USB condoms Let’s start with USB condoms, because, frankly, that’s why you decided to read this post. It’s okay to be honest. We’re friends. The cable you use to charge your phone and your tablet serve as both a power cable and a data cable. Electricity and information both flow through this same cable. As long as you are home, you are safe. When you venture out into public, however… Let’s say you’re at the airport and you’d like to top off your phone’s battery before boarding your plane. You plug your USB cable into one of those now-ubiquitous charging stations. Unfortunately, someone with nefariousRead More →

Logs for Word Counter Plus and Word Count

For the discussions in my online courses, I have added an expected minimum word count to help students better gauge what is expected of them. Each initial post has three sections, and each has a different word count minimum. Same with the discussion responses. I am certainly not going to count the words myself. And it seems silly to copy and paste each discussion post into Word to get a word count. Instead, I added a word count tool to my browser. In Chrome, I use Word Counter Plus. In Firefox, I use Word Count. While both look a little different, they work exactly theRead More →

Chrome logo

For those of us who like to—or least tend to—have a lot of browser tabs open at once, Chrome’s new “tab groups” along with the previous ability to pin tabs can help bring order to the chaos. Below, you can see what I currently have open in Chrome. The six tabs on the left are “pinned.” These are tabs that I frequently use, so I’ve pinned them. I have easy access to them without them taking up so much real estate. To pin a tab, right-click on it, and select “Pin”. [Extra credit: how many of my pinned tabs can you identify based on theirRead More →

My college has been with the Canvas learning management system for a few years now. There are many things I like about it, but the cumbersome number of clicks it takes to delete a bunch of pages is not one of them. And I wanted to delete a bunch of pages. We recently turned on “Atomic Search” within Canvas that allows instructors and students to search within a course. If a page is published, it’s fair game to be returned in search results. As I copied courses from quarter to quarter to quarter, I never had to worry about those unused pages. They weren’t linkedRead More →

Book cover

Several years ago, I moved away from using presentation slides in my courses. They just didn’t work with the interteaching model I had started using. Instead, I returned to where I started my career: writing on the board. My current board is digital (interactive short-throw projector with whiteboard software), so my “markers” never run out of ink. For my conference presentations –except for my tech talks—I still use presentation slides, specifically PowerPoint. I know some of you really love Prezi. As my colleague Steve Chew has observed, Prezi is the only presentation software that requires the audience to take Dramamine first. I’ll attend your PreziRead More →

Some instructors and students like to use a Jeopardy! format to review course content. I’ve learned that it’s not my thing, but I’m happy to support those of you who are into it. First, you need a Jeopardy! board. I wrote about Jeopardy Labs in 2011, and that is still a solid board creation tool. Next, you need a way for students to buzz in. The easiest is the free BuzzIn.live website. (Shout out to the developer, Logan Sinclair!) Visit the BuzzIn.live website and click the “Host” button. That brings up your host dashboard. Tell your students to use their web-enabled device to visit theRead More →

Each of us sees color differently. Download the free Color Blind Pal app to your phone or tablet. Open the app, tap “inspecting color” to change it to “filtering colors,” then tap the at the top of the screen. If it is difficult for you to see the color differences in the pie chart below, under “color blindness type” select your form of color blindness and click the ← at the top of the screen. Point your camera at this pie chart to see the colors shifted making the colors easier to tell apart.         If you have typical color vision, underRead More →

When someone knocks on your office door, you may have a sensitive email or student work on your screen. Rather than figuring out if what is on your screen can be safely seen, use a keyboard shortcut to minimize everything so only your desktop shows. Windows Windows key + D (“D” is for desktop). When your visitor leaves, that same key combination will bring back everything where it was. Mac Command + F3 (“F3” is for F3). When your visitor leaves, that same key combination or just F3 will bring back everything where it was.  Read More →

Windows 10 emoji menu

Windows 10* has a built-in emoji menu. Go into any program where you can type, like Word or a new email message. Press Windows key + semicolon. Choose an emoji from the menu. The first page (clock icon) shows your most recently used emoji. The magnifying glass is for search. Type what you’re looking for, like “smile.” You’ll see all of the emoji tagged with that word. Click on the other icons to browse emoji by categories. To close the menu, click the X in the top right corner, press the ESC key, or click anywhere that is not the menu. Choose a skin toneRead More →

Select the entire web address Mouse fans: single click on the web address Keyboard shortcut fans: CTRL-L Click and drag into your Windows folder Double-click on the bookmark in your folder to launch the page in your web browser “Can I rename the link?” Yes. The default name for the link is whatever that website’s webmaster called the page. Just as you can rename a file in your folder, you can rename your bookmarks. In your folder, right-click on the link, select “Rename,” and, well, rename it. “I use Dropbox/Google Drive/OneDrive. Will my bookmark links synchronize across my devices?” Yes. “That means that when IRead More →

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