Tag Archives: mobile

February 21, 2013, 8:00 am

Tracking Habits on the Go

Habit track We’ve written a lot about habits over the last few years here at ProfHacker, and the challenge that’s sometimes involved in establishing and maintaining good habits, whether they’re habits of writing, exercise, or (fill in whatever good habit you keep trying to reestablish here).

Natalie’s written about the importance of tying the habits you want to to develop to your key values, and then tracking those habits. Pen and paper work just fine, of course, as do online solutions like those Natalie mentions in her post.

Lately, though, I’ve been using a mobile application to keep track of the habits I’m trying to establish. I’ve tried two: Good Habits and Habit List. They work similarly: you enter the habits you want to track, and check them off as you do them each day. I finally settled on Habit List because it offered more flexibility, allowing me to schedule habits for such intervals …

August 22, 2012, 8:00 am

Working on the Go

By Prof. Hacker

[This week, GradHacker and ProfHacker writers are collaborating on a series of posts about productivity apps and systems. The 8am post every day is part of this collaboration. Today's post is by GradHacker writer Stephanie Hedge, a graduate student in the Department of English at Ball State University. Follow her on Twitter at @slhedge--@jbj.]

Starbucks is one of my favorite places in the world to work. Coffee, company, and a relaxing atmosphere help me concentrate and keep focused on my task. As it can be a pain to lug my laptop everywhere, I have a tablet, as well as a mobile phone, and I use both when working away from my desk. But working on my iPad is only useful if I have the right tools to support my workflow, and the ability to access my documents across platforms. This post provides hacks for productively managing a workflow across different…

February 15, 2012, 8:00 am

Building Books for Mobile

By Anastasia Salter

Mobile devices and tablets are at the center of new debates on interactive textbooks and educational applications–and, thanks to the growing interest, there are many options for development tools. As Jason Farman described last week, there are lots of exciting ways to integrate mobile devices and tablets in the classroom. Developing your own mobile resources, or inviting your students to try it, is possible even without coding experience and is a great way to see for yourself the possibilities and limitations in these applications.

Fundamentally, building in HTML5–with the Canvas, JavaScript and JQuery Mobile–allows for development across devices. HTML5 can replace proprietary extensions, and avoid the native environments of any of these devices. But there are some tools to consider across some popular platforms, particularly for easily building interactive books:

Android: …

February 9, 2012, 8:00 am

Encouraging Distraction? Classroom Experiments with Mobile Media

By Prof. Hacker

[This is a guest post by Jason Farman, the author of Mobile Interface Theory: Embodied Space and Locative Media. He is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the University of Maryland, College Park. His website is http://www.jasonfarman.com and he can be found on Twitter at @farman.--@jbj]

The University of Maryland, similar to many colleges and universities in the last couple of years, has made headlines for handing out iPads to students. The University has given iPads to all those accepted into its Digital Cultures and Creativity Program over the last two years. The idea behind giving the students iPads was that they would have a common platform through which they could engage digital objects, data, and other forms of online content.

The iPad in a Living/Learning Community

When I was hired to help launch this living and learning…

December 13, 2011, 8:00 am

Google Currents

By Lincoln Mullen

When reading content that is published electronically, there are two central problems. The first is how to creating an interface with which people actually want to read. The second is gathering and organizing all the content that people want to read. At ProfHacker, we’ve covered a number of apps and devices that try to solve those problems: Flipboard for bringing together into a magazine format articles from your Twitter and Facebook accounts; the Kindle and Kindle Fire for reading e-books; Kindle Cloud Reader and books in browsers for reading online; Google e-books, and of course Google Reader and its alternatives.

Last week Google offered another option for reading. Google Currents is an application for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, so it is available for devices like the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad, as well as Android-powered smart phones and tablets. You can get Currents at…

October 13, 2011, 11:00 am

All Things Google: Google Documents for Android

By Amy Cavender

We’ve written a great deal here at ProfHacker about the usefulness of both Google services and smartphones. The two often go together of course—particularly in the Android world—and this fact can come in very handy at times.

Not long ago, I found out just how handy, in a classroom setting. In class, I like to use as little paper as possible. I usually write my class notes in Google Documents, then send them to my Kindle’s email address. It’s really quite convenient.

(more…)

September 8, 2011, 8:00 am

Scheduling Email on the Go

By Amy Cavender

Longtime readers of this blog may recall that we’ve written about the Boomerang service for GMail before.

Essentially, Boomerang is a browser plugin that allows you to compose an email right now but schedule it to automatically be sent later, at a date and time of your choosing. In certain situations, this can be a very convenient feature to have (and it’s one that’s missing from the native Gmail tools).

After updating the main service in June, the folks at Baydin released a mobile version in mid-August.

(more…)

July 7, 2011, 8:00 am

Android for Academics

By Amy Cavender

Over the last year, we’ve written a fair bit about mobile applications for both iOS and Android devices.

Some of these mobile applications are especially designed for academics. For example, Jason and Ryan have both written about the Attendance app for iOS.

Android users needn’t feel left out. In fact, there’s a website devoted to academic tools for the Android platform (called, appropriately enough, Android for Academics).

In addition …

May 23, 2011, 11:00 am

Manage Travel Plans On the Go with TripDeck for iOS

By Ryan Cordell

It’s academic travel season again, and as I was returning from a recent trip (and thinking about another soon to come), I thought about those tech tools that help make organizing those trips easier. Both Heather and Erin have written about using Tripit to organize their travel plans. I too love the way Tripit automatically sorts my flight, car rental, hotel, and other travel reservations when I’m planning for conferences or other travel.

When I’m on the go, I access my Tripit plans through TripDeck for iPhone. TripDeck syncs with Tripit, so it imports all the plans I’ve collected there [It's important to note that TripDeck doesn't require Tripit. You can enter trip information directly into the app if you're not a Tripit user]. It makes that information, including confirmation numbers, available on my phone, where they’re easy to access as I go. What’s more, TripDeck imports timely…

April 11, 2011, 8:00 am

Mobile App for Conferences: Reader Response Roundup

By George Williams

Last month, I wrote a post about software tools for conference-goers in which I asked for reader input: “If you were designing a mobile app specifically for attending academic conferences, what features would that mobile app have?”

Now, we have published a number of posts regarding apps that already exist and are helpful when attending conferences, including these:

“Using TripIt to Organize Travel“
“The Redesigned Evernote iPhone App“
“Using Personal Assistant to Organize Your Life“
“Got Milk? Using Remember the Milk for Task Management“
“Encouraging a Conference Backchannel on Twitter” (See also “Academics and Social Media“

What I’m interested in, however, is a flexible app designed specifically for those who travel to academic conferences. Not an app created for a particular conference, mind you, but rather one that could be used for almost any conference.

As I wrote in…