Thing 8 : Presentations

From xkcd.com : "Slides"

As we're getting into the spring semester, it's time to take a look at doing excellent presentations. The basic idea, of course, is to avoid Death by PowerPoint (or whatever tool you're using.) Of course, doing that takes some planning. The good news is that there are lots of ways to create an excellent presentation, and many of them aren't that hard to do.

The basics: 

A good presentation is like telling a story: you want to make it clear what you're talking about, and then build on that in a way that makes sense to your audience. Obviously, there's a number of ways to do this - find your own style.

One of the most common tools is Microsoft's PowerPoint (or the equivalent Apple product, Keynote). But really, you can do a presentation using all sorts of tools - what matters is your content and how you present it, not the software. Prezi, a new software tool, is also getting a lot of interest: it allows for a less linear approach. (I use it for technology training, when I have a lot of screenshots, but I'm not sure what topics people will want to discuss most.) 

Also think about how you can share your presentation with people with visual or audio impairments (I usually do a thorough handout, both for these reasons and because I use very little text on my slides).

Some resources:

Garr Reynolds has written a number of books, including Presentation Zen. His blog has some amazing resources and recommendations. To start with, check out his three sets of ten tips: prepare, design, and deliver.

He has posts describing the styles of several distinctive presenters: Lawrence Lessig, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, and the late Steve Jobs. His post on what a good PowerPoint slide looks like is also very helpful (though rather dated in details - it's almost a decade old.) He's also got a great post showing how two styles of presenting would have changed a scene in Star Wars.

Other resources:

• Seth Godin has an old but excellent post on creating a good presentation.  
• Microsoft rounded up links related to a lengthy video on presentations they did - they include some excellent resources on specific topics.  
• ProfHacker has some interesting thoughts in their presentations tag.  
• LifeHack has some nice tips (including some very pragmatic font ones)  
• Toastmasters (a public speaking organization) has some great tips about speaking, visual aids, and much more.  

 

Things to try:  

1) Think about any topics you may need to present. Try drafting out how your presentation might go. You don't need to write the whole thing out - just outline what the most important parts are. 

2) Watch a few excellent presentations on topics that interest you. Pay attention to how the presenters (Note: TEDTalks are excellent for this purpose.)  

3) Next time you have to present something, try one of the techniques or tools in here that's new to you. See how it works for you.  

Thing 7: Security and Phishing

Click through for the entire comic : xkcd.com : Password Strength

Welcome back to Thing 7 in our ongoing series about technology. (Find previous installments over at the tag for the series.) 

The basics: 

The comic linked above highlights some of the issues with computer passwords - we've all got lots of them these days, but many password systems aren't secure, and they rely on us using our brains. Picking too simple a password (or one that other people can easily guess) is a problem. Reusing passwords is a problem. Being unable to recognise phishing (people manipulating us to give them passwords or information) is a problem.

What you can do: 

• Learn more about passwords and password security. 
• Learn how to pick secure passwords. 
• Change your passwords regularly (at least 2 times a year: 4 is probably better.) 
• Don't reuse passwords. 
• Consider using a password storage tool for your passwords. 
• Learn about phishing (see the section below.)
• Learn how to keep learning about this topic.

The last one is especially important: there are a lot of things on the horizon that are possibilities for security in the not too distant future. I've linked to some information about two-factor authentication below, which is one tool we may see a lot more of. 

Some resources: 

Pick good passwords: Some passwords (password, 12345678, etc.) are amazingly common. Don't use them.

More secure passwords mix numbers and letters. There's research suggesting that the most secure passwords are a combination of short common words that together are nonsense (as illustrated in the comic linked at the top of this entry.) However, not all places that want passwords will allow this (a lot of places require numbers or non-letter characters, or won't allow spaces.)

If you want to create random passwords, my favorite trick is to take a line from a song or piece of poetry, take the first initial of each word, and replace some of them with numbers. It's fairly easy to remember, hard to crack. This video from Mozilla's security folks has some other approaches.

(Bad ideas: Any of the common passwords or methods found in this infographic link.)

Keeping track: There are tools out there that allow you to store your passwords securely (and therefore use much longer or more complicated ones - most of these tools ) LifeHacker has an overview of different approaches and comments on their security.

(Bad way to keep track: writing it down on a slip of paper under your keyboard. Just don't.)

Learn to avoid phishing: Phishing is when people get you to tell them your password or other identifying information. Sometimes it's by sending an email pretending to be from a bank or other place you do business asking for your password. Sometimes it's a little more complicated. The OnGuardOnline.gov site has a great explanation of phishing, and the rest of the site has good information. There are even games you can play to test your knowledge (the one for phishing is over here.)

(Bad ideas: Responding to a message with your password or other identifying info. If you think it might be legit, contact them through some other method - calling them, going to the company website and finding a contact form, etc.)

Further reading:

• Lifehacker explains two-factor authentication. 
• How elite security folks handle passwords
• Anatomy of a hack : discusses how people crack passwords. 
• How building larger wordlists from unlikely sources opens up more password attempts.

 

Things to try: 

1) Read about some tools you're not already using.

2) Figure out which important passwords could use some updating. (And do that.)

3) Think about whether a password manager or other tool would be a good fit for you, and try one out. 

First floor recarpetting

Over the next couple of weeks, our first floor is getting some new carpet!

What does this mean for you?

• Much of the first floor beyond the lobby will be inaccessible for the next 10-14 days. We'll post an update when we're done.
• Computers are not available on the 1st floor. You can use the computers in the 3rd floor classroom except when there are scheduled sessions (see below for details - there are only a couple.)
• If you need a specific item (like a reference book) that's in the closed space, the library staff would be glad to fetch it for you. 

The 3rd floor computer lab is booked on Wednesday, January 8th and Wednesday, January 15th from 10am to noon. (With snow dates on the 10th and 17th if needed). It is also booked from 1pm to 4:30 pm on Thursday, January 16th.

Happy New Year! 

Thing 6: Smartphones and mobile devices

Cartoon from xkcd.com :"Flying Car"

Today's Thing is about smartphones and other mobile devices. This is obviously a huge topic, but I wanted to take the time to highlight a few resources and topics.

What's a mobile device?

I often refer to my smartphone as "The computer in my pocket that, oh, yeah, can also make phone calls." I use it all the time for various tasks, and very rarely for phone calls. But that's only one way of using a smartphone or mobile device.

The basic definition of a mobile device is that it's handheld, and typically has a touch screen or small keyboard, and weighs less than 2 pounds. There are all sorts of devices, running a variety of different operating systems, but iOS (Apple) and Android devices are probably the best known right now. There are also other devices that allow you to do some tasks easily, but are limited in others, and things like ereaders, designed to let you read books (or sometimes consume other media) but that are harder to create new material on.

What can you do with one? 

First, there are lot of tools you can use for academic research. We have an entire guide devoted to mobile device tools that will help you with classes and more.  The resource list has some other great pointers, too.

Here's some things I do regularly with my mobile devices:

• Take a picture of a computer error message so I can look it up more easily later.
• Keep track of progress towards goals.
• Use my phone as a pedometer (it tracks how far I've walked each day)
• Track health information to share with my doctor (there's even an app that will test your pulse rate using the camera's phone.)
• Read ebooks (many people prefer a larger device, but I do most of my reading on my phone.)
• Travel with my tablet and a Bluetooth keyboard. 
• Keep track of things I need to do. 
• Listen to music.
• Track my budget. 
• Look at stars (there are some fabulous stargazing apps out there, where you can point the device at what you're looking at, and it'll tell you what you're seeing.)
• Track my knitting projects (both row/stitch counters and an app that lets me upload photos to Ravelry, a knitting social media site)
• Manage my grocery shopping list
• Keep notes on various things (like books to read) 
• Use my phone as a metronome when practicing music.
• And of course, occasionally play games. 

Things to do:

1) Do you have a smartphone or mobile device? Do a little searching for an app that will help you with a current goal or interest. Try it out.

2) Are you curious about mobile devices? If you're a student, staff member, or faculty member at UMF, you can check out a device from our Petting Zoo to try out in the library.  

3) Share an app or device you find especially useful (and how you use it) in the comments.

Thing 5: Collaboration

xkcd cartoon: "Far Away"

We're getting to the time of the academic year where collaboration - and asking questions - is getting to be more and more relevant. So today's Thing is about collaborating online (and also some times when it might not be the greatest solution)

 

Approaches

There's a couple of different things going on here. One is that sometimes we want to be able to access a document from multiple places easily. (Google Drive, which will be the focus of an upcoming Thing, is a great tool here). Sometimes we want to be able to write a document but share it easily with other people - for example a handout or presentation notes. And sometimes we want to work with other people on something, whether that's a paper, a presentation, or a project.

And at other times, we may just have a quick question for someone (a professor, someone else in our class, a librarian, a friend.) 

Fortunately, the Internet can help!

 

Tools

If you use UMF's email (or Gmail on your own), you've got a way to collaborate built in. Several of them, in fact. The most basic is Instant Messaging, where you can have a text conversation with one or more people, and sort things out. You can also share documents through Google Drive (and you can have a chat on the document's page with other collaborators.)

I use IM all the time at home to collaborate on a project that involves a dozen people across four time zones - we use both IM and email for quick questions and also for more social conversations.

If you're not familiar with instant messaging, here's a few tips: 

• Set yourself to "Available" and then find the person you'd like to chat to - some help from Google can get you started. You can also get help on group chats.
• People can set their own availability (or status notes).
• If you're focused on a particular conversation (like working on a specific assignment), it's polite to let people know if you need to step away for a minute or two.
• If it's a casual conversation with friends, things are usually less formal (people may drift away, wander to the kitchen to make dinner, whatever.)
• There are chat apps for smart phones, and many people use shorthand or brief responses, but you don't need to. Like conversations, chats will find their own flow.
• You'll sometimes see people indicating emotions with emoticons, emoji, or by indicating an action like *hug* or :hug:
• You can also format text - if you put *asterisks* around something Google Chat, it will make that word or words bold. If you do _this_, it'll put it in italics, and if you do -this- it'll strike it through.

Did you know the library has a chat feature? 
During a number of hours each day, you can reach one of the librarians on duty through the chat widget on our homepage. When the little yellow light bulb is lit, there's someone on the other end ready to help you with your library questions.

We can help point you to a resource, give you more information about library tools and options, and answer a lot of questions without you ever leaving your home.

Collaborative documents:
Google Drive also gives you access to shared documents. We'll come back to other features of Google Drive in the near future, but you can create a document, share it with other people, and all make changes at once. (Each person will have a different color icon.) You can see exactly what people changed.

Google has more help on collaborating on documents, of course. Besides editing, you can leave comments, or you can share a document without giving people editing permission. It is an incredible tool for working with other people.

Video chat
If you like actually seeing who you're talking to (and have access to a computer with a webcam, microphone, enough network speed, and enough quiet) you can also do video chats. Google Hangouts are one option, but so are tools like Skype. Video chats are just what they sound like: a chance to see and hear the person (or people) you're talking to.

Which is best?

Honestly, there isn't one best. It can be very hard to get tone of voice by chat or email (jokes and especially sarcasm or irony can come across very oddly). On the other hand, a chat or email chain gives you a written reminder of what was said, which can be very useful in some projects.

Some people also have different preferences: I do a lot of my conversations in email, some in IM, and very very few by video or phone for personal projects (because I'm often watching something on Netflix, knitting, cooking, or otherwise multitasking, and they don't mix as well with video/phone.) I know people who are the total opposite, though - they have video chat on all the time. 

Of course, there are also some times when face to face works best. The usual advice is to have face to face conversations for things where there's a lot of emotion involved (if you're upset about something, or frustrated, or need to figure out a better way to work, that's a good time.) And like the comic says above, sometimes *hug* just isn't enough.

Things to try:

1. Try a method of communication you haven't tried before - or haven't used recently. You don't need to use it for a big project, you can check in with a friend.
2. Try creating a document and sharing it with someone else (give them editing rights.) Maybe swap interesting recipes for the holidays. 
3. Talk to the people you collaborate or work with regularly to find out their preferred communication method. (If you have an online contact book, you can use the notes field to remind you.)

14 Things: Links for November 7th, 2013

I was having lunch in the snack bar yesterday when I saw the table signs talking about seasonal affective disorder, and that made me think of a couple of things worth sharing here.

1) Did you know the library has a sun lamp? 
 It lives in the Browsing Room, just opposite to Access Services on the first floor, and there's a binder with instructions in it. (Please do read the information before using.)

2) Do you find working in front of a computer at night keeps you awake? 
There's actually a reason for that - computers generally use a cooler light that's like daylight during the day, but that helps keep us awake at night.

There's a free application (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) that automatically adjusts the quality of light at night so that it's less disruptive to our bodies, making it warmer in color when the sun goes down. The app's called f.lux, and you can download it and get more information about the research behind it on their website.

3) One useful tool: 
A week or two ago, I was helping someone with scanning text, and for various reasons went looking for some OCR (Optical Character Recognition) resources - basically, that's the term for "takes the text in the image and makes it into text you can edit again".

Now, GoogleDrive will do its best to OCR the text if you upload a scanned image of text, and so do some tools like Evernote that we're going to be discussing in one of the upcoming Things, but sometimes you need something focused on that one task. If you do, here is a great round-up.

Thing 4: Wikipedia

xkcd.com comic: "Misconceptions"

Wikipedia is an incredibly complicated topic. Some teachers forbid anyone to use it at all in their research. Other people (quite accurately) talk about some of the issues in Wikipedia culture and current process that are making it less useful than it could be. (And while I've picked an xkcd comic here that highlights what Wikipedia can be great for, there are others that highlight some of the issues, including this one about the danger of the citation ecosystem and this one about the dangers of trusting apparent citations.)

However, there are times when I find it an incredibly useful starting place (never my only source for research), and today Thing 4 is going to give you a quick overview, talk about some ways to use Wikipedia, and then give some screenshots to show you parts of the site you might not have clicked on.

A quick overview: 

What's a wiki? Wiki is a term for a particular kind of online tool that allows people to collaborate on information. It uses some specific markup language to create links to other pages on the wiki and to other sources, and you can also format information in different ways. Pages can be grouped together by categories, and there are also ways to make tables, include images or other documents, and search for a specific topic or term.

Some wikis are huge (Wikipedia has over four million pages in English), but many people use wiki software for smaller projects like coordinating within a department, documenting how things work, or keeping track of different kinds of information.

First tip: Many of the possible issues with the information in Wikipedia are an issue in other kinds of sources too - they're just less obvious. Just like there are great books out there and lousy books, or excellent peer-reviewed articles and quick fluff news pieces, you need to evaluate the actual content before you use it in your research.

What's Wikipedia? Wikipedia has been running since 2001. It is a volunteer project with over 77,000 active contributors. Like any really huge project (that's about 10 times the population of Farmington!) it has rules and policies to help things run smoothly. You can learn more about that on the About page for the English Wikipedia.

Of course, with that many people working, there are sometimes differences of opinion, and sometimes a rule or policy gets put into place that works really well for some topics but not for others. Plus, because it's done by volunteers, some entries have really amazing information, and others have almost nothing. Some topics also lend themselves to having a verifiable reliable source than others, too.

Second tip: You don't need to understand all the specific policies and guidelines to use Wikipedia as a resource, but it's good to remember there are some, and that they may lead to decisions that don't make much sense to the casual reader or user.

 

How can it support research? 

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia - and you should never use an encyclopedia as your only source for academic research. However, you can use it to get a better sense of a topic and help your research process. I use Wikipedia all the time to:

• Get context for a historical event (when and where it occurred, who the major figures are.) 
• Find the terms used within a specific field for a particular topic, so I can do better searches in other research tools. (As a reference librarian, I often get asked about subjects where I don't know the jargon of the field well.)
• Look at the references for an article to find relevant primary and secondary sources on the topic so I can read them and make my own decisions about what they say.
• Learn more about an area or region (population, major features, more than just where it is.)
• Check the spelling of a name. 
• Figure out what the next book in a series is. 
• And of course, to find out about random topics that come up in conversation. 

I also find some tools, like the "On this day" and "In the news" sections featured on Wikipedia's front page to be a good way to brush up on current topics of interest or historical trivia. 

 

Let's take a tour: 

November 7th happens to be the anniversary of the day that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were probably killed in Bolivia in 1905, and the entry allows me to show off many of the interesting tools of Wikipedia. There'll be lots of images in this part, so click on the 'more' to get the images. If you're already familiar with the basics of Wikipedia, you can skip down to the Interesting Tools for the parts many people don't know about