During the first two weeks of this semester we hosted an open, anyone-is-invited poll for students using our computer labs, asking them to tell us about their technology use.  Only 63 students participated, which is not too surprising during the opening of classes, where most students have many other things to worry about.  Nevertheless, the results closely parallel national polls and studies, which is a bit surprising for a survey so unscientific as ours.  The survey asked 20 questions, ten of which are reported below.  I will post at a later time on the others.  These results, along with their...

Yesterday I posted on the most useful tips & tricks about using Google Search.  Today I would like to post on what to do once you use Google to go to a web page that may (or may not) contain the specific information you are looking for. For a simple example, let’s say I am examining a transcript of the original 1787 constitution of the  United States, looking for what it had to say about slavery.  I find a transcript from a reliable source (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html) and I press Ctrl-F on my keyboard (Command-F if you are using a Mac) and the find...

The most creative publisher of apps for iPad today is Touch Press, responsible for such works as The Waste Land, X is for X-Ray, Barefoot World Atlas, Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomy, and Theodore Gray’s remarkable The Elements.  Their latest triumph is The Orchestra, a rich, expansive exposition on symphonic classical music featuring the principal conductor of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra Esa-Pekka Salonen and the musicians of the orchestra.  The work features the performance by the orchestra of 8 great works of symphonic music, not entire compositions, which would make it expansive indeed,...

Evernote is one of those “must have” research and personal organizational tools that quickly becomes essential.  Here are several tips to help you use Evernote efficiently, especially if you are new to the product. Organize your Notebooks into Stacks Casual Evernote users start making notebooks and soon discover that there are several related notebooks scattered about their list of all notebooks.  Wouldn’t it be nice if you could organize them into a folder?  You can.  Containers that hold a collection of notebooks in Evernote are called “stacks,” and they are super...

Once a year the Howard Hughes Medical Institute presents a series of holiday lectures which are streamed on the web.  Normally the lectures will center on a life science topic, but this year earth sciences will get the focus.  The theme is “Changing Planet” and the four lectures are titled “The Deep History of a Living Planet,” delivered by Andrew Knoll of Harvard University, “Building Scientific Knowledge: The Story of Plate Tectonics,” delivered by Naomi Oreskes of UCSD, “”Earth’s Climate: Back to the Future,” delivered by Daniel Schrag of...