Recently, I found myself in the bad habit of skipping over many of the blogs in my Google RSS reader or clicking the mark all as read button to clear everything out. I was missing interesting articles and relevant information. I decided to take 30 minutes to make my RSS reader as organized, useful, and efficient as possible for me. Here are five quick changes I made in Google Reader.
1. Don’t be afraid to unsubscribe. I’ve been using my RSS Reader for almost four years now and periodically I need to remove those blogs I am no longer interested in. Google Reader keeps track of your reading trends, interests, and habits. To access the Trends feature, open the All items link in the top left side of your Google Reader and then select Trends. This will give you a nice overview of what you are really reading.
2. Organize with folders. Up until a few days ago, my column of blogs that I follow was one, long running list. Create and title new folders to group similar topics in your list. This also makes it easier to view your RSS reader on a mobile device. Click the arrow beside a feed in your RSS list and then click New folder. Repeat this process to add new feeds to any existing folders you’ve already created.
3. Prioritize what you’ve got. If you’ve already got several blog folders in place, try rearranging them by priority. That way, if you’ve only got a few minutes you can just read the important stuff at the top and make your way down the list later. Reordering my list has helped draw my eye to new blogs that I had gotten in the bad habit of previously skipping over. Select the feeds that are most important to you then click the folder or blog name, hold, and drag to a new spot at the top of your list.
4. Discover new blogs. Google monitors keywords in the blogs you are currently following and offers suggestions for similar resources. Click the Explore link in the top, left corner of your RSS reader and browse the recommended items and sources. Click the subscribe button to begin following a suggested blog. I’ve found and started following several new blogs and authors this way.
5. Subscribe to a bundle. Speaking of finding new blogs, Google Reader also offers pre-packaged blog bundles related by topic. Click the Browse for stuff link in the top left corner of your RSS reader. The News bundle, for example, contains nine popular news blogs. By clicking the Subscribe button located near the News bundle, you can add all nine feeds to your RSS reader at once. You can always add or remove individual feeds later.
A number of experts in the publishing and education fields have had the opportunity to weigh in on Apple’s push to revolutionize the textbook (you can read my initial thoughts if you need to get caught up on the announcement). As can be expected, reactions fall on both sides of the fence–though the critics may be speaking a little more loudly right now.
- Educators hope Apple’s textbook foray will begin a “learning revolution”: This piece from Ars Technica includes thoughts from a number of educators on the technical and pedagogical possibilities presented by the new iBooks platform; it also notes the inherent limitations (read: it’s iPad-only; Apple’s license agreement raises questions about who actually owns the content).
- Educational technology experts skeptical about Apple’s iBooks: Countering the optimism presented by educators in the Ars piece, Fast Company shares thoughts from some prominent ed tech folks on my iBooks Textbooks aren’t really the learning revolution Apple and others are claiming (remember what I said about these feeling like 1990s CD-ROMs?).
- Apple’s textbook plan feels like a blast from the past: Glenn Fleishman of MacWorld absolutely skewers Apple’s new initiative, pointing to a great deal of research that indicates this approach may have limited–if any–positive effects on schools. Ouch. It also points out that web-based textbooks like Nature’s Principles of Biology are much more open in their approach–not limited to a single platform and much more forthright about what students can do with content.
- Students’ math scores jumped 20 percent with iPad textbooks, publisher says: On the other hand, AppleInsider reports a study conducted by Houghton Miffling Harcourt, in which a pilot study at a California middle school resulted in big gains on state standardized tests.
- Apple’s e-textbook push earns mixed grades: Dan Miller of MacWorld shares insight from several experts. Positive: iBooks Textbooks may be the first honest attempt to make digital learning content less “the replica of a print original” and more natively digital. Negative: The platform-exclusivity thing that’s already been hit repeatedly.
- Why Apple won’t disrupt the textbook industry anytime soon: Finally, a must-read piece from John Paul Titlow of ReadWriteWeb. Some key points: Apple’s targeting high school kids over college kids places an economic barrier to adoption; they’re partnering with the very publishing companies they’re looking to “disrupt;” Apple isn’t the only interesting game in town when it comes to reforming digital learning.
My takeaway: While I share a number of the reservations posited by these experts, I also hope that Apple’s foray into digital textbooks and e-learning will drive some honest-to-goodness innovation and competition in the ed tech field. As Titlow mentions, “It’s practically conventional wisdom in the tech world that, even if they’re not first in the game or necessarily even the best, the Cupertino-based giant has a tendency to make a noticeable impact.”
As if managing your privacy settings on Facebook itself weren’t enough, last week a list of 60+ external apps that feed the new Facebook Timeline was released. That’s great news if you want to be able to engage in “frictionless” sharing–that is, you no longer have to explicitly tell Facebook that you just listened to an awesome song or went for a run or got on a plane or ate a delicious meal; Facebook will automatically know when you play the song in Spotify or track the distance you ran or check in for your flight or book a dining reservation. And so will everyone who can see your Facebook Timeline–which, by default, is a lot of people. A rundown of how to maintain Facebook privacy while also using these services is available from MacWorld.
A couple of services we’ve touted in the past are among the 60 enabling this sort of sharing:
The good news: You can specify what a given app can share. The bad news: This is an app-by-app exercise. Luckily Facebook makes these settings accessible in a single privacy settings page. Some apps will let you manage these settings the first time you set them up; others don’t let you set them until after you’ve started using them. So be aware of this and routinely audit your privacy settings to make sure you’re not sharing something you didn’t expect. Don’t forget to verify that your friends can’t (or can, depending on your preference) share what you share.
Are you a student who wants to make sure your next essay gets the best grade possible? Or a teacher with some extra time looking to make a few extra bucks? Skimling is a brand new, online service giving students the opportunity to have a real teacher “grade” their papers before turning them in for real. Teachers are “expected to give tips to improve a student’s essay based on grammar, structure, and persuasiveness.” The downside for students? Skimling is not a free service; you’ll be charged $12 for each graded paper. The upside for teachers? Skimling pays you $10 per graded paper. Services are offered for students and teachers at the middle school through graduate school level.
Interesting idea, though the website’s FAQ leaves me with a few additional questions:
- Can we see a sample graded paper or two to know what we’re getting for our $12?
- What’s the turnaround time? If I recall my days as a student correctly I know I was a champ at procrastination.
- Kids’ and teachers’ identities are kept protected, right?
- I’m not a teacher, but maybe you are–how long does it take to grade a paper (in a way meeting Skimling’s standards)? Is $10 worth that amount of time?
If you try out Skimling, either as a student or teacher, let us know about your experience.
On Thursday, Apple unveiled a new initiative to overhaul how textbooks are created and used. With major textbook publishers on board, two new products were introduced:
- iBooks 2, an updated version of Apple’s ebook reader for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, brings a media-rich, interactive experience to reading digital textbooks. Apple has provided an online gallery of iBooks examples to show off these new multimedia capabilities.
- iBooks Author, a Mac-only application to make authoring these new digital textbooks as easy as creating a Keynote presentation or a movie in iMovie. (In fact, iBooks borrows heavily from Apple’s for-the-most-part-shelved iWeb webpage editor.)
Both products are available for free download now, through their respective app stores; a sample edition of E.O. Wilson’s Life on Earth is also available for free through the iBookstore. I downloaded these three products and gave them a brief spin.
What’s cool about the new iBooks
- These are still textbooks. You’ve got to read them to learn from them. Yes, they can now be augmented with interactive photos, video, and embedded web content, but these aren’t purely video instruction. Think: Less DVD, more CD-ROM.
- Anyone who knows how to navigate the web and apps on an iPad will know instantly how to poke around an iBooks textbook and navigate its contents.
- Done right, a digital textbook can be a beautiful publication–we’re clearly beyond the early, clunky attempts to digitize books and/or make them more interactive.
- The big names in textbook publishing–McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt–will be using the same tool a classroom teacher can use to create and distribute textbooks.
- If everyone holds up their ends of the deal, textbooks will never be obsolete, and always be reasonably priced.
- The enhanced note taking and built-in study tools in iBooks textbooks are much-needed. The study cards in particular are a very neat feature.
- Apple has included accessibility options throughout, allowing textbook authors to embed text to be read aloud when VoiceOver is enabled on the iPad.
What needs work
- The glossary, note taking, and accessibility supports are nice, but one thing I’d love to see Apple add is the ability to also hear an unfamiliar word’s pronunciation.
- Just as PowerPoint (and Keynote) shouldn’t be held responsible for some of the hideous things people wind up doing with them, one can only imagine what kind of horrible, horrible examples of information design will be possible when authors deviate from Apple’s otherwise attractive templates. This will also have a downside on kids actually learning from the book.
- Presumably due to copyright restrictions, any text you’ve highlighted can only be accessed on your iPad–no sending it to yourself via email or sharing it with others. This is how it’s been since sharing was added to the original version of iBooks, but it’s still disappointing that you can’t access notes in other formats.
Possible deal breakers
- A major red flag: If you want to sell your iBooks textbook creation, you can only do so within Apple’s iBookstore, making it subject to the same review process that app developers go through to get titles into the App Store. This also means Apple gets a cut of the proceeds. I am really disappointed in this, as Apple had up to now supported open formats in iBooks. Read a really well-done critique of this policy and consider it before going all-in on iBooks textbooks.
- This also means your creation isn’t going to work on non-iPads.
- It’s pretty slow on my first-generation iPad.
- As I mentioned earlier, I can’t help but think about the educational CD-ROMs that flooded schools and homes in the 1990s when I see the sample textbook–and I can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing. There were some pretty lousy CD-ROMs on the market back then, and putting iBooks Author in the hands of the masses could result in some pretty lousy digital textbooks today.
Last week The Chronicle of Higher Education featured an article by the University of Kansas’ very own, Doug Ward. Ward is an associate professor of journalism and the Budig Professor of Writing at KU. In his guest post, Ward describes the pros and cons of a semester spent implementing iPads in a graduate course. (Spoiler alert: He learned a few lessons and is going to try it again this semester. )
Doug Ward’s What I’ve Learned from Teaching with iPads is an interesting, well-written article. He offers great advice for those looking to successfully implement mobile devices into a classroom. Here are a few bullet points from the article:
- 10 iPads were loaded with free apps and given to students only for the semester.
- Students were encouraged to use the iPads freely.
- Most students said they saw little or no return on investing large amounts of time to personalize the iPad and learn its functions when they knew it had to be returned.
- Students felt they could accomplish more with their phone and a laptop.
- Students said the two areas where the iPad excelled were reading and viewing. (One student read 140 books during the semester with the Kindle app.)
- Ward states, “Teachers must change their mindset so that assignments match the technology.”
- Ward suggests to get buy-in from other teachers in your department and to consider why you want to use iPads in the first place.
- Ward states, “My sense is that the iPad might be more useful for undergraduate courses than for graduate courses. Graduate education generally focuses on independent research while undergraduate classes are often more assignment- and test-oriented.”
- Ward relies on his iPad for reading (Flipboard and Instapaper), for tweeting about articles (Flipboard), for note-taking and reference (Springpad and Dropbox), for a calendar and a to-do list (Pocket Informant) and sometimes for email.
In summary Ward suggests, “Too often, teachers assume that students know how to use technology or will pick it up quickly. Not all do. Find apps that will work for your discipline and demonstrate how those apps work and how students will use them in assignments. Talk about the tablet’s strengths and weaknesses, and how it fits in with assignments, classes and studying. Time spent on training will ease frustrations later.”
If you’ve ever purchased anything from online retailer Zappos, you’ve no doubt heard by now that the site was hacked last week exposing 24 million customers’ records to potentially fraudulent use. While customers’ credit card information was not compromised–that’s stored in a separate database–Zappos is forcing customers to be proactive and change passwords, just in case.
Even if you’ve never bought a thing from Zappos, this incident illustrates the very important reality that hackers are constantly trying to get into things they shouldn’t get into. While the onus of keeping your password and other information secure is primarily on the shoulders of the retailers, banks, and other online services you trust with your data, you’re not off the hook–it’s up to you to use tricky passwords for your online accounts. In fact, many suggest that the best password you can have is one you don’t even know.
But how do you pull that off? Simple: Use a password manager like 1Password (my favorite) or KeePass to generate and securely store unique passwords for all your online accounts. These tools not only create random, hard-to-guess strings, they also store them in a centralized database on your computer and make them accessible via a single master password–meaning you only need to know one password, not dozens.
Another alternative is to use pass phrases versus passwords–in other words, passwords with spaces in them. Since computers have difficulty hacking passwords in this format, pass phrases make for more secure passwords that may be a little more memorable for you. For example, a KU basketball fan might use rock chalk jayhawk as a pass phrase (note I said might–if someone knows you’re a big KU fan he might be able to guess that one pretty easily). Of course, you can also spruce it up with the requisite capital letters, numbers, and special characters–so our example might become Rock Chalk Jayhawk 2008! or something. (Seriously, though, don’t use this–come up with your own. And no, I don’t use this myself anywhere.)
In general, just remember the following rules, mostly gleaned from this somewhat cluttered infographic shared by Lifehacker:
- Never reuse a password on a site that requires you to change it on a regular basis. The info graphic says “for at least a year,” but I prefer never.
- Also never, ever use the same password on multiple sites. The reasoning here is if someone gets your password from Zappos, they might also be able to access your Amazon account, your bank account, your GMail account–hopefully that gives you an idea of why this is bad practice.
- Don’t use words you’d find in a dictionary–not even a foreign language dictionary. Hackers feed these words into programs that attempt to brute force their way into a site.
- Same with keyboard patterns–
12345 and qwerty are terrible passwords. Don’t use repeating characters, either.
- Use a healthy mix of capital and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation, and math symbols. If a site doesn’t allow you to do so, experiment with different combinations to make sure you can still get as strong a password as possible–then send a note to the site to let them know they need tougher security policies.
- Be wary of sites that don’t use secure login forms. If you see telltale signs like padlocks and web addresses beginning with
https:// you should (should) be in the clear. If you don’t, definitely don’t reuse a password you’ve used elsewhere, and notify the site’s maintainers that they’re being irresponsible with your data–or better yet, find a competitor that takes your trust more seriously.
Many new technology trends and gadgets were introduced at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week in Las Vegas. This is the world’s largest tradeshow and hosts consumer technology exhibitors in more than 30 product categories. Here are the top five devices that caught our attention for 2012.
1. Cube Mouse by Logitech. This small computer mouse is 2″ x 1″ total, is USB chargeable with an on-off switch, and costs $70. Not only does it serve as a mouse but it also becomes a PowerPoint presenter remote when lifted up. Swipe your finger to control it as a mouse or pick it up and flip it over to use in presenter mode.
2. Asus Eee Pad MeMo ME370T tablet. This tablet is inexpensive and lightweight. When released this spring, it will cost just $250 and run the Android 4.0 OS. This device boasts a 7-inch 1280 x 800 resolution screen and includes a stylus for note-taking duties. The Me Mo has WiFi and Bluetooth capabilites as well as a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and 1080p Full HD video recording. 16GB and 32GB options will be available. (There isn’t an official website for this yet and, once released, it may have a different name.)
3. Android 4.0. Also known as Ice Cream Sandwich, this is the latest version of the Android platform for mobile devices. It is being slowly rolled out this spring, beginning with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone. This latest release will boast voice-recognition software (similar to iPhone’s Siri), a system bar, homescreen folders, resizable widgets, and enhanced accessibility features.
4. Kodak Playfull Dual video camera. This point and shoot camera captures video in 1080p HD as well as 12 megapixel photos. The Kodak Playfull (no thats not a typo, its how they’ve chosen to spell playful) features a mic jack, a built-in flash, and the ability to tag favorite photos for easy sharing. This camera runs about $200 and will be available in February.
5. SanDisk Extreme 64GB and 128GB memory cards. This 128GB memory card is the largest on the market. It can capture and store up to 10 hours of full HD 3D video or hold up to 4,000 photos. Data transfers at 45MBps, which is relatively quickly. They are currently available to be purchased for $199.99 and $399.99 respectively.
Yesterday, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opened its doors to over 100,000 participants in sunny Las Vegas. This is the world’s largest tradeshow and hosts consumer technology exhibitors in more than 30 product categories. This four-day event comes to a close on Friday. I’ll compile a list of the most buzzed about gadgets and report back at the end of this week.
CES is basically a big gathering where the most influential names in the consumer electronics business get to share what they’ve got in store for us in the upcoming year. We’re not attending in person, but there are still several ways to join the party from the comfort of our desks:
You know we love Dropbox at Stratepedia. We use it to share files in groups, send files as an alternative to email attachments, and copy ebooks to our tablets. If you’re like us, though, you might have glossed over a neat feature shown in the installation tutorial: Instant online photo galleries.
It may be easy to miss, but it’s just as easy to use. Just put some image files in a folder, and drop that folder into the Photos folder in your Dropbox folder (it’s automatically there, like the Public folder, when you set up Dropbox on your computer). Then right-click your folder and select Copy Public Gallery Link–this will give you a web address to paste into an email message, Facebook post, or anywhere you’d like to share your photos.
When someone clicks the link they’ll get a nice online gallery of your photos. The gallery makes it easy for viewers to zoom in on photos and even save them to their own computers.
The Photos folder works like Dropbox’s Public folder, meaning anyone who has the special web address for your photos can view (and download) individual images. Keep that in mind–in many cases this is a useful feature, but of course there are also times when you would want to keep your images a little more protected. In those cases you might want to create shared folders in Dropbox and specify the individuals with whom to share–just don’t forget to tell those people you don’t want them sharing your photos with others. Keep in mind, though, that the best way to keep photos and other documents secret is to not post them online at all–not even on Dropbox.
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