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As you know from previous posts, I’m a fan of Dropbox. If you’ve never heard of Dropbox, check out my blog post from a year ago. DROPitTOme is a web-based service that allows others, to whom you’ve given a password, to upload files to a DROPitTOme folder located inside your Dropbox folder. If you don’t want the hassle of students emailing you their assignments, you can have them upload their assignments directly to Dropbox where they will automatically be downloaded to your computer. Actually, they will be downloaded to all of your computers where you have Dropbox installed and to your smartphone if you’d like,Read More →

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Earlier this week I posted information on how to use Zamzar.com to download YouTube videos. I’ve since had some inquiries from readers regarding downloading TED videos. To download any video using Zamzar.com, you need to locate the video file itself. With the TED videos, this takes a little extra effort. Go to the webpage that displays the TED video you want to download. Click the red share button below the video. Then click the copy button next to “embed this video.” Open Word, or your email program, or anything that will let you paste and view a healthy chunk of text. After copying the ’embedRead More →

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UPDATED 6/24/2012  Zamzar received a cease and desist letter this month from Google, the new owners of YouTube.   Google pointed out that downloading YouTube videos violates YouTube’s terms of service.  Read the letter. Zamzar, a free online file conversion tool, has been around for a while. But just because it’s been around doesn’t mean that you know about it, right? Zamzar lets you convert audio, image, document, video, and ebook files from one format to another format. I can envision many scenarios where you might want to do that, but I’m going to cover how you can download videos from a site such asRead More →

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BridgeURL lets you save multiple web addresses in one web address. Send your students to one URL, and they can flip through them in a slideshow. BridgeURL is a brand new tool, and they are continuing to add features. To create a BridgeURL, visit the BridgeURL website, create a title for your link, then enter your web addresses. Click “Create Link.” Here’s the link I created: http://bridgeurl.com/Sue-s-Favorite-Email-Tools. Follow this to see the links in ‘slideshow’ view. This is what it looks like in my browser. When I took this screenshot, I had my mouse hovering over the right side of the screen. Clicking ‘next’ willRead More →

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I started writing this blog in April 2009, and I see that the blog recently passed the 10,000 views mark. That could mean that 10,000 individuals stopped by once and have never come back. It could mean that one person has been sitting at home clicking through my website, day after day after day. No, that’s not me. WordPress tells me that they don’t include my visits in their statistics. I know that many people drop in because they’re searching for something specific, and Google sends them my way. I even know what they’re looking for; WordPress tells me. I have one post that accountsRead More →

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For those who worry about being misunderstood in email, how about video recording your message instead? The cleverly named Eyejot provides an easy web-based user interface for recording and emailing video. They also provide a bookmarklet, a small program that runs inside your web browser, for attaching your own video commentary to web pages. Their bookmarklet is called “Eyejot This!” You just drag the bookmark to your browser’s bookmarks toolbar. Surf to any website, click the “Eyejot This!” bookmark. This window will appear – with your face on the screen, if your webcam is working. Hopefully you won’t see my face on your screen. ThatRead More →

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When you stay at a hotel, do you remember how you used to request a wake-up call? Actually, maybe you still do that. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get a wake-up call for stuff you need to do? And that’s why I’m excited about NudgeMail, a company that just launched this fall. NudgeMail lets you send reminders to yourself at whatever future date or time you choose. No registration. No login. No software to download. No complicated commands to remember. They really couldn’t have made this any easier. Let’s say that I have an email exchange with you where we discuss working onRead More →

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I have an assignment where I ask students to read a NY Times article on what constitutes good study habits. I ask students to identify the recommendations in the article and then evaluate their own study habits, noting any changes they intend to make. Since this is for an intro psych course, I also ask students to identify the independent variable and dependent variable in one of the studies described in the article. Right now I just let students pick from the few studies that are reported. If I wanted students to identify the variables in a particular study, I would have to describe theRead More →

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UPDATE 9/5/2011 : Be sure to read an even more recent post on this tool. UPDATE  12/2/2010: Be sure to read my more recent post on this tool. It’s surprising how much of my email has to do with scheduling. Students or off-campus colleagues ask when they can meet with me in person or via a phone call. I ask when they’re available; they ask when I’m available. Five or six emails later we have a time. For my colleagues at my institution, they can just look at my Outlook calendar and suggest a time. Anyone else is stuck in the email spiral. If youRead More →

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I use a student response system in my classroom (iClicker) for low-stakes quizzes and for ungraded questions that give me a sense of what my students are getting and what’s still a little fuzzy. If your institution doesn’t have funds to support this technology, or if you’re not sure you’d use it enough to make it worth the expense, consider trying Poll Everywhere. Poll Everywhere uses your students’ cell phones as ‘clickers.’ All you need is a live internet connection in your classroom. Cost: If you choose ‘higher education’ you can collect up to 32 responses per question for free. If you would like moreRead More →