome

If there is a single theme of my recommendations, it is Google. Since a lot of Google applications are being used, it makes sense to use Google Chrome as my main browser. Now, it is not critical that you do so, but I have found it simpler and more useful.

Along with Chrome are a collection of extensions, or additions that extend the usability and function of Chrome. I have found a few to be most helpful to the mobile professor.

1. Better Google Tasks - This just makes using Google Tasks a bit easier. See my notes about Tasks below.

2. Clip to Evernote - This extension makes it easy to clip a web page into Evernote. See my notes about Evernote below.

3. Google Voice - Enables Google Voice in the browser. See my notes on Google Voice below.

4. Send From Gmail - Enables the ability to automatically bring up GMail when clicking on an email address in the browser. If you are not using GMail as your work email client, then consider not installing this one.

I use other Chrome extensions, but these are the most important. If you want to know which others I use, please contact me and I will be glad to discuss them with you.

Gmail

At the heart of all this is GMail. Not surprisingly, communication is the key to maintaining contact while mobile and GMail is at the center. Now, why GMail and not some other mail tool? GMail seems to be more flexible. It can be set to pull in multiple email accounts, including work email. Better yet, it can be set to automatically reply to any email using the same email address to which the original email was sent, thus avoiding the necessity to send a reply to your Department Chair from a non-school account address. The ability to archive a seemingly unlimited number of emails and then to be able to search them within the GMail client is powerful. By the way, archiving is a powerful tool. It permits you to get the email out of your Inbox without deleting it, thus making it simultaneously easier to see new emails, yet be able to search for older ones.

Caveat - you must set a default email address for GMail. That email address is the default From address of any email you originate. You can change the From address in the Compose window, but you must remember to do that. If you have a default address that is other than your work email address, you may occasionally inadvertently find yourself sending a work email from a non-work address. You have to decide if that is a real problem or not. Of course, you can set your work email to be the default.

Google Voice

Closely tied to GMail is Google Voice. I have ported my cell phone to Google Voice. I happen to have a Sprint cell account, so that makes it easy to do and costs nothing. Should you be with AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile, you can still port, but it will cost a few dollars. Still, I think it worth it for several reasons.

First, you can make and receive calls directly from your computer. This is more helpful than one might think. While sitting at your laptop in a hotel room, you can quickly dial the contact, often just by clicking on the phone number, and just talk over the built-in speaker. A headset makes it a bit better, but not required.

Should you not be able to receive the call, Google Voice will intercept it and record it for playback, either on your cell phone or on your computer. Additionally, it will provide a written transcript of the voicemail - or at least a pretty good transcription. It is usually good enough for you to get the drift of what the call is about. That transcript can be archived and made searchable, too.

It is also possible to send and receive SMS text messages from your desktop, avoiding the necessity to tediously thumb type on your cell phone.

On top of all that, Google Voice keeps a record of all text messages and voicemails, archiving them for as long as you desire and making them searchable.

Smart phone advice: On my Android phone (I have an HTC EVO 4G), in addition to loading Google Voice, I installed CallTrack. That little app tracks all your calls, inbound and outbound, and records the time and phone number on your calendar.

Google Calendar

Speaking of calendars, Google Calendar is your end-all, be-all for managing your time and appointments. Even if you are using Outlook at work, you can sync those two calendars making it easy to check while mobile. I use Google Calendar Sync to do that.

With Google Calendar, you can enter your own schedule as well as sync with other's calendars. Given my mobile schedule, my wife and I sync each other's calendars so we don't inadvertently schedule events that conflict with each other.

Google Calendar also ties in well with GMail and Tasks. After opening an email with a date related item in it, click on the More Tab and then Create Event. Alternatively, you can Add to Tasks, then assign a date to the Task. The event and/or tasks will then show up on the appropriate date in your Calendar. The Tasks listing is conveniently visible along the right side of your calendar. Using the Better Google Tasks Chrome extension I mentioned above will give you the option of adding, modifying, completing, and deleting tasks from a separate pop-out window.

Google Tasks - As already mentioned, Google Tasks gives you the ability to create and maintain Todo lists. The lists (and you can create multiple lists if you want) can be tied to dates if necessary. If a date is tied to an individual ToDo item, it will conveniently show up at the top of that date in Calendar, reminding you. If you created the task item from an email, a link to the associated link is provided. Clicking on the link will bring up the email in GMail, even if it is archived and not currently in your visible Inbox.

Google+ - Google+ is one of the most interesting developments on the internet front in a while. It enables you to connect to a large number of people who have similar interests and monitor the conversation threads easily. It even provides an easy way to search for topics of interest. Specifically, I have discovered a use for the Google+Hangouts.

Hangouts (and Hangouts with Extras) provides the professor a convenient way to connect with a student by remote control. It provides an ability to connect with voice and video and, when using the Extras capabillity, to share documents and desktops to enable collaboration on a document. I have used it to conduct virtual office hours. Check out my blog post for a more detailed explanation. The potential for engaging your students and even students from other schools, is tremendous and it yet to be fully exploited. Here is an area I would enjoy learning how other profs have figured out how to use it effectively.

Google Docs - Google Docs is a way to store documents in the cloud and to enable collaboration. It is easily used in conjunction with Google+ Hangouts and provides an easy way to share a document with a student or for students to work together. In the case of students who don't live on campus, this is a great way for them to create study groups (remember meeting at the library at 8:00 at night?) or, as I already note above, hold virtual office hours when the student can't make your normal hours on campus. The application is entirely online and includes a basis word processor (good enough for most requirements), a spreadsheet, and a PowerPoint like presentation maker.

Dropbox - Dropbox is useful for storing documents in the cloud. An argument can be made that you don't need both Google Docs and Dropbox. However, both are free unless you need a lot of extra storage space. The 2GB free storage with Dropbox and 1GB free storage with Google Docs.

I use Dropbox for my professional documents and have essentially turned it into my default MyDocuments on my computer. All documents are stored there, thus eliminating any need to carry a USB thumbdrive between home and work or emailing documents to myself. Using Dropbox has eliminated my version control problem.

(Note: With one notable exception, I have mostly moved from Dropbox to Google Documents. I have found Google Documents when used with Offisync and Google Cloud Connect to have solved most of my cloud storage and access issues. However, since Dropbox is so ubiquitous from such a wide range of applications, I remain using in conjunction with my teaching files.

Google Drive and Dropbox - A Needs Assessment
Google Cloud Connect

Evernote - Most Universities have access to Microsoft OneNote, a powerful application for collecting and organizing notes and documents for research. While relatively easy to use in a mobile environment using a laptop, it is less than convenient on a tablet or mobile phone. A free application that is remarkably useful and flexible for much the same uses is Evernote.

Evernote is helpful in storing notes, voice memos, photos, and webpages to a notebook that will keep it organized and, importantly, searchable. Android, iPhone, and iPad, among other have apps that work well and enable you to interface with it. Again, it is automatically synchronized so no matter which device you access it from, the material is always there and is the correct version.

So, there are my essentials. While not a complete listing and not even a complete description of how each is used on a daily basis, this should give you enough information to start setting up your own system. I will enjoy hearing from you to learn your experiences with these applications as well as others that have solved particular problems you face in our increasingly mobile world. I make no representation that these are the best, but I do hold that they are good and solve many very real problems.

Click here to see how I use Evernote with my blogging.

Blogger - I have begun using Blogger for my personal blog platform as well as my classroom blogs. Check out some earlier blog posts on some of the details.

Blogs in the Classroom
Evernote, Google+, Google Docs, and Blogger
Blogger and Evernote - A Wish List

________

Don Inbody is a Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas. He teaches courses in American Government and International Relations. His research interests civil-military relations and the voting behavior of military personnel. He is a retired U.S. Navy Captain and lives in Buda, Texas.

More M.B.A.'s Pursue Education-Related Jobs (U.S. News and World Report)

2012-02-29T14:50:00.005-06:00

Reposted in its entirety from U.S. News and World Report

Many business students pursue careers in education technology, management, and policy.

By MENACHEM WECKER

February 23, 2012

Shaista Khilji's office at George Washington University's Graduate School of Education and Human Development has become a sort of confessional where, she says, M.B.A. students stop by to share their hesitations about and disinterest in business school.

Business students—who are increasingly enrolling in education courses at GW—are growing skeptical of their major due to widespread criticism of M.B.A. programs' "profit first" model and in the wake of high-profile corporate scandals, Khilji says. "Many of them are questioning the worth of an M.B.A. education."

M.B.A. students at GW aren't the only ones turning toward the education sector. Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business, University of California—Berkeley's Haas School of Business, University of Michigan'sRoss School of Business, Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management, and Yale University's School of Management are among the schools with student-run education clubs. And at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, which also has an education club, students can pursue a joint M.B.A./M.A. in education.

Though the education industry's not known for doling out high salaries, business students seem to be increasingly seeking jobs in the policy, technology, and management of education, say education professionals and business students.

"That's what's so unique about this trend. M.B.A.'s being interested in a new industry where they think they can make money is nothing new. M.B.A.'s pursuing a path that isn't likely to ever pay off in a big way financially ... is new," says Miro Kazakoff, cofounder of Testive, a website that helps students predict their scores on standardized tests.

[Learn why M.B.A.'s may face lower salaries in socially responsible jobs.]

Over the past year or two, education has become a much more desirable field for M.B.A.'s, says Kazakoff, who holds an M.B.A. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. "Being in the ed tech space, I see how blazingly fast this became a big deal," he says. "It's low paying and nontraditional, but the resources to pursue a career in education are much better."

One resource that Kazakoff cites is Education Pioneers, a nonprofit founded in 2003 that places graduate students in leadership and management roles at more than 160 partnering educational institutions. Education Pioneers has seen a "steady increase" since its inception in the number of M.B.A. students—who typically make up about 25 percent of the applicant pool—applying for fellowships, says Julie Angilly, the nonprofit's vice president of external relations.

Increased awareness of Education Pioneers and greater understanding in the education sector of the importance of M.B.A. talent has driven student interest in the fellowship, Angilly says. "In general, the education space is becoming more open to skills and experience outside of the traditional education world," she says.

After they graduate, about half of the M.B.A. students who are Education Pioneers fellows work in education, primarily in leadership and management roles, Angilly says. That's a career path that requires some humility and discretion, says Tracy Brisson, a former director of teacher recruitment for the New York City public school system.

[Check out the best jobs for M.B.A.'s.]

"Some people think education reform is about hiring outsiders to come in, change everything to make it more business-like and 'save' schools from themselves. It's very paternalistic. No one likes that attitude, and I and many others pass on those candidates," says Brisson, who is also founder of the career consultancy The Opportunities Project.

At MIT's Sloan School, there's a lot of excitement about education technology, and students are mostly motivated by the right desires, says Dennis Jiang, an M.B.A. student and copresident of the student club Sloan.Ed.

"I've personally never met anyone who is passionate about education because they think this is the way that they're going to be [Facebookcofounder] Mark Zuckerberg. People who are passionate about education technology—a lot of it is driven by their desire to help people learn," he says.

Education is undergoing a technological face lift as schools focus on personalized, tailored curricula and online and hybrid teaching, according to Jiang. "There's a promise of technology finally being able to create a big difference in education," he says.

But whereas Kazakoff of Testive says education is a low-paying field, Jiang says there can be "serious money" in creating and marketing educational tools. "If you work at a startup in education technology, you'll get paid probably as much as you do at another startup working in a completely other field," he says. "You're going to make much less than you'd make if you went to Wall Street, but that's a trade that a lot of people are willing to make."

[Read about whether doctorates compensate for inflated M.B.A.'s.]

Ryal Tayloe, an M.B.A. student at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration and president of theEducation Club, prefers to look at an education sector job as a win-win situation, where he will be able to make a difference and earn a competitive salary.

"Business school is such an introspective process, where you are trying to figure out where to go, how to craft your career, [and] how to set out a path. A path toward education is really appealing to me, because I may be able to make a living and also make a difference," he says.

Blogger and Evernote: A Wish List

2012-02-29T12:57:00.001-06:00

Since I have been using Evernote as my primary text entry application, a series of wishes have sprung up. It has to do with where the text ultimately winds up.

My writing normally ends up in the following locations:

1. Google+ posts
2. Blogger posts
3. Basic documents (Google Docs)
4. More formatted documents (Microsoft Word)

The process, now, requires me to enter the text. Then, I copy and paste into the end-application and complete formatting changes necessary for that environment. It is not difficult, but was wondering if a few shortcuts might now be possible.

What if this was available via Evernote?

After entering my text, what if Evernote automatically synchronized my notes to a folder in Google Docs. Then, if there were a couple of buttons names "Publish to Blogger" and "Publish to Google+ that content could easily be published. Along with the button would be a built-in function that converted bold text to the Google+ bold, and italics to the Google+ italics.

The "Send to Blogger" button would also strip the first line of the note and put that in the subject/title line of the Blogger post.

For documents that need a bit more work, I could easily open it from Google Docs or, by using Google's own "OffiSync," I could open them in Microsoft Word for even more sophisticated editing.

So, I just offer that up as a possibility...dreaming a bit.

Google Privacy Policy and Your Browsing Data

2012-02-28T08:17:00.002-06:00

Are you really worried about Google's new privacy policy that entails combining your data across all their products? I am not particularly worried about it, but if you want to start fresh with your browsing history, here is how to do it. But...you must do this before March 1 when the new policy kicks in.

Go to your Google Dashboard at http://google.com/dashboard. Be sure you are logged in to your google account. Go down the page to Web History and click on "Remove items or Web History." There you can clear all your previous history.

Again, I am not sure there is a problem that needs to be solved, but you have the ability to control that.

By the way, I recommend you spend some time on the Dashboard page and learn what control you do have over your Google data. I don't believe other sites are quite this transparent.

Google Cloud Connect

2012-02-27T10:16:00.002-06:00

Still on the hunt for tools that enable more efficient interconnection between Microsoft Office applications and Google Documents, I "discovered" Google Cloud Connect. Actually, I had run into this service some time ago, knowing it as DocVerse. About a year ago, Google acquired DocVerse and it has now reappeared as Google Cloud Connect.

In short, this is a plug-in for Microsoft Office that permits creating and editing documents that reside in Google Documents. As a result, this permits collaborative editing of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.

While Google Documents has its own editing capability, it is clear that Office provides a more robust set of tools. Now, it is possible to use the convenience and flexibility of Google's cloud storage with the capability of the more traditional and well-known Office applications.

To download Google Cloud Connect, go to http://tools.google.com/dlpage/cloudconnect and download it for free. Then, once installed, log into your Google account and you will be able to access the entire Google Documents library.

Grades, Rewards, and Punishments

2012-02-27T09:31:00.002-06:00

A common discussion among teachers is the uniform dislike of grading. Nearly all teachers I talk to love to teach students. They love to interact with students and delight in watching them grow as they learn and gain excitement for what they are learning. However, nearly all hate to grade. It it at least tedious and often an act that seems to offer little in the way of true teaching and aiding in the learning process. Still, we are required to do it in order to justify the effort expended and to demonstrate some means of differentiating the "successful" student from those who are less successful.

Grading is little more than either a reward for good performance or a punishment for bad performance. If that is so, then it becomes incumbent on the teacher to ensure that whatever behavior or activity they are grading is something worth the effort. Recently, while developing a course on Asian Government and Politics, a course that I had not taught before, I decided to prioritize the activities that would be important for a true understanding of the region and those activities I thought would aid the student in the future.

Each student was principally to learn how to learn about Asia. In this case, within the constraints of a three-hour college level undergraduate course, I determined to concentrate on four areas:

1. Develop an in-depth expertise on one specific region of either China, Japan, or India.

2. Develop a broad expertise on one other country in Asia.

3. Read a range of writing by experts on the region.

4. Read a range of news articles written in various Asian countries.

In order to ensure that the above were accomplished, I insisted that each student write about what they learned and read. Each week the student would write a "reaction paper" to the readings and post to a blog. In-class discussions often centered on the news of the day and how the readings might shed light on the news. The discussions were primarily student-led, with the teacher ensuring the discussion stayed more or less on path and was not inaccurate.

Grading is limited to whether the students actually posted to the blog and wrote their reaction papers. While quality did matter, once the students got into the drill, they actually enjoyed writing the short reaction papers and then discussing them in class. The blog posts were self-enforcing, since they knew that the other students in the class were going to read what they wrote, a motivation seemingly more important than whether I read them, or not.

The reading, writing, and discussion format, spiced with an occasional guest speaker from Asia (brought in from the faculty and graduate students) kept the class motivated to learn and pay attention.

Grading occurs...after all, we are required to do so by state law and university regulation...but the load on the teacher is minimized, thus increasing the teaching time.

Insync and Google Docs

2012-02-23T10:20:00.002-06:00

I just had an interesting email exchange with Terance, one of the developers for Insync. He has been involved in sync since 2005 when he wanted to figure out how to synchronize his iTunes music across his laptops. Today, he believes that storage will be commoditized and that the way to make money is to offer premium features. Insync, while right now a free service, looks like it will become a "Freemium" service in the near future. One product he mentioned as forthcoming will be remote wipe of Google Docs from a laptop that is lost or stolen. He expects the first premium features to be out in April 2012.

They are about to release native mobile apps for Android, iOS, Windows Phone 7, and Blackberry. They are also about to release a new feature called Feed (a newsfeed for your data) and they hope to have that available for Linux and Mac as well as for Windows.

He said that Insync will be announcing something big in the 2nd quarter, but would not tell me what that was.

Oh, yes...he assures me that they are NOT connected to the Google Drive project.

I intend to keep an eye on this product. I have already done some Google Document modifications using Microsoft Word and Insync quickly made the changes to the cloud document with no effort on my part. Then, I watched it quickly synchronize the modified document to my laptop in Insync installed.

I recommend you try the product out and see if it might meet some of your mobile needs.

A New Twist for Google Documents - A Google Drive Preview?

2012-02-23T07:40:00.000-06:00

Google Documents has been increasing in value for my own work. Whether it involves my teaching, my research, or personal interests, the convenience of Google Documents makes many of the formerly tedious tasks of managing a myriad of documents across multiple computers and from varying locations much easier. A new service, free for now, seems to offer a new dimension that promises to answer some of the needs we expressed in our posting about Google Drive.

InSynch provides a Dropbox like structure of local/remote document management and brings that to Google Documents. In short, once you download the software, an insync folder is created within your Documents library. Then, all your Google Documents are downloaded to that local folder, thus permitting you to access the documents with your favorite word processor, spreadsheet, or presentation applications. Any changes made to the local document are then automatically synchronized to Google Documents in the cloud.

Additionally, you can load the software onto any of your machines and the documents are synchronized between them, all without you needing to remember to do anything.

None of this removes the ability to access and modify the documents directly in Google Documents via the web. Any changes you make will automatically be synchronized to the local folder on your various machines.

I have been using it for a week, now, and it works smoothly. Best of all, it is free. ~~I wonder if they are somehow connected with Google and this will become a major component of Google Drive.~~

Blogs in the Classroom

2012-02-14T07:48:00.003-06:00

My course on the Government and Politics of Asia uses a blog as part of the learning process. While much is being made of bringing technical solutions to the classroom in order to enhance education, too many educators (and pundits advocating technical solutions for education) forget some necessary first steps. Just like in a research project, before one decides on the methodology and tools, the research questions must be formulated. In the case of any well-designed course, it is important to determine first the educational goals.

For the Asian course, one of the goals was to get the students to read English-language newspapers from various Asian countries. Another goal was to get the students to engage each other in conversation about the stories they discovered. At that point, I decided that a tool that would assist in reaching those goals was a blog. I required the students to post and comment each week. From a course management point of view, it is relatively easy to see whether they are doing that. Additionally, since what the student is writing and posting is public, i.e., the rest of the class will see what they write, they tend to take it seriously and the postings are thoughtful.

Here at Texas State University, I had the option of using the blogs contained in our learning management system, TRACS. The advantage of using that system is the excellent system of tracking usage and time spent in the system. However, it is not public and not like most publicly available blogging systems. A secondary goal for the class, and one advocated by the University, is to teach skills that can be carried into public life beyond graduation. Blogging is clearly one of those skills.

So, I decided to use Google's Blogger. A primary advantage is that it is free. I built the site using my own Google profile and then invited each student to be an author. Most students have a GMail address and I used that address whenever possible. However, for those that did not, using their university email address has not caused any access issues.

Once I set up the blog and invited the students to be authors, I posted a few entries myself to set the example. Then, they were required to make at least weekly posts to the blog and make at least one comment per week on someone else's posting. In class, part of the opening process is to discuss the blog and engage in conversation about what they had read and written. It is interesting to see how the students quickly are able to connect theoretical and historical issues they read in the textbooks to current issues being discussed in the news. Also, since they are reading the on-line newspapers from the Asian countries, much of what they are discovering is not being covered in the American press. By reading those stories, they are getting a better understanding about the issues that are important to the region. Even reading government-controlled press reveals what is important for those governments despite the obvious censorship of stories that is happening.

Using blogs in classrooms is a useful tool. However, the blog, in and of itself, is useless. Remember to tie its use to an educational goal or outcome.

Student Independent Study - Google Hangouts/Google Docs

2012-02-13T10:16:00.001-06:00

I have a student in an independent study this semester. He has a fascinating project studying Hezbollah. Given his schedule and mine, it is difficult to arrange face-to-face meetings in my office as traditional independent studies are often conducted. So, we decided to use Google.

Specifically, we use Google Hangouts with Extras and Google Docs. There is nothing particularly startling about our methodology, but the unique capabilities of these tools make it easy to coordinate his project.

The student is writing series of essays/short research papers on various topics related to Hezbollah. He emailed his first paper to me and followed it up with a hard copy. I realized that method was inefficient and not helpful. After all, my writing comments on his paper required that he make a trip to drop it off and then to pick it up. Google Docs solved that problem.

So, I created a Google Docs Collection (folder) with his essay in it and shared it with him. Now, as he creates his documents, he just put them in that collection and I can read them and comment. Feedback is quick and efficient. I can easily see when he has been looking at the documents and he can see when I was doing the same.

Additionally, I am requiring that he develop a running bibliography of his research. As he locates references, he then can put those citations in a single document kept on Google Docs where I can review it as he builds it. If other students will find it useful, it is easy to add them to the share list so they can review it for their own use.

We do need to talk, at least once per week, so we use Google Hangouts with Extras. I normally start the session and invite him to it. Then, I bring up the document(s) in question and we can talk about them and make marks on them as we talk. All changes are instantly and automatically saved and synchronized. Easy, convenient, and efficient.

Veteran Voting Project

2012-02-08T16:29:00.003-06:00

After some thought, I am putting together a Veteran Voting Project, which will start as a pilot project at Texas State University this coming fall. While details are not yet firmed up, it will generally entail an effort to encourage veterans on campus to register to vote and then to actually cast their ballots. It will also involve a campaign to make veterans aware of the election issues affecting veterans, active duty military personnel, and their families. We anticipate a project along the lines of the non-partisan League of Women Voters, although more limited in nature. I will be making my first presentation to the Veterans Advisory Council at Texas State University this month.

Your thoughts on how best to integrate this project into university and community life will be appreciated. If you are in the San Marcos area and are interested, contact me here on Google+, and I will enjoy meeting up or hanging out and getting to know you.

*Overseas Voters:* Also, as many veterans know members of the military and others who live overseas, they offer a unique opportunity to gain access to a large population of overseas voters who have traditionally had a difficult time casting a ballot.

In Texas alone, estimates of overseas voters range from 550,000 to 670,000. As of March 2011, 229,890 military personnel and 95,227 military spouses and dependents claimed Texas as their voting residence (OVF 2012). Many of those overseas voters, a vast majority by most polling data, were unable to cast a ballot in the most recent elections. In coordination with the Overseas Vote Foundation, we will work to enfranchise more of our overseas military personnel,veterans, and families.

Importing OneNote Notebooks into Evernote

2012-02-08T12:17:00.002-06:00

Many Evernote users came over from using Microsoft OneNote. That application is a powerful and useful notebook style research organization tool. However, it does come with a large overhead and it not quite a flexible as Evernote. At least I found that to be the case.

Now, what can you do with notebooks in OneNote now that you are usingEvernote? Easy. From within Evernote, click on File/Import/MicrosoftOneNote. A window will popup entitled OneNote Import. In it you will see a drawdown of your OneNote notebooks. Select the notebook you want to import and it will pop up with all the notes within that notebook. Select the note to import and Evernote will begin crunching away to bring your work over.

In the background, it will start Microsoft OneNote and them put the selected notebook into a local notebook. You will have the opportunity to change the local notebook into a synchronized notebook.

Evernote, Google+, Google Docs, and Blogger

2012-01-25T21:32:00.002-06:00

Since I have been using Evernote as my primary text entry application, a series of wishes have sprung up. It has to do with where the text ultimately winds up.

My writing normally ends up in the following locations:

1. Google+ posts

2. Blogger posts

3. Basic documents (Google Docs)

4. More formatted documents (Microsoft Word)

The process, now, requires me to enter the text. Then, I copy and paste into the end-application and complete formatting changes necessary for that environment. It is not difficult, but was wondering if a few shortcuts might now be possible.

What if this was available via Evernote?

After entering my text, what if Evernote automatically synchronized my notes to a folder in Google Docs. Then, if there were a couple of buttons names "Publish to Blogger" and "Publish to Google+ that content could easily be published. Along with the button would be a built-in function that converted bold text to the Google+ *bold*, and italics to the Google+ _italics_.

The "Send to Blogger" button would also strip the first line of the note and put that in the subject/title line of the Blogger post.

For documents that need a bit more work, I could easily open it from Google Docs or, by using Google's own "OffiSync," I could open them in Microsoft Word for even more sophisticated editing.

So, I just offer that up as a possibility...dreaming a bit.

Apple and Electronic Textbooks

2012-01-25T15:46:00.000-06:00

Apple's recent entry into the eTextbook market has a lot of folks buzzing. I count it as good, but with limitations.

Overall, there are two issues that need to be solved.

First, reducing the cost of text books. Textbooks, particularly at the university level cost entirely too much. It poses a significant barrier to student access to higher education.

Students are always looking for ways to reduce their costs. Unfortunately, many of the texts chosen by faculty (myself included, unfortunately) are entirely too expensive. While there are legitimate reasons why such textbooks are expensive, it does not make life any easier for the cash-starved student already paying high tuition, fees, and living expenses.

Second, with the rise of online courses and the proliferation of electronic devices among students, an electronic version of the textbook is desirable. One student of mine managed to find an electronic version of every reading for one of my courses on the American Founding and carried the entire library on her iPad. She reduced the 27 inch tall pile of books to a handful of electronic files. I count that as a positive advance.

Apple's entry into the eTextbook market is commendable and will have a positive impact on how we proceed. My concern, however, is that access to such eTextbooks will be limited to Apple products, presumably the iPad. Now, I own an iPad and think it a handy device. But, the students I work with want to be able to access the material on any electronic device they own or have access to.

For instance, the students I work with may have a laptop (not always an Apple product), a mobile phone (not necessarily an iPhone) and use the school's computer lab (mostly PCs running Windows.) In order for this advancement to be truly mature, the eTextbook should be universally accessible from all platforms regardless of manufacturer or operating system.

Again, Apple's foray into eTextbooks is long overdue and needed. I trust that this entry will spark competition in the field that will ultimately yield a product category that will solve the modern student's problems with access to inexpensive learning materials.

Evernote as a Writing Tool

2012-01-25T12:39:00.002-06:00

I find myself shifting from using Microsoft Word as my primary writing tool to using Evernote. Since most of my writing winds up in an electronic form, often in a blog entry, the exact formatting and font are less important than it might be were I to be writing for a hard printed paper format.

Evernote has several advantages.

- First, it is essentially text only so my creativity all goes into the text and not worrying about the format. The Learning Management System at my university (TRACS/Sakai) finds it difficult to import Word-built documents without dragging along a lot of formatting commands.

- Second, it is automatically synchronized to my local machine and the cloud (and thereby every other machine or device I use) so I can easily access it anywhere. (Remember my earlier post on Tips for the Mobile Professor.)

- Third, Evernote permits me to create notebooks for various projects which make it easy to file, locate, and update.

Google Docs also is nice...I use it more and more. It is not as fully configured as Microsoft Word, but most of my writing does not need those capabilities. Google Docs is sufficient for most work and permits automatic synchronization and subsequent access. As long as I am not producing material that should be only on university servers due to

Now, what I really want is for Evernote to be integrated within Google Docs. That would answer nearly all my writing needs It would enable near seamless integration of my writing and research projects, permit easy access of text that can be easily exported to blogs (or even a Microsoft Word document, for that matter), and eliminate the "stovepiping" of my data and content between two different entities.

I would enjoy hearing your thoughts about this, how you have solved this problem, and whether you are using Evernote in more creative ways.

2011-12-01T07:55:00.001-06:00

Job Security for Non-Tenure Track Adjuncts and Lectuers

It has been a while since I last wrote anything here on G+, but the semester is ending and that brings about an entirely different work load. Closing out grades, building final examinations, massaging students' egos about why they did not get an A in class, and all the end of semester admin that goes on.

For a non-tenured faculty member like myself, job security is, of course, a big deal. Now, I understand that tenure track professors have job security issues, too, (and I do not denigrate that for a minute...they have hard work to do) at least there is a recognizable path to tenure. For non-tenure track adjuncts and lecturers, there is no such path. It all has to do with making oneself indispensable to some extent.

Budget crunches at colleges and universities can lead many adjuncts and lecturers to worry about their positions. After all, the administration will cut those positions before they cut tenure or tenure track positions. However, one factor today is that student populations are rising and the school needs to cover those classes. Here at my "not-so-small state higher education institution" they can't find enough teachers. There is always a need to hire "per-course" instructors and they manage to keep a stable of salaried lecturers and senior lecturers around.

In my case, a senior professor retired suddenly. He is a comparative politics specialist, but the department chose to hire an international relations specialist to replace him. That meant some of his class load was going to be uncovered. In steps the adjunct/lecturer to fill the gap. Read: job security.

Surviving The Teaching Load

The real problem of teaching is maintaining a high standard of teaching and a high standard of evaluating students that does not overload the teacher with grading. Most teachers I talk to hate to grade or mark papers. Of course, one can always revert to objective testing that is much easier to grade, but is arguably a less effective means of evaluation of student learning. If I could, I would teach a course and never conduct formal testing and not provide a grade. However, that is "la la land" and we all must evaluate and provide grades.

I took a statistics (time series) course in my graduate work from a well-known (now dead) professor who never tested. We just talked about and did statistics problems in class ad infinitum ad nauseum. However, it was an enjoyable class in which I learned a lot. I wish more of that would be possible.

So, how does one solve the grading load? I have essentially stopped assigning long writing and have moved to multiple short writing projects. Also, I break the grade into at least four components (content, organization, creativity, and grammar/mechanics.) One can give appropriate weight to each, depending on the type of course taught. Then, after reading, assign each category a number, add them together, and assign the grade.

Also, mix objective testing with subjective testing. Not all subjects lend themselves to this, but if it does, this helps considerably. I teach freshman level mass classes of over 100 students, so grading writing is a serious problem. I assign chapter quizzes, all conducted and automatically graded online using the LMS. Those quizzes can be built and set up before the semester begins and are essentially hands-free.

I also use the LMS to assign and grade short essays. The key here, especially in large sections, is to keep the essay short. First, it permits the student to concentrate on one topic, it limits their freedom to wander off topic, and, of course, it makes it easier (or at least less time consuming) to grade. Then, once graded, the grade is entered into the LMS and automatically sent back to the student.

Another tool that is gaining acceptance and wide usage is Turnitin.com. My university has a subscription that we can use. Besides permitting the teacher to submit the students' work to check for plagiarism, it can be arranged for the student to submit their work to the site prior to turning in their work so they can see where they went astray. I am not an expert on Turnitin.com, but I can see myself using it more.

Enough for now. I would be interested in other opinions and experiences along these lines.

Doubts about Online Teaching

2011-11-09T10:08:00.001-06:00

A recent article posted on Inside Higher Education raised the question of the quality of online courses in comparison with more conventionally based classroom courses. I thank my colleague George Station for bringing the article to my attention. Indeed, the opening paragraphs of my commentary below are from my response to his Google+ posting.

Conventional wisdom among professors at my university is that online classes are junk classes. There is no reliable data to support such a claim, and most such claims are made by professors who have never taught such a course.

I have two years of experience teaching 100% online courses as well as hybrid courses in which normal classroom teaching is combined with online material.

The principal argument against online courses is that the instructor has no or limited ability to directly interact with students. Another argument is that the "good" professors don't teach such courses and only "less competent" teachers involve themselves in the online world. They also worry that it is too easy to cheat during examinations and assessments. In my own experience, much of the conventional wisdom is fear-based and not founded on data.

As with my normal classroom courses, students fall into three categories: (1) exceptional students who will do well regardless of the level of instruction and will pass the course with little intervention necessary on the part of the instructor; (2) good students who require some help in understanding and will generally complete all work honestly; and (3) the "dunderheads" who will not complete the work, will submit work consistently late, submit incomplete or sloppy work, or not show up at all. At the university level, the third group of students do not deserve any of my time and I will permit them to fall off the edge. (Note: the only exception to that rule is if I learn of some mitigating circumstance such as medical or psychological issues, in which case I refer them to the Dean of Students Office for counseling and advice. Since I am neither a physician nor a counselor, I do not attempt to validate any of these, merely refer the student to competent officials.)

So, in the case of online courses, I found the same groupings. The top students did excellent work consistently. The middle group needed attention on my part and that is where the majority of my time was required. The bottom group took up no time at all.

I will post more on this as I get time. Interesting topic on which some real work is needed by those of us who have real experience with real data and not imagined assumptions.

Software for the Starving Student

2011-10-31T09:54:00.002-05:00

In past years several websites have posted their own version of "software for the starving student." The point was, of course, to identify the most useful free or low cost software that provide the cash-challenged student the most bang for their software buck. I propose to do the same, thinking primarily of the college student, either undergraduate or graduate.

But, before I go too far, my assumptions and ground rules:

My expertise is with Windows-based computers and software. I know there are Mac users out there who will be glad to jump in and provide the Mac version of this. I also know about Linux. However, the student who is up to speed on Linux probably does not need a list of free and low cost software. I am sure that student is already aware of what is available for a Linux platform. And, again, I will defer to the expert Linux user to post that version of this.

The basic functions that a student needs are actually quite limited:

A web browser
Word processing software
Spreadsheet software
Presentation software
Cloud storage/Backup
Note management software

Beyond that, needs will change by major and specific courses, but the list above is an excellent starting point.

Here we go...

Web browser. From a cost point of view, all web browsers are free, so here it is mostly a matter of preference. In fact, it may well be a good idea to have at least three browsers loaded on your machine. I recommend Google Chrome, Firefox, and (yes) Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Chrome is my favorite and provides a great deal of flexibility, especially on a laptop that may have limited resources. See my previous blog post on Tips for the Mobile Professor. Most, if not all of those tips, are suitable for the student, too. I explain my reasons that Google Chrome is an excellent primary choice.

I add Firefox because some school websites and web applications don't work fully on Google Chrome. When you run into one of those, switch to Firefox. I include Internet Explorer for the same reason. There happens to be one web application at my university that refuses to run on an browser except Internet Explorer. Sad, but true.

Word Processor. Of course, Microsoft Word is the most common processor out there. One way to get it is to look for student specials on campus, usually in either the bookstore or the campus computer store. It is not uncommon to get the entire Office Suite for under $20. That is a good deal.

Another word processor that solves most problems is through Google Docs. Free, it does most of the common word processing functions. Also available in Google Docs is a spreadsheet and presentation application. All are online only, so internet access is required. It is certainly good enough for an essay or even a short term paper. Of course, the free productivity suite OpenOffice is good, too, and includes a spreadsheet and presentation application. OpenOffice does not require online access to function.

Spreadsheet and Presentation Software. We already know about Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint. As noted with Word, if you got the $20 Office package you are in good shape. Again, both Google Docs and OpenOffice will provide usable alternatives.

Cloud Storage/Backup. I am still amazed at how many students don't know about cloud storage. Out of a class of 110 students, all writing short essays, I can usually count on five of them to report that their computer crashed or the essay somehow "mysteriously disappeared" after they pressed the submit button. So, I talk a lot about backing up.

First, I strongly recommend a service like Carbonite.com. I use them (am not paid by them to say this) and find them to be excellent in service and convenience. It costs under $60 a year and will automatically back up everything on the hard drive in the covered computer. After the initial several-day process to back up the hard drive it is a simple and quick process to back up files as they change. I have found that files I was working on minutes before are already backed up. There are other companies that provide similar services for similar prices, so if you have had good luck with one, please comment and say what you like about the service.

Second, cloud storage is essential. I use Dropbox.com. A free account provides 2GB of storage, more than enough for the average student to store their documents. I actually set MyDropbox as my default documents storage for all documents, thus ensuring that the latest version of whatever I am working on is safely stored both on my machine and in the cloud. Using Dropbox alone will solve nearly all the "lost essay" problems confronted by students. Should the student lose their computer entirely, all documents in Dropbox can be accessed using any other computer and a web browser.

Note Management. Students collect a prodigious amount of notes, articles, and other material for classes. The problem is organizing them. In the "old days," we bought one of those neat "five subject" spiral bound notebooks. Today, you can accomplish much the same with software. I recommend Evernote. It is free for the basic account which is generally good enough for most students. Another excellent option, for those students who bought the $20 Microsoft Office suite from the bookstore, is OneNote. OneNote is a more full-featured application than Evernote, but both do essentially the same thing - they provide the means to create "notebooks" for specific subjects or projects and enable the storage of material on the computer in an organized fashion. Additionally, and importantly, all is automatically backed up to the cloud and can be accessed from any computer with a web browser.

Evernote also provides browser extensions (Chrome) and addons (Firefox) that enable clipping web pages to an Evernote notebook. This is handy for research and eliminates the need to save a lot of bookmarks that are hard to organize and remember where they are or to which project they are related.

Armed with the above software, the student can go a long ways toward organizing their life with minimal expense. There are more ideas, but these are a good start. Again, if you have solved certain problems or believe a better solution lay out there, shoot it to me and/or leave a comment. We all benefit.

The Mobile Professor

Virtual Office Hours Using Google Hangouts

My thoughts on the new Google+ format

Writing More Simply

Google Drive about here

Non-tenure track professors - quantity vs. quality

Virtual Office Hours: Google+ Hangouts

Google Drive and Dropbox - A needs assessment

Google, More Google, Dropbox, and Evernote - Oh, yeah...Blogger, too

More M.B.A.'s Pursue Education-Related Jobs (U.S. News and World Report)

Reposted in its entirety from U.S. News and World Report

Many business students pursue careers in education technology, management, and policy.

Blogger and Evernote: A Wish List

Google Privacy Policy and Your Browsing Data

Google Cloud Connect

Grades, Rewards, and Punishments

Insync and Google Docs

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