Archive/Export Moodle forum with Evernote Clearly

Until recently it has been very difficult to export or save a copy of a forum from within Moodle (unless you download and install another forum plugin) . Evernote (and specifically Clearly) have made this process much easier! I must thank my colleague and faculty member at Beloit College, Bill New, for sharing this tip with me.

Bring in da noise, bring in da funk

Well it has been a while since I have posted. It will actually be another bit until I post again as I will be heading to a Moodle conference and then onto a little vacation. One of the ideas that I have been chewing on lately has been how to manage the stream of information that comes my way. We are inundated with information. Even with means to manage this stream (RSS and readers, listservs) there are times when the stream feels overwhelming.

Google Plus and Blogger available for Beloit College Google Apps

If you havent seen the news about Google Plus and Blogger for Beloit College, click here.

This is a welcome addition to our group of apps at Beloit College. This post is the first on the new platform. If you have followed the blog or commented on any of the posts (thank you to those who have!), I have been experimenting with platforms - mainly between Blogger and Wordpress. The fact that we now have Blogger enabled for the domain sways me in that direction. I would like to experiment with Wordpress in the future, but I think that will wait a little while.

There have been a number of requests for a blogging platform on campus. I think that this will be a great tool for humanities, writing/English in particular and other disciplines looking for a way to allow students to reflect on the work they are doing. It could also be a good tool for departments looking for another way to market themselves and add to their sites on the main Beloit.edu pages.

 I am excited to get back to blogging. it has been a while now, few weeks at least, and I miss the challenge/opportunity/outlet. I am not sure if I will be able to keep up a once a week pace. I may need to adjust that a bit. I think that I would like to have something of substance and perhaps giving myself more time to do that will help facilitate that. But I digress... I must return to my chores for now but hope to see you all very soon!

Cheers!

Interesting Reading

Well...I haven't had much time to write the past week. Moodle has consumed most of my attention. I have gathered a group of articles that have come across my desk that I think may be helpful or thought provoking. I will list them here and provide a quick summary of why I think they are noteworthy.

The first in the round up is an article about QGIS or Quantum Geographocal Information System. The Chronicle's Profhacker blog presented an article about the benefits of QGIS. I look forward to downloading and trying this out.

Second is an artical from Digital Inspiration about how to record screencasts on and iPad or iPhone. As mobile devices become more ubiquitous, it is important from a training/teaching perspective to be able to show how to access your device and the content on it.

The third article is titled, "Pros and Cons of Social media in the Classroom". There are stron proponents on either side of the argument for or against. I will not share my opinion here, but perhaps in a future post. This article is good food for thought.

In light of the last article the last item is an article about how to properly cite a tweet. If you decide to use social media tools (of which Twitter is one of many, it is important to be able to use them properly.

Please feel free to comment on any of these tools or articles. Cheers!

Image by sashomasho

Password Management with Lastpass

Now what was that password again? Our world is requiring more and more passwords. Remembering them requires that a person either creates a simple password that is easy to remember, but less secure or one that is more secure, but difficult to remember. So what to do?
I would definitely recommend erring on the side of caution and creating a more secure password over convenience. There are many methods for creating secure passwords - here is an excellent Lifehacker article on the subject. But what do I do with all these passwords I have to remember? Enter Lastpass. This service keeps track of all your passwords in a secure cloud environment. If you are concerned about the cloud, you can try KeePass. Lastpass works will Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera. There are also mobile verisons for all the major mobile flavors. Lastpass can auto-fill or auto-login to sites you visit, generate secure passwords based on the criteria you set and fill out online forms. Everything is secured with a master password. You only need to remember this single password. This makes managing passwords so much easier.

What do you do to manage passwords?