Posts Tagged
business
Within education there is a big debate going on about whether or not it is a good idea to let students bring their own mobile device (BYOD) to school to use in the classroom. As an educator who has been given the opportunity to test pilot an iPod Touch adoption in our school district, I definitely have my own thoughts on this issue. I think, whether we like it or not, we have to prepare and encourage students to bring their own devices. But, no matter what side of the debate we land on, one thing is for sure, the web is going to be a powerful place for education. It is a space that if developers can conquer and create great products, they will do well in the education space.
Now, we can also debate for a very long time about the future of technology in education and the how the web will or will not play a part in that. But, for now, I think it is the way to go, especially for its low cost and its accessibility. For example, for the past few weeks, I have been playing around with Presefy, which is a web based application that you can use to share your presentations. I originally started using it to see if it could work in my classroom and as a way for others to use it as well.
As an educator who is obsessed with technology, I am always looking for ways in which my class and I can use technology to help enhance their learning. I am also looking for ways to utilize the web with students as much as I can because it usually offers two things that are great for education. One, with the web, apps are usually accessible where ever there is a browser available, and that means students have no excuse to be able to access it. Two, most times, web apps are low cost or even free, which with education, is a huge thing being that budgets are always tight.
So, when I got to play around with Padlet for a couple of days, I really got excited for how I could use this both in my personal life as well as with my students. Padlet takes the concept of a blank piece of paper, and lets you put whatever you want on it and share it with people. With the web, this takes this “blank piece of paper” concept and lets you do even more. Let me show you more about what I am talking about.
Nowadays, it doesn’t take much to make your own website. You could probably go right now, get a site up say on WordPress.com, and have it running in about 5-10 minutes without even need to know anything about writing code. That’s made a basic site not enough. If you are like me, you not only want to create a website, but you want it to look good and to work well, but also not cost an arm and a leg. But still, you’ll likely want to create sites for all of your projects.
I’ve recently been trying out a new web app called Strikingly, which carves out its own niche for creating sites. It is not quite as powerful as WordPress, but still has some outstanding features. Let’s take a look at Strikingly in depth.
I’m not only a confessed app junkie, I’m an email hoarder, too. I just counted the number of accounts in Thunderbird and there are a whopping 19 email accounts that I monitor for various reasons. That’s not to mention my various social media accounts. As you can guess, I am always on the lookout for the next great app and I may have stumbled upon one.
Enter Unified Inbox, a new app designed to bring all of your inboxes together. It’s currently free in invite-only beta, and let’s find out how Unified Inbox can wrangle your email and social media accounts and keep you on top of your game. (more…)
The web has opened doors for many ways to share content. Up until a few years ago, when one gave a presentation and wanted others to see a visual, they had to have a projector. It was just a given. Now, though, with most people carrying an internet connected phone or tablet around these days, a projector is hardly a necessity.
Presentation.io is an app that’s actively trying to help make projectors less needed, in the board room, classroom, and anywhere else. If you remember, a while back I reviewed Canvas Dropr, an app from the same people who created this web app. The two apps have some similarities, but Presentation.io is a somewhat stripped down version of Canvas Dropr designed just to present ideas, speeches, and anything else you want to show to others. Let’s take it for a spin to see how it works and how it can possibly benefit you.
One of the things that I tend to spend way too much time on when I apply for a job is my resume. It seems like there are so many different schools of thought when it comes to preparing one for yourself. I have been told before that you should stick to it being one page long, and then I recently learned in a school admin course that it doesn’t matter how long it is and the more pages the better. In fact the professor, who is a superintendent of a school district, showed us his and it was five pages long! Needless to say, I am in need of updating mine, and so I decided to take a gander to see what was out on the web for me to try.
As I started to look around for ways to create one, I wanted a simple and easy way to get my information down on paper and yet have it be professional enough that I could use it in a job application. When I got the opportunity to play around with CV Maker, it seemed to meet the simplicity and ease of use factor, but was it enough for me? Let’s take a look.
The web can be a powerful place to advertise and to promote your business or yourself. There are so many different ways to advertise on the net and depending on how much you are willing to spend in time and money, you can definitely be creative with what you are trying to promote. But sometimes we don’t have the time or the finances to create something that goes viral and gets us a ton of exposure. Sometimes, we just want a simple way to let people know about our business or just to promote ourselves.
If you fall into this category, don’t fear, there are still a wide variety of ways that you can promote your business on the web without having to fork over a lot of money. One of those ways can be done using a cool web app called Onepager, where you can create your own page to promote just about anything you want to. I have been playing with it for most of the day and I have to say I was intrigued by it and I could definitely see the different possibilities for how it can be used.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” is the question your Twitter account answers.
Opinions, experiences, current geographic location and ability to find hilarious links are what set one tweeter apart from the next. The platform itself evolved from a simple ‘status update’ tool to a flourishing ecosystem of people interacting, sharing and discovering.
As with any ecosystem there are those on top and those at the bottom. The higher you are the more active followers and influence you’ll have. This is a fairly useless observation for those who use Twitter to find news and check up on friends. But for people who use Twitter to interact with a community, market their product or service or research a segment of people, analyzing a Twitter account is a top priority.
Here’s a few tools that’ll will check out your Twitter, tell you what’s going on in the world and how much power you hold in it. (more…)
As the web continues to get better and better, something that I take for granted a lot of the time is the amount of information that is on it. It continues to amaze me at how I can type in a random question or phrase and usually always find an answer very quickly and easily. Add on top of that the increase in blogging and how easy it is for someone to set one up, you will soon have an internet with an almost infinite wealth of knowledge.
But, what about those times where you want to ask a specific question to people, and you want to gather information and opinions in somewhat real time? Yes, a Google search can help with that, but it doesn’t always get the job done. Enter in a web app called Branch, where you can ask questions in real time and get answers from the millions of people around the world. I have been able to test it out over the past week or so, and I have learned some interesting things about it and how it works.
There are many help desk apps and software suites available, including Zendesk, HappyFox, and more. Desk.com is a support app owned by leading CRM solution, Salesforce.com and is designed to help you efficiently assist and interact with your customers.
Let’s take a look at Desk.com and see what it has to offer and how it compares to other options. (more…)
