Posted by Ahmed Gewiley-Elbakly on 2013 May 13 at 11:40 AM
As the end finals season draws near and the warm summer months are just around the corner, it’s easy to become distracted and lose your focus. Enter RescueTime, a tool that can help curb your distractions and manage your study time more effectively.
RescueTime is an application that, once installed on your computer, will track how and where you spend your time. With a two-week free trial of the “pro” version (perfect for this last stretch of finals!), RescueTime can alert you if you are procrastinating too much, block distracting applications and websites, and give you positive feedback when you’re productive.
RescueTime, used over long periods of time, can truly help you “rescue” your time by telling you exactly how much of your day goes to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, eBay, and various other distractions, and encouraging you to be more productive.
To learn more about RescueTime, visit OIRT’s Tools for Teaching and Learning page.
Posted by Ahmed Gewiley-Elbakly on 2013 April 24 at 1:52 PM
There are social media platforms that exist for every type of social exchange: Facebook for sharing your interests, Instagram for photos, YouTube for videos, and so on. However, all of these are social networks primarily built for friends. How, then, do you connect to your professional network?
The answer comes in the form of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social networking website where users create professional profiles where they can display their achievements and goals, and connect with potential employers, co-workers, and other colleagues.
Having a LinkedIn profile is an excellent way for students, faculty, and everyone in between to connect with one another in a professional manner, and is a great way to explore career opportunities and network with people that you would not have been able to connect to otherwise.
To learn more about LinkedIn, visit OIRT’s Tools for Teaching and Learning page.
Posted by Gayle Stein on 2013 April 23 at 9:54 AM
Lately there has been a great deal of discussion about the importance of measuring a college’s return on investment. Is the point of a college education quantifiable results or personal and intellectual growth? In pursuit of answers, The Chronicle of Higher Education asked a selection of higher-education leaders.
Posted by Ahmed Gewiley-Elbakly on 2013 April 10 at 5:47 PM
Sometimes when you want to show someone something on your computer, a simple screenshot just doesn’t cut it. You want to record and send a video, but most screen capturing software is much too complicated and unsuitable for simply sharing a video with others quickly and easily. Not Jing, which is a great solution solution in this situation.
Jing is a screen-casting application that lives on your desktop and is always easily accessible at the click of a button. It’ll allow you to record your computer’s screen for up to 5 minutes for free, and then give you the ability to share it instantly via a link, email, and/or social media.
Jing makes for a great way to make quick instructional videos, tutorials, or to quickly show someone else a problem you are having. For example, instructors can demonstrate how to accomplish a certain task to show their students. Additionally, there are countless other uses for the tool.
To learn more about Jing, visit OIRT’s Tools for Teaching and Learning page.
Posted by Ahmed Gewiley-Elbakly on 2013 April 1 at 6:03 PM
Dropbox, in the simplest sense, is a service that allows you to store 2GB worth of your files online. However, in practice, Dropbox can truly be a life saver.
In addition to simply backing up your files online, Dropbox allows you to access your stored files from anywhere with internet access, including mobile devices. You are never without your Dropbox. And if you choose to share a set of files or folders with others, doing so is as simple as a click of a button.
When you download Dropbox to your computer, anything you put into the special Dropbox folder it creates is automatically uploaded to the cloud without any hassle. In the same respect, if you are in a shared folder with multiple people, any files they upload are automatically synchronized and downloaded for you.
Now, when it comes time to present to your colleagues your work, you will never again have to worry about forgetting your flash drive. When all is said and done, Dropbox ultimately offers peace of mind.
To learn more about Dropbox, visit OIRT’s Tools for Teaching and Learning page.
