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In: Intro to Psych, Technology for Academics (archive)

Friends and colleagues, We’ve had a good run! This blog started in 2009 as a way for me to keep track of how to do stuff. And then you all came along and learned right along with me. Perhaps you noticed that my posts to this blog have been reduced to barely a trickle? These days my energy has moved away from technology to psychology. Writing has kept me busy. For example, I have three psychology textbooks: Introduction to Psychology (with Charles Stangor), Principles of Social Psychology (with Charles Stangor; publishing Fall 2024), and Teaching Psychology: A Step-by-Step Guide (with Doug Bernstein and Steve Chew).Read More →

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In: Teaching Thoughts, Technology for Academics (archive)

Not infrequently I am asked about my thoughts on AI and the future of technology more generally. Here are some thoughts. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh was 25 years old when he flew solo across the Atlantic. It took him 33.5 hours to fly The Spirit of St. Louis from New York City to Paris. When he returned to the United States, he spent a year travelling the country promoting the wonders of flight. He said that he could envision a time when as many as 15 people could fly on a plane. In 1968 and at the age of 66, he met with the ApolloRead More →

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In: Technology for Academics (archive)

I was saddened to receive this email yesterday (Nov 26, 2023). Dear Nudgers We are sad to say that despite the support we’ve received from you over the years, Nudgemail is losing money to operate. As much as the love we’ve had for this product has never stopped (we ourselves still use it to this day), we unfortunately cannot afford to support the efforts. Nudgemail will be shutting down in December – but with any luck this could be temporary. If you would like to remain notified if we have the capacity to resume in the future, please let us know here. In the meantime, ifRead More →

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In: Technology for Academics (archive)

Everyone who writes needs a solid pdf and reference manager. I’m a big fan of Zotero. Zotero is free, and you can back up 300 MB worth of stuff on their servers for free. If you want more space (and I do), it’s $20/year for two GB, $60/year for six GB, or $120/year for unlimited back up space. While I could go on and on about Zotero’s features (and I have in workshops), in this blog post, I want to focus on how Zotero handles article titles. When we import article data into Zotero—through a doi search or by dragging a pdf into Zotero—the titleRead More →

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In: Technology for Academics (archive)

Windows users have a built-in screenshot app: Snipping Tool. The Snipping Tool got an upgrade. You can now use it to extract text from an image. After taking your screenshot (shout out to LearningScientists.org), look for the text extraction icon. Clicking the text extraction icon causes Snipping Tool to identify and spotlight everything that looks like text. When it finishes, it will give you two new options: Copy all text and Quick redact. Clicking the down arrow next to Quick redact allows you to choose auto redaction for phone numbers and email addresses. After clicking “Copy all text,” I pasted it here: Cientista LEARN TORead More →

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In: Teaching Thoughts, Technology for Academics (archive)

There is a lot of confusion around copyright. What can you use? What can’t you use? How much can you use? A few years ago, I participated in an excellent Educause course on copyright hosted by Thomas Tobin (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and what I learned has been a tremendous help to me. I hope this helps you, too! (Disclaimer: I am not an intellectual property attorney. If I were an intellectual property attorney, well, you’d probably already know that.) To determine whether you can use something without violating copyright, you need to answer four questions. Keep in mind that all four answers are on aRead More →

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In: Technology for Academics (archive)

Since I posted about Dot cards a couple weeks ago, they’ve added a new feature called dot.Exchange. If you’re not already familiar with Dot cards, please read that previous blog post first. The rest of this will make much more sense. After you tap your Dot card on the back of someone’s phone, and they launch their phone’s browser to view your Dot card profile page, they’ll see this double-arrow button. Tapping the double-arrow button generates this pop-up. Your new friend can enter their contact information. When they press the Exchange button, they’ll be asked if they want Dot cards to use their phone’s gpsRead More →

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In: Technology for Academics (archive)

I want to pronounce the names of others how they want them pronounced, and I assume that others feel the same way about my name—that they want to pronounce it as I pronounce it. Let’s make it easy for everyone and put a “hear my name” badge in our email signatures, in our learning management systems, and on our dot cards. The free service called NameCoach makes this easy. This is what my NameCoach icon looks like in my email signature. I’ve embedded the clickable button in this blog post. Click on it. My NameCoach webpage will open. Click the speaker icon next to myRead More →

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In: Technology for Academics (archive)

Are you ready to stop carrying around business cards? Or, perhaps more accurately, are you ready to stop forgetting your business cards at home? I just got back from the American Psychological Association’s 2023 convention where I made liberal use of my business card replacement. A Dot card is the size and thickness of a credit card and has a one-time cost of $20. When you want someone to have your contact information, you place your Dot card against the back of the other person’s unlocked phone. If their phone is NFC-compatible and if NFC is enabled, a pop-up will appear on their phone. (OnRead More →

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In: Technology for Academics (archive)

Using AI to detect AI feels like a little like the start of the robot wars. Yet here we are. The makers of GPTZero—the ChatGPT/AI detector—have released a Chrome extension (from your Chrome browser, download it here). Once you have added Origin by GPTZero extension to Chrome, visit any webpage, such as an assignment in your course management system. Highlight the text you want to check for the likelihood the text was written by AI. You need to highlight at least 250 characters. Right click on the text, and select “Scan text with Origin.” GPTZero’s Origin extension will generate a popup that will produce itsRead More →