In a recent Technology Fellows meeting, the conversation turned to the topic of e-mail. Faculty in the room expressed frustration with the burden imposed by ever-increasing e-mail inboxes. For many, messages from students, administrators, committees, and peers pile up and create a crowded inbox, with hundreds of unread or unfiled e-mails. Here are a few…
Category: Productivity
Beyond Pencil and Paper: Audio Assignments Via Moodle
My choir students expressed that they wanted to be assessed more often so that they would be more motivated to practice. At that time, I was having students sign up in small groups for “check in” meetings. While this was valuable, it was difficult to give individual feedback to all 40 students and could not…
From the Archives: Advising Week Tip
By request, I am reposting this information about using Appointment Slots for scheduling meetings with students. The post was originally published on November 9, 2014. Enjoy! Because it is advising week, and because I had a request (thanks, Emily Morash!), this post is all about automating the process of setting up meeting times with students….
Dish Up Your Syllabi with Google Docs
A couple years ago, I did away with the static PDF files and began presenting my syllabi as dynamic web pages on Moodle. This approach allowed me to more efficiently update the parts of my courses that inevitably evolve during the semester, build in links to content on my Moodle course sites, and make a…
P-Card Accounting On the Fly (or in Vietnam)
Institutional credit cards, or purchase cards (‘p-cards’ for short), are quickly becoming part of the routine work habits of some faculty and many staff in higher education. Although the adoption of the p-card has obvious benefits to an institution, it can also create more work for more people, resulting in a net uptick in time…
My Lynda Playlist
New courses are added daily to Lynda.com. I subscribed to the lynda.com email list to keep updated on the latest and greatest (if you’re interested, you can subscribe, too!). I now have a running list of courses that interest me saved in a playlist. Once the semester winds down, I plan on visiting my playlist…
Technologies for Making Appointments and Learning Student Names
As a Technology Fellow, I have been working to find ways to incorporate new technologies into my classes and assignments. With the semester about to begin, I wanted to share two simple technologies that have consistently been saving me a lot of time and frustration. While the first simply limits the number of emails in my inbox (using Google…
Easing the Time Demand of PCard Accounting
Higher education is rapidly transitioning to purchasing card programs as a means of streamlining the process by which services and goods are procured by employees. With recent growth of the credit payment industry, colleges and universities are embracing purchasing cards, or “pcards”. Pcards are meant to reduce transaction costs, allow access to supplier discounts, eliminate delay…
Collaborating with Students & Shared Google Folders
This semester, students in my course ARC 231: Interiors of Connecticut College, were tasked with working collaboratively and to find ways to effectively and efficiently share their progress with one another. From my initial course planning and development, I knew that this would be a challenge, especially considering that for the first two projects in the course, the class…
Teaching with Tomatoes
Despite lingering snow on the ground, spring has officially begun. And that means tomatoes! Not the luscious red garden staple, but the productivity technique! The Pomodoro Technique is a proven and highly favored productivity aid. It helps to focus, avoid distractions, and get things done in short bursts. As explained on Lifehacker.com, The Pomodoro Technique was invented in…
