How to Use The Now Habit to End Student Procrastination #yam

English: A Diagram of procrastination cycle. T...
English: A Diagram of procrastination cycle. Task features, internal factors, irrational beliefs, behavior and consequences are shown. used for a university assessment. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Now Habit is a book written by Neil Fiore, Ph.D., who is a licensed psychologist, author, and former president of the Northern California Society of Clinical Hypnosis, which explores in depth a topic that teachers are far too familiar with: procrastination. In the book, the author goes into methods that professionals and students alike can use to increase their productivity, stop putting things off, and (the cherry on top) enjoy more guilt-free leisure time.

This article goes into five ways teachers can help their students reduce stress by using the methods learned from The Now Habit to remove procrastination from their vernacular. Show your students how to combine these methods with awesome goal setting skills (the Reverse Engineering Method is a good one) to create the consummate student.

via How to Use The Now Habit to End Student Procrastination | Edudemic.

Never trust a corporation to do a library’s job — The Message — Medium #yam

English: Art Impact, Collective Retinal Memory...
English: Art Impact, Collective Retinal Memory – Maurice Benayoun Virtual Reality, Internet, interactive music (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As Google abandons its past, Internet archivists step in to save our collective memory

via Never trust a corporation to do a library’s job — The Message — Medium.

Essential Guide to Visual Thinking for E-Learning #yam


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Here are two common challenges when building online training courses: knowing what content needs to be in the course and then having the right visuals to support the learning of that content. One way to overcome these challenges is to increase your visual thinking skills. You’ll learn to focus on the right content and then find the right visuals to support what you’re teaching.

via Essential Guide to Visual Thinking for E-Learning.

Safer Internet Day 2014: Microsoft drives trainings and events in 20 countries across Europe #yam

Image representing Microsoft as depicted in Cr...
Image via CrunchBase

Safer Internet Day SID is an annual, global campaign that promotes a healthy Internet for everyone. Organized by Insafe and co-founded by the European Union, Safer Internet Day encourages the responsible use of online technologies and services.  This year’s theme, “Let’s create a better Internet together,” reminds us that we all have an active role to play in helping to protect our families, information, and devices.

Microsoft continues its commitment to help make the Internet safer for people of all ages and abilities through investments in family safety technology, key partnerships, and consumer education and guidance.

To mark SID, we are launching an interactive website—Microsoft.com/SaferOnline—where people can #Do1Thing to stay safer online and create a better Internet, learn what others around the world are doing to avoid risks, and raise Microsoft dollars for TechSoup Global, a nonprofit organization using technology to solve global problems & foster social change.

via Safer Internet Day 2014: Microsoft drives trainings and events in 20 countries across Europe.

ExamTime Gives Students a Place to Post Mind Maps, Notes, and Quizzes

Mind map of the mind map guidelines.
Mind map of the mind map guidelines. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

ExamTime is a free web service that gives students and teachers a place to organize mind maps, flashcards, quizzes, reports, class notes, and more. The service was designed for students and educators, and you can use it to store your own notes and class materials, or use it to collaborate with classmates.

ExamTime has specific templates for storing mind maps, flashcards, notes, and quizzes, so they’re the easiest to add. As you upload them, you build out a collection of study data thats easy to refer back to when you need to brush up for an exam. The services study planner also makes it easy to build a schedule for your classes and your after-class study sessions, so you can make sure youre studying the right topics at the best times. Plus, everything you post can be made public or private, and shared with friends on or off the service, so comparing notes and quizzes is a snap.

via ExamTime Gives Students a Place to Post Mind Maps, Notes, and Quizzes.

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Getting Started with Windows Azure and IaaS – TechNet UK – Site Home – TechNet Blogs

Image representing Microsoft as depicted in Cr...
Image via CrunchBase

Are you an active user of Windows Azure? Tried it and not convinced, or yet to give it a go? There are a whole range of resources available to help you get to grips with the Cloud and harness the power of Azure, and we have recently released a number of new free documents on top of whats already out there. More than that, we also have some free events planned to introduce the multitude of Azure services available and give you the chance to ask questions to Microsoft experts and partners. You can find a summary below, along with some great examples of how it all really works in practice.

via Getting Started with Windows Azure and IaaS – TechNet UK – Site Home – TechNet Blogs.

On Being a Data Skeptic – O’Reilly Media

Tim O'Reilly 2005 Where 2.0 Conference1
Tim O’Reilly 2005 Where 2.0 Conference1 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Data is here, it’s growing, and it’s powerful.”

Author Cathy O’Neil argues that the right approach to data is skeptical, not cynical––it understands that, while powerful, data science tools often fail.

Data is nuanced, and “a really excellent skeptic puts the term ‘science’ into ‘data science.'” The big data revolution shouldn’t be dismissed as hype, but current data science tools and models shouldn’t be hailed as the end-all-be-all, either.

via On Being a Data Skeptic – O’Reilly Media.

The secret to finding high quality educational iOS apps – EduBloggery

Mac App Store
Mac App Store (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you’re looking to spread your digital wings a bit, you probably want to find some of the highest quality educational iOS apps available. You probably head over to the official Apple App Store on your chosen iDevice and check out the ‘featured’ area and perhaps the ‘Top Sellers’ list. That’s great and a solid way to see what is being used on devices around the world.

For the most part, though, all those top apps are either just big names or have had some recent promotion. As someone who once made an iPad app, I know what it’s like to try and get your app onto one of those promoted areas in the App Store. You would do just about anything because, as I found out, your sales and download numbers skyrocket as soon as you crack the top 100 apps in your category.

So how should you avoid the crazy featured and top sellers lists? By becoming familiar with the category filters, of course!

via The secret to finding high quality educational iOS apps – EduBloggery.

Building more beautiful Line of Business apps using LightSwitch – MSDN UK Team blog – Site Home – MSDN Blogs

The Microsoft Visual Studio .NET logo.
The Microsoft Visual Studio .NET logo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We talk a lot about building and designing consumer apps but what about line of business apps?

The new features in Visual Studio LightSwitch are designed to help you build beautiful, mobile business productivity apps without having to write a lot of code. You can create SharePoint apps and HTML5 client apps – the LightSwitch templates provide the fit and finish so you can get your app up and running pretty quickly and WPF, Silverlight and SketchFlow to Blend for Visual Studio have recently been added to the toolset.

LightSwitch HTML clients are built on standards-compliant HTML5 and JavaScript and provide touch-first experiences on Windows RT, Windows Phone 8, iPhones and iPads with iOS 5 and 6, and Android 4.x devices.

via Building more beautiful Line of Business apps using LightSwitch – MSDN UK Team blog – Site Home – MSDN Blogs.

You Don’t Need Complex Charts to Tell Powerful Stories | Visual.ly Blog

whatyoutweet
whatyoutweet (Photo credit: Kim Tairi)

One common misconception about creating infographics is that more is better. The more data, the better! The more eye-popping design, the better! Make those charts as complex as can be, turn that bar chart into a circle to make it more interesting… or just come up with a whole new type of chart that no one understands.

It doesn’t have to be this way. If your data tells a good story, sometimes all you need is a simple chart – one single chart – to tell it. No need to add more facts and figures, simply to expand on the argument — or to garnish everything with flashy images and eye-popping illustrations.

via You Don’t Need Complex Charts to Tell Powerful Stories | Visual.ly Blog.