Whose history? Your history!

myHistro is an app that gives students the ability to create interactive, embeddable timelines for use in Canvas or as projects on their own. Users can incorporate text, audio and video alongside a Google Map that can play at a designated pace or that the user can click-through on their own.

myHistro gives students the ability to demonstrate their understanding of historical events and offers an incredibly rich use case scenario for a lot of classrooms. Check out this example of a myHistro project - the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay.

Happy creating!

Mobile Portal for Faculty

Our ITS department has communicated some exciting news recently about the release of our new Faculty MOBILE Portal Site! 

Faculty are now able to log in to a mobile-friendly version of the portal by navigating to my.baypath.edu/go on a smartphone or tablet. Once you go to my.baypath.edu/go, tap on the 'Mobile Faculty Portal Login' link and you will be able to log in to the mobile Faculty Portal.

On mobile portal site, faculty will be able to:

• See an overview of a term's course schedule, along with dates, locations, and times

• Get class listings for each course, along with each student's photo ID (unless they are FERPA-restricted), and email the student(s) enrolled in the course directly

• Enter grades on the portal from the mobile site

• Review advisee information, including advisor's type (for example, WELL, MAJOR, etc.) and email advisees directly

• Search room availability on each campus.

No new login is needed for the mobile portal site; use the same login as you do for the desktop portal site.  You'll still enjoy automatic login to your Bay Path Gmail and the mobile site is accessible via any device on any platform!

There is so much more to see!  Checkout the site by going to my.baypath.edu/go on a smartphone or tablet! 

Please reach out to Jill Cooney (jcooney@baypath.edu) if you have any other questions or feedback!

The Writing On The Wall

Reply All is a show about the internet. They have stories about people who buy up URLs and make payments in a very public forum, but this is not one of those stories.

The description of this show from their site: "Yik Yak is an app that allows users to communicate anonymously with anyone within a 10-mile radius. At Colgate University in upstate New York, the anonymity brought out a particularly vicious strain of racism that shook the school."

I recommend everyone take the time minutes to listen to it. Pretty powerful stuff that can start some great conversations here at BPU.

Recommended Browser Extensions & Add-Ons

Browser Extensions are the best. Anything that cuts a workflow in half or removes distractions, I'm 100% for it. Here are some of my favorites:

AdBlock: Safari/Chrome
1Password: Safari/Chrome
Evernote Web Clipper: Safari/Chrome
Facebook Blocker: Safari
Facebook Disconnect: Safari/Chrome
Disconnect: Chrome
Clearly: Chrome
Save to Drive: Chrome
Awesome Screenshot: Safari/Chrome
Turn off the Lights: Safari

There are lots more for Safari here and Chrome here. You can find information for Firefox here and Internet Explorer here.

If you use any Extensions or Add-Ons daily, leave a comment and let us know all about it!

Easier Access to your (Work/Life) Calendars

Managing any semblance of a balanced calendar isn't the easiest thing to do, especially when a new semester starts or you're thinking about when that next NEASC meeting is. Oh, and work/life balance...that's in there as well.

Luckily, Google Labs has a feature to help you get the most out of your online experience so you get back to focusing on the real-world activities at hand! 

This Lab keeps a copy of your Google Calendar open as a separate pane in Gmail, so you can toggle between your Calendar and Chat at any time.

Free Media for Classroom Use

Using Open Source and Fair Use resources challenge and educate our students in digital literacy, sharing, research and citation skills.

Below are some of my favorite places to find content, and we have the awesome folks over at Hatch to help with everything our students need.

The Noun Project: Icons

Open Culture: Written Works, Text Books, Movies

Project Gutenberg: Written Works (including Shelley, Stoker, Joyce and Kafka)

Creative Commons: Images, Audio, Web, Video

Unsplash: Images

Using Google to search for free content: View Lesson 3.

Coding. It's a Big Deal.

Code by Eugen Belyakoff (CC by 3.0)


Coding. It's kind of a big deal.

There are a lot of free, web-based tools to help students of all ages learn how to code. These sites will help them learn how to make their own smart phone app, control the lights on Christmas Trees at the White House or create their own beats.

You never know when you'll help a student unlock their potential!

Code.org
Madewithcode.com
Scratch
Scratch, Jr.

Workflow: Final Paper and Presentation

Writing a final paper for my graduate course this semester, I thought it might be nice to share some insight into the technology used and the workflow used to complete the assignment. As always - questions and comments are encouraged!

The Technology

• 13" MacBook Pro (running OS X 10.10)
• iPad Mini (running iOS 8)
• iPhone 6 (running iOS 8)
• Hearthstone (just one...more...game. Then I'll get back checking that APA format...)
• Breville One-Touch Tea Maker (one cannot study without a nice warm cup of tea)

App	Use	Platform
Evernote	Notes, Reminders	OS X, iOS, Web
Skitch	PDF Markup	OS X, iOS
Pages	Writing the Paper	OS X, iOS, Web
Numbers	Tracking Mentions within PDFs	OS X, iOS
Keynote	Presentation	OS X, iOS
RefMe	Bibliography	iOS, Web

Reference Sites Utilized:

• Purdue OWL (APA formatting)
• ERIC (Article Research)
• Google Scholar (Article Research)

Check List by Sabine Wollender from the Noun Project

The Workflow

1. Choose topic and review with faculty member.
2. Create notes in Evernote that chart Final Paper/Presentation progress
3. Research topic via ERIC and Google Scholar
4. Save URLs into Evernote
5. Create a spreadsheet charting key words and terms within the research papers in Numbers
6. Open URLs and save PDF articles into Evernote
7. Markup PDFs via Evernote and Skitch for iPad
8. Write research paper in Pages
9. Check against Purdue OWL APA formatting standards
10. Use the abstract of the paper to outline a 15m presentation in Keynote

App Discovery: Katie Jones

Title: Director of H&W

About Me: My name is Katie Jones and I am the Director of Health and Wellness, Head Field Hockey Coach and teach in the WELL program.  In summary, I get to help support students in their development in and out of the classroom.  I am a secret absolute geek and love technology and apps and enjoy staying up-to-date with the latest tech news. 

App 1: Evernote combines lots of different meetings notes in one place.

App 2: Poll Everywhere - such an amazing way to engage my class, especially the more introverted students.

App 3: Lift - great wellness goal tracking and quick and easy reminders built in.

App Discovery: Adrian Garcia Sega

Title: Co-director

App 1: Notability  I import all pdfs and associated documents for meetings and projects and keep it backed up through google drive!  It allows me to mark up those documents and make my own notes.

App 2: Google Drive/Dropbox Google Drive/Dropbox.  A nice repository for all my documents that allows me to move them around from one device to the other!

The New York Times. For Free.

How great would it be if you could access the New York Times for free? Thanks to the awesome Hatch Library staff, you can! (Note: This is for current faculty, staff and students only!)

Please visit the Reference Guides site for all the information you need to get started!

App Discovery: Rachel Alter

Title: Librarian

About Me: Reference and Instruction Services 

App 1: Doc Scan has been a great help to students here in the library when the printer/scanner is down. It scans to PDFs, doing the same thing the big scanner does, and eliminating the step of emailing the scan to yourself.

App 2: Overdrive, which can be used with an eCard at the Boston Public Library, for downloading audiobook titles from their huge collection, and then listening to them on your commute.

App Discovery: Dave Wallace

Title: Associate Professor of Psychology

App 1: Notabilty - I was very fortunate to pick this up when it came out; it is an outstanding note taking app that is still my go-to one for taking notes at meetings, lectures, conferences, etc. Directories, Solid organization (where can move files into your own named directories etc), and Exporting features. Most of all - their CS is without peer. When I once had a problem after upgrading my iOS, they responded within hours When that fix didn't work someone else got back to me 5 hours later with a fix.

App 2: Toodledo - A great task manager. Less detailed than some of the more formal GTD apps, (it is streamlined), but it still allows for Outlines, Notes, Dates and Times due, Alarms, Repeating a task, Searchers. etc.

*tie*

mSecure - a fantastic encryption app. It can transfer to Mac, PC, and mobile formats. You can wifi to update each one (so you can enter passwords etc in one, and they pop up in the other), and you can save your info in an encrypted form as a backup.

App 3: Weblock - a great way to reduce the number of ads, scripts etc that we pick up along the way. It creates and manages your PAC (proxy auto configuration), and uses a dummy proxy to allow you to not get many of those ads and other things that pop up.

*tie*

Plants vs Zombies/Bloons 5! Everyone needs a fun game now and then to unwind -- and these are pretty fun ones regardless of one's background, interests, and abilities.

App Discovery

Bay Path University Community,

There has been a lot of interest expressed that there be suggested apps, along with tips and tricks, posted more regularly to the Center for Online & Digital Learning's blog.

However, we want to engage more with you: We are seeking faculty and staff that want to share their favorite apps and why they can't live without them. Think of them as Indispensable Apps.

Be on the lookout soon for an email containing all the information that you'll need to be a member of this awesome group.

Thank you in advance!!


Chris Gaudreau
cgaudreau@baypath.edu
Learning Technologist
Center for Online & Digital Learning

Referencing Made Easy

For those of us who do a lot of research and paper writing (but maybe don't love it...) I've found the following apps that may come in handy. I'm going to work with both of them this semester, and thought you may find them interesting:

RefMe  - Create references for multiple types of media and export to popular formats like APA and MLA. Web-based, with apps for iOS and Android. Free.

Video Overview of RefMe

Papers - Search for and create references via academic journals and Google Scholar. Supports in-app annotations. Can sync with iOS, Mac, Windows and Web. $79 desktop and $9.99 iOS. Papers is very loaded with content, hence the hefty price tag.

Happy Referencing!