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New data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project finds “63% of all teens say they exchange text messages every day with people in their lives. This far surpasses the frequency with which they pick other forms of dailycommunication, including phone calling by cell phone (39% do that with others every day), face-to-face socializing outside of school (35%), social network site messaging (29%), instant messaging (22%), talking on landlines (19%) and emailing (6%).” Next quarter I’m trying out SendHub, a group texting service. This will allow me to text all of my students at once. Students can sign up by texting a word I’ve givenRead More →

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I sometimes use my computer’s desktop to store newly-created files or newly-downloaded files that I’m working on. On more than one occasion I have gotten home only to realize that the files I want are on my work desktop. A solution comes to us from this Lifehacker blog post. The author of the post goes so far as to sync both desktops. That’s more than what I need. I just want to access the files on my work desktop from home. The solution: Change the location of my work computer’s desktop folder. (Did you know that what shows on your desktop is just stuff stored inRead More →

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Dropbox users, If you’ve visited the Dropbox.com website recently, you’ve noticed some changes. The site is now ‘cleaner’ and easier to use – not that it was difficult before. For those of you who spend a goodly bit of time accessing your Dropbox files from the web interface, there are some features for you. Right-click on a folder to share, download, delete, rename, copy, or move. Right-click on a file to download, delete, rename, copy, move, or view previous versions. Click and drag on multiple folders or files to select more than one. Drag and drop files or folders to move them. Looking at imagesRead More →

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Live blogging from EDUCAUSE’s session on the Horizon Report. The Horizon Report “review[s] various emerging technologies likely to have a significant impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression over the next five years and highlight how institutions across the world are implementing these technologies.” View the audio recording, slides, and transcript. View the report and other resources on the Horizon Report wiki. ********** Wrapping up. The presenters encourage people to use the Horizon Report as a leaping off point for discussion on our campuses about emerging technologies and what we can do to prepare for and take advantage of those technologies. Much, much to thinkRead More →

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In: 08. Memory & Cognition, Technology for Academics (archive)

A group of psychological scientists have identified 25 principles of learning. Of those 25, this group identified 9 to explore in greater depth as they relate to instruction. In this series of posts, I’ll look at each in turn, discussing some of the relevant technologies that can be used to take advantage of those principles. The first in the list: “The single most important variable in promoting long-term retention and transfer is ‘practice at retrieval’—learners generate responses, with minimal retrieval cues, repeatedly, over time.” In short, if students are going to be able to retrieve what they learned later they have to practice retrieving now (theRead More →

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The following is copied from the EDUCAUSE website. Hope to see you online at this webinar! EDUCAUSE Live! Webinar March 5—The Horizon Report in Action: Emerging Technologies Today and Tomorrow Speaker: Malcolm Brown, Director, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, EDUCAUSE Veronica Diaz, Associate Director, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, EDUCAUSE Date: March 5, 2012 Time*: 1:00-2:30 p.m. ET (UTC-5); convert to your time zone *Note: this webinar runs for 90 minutes. Topic: During this free, one-and-a-half hour session, “The Horizon Report in Action: Emerging Technologies Today and Tomorrow,” Malcolm Brown and Veronica Diaz of the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative will discuss what’s new in mobiles, electronic books, learning analytics, and other emerging technology areas as they reviewRead More →

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[Update 2/27/2012 :  Grab is a similar utility for Mac users.  Go to Applications and look in the Utilities folder. — Thanks, Steve!] Well, you already have this screen capture tool if you’re a Windows 7 user. Click the start button, select “all programs”, and in your accessories folder you’ll find “Snipping Tool”. Now that you’ve found it, right-click on it, and select “pin to start menu” so it will be easily accessible. When you run Snipping Tool, this little window pops up. Click the little down arrow next to “New” to decide how you’d like to take a snapshot of your computer’s desktop. WhateverRead More →

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I’m a fan of keyboard shortcuts, so here’s another one. (Okay. I confess. My wife asked me to find this one for her.) Let’s say you’re reading a webpage, and in the process, your cursor gets moved out of the address bar. You now want to type in another web address, so you reach for your mouse to move the cursor into the address bar ready to highlight the URL so you can replace it with a new one. But wait! You don’t need your mouse. In Firefox and Chrome, CTRL-L not only places the cursor in the address bar, but it also highlights theRead More →

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[Update 2/29/2012: The folks at Fiesta.cc announced that someone else will be taking over maintenance of the service.] In this earlier blog post, I recommended using Fiesta.cc as a tool for collaboration. It was a quick and easy way to create email distribution lists. Unfortunately Fiesta.cc just announced that they’re closing down effective March 1st, 2012. They are open to a buyer, so if someone is looking for a business opportunity… Looking for an alternative? Try Google Groups. You can create a private group just for your class. I’ll write more about how Google Groups work in a future blog post.Read More →