Tag Archives: Education

Tools

Free Notion for students and educators

One of my new favorite tools, Notion, has made it a point to help both students and educators put their crazy powerful platform to use in the classroom.

In an email from Ben Lang at Notion:

As of right now, Notion’s Personal Plan is officially free for students and educators – all they have to do is sign up with their school email and the premium features will be there waiting for them. We also added a bunch of new templates designed just for them to our Template Gallery – class notes, course syllabi, even a homepage for roommates!

To make it as easy as possible, I’ve included a few resources: You can find more information at notion.so/students and notion.so/educators

There’s no question in my mind that Notion could be a powerful addition in any classroom, whether it’s for organization, reference, planning, or other things at this price it’s absolutely worth a look.

Strategy, Techniques

Three ways to help a college freshman succeed

Capture all the things

College freshman have stuff.  Lots of stuff. Lots of that stuff is papers, forms, and other information necessary for day to day college life outside of classes. Rather than trying to keep track of all that stuff use a cloud based tool like Google Drive, OneNote, OneDrive, or Evernote to make digital copies of things.

Each one of these supports taking photos of printed materials and then making the text in the photos searchable. Now when you get that flyer for the glee club meeting (I know, I know) you can just take a picture of it and be able to find out when and where it was at any time with a simple search.

Getting from A to B

You’ll hear suggestions about using an online calendar to track your class and activity schedules so you don’t miss your commitments while on campus. What these suggestions normally miss is allowing for how long it takes to get from here to there.  When you create entries in a calendar such as Outlook or Google Calendar, put an entry before your commitment with enough time to get from where you would be when reminded to where the commitment is.  So for example if it takes you 15 minutes to walk across campus, put an entry 15 minutes long before your class so you are reminded when you need to leave to be there on time. Some calendars allow you to adjust the timing of reminders, but I’ve found it easier to be able to see everything on the calendar as blocks rather than trying to remember to adjust the alarms one at a time.

Use Facebook to keep the parental units in the loop

One of the ways a college freshman can keep parents in the loop without dozens of text messages back and forth is the “letters home” approach with Facebook.  Yes, I know Facebook isn’t the cool thing for college students, but since Facebook has over 56 million users between 35-54 it might just be the easiest way to keep them in the know.  So how do you accomplish this without broadcasting your need for more dining hall money to the rest of the world?

You can set up custom lists of people in Facebook to limit who will receive an update when you post it.  This way you can write up an update (letter home) and then share it to the custom list. Another option is creating a private, unlisted group in Facebook and sharing information there.  It may feel like a lot to ask, but remember while you’re steeped in the day to day of college life, the people at home are always wondering how you’re doing and how college is going for you.  If you don’t tell them, they’re going to ask…and ask…and ask.

A little prep makes for less stress

Productivity on a college campus is no different than anywhere else.  It’s about doing the right things at the right times in the right ways. Take a few minutes to set yourself up for success and you can enjoy and benefit from your time at college that much more.

  

Know a college freshman? How are you helping them in their first big year. Tell me all about it in the comments. 

Strategy

Microsoft returns to the long game in education

Microsoft announced yesterday their release of Windows 10 S for education and the free availability of Office 365 for teachers and students. Rather than digging into those I’d like to challenge part of the common wisdom as to why they are doing this.

Google has been making huge inroads into the education space on the back of Chromebooks and their Google Suite of applications. Both falling within price points that until this time (and possibly continuing) Microsoft and Apple couldn’t touch. The announcements from Microsoft signal to me a recognition of the importance of the education market not only as a revenue stream, but as a long term investment.

As students traverse high school and graduate from college and other schools, the familiarity they have with specific applications guides their decision making processes and comfort levels in the working world. To phrase it this way, how many businesses are running on Google Apps and how many are running on Microsoft Office? If you have a generation of people coming into the workforce more comfortable with Google’s offerings, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain that massive market share Microsoft has spent decades cultivating.

Will the new devices and offerings flip the education market back to Microsoft’s favor? I don’t think we’ll see a massive shift in influence and implementations but it does mean that Microsoft is back in the game and is serious about competing. Will Windows 10 S devices beat Chromebooks?  My gut says no unless they can get to a ridiculously low price point and offer capabilities Google hasn’t even thought of yet. Will Office 365 supplant Google in the classroom? Again I have to say no, but I do see it taking a much larger bite of the pie.

When playing the long game strategically it becomes important to consider not only immediate investment and market share but also long term influencers and loyalty. Decision makers who grew up Apple helped Apple take a big bite of the education market for a long time but that is changing now.  Who will be next? Microsoft wants to be sure their name is in the running and remembers that the classroom is an excellent place to begin.