By Katie Maricic
Would you like to be more productive at work and in your daily life? Are you looking for shared spaces to collaborate with colleagues, a replacement for your USB drive, or more exciting presentation tools? This article discusses apps and websites that will help streamline your life, including cloud computing, tools to make more effective presentations, and apps and sites to help you manage to-do lists and focus on goals.
As an information literacy instructor, I consistently find new ways to manage my documents and discover tools to create more engaging presentations. My colleague, Bonnie Lafazan (Library Director of Berkeley College’s Woodbridge Campus Library) is interested in trying out new time management and to-do productivity apps. We presented our findings as a three-part program series geared to teach students how to be more productive in their schoolwork by using free web tools. The students, staff and faculty in attendance unanimously responded to our survey that the tools learned in the program series would help them increase productivity in their college, work and personal lives. We shared our program development tips with our NJ library colleagues at Best Practices Teaching Technology to Your Community during LibraryLink NJ’s Technology Speed Dating Program at Monroe Public Library. At this April’s Computers in Libraries Conference in Washington, D.C., we presented the tools to fellow librarians in our Cool Productivity Tools workshop. Now you have the opportunity to learn about these tools, and teach them to your library users!
Bonnie Lafazan (left) and Katie Maricic of Berkeley College
Cloud Computing
Perhaps the ultimate way to take advantage of the Internet is to harness the power of the cloud. Cloud computing allows you to access files from anywhere- saving you time otherwise spent looking for a lost flash drive or emailing multiple versions of documents to yourself. Many competing companies have their own versions of cloud software. Microsoft has SkyDrive, Google has Google Drive, and Apple has iCloud, to name a few. The list continues with apps such as Dropbox and countless other cloud storage apps and websites.
SkyDrive, Google Drive and iCloud all allow you to store files on the Internet, as well as create documents, spreadsheets and presentations online without downloading software. The ability to create and edit documents online makes it easier than ever to collaborate with colleagues- simultaneously working on documents, making comments, and viewing past versions.
SkyDrive offers 7GB of free storage and allows you to work in web-based versions of Microsoft’s Office programs (Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote) without having to spend the big bucks to purchase the software. SkyDrive is my personal favorite because it is compatible with most of the formatting in Office files, meaning that you can work on a document on your desktop in Word, upload and edit in SkyDrive, then download it again without botching the formatting. This makes it easy to access documents on your different devices, as well as share them with others using different operating systems such as Mac, Windows, or Linux. You simply need a Microsoft email address (Hotmail, Outlook, Xbox Live, etc.) in order to use SkyDrive.
Google Drive allows for 5GB of free cloud storage, and has its own version of the Microsoft Office suite- Docs, Sheets, and Slides. You can create files online using these applications, or upload files from your computer/mobile device and edit them in Google Drive. Google Drive works great when you create, edit and present files using their platform; however, you may run into formatting problems if you upload from other programs and edit online. Create a Gmail account to get started. You will also gain access to Google’s many other apps, including Calendar, Trends, Alerts, Sites and more!
iCloud allows Mac users to access all of their apps on any device, as well as work in Pages, Keynote and Numbers via the cloud. It offers 5GB of free storage, and allows you to easily access your calendar, contacts and notes, even on a PC.
Dropbox is another file sharing tool. Unlike the previously mentioned cloud tools, you cannot use Dropbox to edit files online. The 2GB of cloud storage is contained in folders that you download to your desktops and devices, and share with others. Whenever you drag a file into one of your Dropbox folders, it automatically updates in all of your Dropbox folders across all devices.
Presentation Tools
For many of us librarians, presenting is a big part of our daily responsibilities. Whether we are teaching an information literacy class, presenting a cultural program, or justifying budgets to boards of trustees, our presentations should be eye-catching and attention-grabbing. The web offers many free tools as alternatives to the commonplace PowerPoint presentation.
Prezi is a very visual, cloud-based presentation software. It is similar to a whiteboard and allows you to zoom in on key points. Screencast-o-matic lets you create videos to show patrons what you see on your screen- great for tutorials! Use ThingLink to tag images with links, videos, music, and text in order to creatively and visually present all of your information in one place. With Slideshare you can share and embed your presentations, as well as search through other users’ presentations.
Videos are a great way to capture the attention of your audience. At times it is hard to find the perfect video on YouTube, but luckily there are many entertaining web tools that let you create your own. GoAnimate and XtraNormal create fun animations. Mozilla PopcornMaker allows you to enhance a your own video or videos from YouTube by inserting pop-up bubbles filled with trivia, articles, maps, and images, reminiscent of VH1’s Pop Up Video. With One True Media you can mix your photos and videos using effects, music and text. Photos can also add pizzazz to a presentation. At our Computers in Libraries presentation, audience members really gravitated towards Be Funky, a free photo editor with many effects and frames.
Going along with the visual theme, infographics are the hot new thing in presenting information. Whether you show them in a presentation or a report, infographics make any statistics more interesting. A few sites for creating your own infographics include Infogr.am, Easel.ly, Picktochart and Visual.ly. They all have a limited range of free templates and images. Although not technically for inforgraphics, Skitch (an Evernote product), is another image editor that allows you to add emphasis and text to images.
Finally, it is crucial to assess your audience to see what they enjoyed and learned…and what they did not. SurveyMonkey allows you to poll audience members by linking to a survey you create. PollEverywhere turns phones into audience response tools, allowing everyone to answer your poll via text message. Gathering data using these sites will help you prepare for future presentations.
Time Management, To-Dos, and Goals
Too often and too easily we become overwhelmed by life and all its problems. Managing your time can become a daunting task. Thankfully, software companies provide what seems like an endless stream of time management, to-do list, and goal management apps and websites to make our lives a little easier. Here is a list of a few in no particular order. Test them out to see which one works best for you!
First, there is Toggl, an app/site that allows you to time how long it takes to complete tasks. A stop clock measures the time spent on tasks, and a pie chart shows you how long you have spent on one project compared to another. Toggl is a great tool for anyone who wants to improve their habits (i.e. make sure you do not spend too much time on Facebook) or for anyone who wants to use the data to justify a project/budget/staffing, etc.
Evernote is another app/site great for tracking to-do’s. It is a place to store ideas, reminders, projects, photos and notes so that they are easily accessible from anywhere. Remember the Milk is great if you have a Gmail account since it syncs with your Google Calendar. Astrid is an app with a little octopus that keeps you motivated. Any.DO is a to-do app with voice recognition. Other options include Google Tasks, OneNote Mobile, Clear, Workflowy, Toodledo and Wunderlist.
Teaching Technology to Your Users
As librarians we must not keep these productivity tools to ourselves, but rather share the tools with our users so that they may also become more efficient. Teaching these apps and websites to our users will not only help them become more technically literate, but will also help us justify our presence in our colleges and universities by maintaining our roles as gatekeepers of knowledge. To learn more about how to teach technology and other tools to your community, be sure to check out our presentation on “How to Teach Technology Through Creative Library Programming" at the NJLA 2013 Conference at Revel on Tuesday, June 4. Stop by our poster to learn more about how to share your newfound knowledge of productivity apps and websites (and other technologies) with your users!
Please email me at kem@berkeleycollege.edu if you would like a copy of the detailed handout from our Computer in Libraries workshop- complete with more apps and websites!
Katie Maricic is a Reference and Instruction Librarian at Berkeley College. She can be reached at kem@berkeleycollege.edu.