Teaching in Higher Ed

organization

Every book in its place

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Dark wood book shelf with old books
Dark wood book shelf with old books

I am starting my initial preparation for a presentation I'll be giving at the 2016 Lilly Conference in Newport Beach, CA in February.

As I went to search for Dan Roam's Show and Tell book, which has a method for outlining presentations, I discovered a book I have been looking for on my shelves for more than a year now. It is unusual for me to lose books, since I have a pretty good system going for cataloging them.

Most organizing experts all have some way of stating that everything should have a place that it belongs. I find whenever I lose things, or start to get messy, it is because I have acquired items that have yet to find a “home” either in my university or home office.

In my delight over my discovery of the lost book, I decided to describe a few of the approaches I use to ensure that my books have a place.

Group physical books by category and label them

Decades ago, my Mom used to work in a bookstore and is pretty much the family librarian. She has twice now helped me categorize my books through two moves. Thank you Mom.

In order to maintain the categories that she set up, I printed labels using my label maker.

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I used an index card, folded down about an inch from the end of the card, with a label with the relevant category attached.

Devote a space near your primary working desk for books you're using this semester

I tend to read the majority of my books these days via either my iPad or my Kindle. The big exception to that is that I tend to read hardcopy textbooks. I use them more than any other books during a given semester.

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It makes it simple having them all grouped together within arm's reach of where I do the majority of my focused work.

Weed out old books once a year and consider donating them

On a recent episode of Very Bad Wizards, the hosts spoke about their powerful experiences in teaching prison inmates.

One need they mentioned was for textbooks for inmates. This isn't something I have done before, but through a bit of searching found the Prison Book Program and Books Through Bars as a couple of organizations that may help facilitate your giving.

There's also a listing by the Prison Book Program website for other prison book programs, in case none of the options above serve in your area. Again, I can't vouch for these organizations and welcome any feedback you have in the comments section.

Another idea for donating books is to consider giving to Books for Africa.

Consider transitioning to ebooks

As I mentioned previously, most of my new reading takes place via my iPad or my Kindle. It is great to have all my highlights in one place and have the ability to search annotations that I've made previously.

When reading electronic books, there's no longer a physical book that needs to be stored. You can let whatever service you use keep all your books organized and avoid spending more than a year looking for that one missing book, like me.

I also enjoy using Goodreads to catalog books that I've read and even to share with the grandparents the books that our kids own.

[reminder]What methods do you use to keep your books organized?[/reminder]

 

 

How to keep course files organized

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I never realized that I was “different” until my friend showed such an interest in how I organized my files and folders for my academic life.

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My Mom was always a person with a fond appreciation for file cabinets and keeping articles of interest around various topics. She definitely passed that on to me.

Now, neither of us wants that many physical files cluttering up our home. However, since storage space on our hard drives and/or in the cloud is relatively inexpensive today, it makes sense to hang on to stuff, in case it winds up being useful in the future.

The search features on computers today are so robust, that you could argue that having a good folder structure is no longer necessary. Some time ago, I trimmed the number of folders in my email program, so that I didn't have to scroll through so many when I was looking for something via my iPhone.

However, I still find it helpful to have a basic system of folders on both email and on my hard drive to accommodate those times when search doesn't get me what I need.

Keep course files organized

In any given semester, there are two main directories (folders) that I spend most of my digital time in:

Screen Shot 2014-12-12 at 12.29.11 PM 1) Semester-specific folder

This folder contains data related to a specific semester. For 2015s, I have my class rosters (which are also sign-in sheets), my schedule (which gets printed and hung up outside my office), and a folder for students' work in each of my classes that semester.

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In addition to the schedule that hangs on my wall, I create my version of Michael Hyatt's ideal week template. This exercise enables me to see how I want to invest my time throughout the semester and identify any barriers, in advance.

I spoke about how I use the ideal week template on episode 23 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

Inside each of the semester-class folders will be the students' work, as the semester gets under way.

As I begin a new semester, I move the previous semester's folder into a directory named z-Archive. The naming convention on that folder allows for it to be listed at the bottom of my main university folder, since I don't need to access it often.

I use Dropbox for almost all my files now. They now offer 1 terabyte of data on their pro plan, so it makes good sense to invest in the service. I appreciate how I can create a link to a file with a right mouse click and choosing “share dropbox link.”

When you move a folder (to an archive folder, for example), any links that you provided to students for feedback are then broken. That's why I wait until a few weeks into a new semester prior to moving/archiving the folder.

Screen Shot 2014-12-12 at 12.46.32 PM 2) Course content folder

This folder has directories for each of the classes I have taught previously. The PowerPoints, exams, and other class resources are kept in the folders. The publisher materials also go here, though I tend not to keep archives, since much of the information is redundant and some of the files are quite large.

Screen Shot 2014-12-12 at 12.39.53 PMNote that the name of the courses folder begins with a 1-. Since I spend so much time in the semester-specific folder and the courses folder during a given semester, it helps to have them appear toward the top of the list of items, so I can get to them quickly.

Within the 1-courses folder is also a folder called z-Class ideas. This has course descriptions for electives that I have proposed previously, as well as class resources for courses that I was potentially going to teach down the road and needed a place to hang on to such materials.

Other tips

When people have asked me for guidance on file organization in the past, they have often shown me their current structure (or lack of it). It is hard for me not to turn in to a major back-seat driver in these cases, as they often show themselves to be working far harder than they need to…

Here are a few other suggestions for keeping your class resources organized:

Screen Shot 2014-12-12 at 2.01.19 PMUse aliases or favorites

On the Mac, there's a favorites list over on the left-hand side of each finder window. I keep my most commonly used folders there, including my semester-specific and course-content folders.

On the PC, you might consider using aliases, which let you create a link that takes you to the folder, which you can then place wherever you want to have easy access.

Avoid punctuation in file names

It pains me when I see a file name like: assignment.smith.final.pptx

Punctuation was never meant to be any part of a file name. While some operating systems allow for punctuation better than they previously did, it still isn't a good idea. Somewhere down the line, your file could encounter a system that doesn't like punctuation in file names and you may not necessarily catch why the error is occurring right away.

Direct students on what to name their files

It can be a big help if the students are told what to name the files that they submit for your courses. Yes, they may forget, and you will still need to tweak some of them. However, most of them will remember and it will save you that much more time in your grading process.

[reminder]What techniques do you use to keep your course files organized?[/reminder]

Five apps that will help you be more organized in the new school year

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August is upon us.

Many of us are getting ready to launch into a new semester later this month, or in September. As I look to enjoy these last few weeks of summer, I'm also starting to get organized for the Fall.

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Here are five tools that I consider essential in helping me be organized in my teaching:

[Read more…] about Five apps that will help you be more organized in the new school year

Professors: Start the year out organized using your iPhone

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We all start out with the best of intentions, but somehow the year is underway before we know it, and we're again buried in papers to grade and classes to plan. I have spent an inordinate amount of time organizing my iPhone apps and tweaking my systems in the hopes of having my most organized and productive year yet. Here's to hoping that some of my recommendations will help you start the school year organized using your iPhone.

Before iPhones and other technological advances, we had a basic set of organizational tools, all of which are now available in digital form.

Apps

 

In box(es)

 

Until I read David Allen's Getting Things Done, I used to think that I could only have one physical in-box. I would feel guilty that stuff would wind up in my laptop bag, in my purse, and all over my desks at Vanguard and at home. After digesting Allen's recommendations, I discovered that I could have as many in boxes as made sense; I just needed to process what was in them each day and to separate thinking about what needed to be done from the actual doing.

My iPhone has its own set of in-boxes that I go through regularly. My many email accounts show up on the phone and for anything that takes less than two minutes to do, I respond to them and either delete or archive them, aiming for an empty in box on all accounts at the end of my day (this is referred to by time management gurus as zero in box, which you can find a lot about on the internet, but I've found the 43 Folders site to be a good place to start).

Emails that contain actions that will take more than two minutes to complete are emailed to my one central in-box: Remember the Milk.

 

To do lists

 

Remember the Milk is my favorite task manager – and trust me when I say I've explored many of them. I can access my to do list on my iPhone (regardless of whether or not I can get a connection to the internet at that time), over the web, as well as in print (I don't use their print features, but a friend at work likes to have a hard copy to doodle on throughout the day to help her stay focused and she loves the design of the printouts).

As indicated above, I can also forward emails to my to do list, including some added text to indicate which folder/list I want the tasks associated with, when they are due, and how they should be tagged (tags let you categorize things in different ways; so you might have tags around where you need to be when you complete a task – such as @computer or @phone, as well as what activity they relate to – such as prep, grading, or research).

 

Grade books / attendance records

 

My students' grades are all tracked on our university's learning portal. Careful consideration as to where to store student grade info can be important, as there are laws that protect students' privacy and you wouldn't want an ill-intentioned person to locate your iPhone and have the ability to access this sensitive information.

However, I will be using the Attendance iPhone app starting this Fall, in conjunction with the rosters that contain the students' hand-written signatures. I keep a table up front of my classes that contain any handouts / cases we will be using that day, the set of clickers we sometimes use to reinforce the learning, as well as a roster for them to sign to verify their attendance.

Before I leave the classroom after teaching each class, I will update the attendance app on my iPhone and have a growing digital record of their attendance. The application lets you individually email a student with their attendance record to date, export your data to archive somewhere besides your iPhone, and has some automation and customization features that are intuitive and innovative.

 

Calendar / datebook

 

The iPhone has a great built-in calendar that easily syncs to Outlook 2007 (my calendar of choice) and Mac's calendaring system (my husband's calendar of choice). I use the built-in calendar for my personal time management planning, but when I want to see my husband's calendar, I view our shared/synced Google calendars using an iPhone app called Calengoo.

Syncing is simply a way of having the same calendar, no matter what you're using to view / edit it. If I make a change on my iPhone calendar, that change gets reflected in my Outlook calendar. We use a combination of two syncing systems: one that automatically syncs our desktop calendars with our iPhones (so we can avoid having to plug our phones in to do our syncing). We use Apple's Mobile Me service to accomplish the syncing between our iPhones and our desktop calendars. Apple makes this process very easy and the same syncing process works with contacts, too.

We also do another form of syncing: One that syncs our respective desktop calendars to our Google calendars. Our program of choice here has been GooSync. It works well and we have experienced no problems with this solution, though I must admit that I haven't explored the other options that are available.

 

Notebook / journal

 

The old paper-and-pad solution can also be implemented on the iPhone, though I must admit that I still feel rude if I'm tapping on my iPhone taking notes on a meeting. I might be suspected on paying much less attention than I am (or I'll be tempted to pay less attention because the other fun parts of the iPhone call out to me). For most meetings, I still take notes on paper and then record any actionable items into my iPhone. I'm looking forward to trying out my LiveScribe pen this year for capturing notes digitally, so I can balance the desire to demonstrate that I'm focused on the meeting, while still being able to be as close to paperless as is practical.

I have really benefitted from using Evernote to take a picture of any white board brainstorming or mindmapping that occurs in meetings. Evernote is a notebook program that, like many other web 2.0 applications, is available on your iPhone, on the web, and on a desktop program solution. After a whiteboard-using meeting, I fire up the Evernote iPhone application and take a photo of the brainstorming we did. Later, I can email the photo to the attendees and also have it on my Evernote notebook for storing and future searching. Evernote is so smart, that it can search text in photographs, even hand-written text.

I'm only skimming the surface of the potential for organization that Evernote offers. For more ideas, see their recent blog entry on 5 Ways Evernote Maximizes Your Organizing Potential.

 

Next steps

 

On an upcoming blog, I'll review the new iPhone 4.0. For now, let us know in the comments what tools you find most useful on your iPhone for keeping us academics organized.