Academic Services

Hopefully that image doesn't bring you too much anxiety; I promise you haven't missed Thanksgiving...yet.  But with Black Friday only days away, I hear a lot of chatter about gift giving (and receiving!).  The Professor's Guide at US News and World Reports has composed a list titled 10 Technology Must-Haves for College.  They regularly compose lists throughout the year, but the current one is quite interesting, particularly if you are someone who loves to give/receive techie gifts for the holidays.  It's geared for college students but is a good general list for all technology users regardless of skill level.  Have a look and let us know what makes your list this year.

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I first stumbled upon Wordle about a month ago and planned to do a write-up on it to see if anyone out there was interested in this type of textual analysis.  Last week though Prof. Hacker, one of my favorite blogs and one I've referenced here before, posted part one of two on Using Wordle in the Classroom.  There's some great analysis accompanied by incredibly helpful how-to instructions.  Today I'm simply going to refer you to their post.  So have a look if you like, and let us know how you might use this either now of in the future.

How many times have you asked, "Where in the world is that?" Or "If only I could show you a map, this story would make much more sense."  Let's face it, maps are valuable commodities, and the print maps in the back of the Bible are great but seldom enough, especially if you're looking to do a presentation.  Enter Bible Mapper.  It's free, it's customizable to locations and time periods, it's free, provides various terrain options, and oh, it's FREE!  The only negative is that it's a Windows only program; sorry Mac folks.  So when you want to incorporate maps to your paper, lesson, lecture, whatever, remember Bible Mapper.  Version 3 remains completely free, and version 4 offers some advanced features for a nominal fee.

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On Wiggio, you can share and edit files, manage a group calendar, poll your group, post links, set up conference calls, chat online and send mass text, voice and email messages to your group members.  Each group member can define how they want to keep informed of group activity, all in one simple and free tool - not five different tools for each function.

It is easy to add people to your group by pulling them in from your email or Facebook contacts.  They never need to sign up.  As soon as you add, you can start communicating.  You can text message and email to your group, and receive group communications to your cell phone, email and Facbook.

Collaboration is increasingly the name of the game in academia.  The question is not "should we collaborate on this project?" but rather, "How in the world do we effectively work together on this endeavor?"  It's a fair question.  The old rigmarole of sending documents as attachments via email is a bit outdated and I find far too tedious.  Tools like Google Documents have improved this process a great deal but remain imperfect and limited.  Enter Dropbox.  It's primary purpose is to sync files across computers, so you can easily sync your home and work computers without having to setup a network.  But it also has a share feature where you choose who else can view that folder, which allows you to share your work with a group of colleagues leading to a more seamless interactive process.  Your files are also available online giving you access to them anywhere you can hop on the web.  Like a lot of new tools, it's free to a point before the costs kick-in.  The free version allows you to store up to 2GB.  Dropbox Pro 50 gives you 50GB of space at $9.99/month, and Pro 100 gives you 100 GB of space at $19.99/month.  I think this is quite a nifty tool and will prove to be time saver.

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I'm always on the look-out for new tools to improve the research and writing in hopes of becoming more efficient.  What I like all the more is when someone else from PTS shares a new tool with me, which happened last Friday thanks to Blair Bertrand, a PhD student and Graduate Assistant in Dr. Gordon Mikoski's EF3366 Curriculum and Methods of Teaching.  The tool is called Anki, "a spaced repetition system (SRS).  It helps you remember things by intelligently scheduling flashcards, so that you can learn a lot of information with a minimum amount of effort."  You have the option to download pre-existing "decks" (there are a couple for Biblical Hebrew and Greek already) or create your own (my personal favorite!).  This tool can be used for more than purely academic pursuits as you can upload images - good for you art historians out there and for learning new faces when you take a new position with lots of new people.  Anki can also sync with a mobile phone that has internet service, so you can take your flash cards anywhere.  It is free and open source, but you can donate to the project if you wish.  I'm not saying you'll never purchase a pack of flash cards again, but I know I could have certainly benefited from Anki in the past.  Thanks Blair!

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The Chronicle of Higher Education's Tech Therapy team hosts an ongoing series of discussions on issues relating to technology and higher ed.  In the most recent audio file, the Tech Therapists discuss the use of incentives that some colleges and universities have used to get professors to experiment and adopt technology in their teaching and research.  They speak with Marsha Marinich, an adjunct professor in the business school at Marymount University, and John McFadden, retired chief information officer at Loyola University Maryland. 

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I just finished a brief presentation to the PhD students during lunch and thought I should share one of the tools I highlighted.  There's a lot of new software out there, and while it's really hard to keep up with all of it, one to keep an eye on is Mendeley.  It's a great tool to manage and share research papers and increases the likelihood of online collaboration between scholars.  It's being sold as a Last.fm for research and does a marvelous job organizing and handling PDF's.  It's important to note that there are some pretty big guns at Mendeley including Stefan Glaenzer, previously the chairman at Last.fm befire it was sold to CBS, so it appears to have some lasting power.  This seems to be a great team of talented thinkers, software engineers, entrepreneurs, and academics.

Mendeley is geared more towards the sciences for now but there are a number of humanities scholars using it, too.  It also comes with some nifty citation management features (Windows only for now; Mac tools are currently being developed), although these are somewhat lacking compared to Zotero, EndNote, and others.  Regardless, Mendeley is still quite young and regularly improving.  It's currently in beta and is free (they will eventually also a premium features for a reasonable price) so take a look and share your thoughts.  Any chance this can make your academic pursuits easier?

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To commemorate the week that is wrapping up, it seems fitting to address the question, "What do you read?" And by this I am specifically referring to blogs (call them online resources if that word makes your stomach queasy) with a technology and education bent. Frankly, there is a lot our there, and at times it can be overwhelming to narrow it down to a few good sites to follow. So here are three that I think are worth the effort.

Prof Hacker - This is led by a couple English professors and focuses on pedagogy, tutorials, productivity, and technology. It's fairly new (official launch was only last month), has a large following, and covers a wide array of topics.

AcademHack - The manifesto says it all, "Tech should make teaching easier and more effective, not harder and more frustrating." By chronicling the journey of an academic using technology to further teaching and scholarship, this blog is remarkably practical in nature and can benefit students and faculty.

The Wired Campus - A blog from The Chronicle of Higher Education, Wired is a great source for technology news as it impacts higher education. While it primarily targets faculty and administrators, Wired is useful to anyone interested in keeping up with the academic and technology landscape.

Maybe you'll find one or two of those interesting. So......what do you read?

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Just an early heads-up that the Seminary's Blackboard system will be moving to the new Version 9 next academic year (AY 2010-11). The new version will feature a new, customizable user interface, drag-and-drop functionality, contextual menus, and lots more. Check out a product overview.

Needless to say, you will be hearing much more about this in the coming months!

Image from Flicr user Rainer Ebert / CC licensed.