In addition to keeping up with what’s new in technology, I keep an eye out for content that is particularly relevant to my psychology students. Rather than dig through the Internet for content, I have Inoreader fetch the content for me.

This is what Inoreader looks like. On the left, under “Subscriptions,” you can see some of the content I’m subscribed to. Inoreader periodically visits these websites looking for something new. When Inoreader finds new content, it drops it in here. You can see that I have a “News” folder that contains a subscription called “NYT > Most Shared.” These are articles the New York Times has identified as a “most shared” article. Right now there are 19 such articles waiting for that I have not seen yet.

In this screenshot, I have clicked on “NYT > Most Shared.” The most recent article in that list of 19 unread articles shows at the top of the main pane, “Iran’s Economic Crisis Drags Down the Middle Class Almost Overnight.”

To navigate through this list of articles, I can scroll down, or I can jump from one article to the next by using my keyboard. “J” takes me down to the next article in the list. “K” takes up to the previous article.

To read an article, I click on the article title, and my browser will open up a new tab to show me the article on its home website. In this example, I’m taken to the New York Times website to read the article.

Mobile app (Android and iOS)

The mobile app is just as easy to use, and the interface looks very similar to what you see with your computer’s web browser. Inoreader will sync across all of your devices. I usually use Inoreader on my Android tablet, but will sometimes use it on my phone. And if I’m at my computer, well, I’ll use my web browser to open Inoreader.

Subscribing to content by browsing

In the top right corner, click in the “Search or subscribe” box. Inoreader will show you a bunch of categories. Click on each category to browse.

After clicking on the “US News” category, of the 26 options Inoreader gave me, I chose “BBC News – US & Canada.” If you want to see what kind of content you’ll get, click on the name of the card, e.g. “BBC News – US & Canada.” If you like what you see, click the green “Subscribe” button at the top of the page.

Inoreader will give you a yellow bar at the top informing you that you are now subscribed. From that same yellow bar, you can choose to rename it something other than “BBC News – US & Canada,” you can add it to a folder (my “News” folder is a promising location for me; scroll down in the folder pop-up menu to find the option to create a new folder), and you can add a filter. A filter allows you to filter the articles Inoreader delivers to you by either content you do want or content you don’t want.

Subscribing to content by searching

Click on that same top-right box. This time, type what you’re interested in. As you type, you’ll see these options appear. Choose “Feeds about…”

This is the list of subscriptions relevant to my search term that Inoreader found that other Inoreader users are subscribed to.

Search using the term “Washington Post,” and you will get a list of all the types of articles the Washington Post is happy to send you.

Subscribing to blogs

Most blogs are written on a platform that allows their content to be fetched by Inoreader. Paste the url of the blog into the search box, http://suefrantz.com/. Select the “Add feeds from…” option. Choose the top one, “Technology for Academics,” to have Inoreader fetch my new blog posts.

Subscribing to journals from library database

You can subscribe to journals (or searches) using your college or university’s library database. Each database is different, so if you run into any trouble, your librarians will be able to help you out.

Here’s an example from the EBSCO database. I found one of my favorite academic journals, Teaching of Psychology. On the far right, clicking on the “Share” button tells me that I can choose between an email alert and an RSS feed.

I chose the RSS feed because this is the kind of file Inoreader needs to deliver the content to me. Although, as it turns out, it doesn’t matter if you choose email alert or RSS feed at that point, because both options will open the same pop-up. The top half is for those who want an email. The bottom half is the RSS feed. Just copy the RSS link, and then “Save Alert.”

In Inoreader’s search box, paste that url.

Your database may even happily send you not only article titles but also abstracts. Here are EBSCO’s instructions on how to do that as an example. But really, talk with your librarians. It will be faster.

How to unsubscribe

Now that you have a lot of feeds set up, you’re probably ready to get rid of some. Where they’re listed on the right side of your Inoreader screen, right-click the one you want to delete, and select “Unsubscribe.” That’s it.

Cost

Inoreader is free, but for a small annual fee, you get additional features. For most the free version will suit your needs. For me, the free version would probably be fine, but this is such a useful tool for me, I wanted to support the developers. I went two tiers up, bypassing the “Starter” level at $8.99/year and signed up for the “Plus” level at $17.99/year. This pricing is available through January 6. After that, you can expect it to return to non-sale pricing: Starter at $14.99/year, Plus at $29.99/year.

Once you create an Inoreader account and log in, click on the gear icon in the top right corner. Select “Preferences.” Choose “Billing and usage.” At the very top of this page, on the “Subscription plan” line, click on “Upgrade now.” You’re not committing to upgrade. This is just how you get to the page that shows you pricing and the features that come with each tier.

Conclusion

In my next post, I’ll tell you how I integrate Inoreader with Trello to keep track of the articles I might like to use in a future edition of my psychology courses.

A lot of new tech stuff I learn is too often due to me making a bone-headed decision. In this case, I created an Excel file to look at some data. Thinking I had everything I needed, I closed the file without saving it. Not two minutes later it occurred to me that I wasn’t done with it. I didn’t especially want to enter the data again. Granted, it probably didn’t take me more than 10 minutes to enter that data, but there were other things I could do with those 10 minutes — like write a blog post about how I learned how to save myself 10 minutes.

If you have MS Office 2010 or later – 2016 in my case, the Office programmers have made it easy for us.

In Excel, click on File.

Click on “Open,” select “Recent” if it isn’t already selected, and scroll to the bottom. Click on the button you’ve never noticed before: “Recover Unsaved Workbooks”

When I did that, the Microsoft Office “UnsavedFiles” folder opened, and there was my document. It didn’t include the changes I made to it immediately before I closed it without saving, but all of the data I had entered minutes earlier was there, and that was the part I didn’t want to recreate.

This process is the same for other MS office programs like Word and PowerPoint.

Alternative route to the same end

Click on File, select “Info,” click on “Manage Document,” and select “Recover Unsaved Documents.” The “UnsavedFiles” folder will open. [Does the “UnsavedFiles” folder call to mind “Island of Misfit Toys” for anyone else?]

Do you know the most common way I learn about new technology? Something starts bugging me, and I go looking for a solution.

Today’s problem? If I want to keep my existing Chrome tabs open, to open a bookmark in a new tab, I have to open a new tab and then click on the bookmark. I know. In the greater scheme of things, this isn’t a big deal. But I’ve done it a lot today. I mean, a lot. So, it’s time to learn something new. A pretty quick search gave me the answer.

The solution(s)

Hold down CTRL and left-click on the bookmark (says my wife from the other room right after I published this article.)

Or use the middle scrolling wheel of your mouse to click on the bookmark. When I middle-click on my Fa18 Psych 100 bookmark, it opens in a new tab.

“Sue, what about on my laptop touchpad? How do I get a middle click if I don’t have a middle mouse wheel let alone a mouse?”

Most laptop touchpads can be setup to simulate a middle click. I just configured my wife’s Lenovo laptop so that a four-finger tap on the touchpad equals a middle click. (Honey, if you want me to change the settings back, let me know.) The good folks at How to Geek have some instructions that may work for your particular laptop.

“Sue, that bookmarks bar looks pretty handy. How does it work?”

It should be there by default. If yours is missing, go to your Chrome settings by clicking on the 3-dot menu icon in the top right corner of Chrome. Click on “Settings”.

On the “Settings” page, scroll down to the “Appearance” section and click on “Show bookmarks bar”. If the slider is blue, your bookmarks bar is turned on.

Removing bookmarks

To remove the bookmarks you don’t want, right-click on the bookmark, and select “Delete”.

Adding a bookmark

Visit the page you want to add to your bookmarks bar. Either click the “Secure” icon and drag it to your bookmarks bar, or highlight the URL then click and drag it to your bookmarks bar.

Renaming bookmarks

Bookmarks bar bookmarks have a limited number of characters. While long website names will automatically be truncated, you might want to change to something else, perhaps even shorter than the maximum length to buy yourself a little more bookmarks bar real estate.

Right-click on the bookmark, and select “Edit…”

Change the name to something more reasonable. For the New York Times, I bet “NYTimes” or even “NYT” would be enough.

For that matter, you can delete the text altogether. In that case you’ll just see the webpage’s icon (called a favicon).

Rearranging bookmarks

To move your bookmarks around, left-click on one and drag it wherever you want it to go.

“What if all of my bookmarks won’t fit on the bookmarks bar?”

Keep adding as many as you want. You can access the ones that don’t fit by click the double-arrow icon on the far right of your bookmarks bar. All of your bookmarks that don’t fit will be listed in a dropdown menu of sorts. Those bookmarks work the same way as the ones visible on the bar. For example, I can middle-click on the NY Times bookmark to have it open in a new tab.

“Thanks for the information. But I have just one more questions. That ‘Fa18 Psych 100’ bookmark – is that a Canvas course?”

Good eye! Yes, that’s my Psych 100 course. To the right of it is my Psych 320 course, an orientation that we run through Canvas, and my sandbox test course. Because of how Canvas is built, you don’t have to log into your central dashboard to get to your courses. If I’m not logged in to Canvas, when I click on the Fa18 Psych100 bookmark, Canvas will prompt me to log it – and then immediately direct me to my course. Once I’ve logged in on one page, opening any of the other Canvas bookmarks will take me directly to those courses.

But it’s even better than that. You can bookmark any page in your Canvas course. Do you, for example, make frequent announcements in one of your courses? In that course, go to the “new announcement” page. Click and drag the URL to your bookmarks bar. Since the bookmark will just be called “new announcement,” you’ll probably want to change it to something like “Psy100 NewA”. The next time you want to make a new announcement in that course, just click on your “new announcement” bookmark.

“I’m really loving this whole bookmarks bar thing. I wish it could hold more bookmarks.”

While it can’t hold more, you can create additional bookmarks bars using a Chrome add-in called Bookmarks Bar Switcher. You could for example use it to create a bookmarks bar devoted solely to one of your Canvas courses. And another devoted solely to a different Canvas course. And another devoted solely to your favorite SueFrantz.com blog posts.

Personally, I only have one bookmarks bar, and it’s reserved for Canvas courses and stuff I don’t use all the time, but really need to get to easily when I do. Most of my bookmarks are actually stored at Shortmarks, which I first wrote about in 2011.

A veteran colleague recently advised a newly-hired professor to not send students email at 1 am. Why? Because students will come to expect that all of their professors will respond to their email inquiries at 1 am. I don’t know if that’s true, but another colleague replies to messages late at night but delays sending them until the morning for that very reason.

Outlook comes with the ability to delay sending emails. Gmail can do it with an add-in.

Gmail users: Install Boomerang. (Try the pro version for free for 30 days. After that, use the pared-down free version or pay $4.99/month for more features.)

I’ll let Boomerang help you get set up in Gmail.

For Outlook users, here are your instructions.

Outlook users: In your new message, click “Options,” then choose “Delay Delivery.”

You will get this pop-up. In the “Delivery options” section, the “Do not deliver before” checkbox will be checked. If you don’t like the date and time Outlook has chosen for you (5pm today), change it to something you would prefer. These settings will only hold for this message. Start a new message, and the date/time will revert back to Outlook’s default

Unfortunately, Outlook doesn’t give you the ability to change this default delayed send time. Fortunately, this has bugged someone who had the skill to fix it. Install SetDeliveryTime. Follow their instructions to change the default day/time.

Once the date/time is as you’d like it, click the “Close” button on the “Delay Delivery” pop-up (or press ENTER on your keyboard). The “Delay Delivery” button on your message will now be highlighted. Write your message and click “Send.”

Your message will be held in Outlook’s “Outbox” until the designated time for it to be sent. If you decide you don’t want to send it, open your “Outbox” and delete the message. Or if you want to change the time it’s sent, open the message, click on “Delay Delivery” and choose a different time.

Using the Quick Access Toolbar

If you use “Delay Delivery” a lot, add it to your Quick Access Toolbar and save yourself a few clicks. The Quick Access Toolbar is the line of icons right at the top of every MS Office program. Click on the icon to activate that function.

In this case, when I click on the “Delay Delivery” icon in my Quick Access Toolbar, I get the pop-up screen where I can confirm the date and time of delivery. When I click “Close” (or press ENTER on my keyboard) on that pop-up, the icon in the Quick Access Toolbar is highlighted.

It gets even better for those of you who like keyboard shortcuts. Press the ALT key on your keyboard. All of the Quick Access Toolbar icons are numbered. Seven has been assigned to the “Delay Delivery” icon. When I’m writing a message that I want to delay sending, I can press ALT-7 to get the pop-up. Pressing “Enter” will accept the date/time and close the pop-up.

Add “Delay Delivery” to the Quick Access Toolbar

To customize your message’s Quick Access Toolbar, open a new message. Click the down arrow to the right of the Quick Access Toolbar icons. In the pop-up, choose “More Commands”.

In the pop-up window, choose “All Commands,” then scroll down and select “Delay Delivery”. Click the “Add” button, and “Delay Delivery” will be added to your Quick Access Toolbar. If you want to move if from the last spot to a different spot, use the arrow on the far right of the window. When you’re happy with your Quick Access Toolbar customizations, click “OK”.

Now that you’re in business with “Delay Delivery”, I’m going to leave you to review all of the other commands you can add to your Quick Access Toolbar. Remember, the Quick Access Toolbar for a message is different than the Quick Access Toolbar for the main Outlook window. And, yes, you have a Quick Access Toolbar in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Happy customizing!

We are leaving in a couple days to visit my father-in-law. I want to work while on this trip, including getting my online courses ready for the fall*. Now that I routinely work with three monitors, the thought of trying to ready my courses with only my Windows laptop monitor made me a little twitchy. I travel with a small Android tablet, so surely there must be an easy way to extend my Windows laptop to that tablet as a second screen – easier that the software I used a few years ago. And there is.

Spacedesk is free.

Your Windows computer will be your primary machine. This is the computer you’re going to be working on.

Your secondary machine – the one that will just be acting as a monitor for your primary machine – can be just about anything: Android (tablet, phone), Apple (Mac, iPad, iPhone), Windows (laptop, computer), or whatever can run a modern web browser (including Linux). The device has to be able to connect either to the same wifi network as your primary machine or connect by cable to each other. Spacedesk recommends cable for a faster, more stable connection. With my devices connected via wifi, I haven’t noticed any connection or speed issues.

These instructions will be for connecting an Android device, but the Spacedesk documentation seems to cover every contingency.

Installation

On your primary device (for me, that was my Surface), download Spacedesk. You’ll need to know if your Windows computer is 32-bit or 64-bit. You can guess, and if you guess wrong, when you try to install Spacedesk, it will tell you that you need the other one. Or you can find this information pretty easily on your computer. Right-click on the Windows logo in the bottom-left corner of your screen – the symbol that gives you your start menu when you left-click on it. After right-clicking, from the menu, choose “System.” In the “Device specifications” section – about the middle of the page – next to “System type” it will say 32-bit or 64-bit.

After downloading the correct 32-bit or 64-bit software, double-click on the downloaded software. Click through the install screens. Your primary device is now ready to go.

Now you need to install Spacedesk on your secondary device (for me, that was my Android tablet). If you’re also installing on Android, on your Android device, go to the Google Play Store, and search for Spacedesk; install it, and run it. If you’re installing on an an iPad or other Apple device, use that device to search for Spacedesk in the App Store; install it, and run it. If you want to use a different device as a secondary monitor, please see the Spacedesk documentation – look for “Spacedesk Viewer Software for Secondary Machine.” Their instructions are very well-written.

Connecting your secondary monitor

After installing Spacedesk on your primary device, Spacedesk will automatically be on. Run Spacedesk on your secondary device, and if the two devices are on the same network, you’ll see the name of your primary computer pop up on the screen of your secondary device. Click on “Connection”, and the two devices will be connected.

Placing your secondary monitor

On your secondary monitor, you will see your primary device’s desktop. To use it, you will drag windows off your primary computer’s screen and onto your secondary monitor’s screen. To do that, you need to tell your primary computer where that secondary monitor is.

On your primary computer, go to its display settings. The easiest way to do that is type “change display settings” in the bottom search bar and press enter. At the top of the screen you will see a couple boxes with numbers in them. Those represent the monitors your primary computer can see. Where they are in relation to each other on the screen is where Windows thinks they are in relation to each other on your table. Click the “Identify” button. Big numbers will appear on each of your monitors. If you only have two monitors (your primary device and your secondary monitor), your primary computer screen will be 1 and your secondary monitor will be 2.

On your table, set your secondary device wherever it will be most convenient for you to use, say, to the left of your laptop. On the display settings screen, click and drag the #2 box to the left of the #1 box. Click the “Apply” button.

Now you’re ready to use your secondary monitor! Click and drag any window off your primary computer’s screen to the left – if that’s where you put your secondary monitor – and the window will appear on your secondary device. How cool is that?

Disconnecting your secondary monitor

When you’re ready to disconnect your secondary monitor, in your primary computer’s taskbar (bottom-right corner of your screen), right-click on the Spacedesk icon (you may need to click the ^ symbol to see the Spacedesk icon), and select “OFF”. Your secondary device will display a pop-up that says “Display disconnected by server.” Click “OK”. Your secondary device’s Spacedesk app will still be trying to find your primary computer to connect. Just close that app. On Android, clicking Android’s back button will close the app.

Sometimes when I would mouse over the Spacedesk taskbar icon, I would get a little Spacedesk pop-up, and because of where it was located I couldn’t right-click on the icon. Solution? I told Windows to always display the Spacedesk taskbar icon so I don’t have to click the ^ symbol to see it. To do that, search your computer for “Select which icons appear on the taskbar”. On the screen, scroll down until you find “SpaceDeskServiceTray.exe”. Click its button from “Off” to “On”. Close the screen. Now the Spacedesk taskbar icon will always be where you can easily right-click on it to turn it off and on.

Reconnecting your secondary monitor

Make sure both devices are connected to the same network. In your primary computer’s taskbar, right-click on the Spacedesk icon, and select “ON”. On your secondary device, run the Spacedesk app. Click “Connection” under the name of your primary computer, and you’re back in business!

Your primary computer should remember where you put your secondary monitor the last time you used it. If you’re putting your secondary monitor somewhere else, return to the “Change Display Settings” screen on your primary computer, move the secondary monitor box to wherever you’d like it to be. Click “Apply”.

Have multiple devices?

Yes, you can add Spacedesk to other devices and have multiple monitors. The top one is my main monitor. I can drag a window down to display it on my phone. Or I can keep dragging it down and display it on my tablet.

Word of caution about public wifi

If you are connecting all of your devices to public wifi, such as at your local coffee shop, you’re open to security risks. I recommend using a VPN, such as “Private Internet Access” for an important layer of password-protected security between you and everyone else who is on that wifi network. If you connect your laptop and your tablet to a VPN, however, they’re no longer really on the same network. They’re on the same wifi, but they’re being routed through different secure servers, so the devices don’t know they are on the same network. If they don’t know they’re on the same network, Spacedesk can’t connect them.

Public WIFI Option 1: Use the Windows 10 built-in mobile hotspot feature to connect your other devices to your laptop.

First, connect your laptop to the public wifi and run your VPN. Now your laptop is secure.

Use your Windows search box to find “Change mobile hotspot settings”. Set the “Share my Internet connection with other devices” to “On.” You’ll see the network name and password. You can change those by clicking the “Edit” button.

On your tablet or phone, you’ll see your Windows mobile hotspot name as one of the possible wifi networks you can connect to. Connect to it using the password in the Windows mobile hotspot settings. Once connected, you can now run the Spacedesk software knowing that all of your wifi-connected devices are behind a password-protected wall.

Public WIFI Option 2: Use a travel router.

I use the TP-Link N300 Portable Nano Travel Router. When I travel, I connect the travel router to the public wifi using my laptop. Once connected, it displays a password-protected wifi network that all of my devices have connected to before. Once the network is up, my tablet and my phone automatically connect to that same password-protected network – just like they do when connecting to my home network. With everything connected to same secure network on the road, I can use Spacedesk to create my second (or third) monitors.

I most often use this setup in my hotel room. The router stays on all the time. When I get back to the room, all of my devices automatically connect to the router’s wifi.

Be productive on the road, but stay safe.

*Getting my courses ready for the fall – to my semester-going colleagues, we’re on quarters, so classes don’t start next week. They start the last week of September. I’m not that far behind!

Have you had this experience? You’re reading a student’s paper, and your internal plagiarism detector starts setting off alarms. The prose sounds different than anything else the student has written. You start googling phrases – and nothing comes up. Using Turnitin? That probably won’t catch it either (Rogerson & McCarthy, 2017).

Your student may have used one of the many freely available “paraphrasing tools.”

Here is the first paragraph from a recent issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest (Castles, Rastle, & Nation, 2018).

Learning to read transforms lives. Reading is the basis for the acquisition of knowledge, for cultural engagement, for democracy, and for success in the workplace. Illiteracy costs the global economy more than $1 trillion (U.S. dollars) annually in direct costs alone (World Literacy Foundation, 2015). The indirect costs are far greater because the failure to attain satisfactory literacy blocks people from acquiring basic knowledge, such as understanding information about hygiene, diet, or safety. Consequently, low literacy is a major contributor to inequality and increases the likelihood of poor physical and mental health, workplace accidents, misuse of medication, participation in crime, and welfare dependency, all of which also have substantial additional social and economic costs (World Literacy Foundation, 2015). Low literacy presents a critical and persistent challenge around the world: Even in developed countries, it is estimated that approximately 20% of 15-year-olds do not attain a level of reading performance that allows them to participate effectively in life (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2016).

Let’s see what some of the paraphrasing tools do with this text.

Paraphrasing-tool.com

Figuring out how to peruse changes lives. Perusing is the reason for the securing of learning, for social commitment, for majority rule government, and for accomplishment in the work environment. Absence of education costs the worldwide economy more than $1 trillion (U.S. dollars) every year in coordinate costs alone (World Literacy Foundation, 2015). The roundabout expenses are far more noteworthy in light of the fact that the inability to accomplish agreeable proficiency squares individuals from gaining essential learning, for example, understanding data about cleanliness, eating regimen, or wellbeing. Subsequently, low proficiency is a noteworthy supporter of disparity and improves the probability of poor physical and emotional wellness, work environment mishaps, abuse of drug, investment in wrongdoing, and welfare reliance, all of which likewise have significant extra social and financial costs (World Literacy Foundation, 2015). Low education exhibits a basic and determined test the world over: Even in created nations, it is assessed that around 20% of 15-year-olds don’t accomplish a level of perusing execution that enables them to take part adequately throughout everyday life (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2016).

Prepostseo.com helpfully identifies the changed words with a different color font. (This is the same as paraphrasing-tool.org, paraphrasing-tool.net, and paraphrasing-tool.org.)

Learning to scan transforms lives. Reading is that the basis for the acquisition of data, for cultural engagement, for democracy, and for achievement within the geographical point. Illiteracy prices the world economy over $1 trillion (U.S. dollars) annually in direct prices alone (World acquirement Foundation, 2015). The indirect prices ar way biggeras a result of the failure to achieve satisfactory acquirement blocks folks from exploit basic information, appreciate understanding data regarding hygiene, diet, or safety. Consequently, low acquirement could be a major contributor to difference and will increase the chance of poor physical and psychological state, geographical pointaccidents, misuse of medication, participation in crime, and welfare dependency, all of that even have substantial further social and economic prices (World acquirementFoundation, 2015). Low acquirement presents a essential and chronic challenge round the world: Even in developed countries, it’s calculable that more or less two hundredthof 15-year-olds don’t attain A level of reading performance that permits them to participate effectively in life (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2016).

Rewriter Tools also identifies the changed words, except when the words it identifies as different are actually the same, e.g., “read” in the first sentence.

Learning to read transforms lives. Reading is the groundwork for the acquisition of knowledge, for cultural engagement, for democracy, and for success in the workplace. Illiteracy prices the international economic system more than $1 trillion (U.S. dollars) annually in direct prices by myself (World Literacy Foundation, 2015). The indirect fees are a waysgreater because the failure to attain best literacy blocks people from acquiring basic knowledge, such as appreciation facts about hygiene, diet, or safety. Consequently, low literacy is a predominant contributor to inequality and will increase the probability of terrible bodily and intellectual health, administrative center accidents, misuse of medication, participation in crime, and welfare dependency, all of which additionallyhave vast additional social and economic fees (World Literacy Foundation, 2015). Low literacy presents a fundamental and continual undertakinground the world: Even in developed countries, it is estimated that about20% of 15-year-olds do not obtain a degree of studying performance that allows them to participate correctly in life (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2016).

Paraphrasingonline.com doesn’t make a lot of changes. And the changes it does make are creative. I especially like “clam” in place of “dollars” and “15-twelvemonth-olds” for “15-year-olds”

Learning to read transforms lives. Reading is the basis for the acquisition of knowledge, knowledge , for cultural engagement, for democracy, commonwealth , and for success in the workplace. work . Illiteracy costs the global economy more than $1 trillion (U.S. dollars) clam ) annually in direct costs alone (World (Humanity Literacy Foundation, 2015). The indirect costs are far greater because the failure to attain satisfactory literacy blocks people city block mass from acquiring basic knowledge, such as understanding information about hygiene, diet,dieting , or safety. safety . Consequently, low literacy is a major contributor to inequality and increases the likelihood of poor physical and mental health, workplace accidents, misuse of medication, medicament , participation in crime, and welfare dependency, eudaemonia dependence , all of which also have substantial additional social mixer and economic costs (World Literacy Foundation, 2015). Sir David Low literacy presents a critical and persistent challenge around the world: Even in developed countries, it is estimated that approximately 20% of 15-year-olds 15-twelvemonth -olds do not attain a level of reading interpretation performance that allows them to participate effectively in life (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development,Evolution , 2016).

Goparaphrase.com yields a lot of gibberish. “Costochondritis”?

Taking in will read transforms exists. Perusing may be those premise to those securing from claiming knowledge, to social engagement, for democracy, Also to achievement in the working environment. Absence of education costochondritis the worldwide economy more than $1 trillion (U. Encountered with urban decay because of deindustrialization, engineering imagined, government lodgin. Dollars) yearly On immediate fetches alone (World ability Foundation, 2015). The backhanded expenses would a wide margin more terrific on account of the disappointment to accomplish palatable ability obstructs individuals starting with procuring essential knowledge, for example, Comprehension majority of the data something like hygiene, diet, or wellbeing. Consequently, low ability will be An significant donor should imbalance and expands the probability for poor physical Furthermore mental health, work environment accidents, abuse from claiming medication, support On crime, Furthermore welfare dependency, the greater part about which also bring generous extra social Also monetary fetches (World ability Foundation, 2015). Low education displays a basic What’s more constant test around those world: Significantly over formed countries, it will be evaluated that pretty nearly 20% for 15-year-olds don’t accomplish a level from claiming perusing execution that permits them on take an interest viably to term (Organisation for monetary collaboration and Development, 2016).

Plagiarisma.net is also firmly in the gibberish arena. “Kinsmen immigrant possessions”?

Sense of values to offer transforms lives. Portent is the build for the fulfilment of associate, for cultural exercise, for democracy, and for fulfilling in the aid. Illiteracy skimp the widespread second-rate thither over than $1 trillion (U.S. dollars) annual in artless retrench just (mould Literacy Foundation, 2015). The redundant scrimp are prevalent more intelligent to the foundering to swing adequate literacy blocks kinsmen immigrant possessions basic knowledge, such as understanding information about hygiene, diet, or safety. Consider, shoddy literacy is a pre-eminent backer to discrepancy and increases the possibility of vile quick and absurd well-being, responsibility accidents, decry of remedy, sophistication in outrage, and open-handedness dominion, all of which also have substantial additional social and economic costs (World Literacy Foundation, 2015). Common literacy endowments a stabbing and continuing bloke all over the world: Down in qualified countries, it is approximate rove to 20% of 15-year-olds reach keen cut a residue of sign step focus allows them to participate effectively in life (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2016).

Articlerewritertool.com does a reasonably good job – especially if students take the time to edit.

Making sense of how to examine changes lives. Scrutinizing is the purpose behind the anchoring of learning, for social responsibility, for larger part lead government, and for achievement in the workplace. Nonattendance of instruction costs the overall economy more than $1 trillion (U.S. dollars) consistently in arrange costs alone (World Literacy Foundation, 2015). The circuitous costs are unmistakably critical in light of the way that the failure to achieve pleasing capability squares people from increasing fundamental learning, for instance, understanding information about tidiness, eating regimen, or prosperity. In this manner, low capability is an imperative supporter of dissimilarity and enhances the likelihood of poor physical and passionate health, workplace setbacks, manhandle of medication, interest in bad behavior, and welfare dependence, all of which moreover have critical additional social and budgetary costs (World Literacy Foundation, 2015). Low training displays a fundamental and decided test the world over: Even in made countries, it is surveyed that around 20% of 15-year-olds don’t achieve a level of examining execution that empowers them to participate sufficiently for the duration of regular day to day existence (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2016).

However, quality is on the rise

Quillbot is still in beta testing, so the non-sign-up version gives you a 180-character limit, but it is the best of the paraphrasing tools. I entered this: “The indirect costs are far greater because the failure to attain satisfactory literacy blocks people from acquiring basic knowledge” and Quillbot returned “The indirect costs are much higher because the lack of sufficient literacy prevents people from learning the basics.” Don’t like the word or phrase that Quillbot chose? Click on the changed text to see other choices.

Paid services

CleverSpinner is a subscription service for $9.90 (US)/month. A 43-second video shows the tool in action. Where the others I’ve identified above are considered paraphrasing tools because they only give you one new version of text, CleverSpinner is considered an “article spinner” because it renders multiple versions of the text. Why would one want multiple versions? Some web writers are writing for multiple web-based outlets. They write the text once, and then spin it. Now they have multiple versions that can be published in multiple venues without being pinged for publishing duplicate content. One article looks like ten.

What can you do about it?

If you have suspect text in a student assignment, there is probably not a whole lot you can do about it, frankly. If you really want to pursue it, you can use a cloze test. In the cloze test, words are removed from the suspect text, and the student is asked to enter the missing words. The idea is that if a student wrote the text herself, she should be able to fill in the missing blanks.

Here is a cloze test creation tool. When I entered the articlewritertool.com text from above, I get

Making sense of how __ examine changes lives. Scrutinizing __ the purpose behind the _________ of learning, for social ______________, for larger part lead __________, and for achievement in ___ workplace. Nonattendance of instruction _____ the overall economy more ____ $1 trillion (.US.. dollars) ____________ in arrange costs alone (_____ Literacy Foundation, 2015). The __________ costs are unmistakably critical __ light of the way ____ the failure to achieve ________ capability squares people from __________ fundamental learning, for instance, _____________ information about tidiness, eating _______, or prosperity. In this ______, low capability is an __________ supporter of dissimilarity and ________ the likelihood of poor ________ and passionate health, workplace ________, manhandle of medication, interest __ bad behavior, and welfare __________, all of which moreover ____ critical additional social and _________ costs (World Literacy Foundation, ______ Low training displays a ___________ and decided test the _____ over: Even in made _________, it is surveyed that ______ 20% of 15-year-olds don’t _______ a level of examining _________ that empowers them to ___________ sufficiently for the duration __ regular day to day _________ (Organization for Economic Cooperation ___ Development, 2016).

If you want to make it a little easier on your student, you can provide the list of removed words in random order:

World achieve anchoring and around budgetary circuitous consistently costs countries dependence enhances execution existence fundamental government have imperative in increasing is manner of participate physical pleasing regimen responsibility setbacks than that the to understanding world 

Conclusion

It also can’t hurt to discuss the importance of academic integrity with your students. Ultimately, it’s their own personal integrity at stake.

References

Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19(1), 5–51. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100618772271

Rogerson, A. M., & McCarthy, G. (2017). Using Internet based paraphrasing tools: Original work, patchwriting or facilitated plagiarism? International Journal for Educational Integrity, 13(2). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-016-0013-y

It didn’t take long. I found a replacement for Beanote, the Chrome extension I wrote about in my last blog post. Hypothes.is has more power and more flexibility.

Add to any webpage a personal note just for yourself, a note for your group, or a public note that can be seen by anyone running Hypothes.is

Several of us at my college are working on editing pages that explain to faculty how to get a video captioned. Using Hypothes.is we can leave notes on each webpage that everyone else in our group can see. This is much easier than taking screenshots and emailing them to each other or using a shared document in Dropbox or Google Drive.

After creating a Hypothesi.is account, add the extension to Chrome or add the bookmarklet to Firefox. In Chrome, look for this icon.

If it is greyed out, click on it to turn on Hypothes.is.

Next, highlight any text on any webpage. On the popup, click on “Annotate” to add a note or “Highlight” to, well, just highlight.

From the slide-out menu, enter your comments, add tags if you’d like, and select if you want to make this available to a group (if you’re part of one) or if you want this to be a personal note (“Only me”). Click on the “Post to…” box to save your annotation.

A blue box will appear on the Hypothes.is icon. (You may need to reload the page to get this to appear.) That tells you that there is one annotation on this webpage. On the far right side of your screen, click the arrow to slide out the Hypothes.is ‘drawer.’

The yellow highlighted text is the text that is annotated. Mousing over the annotated note on the right will turn the highlighting blue. That’s the easiest way to know which annotation goes with which highlighting. At the top of the Hypothes.is slide-out, you can see the group this note is shared with: ID@Highline. Clicking the eye icon will hide all of the yellow highlighting on the page; mousing over the annotation will still turn on the blue highlighting on the page to show what the annotation is referring to. Clicking the page icon allows you to add a note to the whole page, not just specific text on the page.

Going public

If you want to make your comments public to other Hypothes.is users, click the group name at the top of the slide out box. (You’re right. It would be more intuitive if the “only me,” group, and public options were all part of the same menu.)

I added a public comment to this page so you can see what public comments looks like. Feel free to jump in on the conversation.

Where all have I annotated?

Log into the Hypothesi.is to see a list of your annotations.

Click on an entry to expand it. The bolded text is the webpage highlighted text. Click “Visit annotations in context” to go to the webpage.

Where all have my groups annotated?

Log into Hypothesi.is, click on “Groups,” and select the group you want. Click on an annotation to expand it. You’ll see the list of annotations, who created each one, and when.

Example use 1

In doing research for a group project, students may spend more time sharing information about websites than any other kind of source (O’Farrell & Bates, 2009), depending on the nature of the project, of course. To track how the groups are progressing and who is participating and when, create a Hypothesi.is group for each student project group. You’ll be able to see the websites the groups are referencing and each student’s thoughts about the content of those websites.

Example use 2

Use Hypothesi.is to track the content changes you want to make in your course management system. In Canvas, for example, each page has its own unique URL. As your course progresses, annotate the pages you want to change the next time you offer the course. Tag the content with your course name and term, like “Psych 100 Spring 18”. When you’re ready to make your changes for the next term, log into the Hypothesi.is website, and search for your “Psych 100 Spring 18” tag.

References

O’Farrell, M., & Bates, J. (2009). Student information behaviours during group projects: A study of LIS students in University College Dublin, Ireland. In Aslib Proceedings: New Information Perspectives (Vol. 61, pp. 302–315). https://doi.org/10.1108/00012530910959835

Sometimes I want to add a note to a webpage. Beanote is a Chrome browser extension that will let me do that.

When I give my tech tools presentation, I discuss LastPass, for example. I don’t always remember all of the LastPass features I want to talk about, so I’m going to add a Beanote “sticker note” listing those features on the LastPass homepage. Anytime I visit that page with my Chrome browser, that note will be there.

I’ve highlighted the sentence “LastPass remembers all your passwords, so you don’t have to.” You can see the 3-icon Beanote toolbar. The first icon is a highlighter. Use this if all you want to do is highlight text. If you change your mind and want to add a note after highlighting, clicking on the highlighted text will let you add a note, change the color of the highlight (yellow, red, green, or blue), or delete the highlight. If you want to go directly to adding a note, click on the middle icon.

After creating a note, mouse over the call-out box to see what you’ve written.

Once you’ve created a note, however, you cannot edit it. You can add a second note, or you can delete the first and write a new one.

Click on the Beanote icon at the top right of your Chrome browser to see a list of all of the notes you have ever created. Use the Beanote search bar to find a specific note. It searches both the text of your notes and about the first 55 or so words of your highlighted text.

Click on a note to see the highlighted text and see what message you have left yourself. Click on the webpage’s icon to go to that webpage.

Course Management System Bonus

If your course management system has a different URL for each of your course pages, you can leave yourself personal notes in Chrome, perhaps what you want to change in your syllabus or what you want to change in an assignment.

NOTE May 22, 2019: QBBuzzer appears to be no more. Instead, use BuzzIn.Live. Just as free and even easier to use. 

*********************

Yesterday a colleague sent an email to our faculty asking if anyone had buzzers she could borrow for a Jeopardy-like review she was doing in her class. I thought that there must surely be a digital solution.

QBBuzzer is about as easy to use as you can imagine. Visit the QBBuzzer website and choose a name for your “room.” This is what your students will type to get into your room. Keep it simple. (Room names are not case sensitive; spaces are permitted.) Choose a username, like your name. This is what everyone in the room will see.

And this is what it looks like.

Send your students to qbbuzzer.com on a computer, tablet, or phone. Have them type in your room name and then enter their name as their username so you know who buzzed in. Make sure that students type in your room name correctly. If they don’t, they will inadvertently create a new room.

Once all of your students are in, ask your question, and once a student hits the “BUZZ” button, buzzing will be locked for 5 seconds. Here you can see that I buzzed in (“your buzz”), and the lock will automatically clear in 4 seconds. The person who buzzed in can clear the lock by clicking the “CLEAR” button. In the history area, you can see that I buzzed in at 9:34:32.

If someone else buzzes in first, the message says:

Everyone’s screen looks the same as yours so everyone can see who buzzed in; you don’t need to display this on your computer screen.

If you want to make sure that you get at least part of your question asked before someone buzzes in, click “BUZZ” yourself as you start to ask the question. That will buy you 5 seconds before your students have the opportunity to buzz in.

Who created this site?

There is no other information on QBBuzzer website, so I did a little research. The site was created by some people who wanted to practice for Quiz Bowl, but they only had 10 buzzers. They found this pretty limiting given the number of people they had present for practices. They did what any reasonable person would do. They created a buzzer website, QBBuzzer.

Have fun!

One of my favorite conference activities is attending poster sessions. I especially love hearing from undergraduates about their research. The topic isn’t even that important to me. In fact, the less I know about the topic, the more fun it is for me to listen and the more questions I get to ask. “Wait. I’m not familiar with that construct. Can you explain what that is?”

While I enjoy posters, it pains me to see conference attendees carrying around tubes, wrestling with getting posters in and out of tubes, and forgetting tubes in airplane overhead bins.

Fabric posters have been around for a while. These hold a number of advantages over their paper counterparts. Fabric posters can be folded up in your carryon, won’t tear, and when printed on the right kind of fabric, make lovely (and nerdy) scarves. Many services that make fabric posters charge over $100 for a 56″ x 36″ poster. That makes them much less attractive.

Did you know that you can have a 56″ x 36″ fabric poster made and delivered for under $25? Check out Spoonflower. (Shout out to Suzie Baker for telling me about this service – and, frankly, I was envious of her poster scarf in the brisk March wind of Philadelphia on the last evening of the Eastern Psychological Association conference.)

Spoonflower will custom print fabric, giftwrap, or wallpaper. While I love the image of conference posters printed on wallpaper and giftwrap, let’s stick with the fabric for the purposes of this post.

Before designing your poster, check the conference website or the email you received from the conference organizer to find out how big the conference poster boards are. Be sure to design your poster to fit in that space.

You can find detailed instructions on how to go from a poster designed in PowerPoint to a Spoonflower-made, fabric poster in your mailbox. If you are on the main Spoonflower page, mouse over “Design,” select “Upload,” choose your file, check the box to confirm that you own the copyright, and then click upload. Otherwise do as the instructions say.

[Ridiculously important note: When you save your PowerPoint as a pdf, do it as “save as” pdf. Do not “print to pdf.” They sound the same, but for this purpose they are not the same. “Print to pdf” will get you a poster that is half the size you ultimately want. “Save as” yields a poster that is the correct size. It took me 45 minutes of troubleshooting to learn that. You’re welcome.]

The recommended “performance piqué” fabric is $20/yard. You only need 1 yard – and you’ll get 10% off for creating a design. Now you’re at $18. Standard shipping ($3) will ship in “10 to 12 days,” and of course it will need some time to get to you. The Spoonflower pricing page says that the standard shipping will take 7 days to get to you once it ships. In other words, be sure to give them 3 weeks before you have to leave for your conference. The total cost is $21.

If you procrastinate, it will cost you. The conference will be over in 3 weeks? You can have your fabric poster in about a week and a half for $15 shipping. If you need it in 4 or 5 days, it’s $25 shipping. Frankly, $43 (18+25) is still a lot cheaper than the other poster printing services I’ve seen – and you get your poster by the end of the week. If you’re a big-time procrastinator – or if you keep making changes up to the morning you need to leave, stick with printing on paper.

While I’m here, here’s a quick plug for Better Posters for those who are ready to up your game. Poster quality at conferences seems to be getting better, but we all have room for improvement.